MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 835: KING QUANTUS

(Top-Notch Comics 007, 1940)

Streak Chandler's adventures on Mars conclude with a space battle with Kalox, deposed king of the Gas Men, as he attempts to destroy the planet in retribution for losing his throne. Streak and his pals prevent this, but at the moment of their triumph they find themselves in the clutches of yet another villain, the pirate King Quantus, and spirited away to his secret headquarters on the Jovian moon Io.

In addition to being a space pirate, King Quantus is big on slavery: he not only maintains a creepo harem of captured women but has a laboratory full of enslaved scientists. All this does nothing to save him from a good old American ass-kicking once Steak Chandler manages to sneak up on him, however.

Quantus rallies his forces in an attempt to destroy Chandler and recapture his companions, but while he is doing so, Chandler's erstwhile ally Lura leads a revolution of Quantus' many slaves and captives.

Lura, having been recently romantically rejected by Streak, turns on her former companions and announces herself as the new space pirate queen of Io. Between her and the still-at-large King Quantus, Streak's space adventures appear to be just beginning but alas, we never get to see any of them as this is the final installment of his strip. 

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 007

Streak Chandler, a football player at State University, is kidnapped by gangsters in order to prevent him from playing in a key game. This almost never works but these particular gangsters might just be the fist comic book characters to successfully fix a sporting event this way, because rather than stash Streak in an easily-escaped-from cabin close enough to the stadium to show up for the final crucial minutes of the game, they make rocket scientist Professor Finlay and his daughter Vola take Streak to Mars with them in an unfinished rocket ship. Of course they have many adventures with various aliens while there, and here they are:

the Ferrugas:

The Ferrugas are the first Martian inhabitants that Chandler and his companions encounter, and while they don't get a lot of page time, they sure do make an impression: hostile, big-headed red guys in wrestling singlets who can shoot heat rays out of their index fingers will do that. 

The Ferrugas prove to be vulnerable to oxygen blasts thanks to the fact that they evolved in Mars' thin atmosphere. When last seen, they were being driven off by fellow martians the Lokis. (Top-Notch Comics 004, 1940) 

Lokis: 

The Lokis are a race of blue, birdlike humanoids who fly and are also amphibious - a rare combo! They are also slavers who capture Streak and his companions on sight and are all set to press them into service when they are interrupted by...

THE DREADED BRONTAURIS! Let me tell you: I have been struggling with my own impulse to start a series of Monster and Beast Round-Ups to go with all of the others and it's only the fact that it would be an even more endless and Sisyphean task than I have already set myself that is stopping me... the Brontauris here is the kind of amazing alien beast that is really bad for my resolve. It's so beautiful and weird. 

Streak kind of accidentally tames the Brontauris and turns it into a faithful mount, which so impresses the Lokis that they adopt the trio instead of enslaving them - very good for the Earthlings involved, sure, but we're left with a real lack of information about the general state of slavery in Lokidom. Is Streak Chandler problematic? (Top-Notch Comics 004, 1940)

the Gas Men: 

Volcano-dwelling blue humanoids who are able to transform into semi-solid gas beings at well. The Gas Men are the deadly enemies of the Lokis and constantly hinder their efforts to terraform Mars via canal-building. That is, until Streak Chandler and his brontauris allies depose the tyrant King Kalox and reinstall his imprisoned rival Rega. (Top-Notch Comics 005, 1940) 

Jovians:

An unnamed Jovian scientist who is working for Rega, the rightful Gas Man king, falls afoul of his deposed rival Kalox. Note the change in artists that has rendered the Gas Men into regular white guys. Lura, the daughter of the scientist, makes a surprise heel turn in an unresolved cliffhanger of Top-Notch Comics 008, but other than that these Jovians are just green humans. (Top-Notch Comics 006, 1940)

Venusians: 

Only one representative of this brand of Venusian actually shows up on panel: King Quantus, a space pirate and a real creep. Let's give the species as a whole the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is an outlier and does not represent them. Some real Star Trek alien makeup-level design work here, which is fun to me. (Top-Notch Comics 007, 1940) 

Ionians: 

King Quantus has his HQ on the Jovian moon Io, and the bulk of his forces are drawn from the Ionian population, who are basically big blue ogres. Hopefully their society will be able to shake off the nefarious influence of the space pirate/ sex pest after his defeat and they can all get together and try not to be such doofuses. (Top-Notch Comics 007, 1940)