The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Cotton Carver

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 025

    We’re going heavy on the ape-man content this time. 

    Ape-Men: 

    These Ape-Men, like most ape men, are some sort of human offshoot population or remnant of another species of homo living in the isolated depths of, in this case, the Amazon jungle. They come into conflict with Doctor Voodoo after breaking their long-held peace treaty with his allies the Blancas and abducting many of them for human sacrifice. Also they use silver arrows for some unexplained reason. (Whiz Comics 013, 1941)

    Ape-Men: 

    These particularly wooly-looking Ape-Men briefly vex adventurer Cotton Carver in one of the various lands beneath Antarctica before learning about firearms the hard way, as so many of their fellow sub-Antarcticans do during Carver’s travels. (Adventure Comics 048, 1940)

    Apemen:

    More cave- than ape-men in my estimation, these fellows ambush Bill Dale and his guide Dagoo as they traverse the cheerily-named River of Skulls in Africa on their way to find Bill’s long-lost twin Steve. Notably, these are the Apemen who worship the crocodile swam god the Creeping Death. (Nickel Comics 001, 1940)

    Link Men: 

    Encountered by Zatara while searching for a missing biologist in modern-day Tanzania, the Link (for Missing Link, natch) Men are the most ape-like in appearance of all of our entries today. They live in a small city atop a plateau and are generally hostile to strangers.

    For all that they are literal ape-men, the Link Men are just as weirdly obsessed with the nuances of human race as so many other nonhuman intelligences: their leader is the ever-popular Random Blonde Lady, in this case one named Kara whose presence on the plateau is never really explored. They are also weirdly invested not in human sacrifice but in the sacrifice of a white man to their deity, the Sun-God. Zatara’s aide Tong isn’t even considered as a sacrifice.

    The potential sacrifice above is coincidentally also missing biologist Raoul d’Armand, who Kara has fallen in love with and thus reconsidered being the leader of a society of religious apes. Thankfully Zatara is on hand to foster true love by turning an entire intelligent species into marble statues. One would hope that he would turn them back before leaving but as with so many of the occasions in which Zatara transforms someone into an inanimate object the final fate of the Link Men is left to the reader’s imagination. (Action Comics v1 027, 1940)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 021

    A motley crew of mostly cavemen await ye. 

    Pleistocene Men: 

    When rich jerk Rodney Stark wants to take over the world, he know just where to go: the Arctic, where he can use his heat ray to thaw out a frozen tribe of prehistoric men to act as his personal army. Did he already know that they were there or was he just assuming that he could dig up a few guys just by sinking a hole any old place? Unclear.

    In what must have been an unexpected boon for Stark, the Pleistocene Men turn out to have been altered both physically and mentally by their long stay in the ice. Not only are they now super strong and invulnerable to harm, but they are also super smart for some reason? Stark just handwaves it by saying that the cold sharpened their intelligence, but in practical terms it means that they learn to speak English and fly planes super fast.

    Captain Marvel ends up dropping Stark and his entire caveman air force back down the hole he originally dug them out of, where presumably they froze solid again. Who knows how powerful they will become before next they are thawed? (Whiz Comics 007, 1940)

    Ape-Men:

    A simpler type of prehistoric remnant, these Ape-Men are encountered by boxer/adventurer Socko Strong on an isolated Atlantic island full of dinosaurs before the entire place blows up courtesy of a local volcano. (Adventure Comics 042, 1939)

    Bat Men of Venus: 

    These Bat Men have come from Venus to Earth c.50 030 CE to engage in some friendly diplomatic relations. Unfortunately for them, this is not long after a global catastrophe has not only drastically reduced the human population but unleashed the hostile Crust Dwellers onto the surface of the planet, and they are almost fatally menaced before being rescued by heroic Earthling survivor Blaze Barton. 

    Really appreciate a) bat people designs that really commit to the weirdness of bat faces b) gliding bat people c) seeing some different Venusian designs before the Venus = aquatic paradigm really sets in in the 1950s. (Hit Comics 002, 1940)

    Beast Men of Boota: 

    The Beast Men of Boota are just what it says on the tin: beast men (or at least hairy guys) who are from Boota, which I assume is what this forest village is called. They live in one of the innumerable lands beneath the Antarctic that are traversed by Cotton Carver, and briefly worship him as the Tunder Man, thanks to his surface world guns. (Adventure Comics 054, 1940)

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 014

    Once again I present to you some deities. 

    Pelenona: 

    South Pacific adventurer Lance O’Casey almost gets sacrificed to the volcano goddess Pelenona on the of the same name because a different, more evil adventurer had made off with the island’s sacred temple jewels.

