Showing posts with label alien. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alien. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 017

A panoply of wonders awaits.

Karnak's Slaves



This otherwise-unnamed race from an unnamed planet get a pretty raw deal: conquered and mind-controlled into servitude by scientist Karnak, they all seemingly die when he does. It's a real shame. (Weird Comics 007, 1940) 

the Deadly Plants


It's hard to say much about the so-called "Deadly Plants" of planet Vegeto, aside from the fact that they work together to capture a handful of prospective human colonists and dump them in a pit, and that for this act of moderate aggression the Red Comet dumps the entire termite population of Earth on them, seemingly wiping out their entire species. This is what we call "disproportionate response" but is in perfect keeping with the 1940s (and beyond!) view of the relative value of human life vs all other life. (Planet Comics 004, 1940)

Dhakka Snail-Men


Every undersea race in comics needs a selection of other undersea races to have conflict with, and Neptina's Fish-Men are no exception. They are menaced by the Dhakkas, aka the Snail-Men, led by Prince Petor, who attempts to invade the territories of Amloza for no stated reason - I guess that's just what you do when you have an army and an abyssal plain to march across. Unfortunately for Petor and his ambitions, Neptina and the Fish-Men are backed up by Brad Fletcher and his Super-Sub, which are enough to decisively turn the tide. 

The Snail-Men also might be some of the least like their namesake of any of the [animal]-Men we have yet encountered. They ride snails, sure, but about the only thing that they themselves have in common with snails are some pretty modest eyestalks. (Champion Comics 009, 1940)

Dragon-Lizard Men




Encountered by detective Fu Chang as he searches for treasure on fabled Money Pit Island, the Dragon-Lizard Men are not so much guardians as obstacles on the way to wealth. The most remarkable thing about them is that if they are as Fu Chang asserts descended from the "lizard and dragons" left on the island by the treasure-burying pirates they managed to not only evolve into fully humanoid forms but also enough of a sense of shame to wear briefs over their mysterious lizard and/or dragon genitals. Nature is really amazing. (Pep Comics 009, 1940)

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)

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 015

A veritable bounty of aliens for your perusal.

People of Venus, the Jibbering Giant of Jupiter, Weird Inhabitants of the Strange Planet


Blast Bennett has lost his little pal Red, and his solution is to just kind of bop around from planet to planet, asking random aliens if they have seen a red-headed guy. I've grouped these alien together because they all represent a very boring alien design trend of the 40s and 50s (and beyond!): the alien as just some guy. The Venusians are short, bald guys; the Jovian is a really big guy and the weird inhabitants of the strange planet are guys who could use a shower. (Weird Comics 004, 1940)

Ceresians:



During an unscheduled stop on then-asteroid/now-dwarf planet Ceres for water, Ted Hunt and Jane Martin, aka the Star Rovers, stumble into a conflict between the underground-dwelling native Ceresians and gargoyle-like invaders known as the Harpies.

This is a pretty classic setup! The planet full of generic white guys vs some horrible space monsters scenario is a surefire way to engender sympathy in an early 20th Century American audience! It does however leave you with some fairly uninteresting humanoid aliens - I do appreciate the seeming shift in Ceresian society from a Medieval to more of a Roman aesthetic as they are forced to abandon their castles for retrofuturistic bunkers, but that's about it. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)

Harpies




The Space Rovers make their way to the Harpy home on Asteroid Nunda and are almost immediately captured after being incapacitated by the thin Nundan atmosphere. They find that rather than being simple predators, the Harpies have an advanced society that places great value in both science and the democratic process. They are, sadly, complete Harpy chauvinists who don't recognize the humanity harpianity shared intelligent experience of other species, which is why they're so happy to raid Ceres for fun and food.

Ted and Jane escape this fate due to the Harpies' scientific curiosity about them, and manage to parley that into a successful escape attempt. Once back in their ship and armed with superior firepower, perhaps they will be able to force the Harpies to stop their vicious ways at the barrel of a gun!


Just kidding! As a nonhuman species who pose a threat to a world of white guys, the Harpies are of course fair game for utter and total annihilation - I'm talking blow up their cities and hunt down all of the survivors. But don't feel bad, because as Jane says, "they're nothing but enormous, blood-thirsty bats!" Now the Ceresians are free to go back to inventing feudalism or whatever. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940) 

Lunaris:


The way I do these Alien Round-Ups is that the first entry is from whatever comic I'm reading at the moment and then I pluck the rest from a big ol' spreadsheet that I've been maintaining for years, which is why it's a pretty fun coincidence that the the next aliens on my list after the Ceresians were the Cold Men, who rule the surface of an unnamed icy moon while a race of white guys called the Lunaris hide in tunnels below. Once Ray Darrow, aka the Star Rover (another little coincidence there) stumbles into this conflict he of course sides with the noble Lunaris against the horrible Cold Men, and it doesn't hurt that the Lunaris Queen is somehow descended from Earth humans, so that Darrow can feel okay with being attracted to her, I guess. (Doc Savage Comics v1 003, 1941)

Cold Men



Cold Man society isn't quite as fleshed out as the Harpies' was, but Darrow's conclusion is the same: to ensure the continued safety of the much more familiar-looking Lunaris, the Cold Men must be utterly annihilated - sure hope that the newly surface-dwelling Lunaris don't find the headquarters of some sort of Cold Man organization dedicated to fostering peace between the species or they might end up feeling guilty about their role in this genocide some day. 

... I do like that the Cold Men seem to actually be made of snow or ice. (Doc Savage Comics v1 003, 1941) 

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)

Friday, August 29, 2025

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 013

You wouldn't believe how many of these I have.

Unnamed Planetoid-Dwellers




Blast Bennett and his pal Red run into these guys on a planetoid somewhere between Venus and Mercury and exclusively refer to them as "savages" even though they fly around in their own spaceship. Get off their planetoid, weirdos. (Weird Comics 003, 1940)

the Brainmen:




The Brainmen of the planet Larz are a bunch of large-headed jerks who have conquered... Earth? some time around the Year 5000, when Whiz Wilson shows up using his Futuroscope. My uncertainty above is due to the fact that the focus of the issue is very much on the fact that Americans have been enslaved, which is probably not meant to be a deeply ironic commentary on the long history of forced labour in the Land of the Free but they can't stop me from thinking it.


Whiz manages to acquire and distribute the "N-Gas" antidote to the pacification gas used to render the Americans compliant, but even a peasants' revolt is not enough to overthrow the might of the Brainmen, and he is forced to bring Brainman King Gar back to 1940 to use the threat of being beaten to death by a crowd of angry New Yorkers to ultimately win the day. (Sure-Fire Comics 003, 1940) 

Brutes:


Lumpy, oafish humanoid encountered by Jan and Wanda when they are blasted into another dimension by Dr Doom. Has no buttcrack. (Science Comics 008, 1940)

Bugmen:


The Bugmen are a belligerent species of insect-centaurs who occupy the Jovian jungles and regularly vex Auro, Lord of Jupiter until he bests their leaders, Ogre and Agh. I enjoy their huge tusks and also wonder just how much they get in the way. (Planet Comics 006, 1940)

DEMONIC ROUND-UP 003

Two shorts and two longs. Bajah : Minor Golden Age Marvel magician Dakor has to travel all the way to the fictional Indian kingdom of Nordu ...