Showing posts with label Rex Dexter of Mars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rex Dexter of Mars. Show all posts

Thursday, June 4, 2026

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 045

No matter how many comic book aliens we catalogue, there are always more to see!

Fish-Men:


While fish men are nothing new, these particular ones have a couple of points of distinction: firstly they just look kind of nice, a bit more gracile and svelte than your usual humanoid fish. Secondly, they are in fact Moon Fish-Men, as they serve demi-god(?) and would-be King of the Moon Bakalma. This also makes them Moon Fish-Men from the 12th Century, as Bakalma is an enemy of former Crusader the Golden Knight. Finally, this means that many if not all of them were blown up by a volcano. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Martian Imp Men:


The Martian Imp Men are the servants of Martian villain Skomah the 7th, aka the Brain. They are unfailingly loyal and probably also mind-controlled, so we don't get much of an idea of their culture is like, but their strong resemblance to something like a cross between a Gremlin and a D&D goblin is certainly giving me ideas. (Fantastic Comics 001, 1939)

Martian Ogres:



The Martian Ogres are a also pledged to the service of the Brain. They are larger, seemingly more intelligent and a bit less spiky than their presumably-distant cousins the Imp Men, and as such are sent off in a space fleet to destroy the Earth with Anti-Earth Demolishing Rays.


Despite their best efforts - and whether it is due to mental conditioning or sheer love of the game they tray very hard - the Ogres are unable to overcome the full might of the Earth space fleet. (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

Martians:


In 1939, inventor Montague Dexter and his wife pilot an experimental rocket to Mars as a part of the New York World's Fair. Stranded there by damage to their vehicle, they live there among the Martian people until 2000 CE, when their son Rex flies the newly-repaired rocket back to his ancestral planet. Though Rex sets out with the promise to return some day, this is to my knowledge the only appearance of the Martians in question. I really like them! I think that the artist was going for an amphibian look over all, but the slight bovine cast to the face is quite pleasant. Plus it's nice to see some benevolent Martians now and then. (Mystery Men Comics 001, 1939)

Sunday, January 25, 2026

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 025

We got Fish-Men, we got Fishmen, we got other kinds of men.

Fishmen:



Adventurer Lance Rand has acquired a map showing the location of the sunken continent of Atlantis and so naturally he sets out to see if it's accurate and more importantly to find out if there's any ancient Atlantean treasure there for him to loot. Making his way to the ocean floor, Lance and his pal Tubby are almost immediately accosted by a Fishman riding on a sea monster. This is a good sign!



The sunken city of Atlantis does indeed turn out to me right where the map said it was, complete with some monumental bare-assed statuary. Lance and Tubby are able to drive their submarine tractor right up to the base of what must have been an important Atlantean idol and pry the disco ball-sized diamond out of its forehead, upon which they have to deal with another squad of hostile Fishmen. Though the implication is of course that these fellows are the descendants of drowned Atlantis, the fact that they never say anything really makes it hard to confirm. Perhaps they are unrelated underwater humanoids who just disapprove of Lance and Tubby's wanton looting. Whichever it is, I really dig the little wing-fins that grow out of their backs. (Cat-Man Comics 001, 1941)

Fish-Men

When oceanic adventurer Navy Jones' submarine is lost at sea, he is rescued by an undersea race of aquatic humanoids who don't really have an official name but who are more often than not called Fish-Men or something similar. Despite some early conflict engineered by the scheming Prime Minister, Jones soon becomes the Fish-Men's champion.

Fish-Men society is ruled over by a more humanoid nobility, represented here in the forms of their unnamed king and his daughter/ Navy Jones' love interest, Princess Coral. As usual, the reasons for these morphological differences are not explained and likely boil down to "we didn't want our hero to be romantically involved with a fish."



Like many Fiction House heroes, Navy Jones passed through a lot of hands over the course of his career, and the Fish-Men had a correspondingly large number of looks, each of them charming in its own way.(Science Comics 001, 1940)

Fishmen:


This Fishman is encountered by Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle in what is probably a prehistoric underground enclave that a group of explorers stumble across "far to the Southeast of the Congo". I say probably because Tabu gasses on about how they have gone back in time, which might be meant literally and might just be a bit of excessively flowery exposition. 