    The people of the same island also worship a shipwrecked circus gorilla as god-monster the Eepa, 

    God Style: Animist (Whiz Comics 008, 1940)

    the Creeping Death:

    The Jungle Twins were a pair of brothers who were separated as infants when their parents’ jungle expedition was attacked by raiders. William Dale was taken back to New York by a loyal nursemaid to grow up in the lap of luxury, while his brother Steve was left behind in the jungle to – you guessed it – become the toughest, baddest dude and rule over all he surveyed.

    Years later, William made his way back to the jungle to find Steve, and along the way he and his servant Dagoo were captured by apemen and left as sacrifices for their god, the Creeping Death, which turns out to be a whole river full of giant crocodiles! Dagoo gets them out of this scrape using some magic pipes to put the crocs to sleep, despite William being a total asshole to him. 

    God Style: Animist (Nickel Comics 001, 1940)

    Dagan the Only: 

    Cotton Carver is your classic Golden Age comics adventurer, and in one of his first outings he stumbles into a classic Golden Age adventure setting: a vast network of temperate, well-lit caverns beneath Antarctica. From then on, his adventuring career involves getting into scrapes in underground nation after underground nation as he looks for a way back to the surface world. After making a particularly perilous transition from the Land of the White Witch to the kingdom of Thule (pre-WWII, so not a red flag), Carver and his companions encounter a group of archers who are making their yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of Dagan the Only. 

    The actual worship of Dagan the Only is a bit of a mystery – he requires travellers of the Path of Peril between the LotWW and Thule to delivered living unto him, which suggests human sacrifice and triggers a bloody battle between the archers and Carver’s people, but that turns out to be a ruse by the princess of Thule to acquire their help in defeating an enemy. Later on, however, Cotton and his pals make the transition to the next underground land by being tossed into Dagan’s sacrificial pit. All we can say for sure is that he has a great name.

    God Style: Idol (Adventure Comics 039, 1939)

    the Devil God: 

    A cool-ass idol that Zero the Ghost Detective smashes up in order to banish a ghost in the Guatemalan jungle. Though Zero asserts that the ghost is operating under the Devil God’s will, I would say that it’s equally likely that the idol is his anchor to the material world. Also, we only have Zero’s word for it that this guy is named the Devil God.

    God Style: Idol (Real?) (Feature Comics 049, 1941) 

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 014

    Once again I present to you some deities. 

    Pelenona: 

    South Pacific adventurer Lance O’Casey almost gets sacrificed to the volcano goddess Pelenona on the of the same name because a different, more evil adventurer had made off with the island’s sacred temple jewels.

    The people of the same island also worship a shipwrecked circus gorilla as god-monster the Eepa, 

    God Style: Animist (Whiz Comics 008, 1940)

    the Creeping Death:

    The Jungle Twins were a pair of brothers who were separated as infants when their parents’ jungle expedition was attacked by raiders. William Dale was taken back to New York by a loyal nursemaid to grow up in the lap of luxury, while his brother Steve was left behind in the jungle to – you guessed it – become the toughest, baddest dude and rule over all he surveyed.

    Years later, William made his way back to the jungle to find Steve, and along the way he and his servant Dagoo were captured by apemen and left as sacrifices for their god, the Creeping Death, which turns out to be a whole river full of giant crocodiles! Dagoo gets them out of this scrape using some magic pipes to put the crocs to sleep, despite William being a total asshole to him. 

    God Style: Animist (Nickel Comics 001, 1940)

    Dagan the Only: 

    Cotton Carver is your classic Golden Age comics adventurer, and in one of his first outings he stumbles into a classic Golden Age adventure setting: a vast network of temperate, well-lit caverns beneath Antarctica. From then on, his adventuring career involves getting into scrapes in underground nation after underground nation as he looks for a way back to the surface world. After making a particularly perilous transition from the Land of the White Witch to the kingdom of Thule (pre-WWII, so not a red flag), Carver and his companions encounter a group of archers who are making their yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of Dagan the Only. 

    The actual worship of Dagan the Only is a bit of a mystery – he requires travellers of the Path of Peril between the LotWW and Thule to delivered living unto him, which suggests human sacrifice and triggers a bloody battle between the archers and Carver’s people, but that turns out to be a ruse by the princess of Thule to acquire their help in defeating an enemy. Later on, however, Cotton and his pals make the transition to the next underground land by being tossed into Dagan’s sacrificial pit. All we can say for sure is that he has a great name.

    God Style: Idol (Adventure Comics 039, 1939)

    the Devil God: 

    A cool-ass idol that Zero the Ghost Detective smashes up in order to banish a ghost in the Guatemalan jungle. Though Zero asserts that the ghost is operating under the Devil God’s will, I would say that it’s equally likely that the idol is his anchor to the material world. Also, we only have Zero’s word for it that this guy is named the Devil God.

    God Style: Idol (Real?) (Feature Comics 049, 1941)