The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Komos Publications

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 052

    The aliens are very humanoid today. I hope that they are to your liking.

    Cavemen:

    There’s no real explanation of why these cavemen are just chilling out in a cavern not a day’s walk from an inhabited region of Africa, along with assorted mammoths and sabretooth tigers. They’re just what Fantomah finds when she follows a river to its source to see why it has been contaminated and is killing those who drink from it. The answer: the cavemen killed a mammoth and just kind of lift it to rot in the water. Unusually, all of these prehistoric remnants are still there when Fantomah leaves, rather than being buried in a cave-in or exploded by a volcano as so frequently happens. (Jungle Comics 022, 1941)

    Martians:

    These very human-looking Martians at least have the good grace to have a weird history, as explained to Earthling Flint Baker: Hundreds of years earlier the Martian government had enacted a draconian Tough on Crime approach and thrown all of their criminals into an underground pit known as the Shaft of Death. However, due to a perpetual high wind rising from the depths, the Shaft of Death was actually a weird area of neutral buoyancy, allowing the criminals and their descendants to form an entire civilization that floats in midair.

    Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this history is that the surface-dwelling Martians have no idea of what their ancestors did, and ignore Flint’s warnings about an impending invasion from sub-Mars until it’s  too late and the drilling machines are on their front doorsteps. Worry not, for everything works out in the end. The sub-Martians are defeated and the subjected to brain treatments to remove their “criminal tendencies” proving that while the surface Martians might have forgotten their history, they are still very much willing to go to moral extremes in the eradication of Crime. (Planet Comics 009, 1940)

    Martians: 

    These similarly-humanoid Martians from the same issue are much more straightforward evil conquerors out to hijack Uranus from its rightful human colonists. (Planet Comics 009, 1940)

    Martians:

    Finally, we have these still-humanoid-but-just-barely Martians encountered by junior space traveller Mitey Powers. These guys made me really excited when I saw them, as they represent a specific vision of what life on Mars might have looked like but which I frustratingly cannot find an image of due to the state of online image searching right now. 

    Essentially, this Martian represents a speculative evolution of humanity as it would look it it evolved on Mars, with huge lungs and ears thanks to the thin atmosphere, spindly limbs due to lower gravity, big flat feet to navigate the loose sandy surface, etc (one of the reasons I wanted to find another example of this is that there are justifications for the trunk and telescopic eyes but I can’t remember them). Very exciting to see these guys walking around and having a society rather than just standing around as an example of their anatomy.

    Speaking of their society, here are a couple of bonus tidbits: these Martians learn in their sleep (but must sleep sitting up due to their bulbous upper torsos) and play Blitzball from Final Fantasy X. (Superworld Comics 002, 1940) 

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 037

    Every once in a while I hit a particularly dense seam of aliens and so forth and this week is one of those times. 

    Neptunii: 

    The Neptunii (and that name is a guess based on the fact that one guy uses “Neptunus” as a singular version of the noun) live in Neptunia, an underground kingdom that could be described as “a big cave” at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. There, they seem to just kind of fly around shouting, though this short comic book story might not give a full picture of their society.

    There are a few points of interest about the Neptunii: they are both finned and winged, they all wear little horned circlets, they call their leader the “Sub-Ruler”… but the thing I am always struck by is just how much Prince Ikor and his pal in the above panel look like quirky characters from a late-90s webcomic. 

    Though Peter “the Fin” Noble becomes the ruler of Neptunia via a bit of impulsive regicide and remains so in his infrequent appearances to this day, to my knowledge the Neptunii themselves have not showed their faces since their first appearance in 1941. (Daring Mystery Comics 007, 1941)

    Inus-Men:

    The Inus-Men take their name from the fact that they are the inhabitants of the planet Inus. They are pretty regular-style cavemen, only more red, and are one of the many dangers faced by Dr X’s niece Cynthia when her astral form is blasted willy-nilly through space by her most unethical uncle. (Startling Comics 001, 1940)

    Jovians:

    The Jovians of the year 3964 AC (sic) are an oppressed underclass who work in the radium mines of the human colony on Jupiter. They are unable to own weapons by law, are possibly disallowed from large gatherings or approaching humans (see the first two panels above where the “boldness” of the Jovians is discussed) and generally mirror the conditions of colonized peoples on our world. This all clearly sucks and is unjust, which is especially interesting because the comic it all appears in clearly considers it to be the natural order of things.