The above is virtually all of the on-panel time that the Fishmen get, as the narrative is much more focused on the drama of one of the explorers falling in love with a cave woman. (Jungle Comics 011, 1940) 

Flame-Men



Just as Rex Dexter of Mars and his companion Cynde are about to leave the planet Nexis and its friendly inhabitants, the Nexis as part of their never-ending attempt to reach Mars, the world is attacked by some sort of apocalyptic flame weapon.



Rocketing into space to investigate, Rex and Cynde discover that the source of the attack is a fiery comet that is being directed by a massive spacecraft, by which they are swiftly captured. Inside they find the Flame-Men from Planet Emalf, who are attacking Nexis as the first move in their attempt to destroy the rest of the universe. Why are they doing this? No idea.

The Flame-Men are unprepared for Rex's freeze-ray gun, and shrivel up into little burnt matchstick men in a way that is as aesthetically pleasing as it is unsettling. (Mystery Men Comics 010, 1940) 

Categorized under: Aliens, Animals (Fish), Elements (Fire), Generica (Men)

Thursday, September 4, 2025

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 016

Love those aliens. And so forth. 

the Sea Demons:

The Sea Demons are a hostile underwater race of fish-men who look great but get very little character development as a society. Their main thing seems to be a deeps desire to attack and capture...

the Sea Amazons:



The Sea Amazons (described as "blonde Sea Amazons" at least twice in the text despite the fact that a pretty noticeable percentage of them - including their queen! - are brunettes) are about a (blonde) hair more well-developed than the Sea Demons. They are a race of amphibious women who live in the city of Mermea under the rule of Queen Bea (or possibly Mea) and who just hate being kidnapped by those dang Sea Demons. To that end, they have tamed a creature called the Guardian, and I must say that while I love the Guardian and its look I have an incredibly hard time figuring out its anatomy: its main component is an enormous humanoid head, yes, but is it stuck on the end of an eel body with a chin-mounted tentacle? Is it more like a giant slug? Are there two tentacles that I'm meant to picture churning through the water? 

Though the Sea Demon and Sea Amazon societies are at odds, they do in fact have a lot in common, such as the Sea Demon's own beast, the Seaclops, seen here battling the Guardian. They don't really get around to exploring these similarities, however, as undersea hero Typhon ends up blowing up both the Seaclops and most of the Sea Demons. (Weird Comics 005, 1940)

Crab Men


These Crab Men from Mercury have been trapped on a derelict spaceship for twenty years - are they really vicious or just looking for help? Space adventurers Gale Allen and Jack North are taking no chances, and vaporize them with an artificial sun ray. (Planet Comics 008, 1940) 

Cranians:

Rex Dexter of Mars has the honour of encountering the Cranians, an alien race so goofy that even in-fiction they are believed to be just a myth. But what has brought the Cranians out of the mists of legend to aggress against the human race?


It turns out that if you have a hand for a head and heads for hands, having that extra nose means that you will breathe twice as much and thus eventually use up all the oxygen on your planet, and rather than planting some extra forests, the Cranians have decided that the best solution to this problem is the conquest of Earth and its rich stores of O2.

I personally do not think that a machine that controls Earth's atmosphere such that oxygen levels can be cut in half near-instantly is a particularly good idea, but it turns out that I am a fool because not only does the far future Earth of 2000 AD have such a device but it proves integral to the defeat of the Cranian menace when Rex Dexter does just that. Live and learn, as they say. (Mystery Men Comics 017, 1940)

Sunday, August 31, 2025

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 014

We've hit a rich seam of aliums this month.

Mermaid/ Reptile-Men:


This city of Reptile-Men is ruled over by a Mermaid queen, and I am forced to contemplate, and not for the first time, whether this is an instance of a member or group of one species ruling over another or if it's one of extreme sexual dimorphism. Whichever one it is, I do appreciate that the Reptile-Men have that really goofy wide stance going on with their lizard legs. (Weird Comics 003, 1940)

Monkey Men

Also known as the Cannibalistic Monkey Men, these beefy lads vex one of those hidden Ancient Roman colonies that are all over Africa and the Middle East by demanding tribute of human flesh. They eventually meet their match and are seemingly wiped out entirely when they try to eat Kaänga and his new pal "Red" Longjohn. (Jungle Comics 007, 1940)

Capris-Men:



Earth is in need of radium, the only cure to a deadly plague that is ravaging the population, and so an expedition headed by Rex Dexter of Mars sets out to get some from the nearly 100% pitchblende planet Capris (okay, so it's called a planet throughout the story but it's got to be a dwarf planet or an asteroid or something based on travel timelines alone). The fantastic-looking native Capris-Men, aka the Capris Monsters, don't take to kindly to this and mount an attack on the expedition, which leads the expedition to leave early, meaning that they don't get enough radium to treat everyone.

The obvious solution to this problem is, of course, to tow the entire planet(oid) into orbit around Earth, so that the healing power of ionizing radiation can eternally shine down on its inhabitants and make them the healthiest people in the universe. No word on what the Capris-Men thought about this development. (Mystery-Men Comics 002, 1939)

the Cave Men and the Lizard Men:


The Cave Men are basically just some extra hairy guys who live in a cave system called the Underground Empire beneath Rhodesia/modern day Zimbabwe. They are possibly immortal and are ruled by a white lady named Aldia, who is - the question is whether she bothered to share the secret of the Immortal Flame with her subjects.



The thing that really sets the Cave Men apart is the quality of their enemies, the Lizard Men. Sure, they're just a mindless horde of inhuman monsters who exist only to be righteously slaughtered by the heroic Lance Hale, but just look at their majestic fins! (Silver Streak Comics 004, 1940)

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 012

You won't believe these guys. 

the Mermen


Some undersea jerks who capture explorer Typhon and his crew. Their leader is a real creep named Neptune who has a nigh-fetishistic plan to freeze the crew - and particularly sole female crewmember Cecelia - into blocks of ice and then breathe fire on them. Luckily for all who might venture beneath the waves, he drowns (?) during Typhon's escape. (Weird Comics 002, 1940)

the Beaked Men:


The Beaked Men of Mercury's mountains operate as an extortion racket on the solar trade routes, raiding and capturing ships from their mobile "space island" ships. Such a threat to the interplanetary commerce of the year 25 000 will not stand, and Spurt Hammond, Planet Flyer successfully manages to explode the whole operation thanks to a handy prisoner revolt. (Planet Comics 004, 1940)

the Big-Eared Tribe of Saturn


I'm not sure if the implication is that all of the people of Saturn are big-eared or if it's just a subgroup, but the fact that they seem to be generally feared and that the leader (and father) of this particular bunch of Big-Eared men, Varg Emmos, is a respected scientist who is presumably using his futuristic heardpiece to disguise his own big-eared status points toward the former. 

Varg and his boys have a plot to take over Earth using an ultrasonic ray that affects only humans but are foiled when Rex Dexter in turn discovers a musical note that kills them and that is seemingly featured heavily in symphonic music. Sucks to be a Big-Eared music lover I guess. (Mystery Men Comics 020, 1941)

the Coal People:




The Coal People (also referred to as the Blackmen) reside in an underground kingdom below Colorado and are descended from ancient people who got themselves trapped there and were forced to subsist of coal to survive. Rather than dying of starvation and/or stomach cancer, they instead became humanoid creatures composed of living coal. The problem comes when mining activities bring the Coal People into contact with contemporary surface humans - fairly harmless when they decide to worship the above old man as a kind of captive god, but increasingly menacing after the discovery of a miner's corpse reveals to them that there are more interesting things to eat than coal.


Luckily for the surface world (or for Coloradans, at least) the next person to enter the mines and get captured is the super-strong giant Mighty Man, who discovers the in-retrospect-fairly-obvious secret of the Coal People: that they fear fire. He and the erstwhile god escape and seal the mine behind them. Colorado is saved! (Amazing-Man Comics 011, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 992: THE VAHINES

(Jungle Comics 013, 1941) The Vahines, aka the Tiger-Women of Wildmoon Mountain, have a plan: kill every other woman in the world, which wil...