    The Jovians are ripe for (and right to) revolt, and do so under the leadership of the evil Space Emperor. Once he is captured and revealed to be an opportunist by Major Mars they are returned to their place under the collective human thumb. (Exciting Comics 001, 1940)

    Jovians:

    Our second set of Jovians are also radium focused, but rather than mining it for their human overlords they use it to generate power, and having run out they are now demanding that both Earth and Mars hand over their radium supply or face annihilation. This draws the ire of space adventurer and Earth-Mars envoy Mitey Powers and he sets out with his entourage to resolve the situation.

    The title of this story is “The Super-Giants of Jupiter,” and I really appreciate that it lives up to the name. These Jovians are big, man. They’re also pleasingly alien, with their fish heads and tendril hands.

    I can only assume that it is the fact that the Jovians and their warships are so big contributes to Mitey’s decision to commit a war crime against their populace by unleashing a swarm of Martian Poison Gnats that will breed uncontrollably and “[kill] off most of the people.” It’s a horrible crime, Mitey! Particularly as radium is one of the less-used radioactive elements today! (Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 037

    Every once in a while I hit a particularly dense seam of aliens and so forth and this week is one of those times. 

    Neptunii: 

    The Neptunii (and that name is a guess based on the fact that one guy uses “Neptunus” as a singular version of the noun) live in Neptunia, an underground kingdom that could be described as “a big cave” at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. There, they seem to just kind of fly around shouting, though this short comic book story might not give a full picture of their society.

    There are a few points of interest about the Neptunii: they are both finned and winged, they all wear little horned circlets, they call their leader the “Sub-Ruler”… but the thing I am always struck by is just how much Prince Ikor and his pal in the above panel look like quirky characters from a late-90s webcomic. 

    Though Peter “the Fin” Noble becomes the ruler of Neptunia via a bit of impulsive regicide and remains so in his infrequent appearances to this day, to my knowledge the Neptunii themselves have not showed their faces since their first appearance in 1941. (Daring Mystery Comics 007, 1941)

    Inus-Men:

    The Inus-Men take their name from the fact that they are the inhabitants of the planet Inus. They are pretty regular-style cavemen, only more red, and are one of the many dangers faced by Dr X’s niece Cynthia when her astral form is blasted willy-nilly through space by her most unethical uncle. (Startling Comics 001, 1940)

    Jovians:

    The Jovians of the year 3964 AC (sic) are an oppressed underclass who work in the radium mines of the human colony on Jupiter. They are unable to own weapons by law, are possibly disallowed from large gatherings or approaching humans (see the first two panels above where the “boldness” of the Jovians is discussed) and generally mirror the conditions of colonized peoples on our world. This all clearly sucks and is unjust, which is especially interesting because the comic it all appears in clearly considers it to be the natural order of things.

    The Jovians are ripe for (and right to) revolt, and do so under the leadership of the evil Space Emperor. Once he is captured and revealed to be an opportunist by Major Mars they are returned to their place under the collective human thumb. (Exciting Comics 001, 1940)

    Jovians:

    Our second set of Jovians are also radium focused, but rather than mining it for their human overlords they use it to generate power, and having run out they are now demanding that both Earth and Mars hand over their radium supply or face annihilation. This draws the ire of space adventurer and Earth-Mars envoy Mitey Powers and he sets out with his entourage to resolve the situation.

    The title of this story is “The Super-Giants of Jupiter,” and I really appreciate that it lives up to the name. These Jovians are big, man. They’re also pleasingly alien, with their fish heads and tendril hands.

    I can only assume that it is the fact that the Jovians and their warships are so big contributes to Mitey’s decision to commit a war crime against their populace by unleashing a swarm of Martian Poison Gnats that will breed uncontrollably and “[kill] off most of the people.” It’s a horrible crime, Mitey! Particularly as radium is one of the less-used radioactive elements today! (Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 004

    Now’s the time that we start pulling aliens from the vaults! So look out for a lot of A-names for the next while! Not the first one though, because something has to come up organically.

    Crillionites:

    Hailing from the planet Crillon (which boasts the majestic Crillion City, natch), the Crillionites are a caste-based society in which the Lords of Crillon (like from the title of the comic!) rule over a slave population via some sort of divine right. This societal order is threatened by Professor Wendall Keene and his crew of space explorers: Hugh, Celeste, and the also-titular Ken Craig, but whether this is due to some innate sense of justice on their part or for some other reason is never quite spelled out in their one extant appearance, as things start in media res and Mort Cowen there presumably thought he could go back and explain what was going on a bit later. No dice, Mort. (Circus, the Comics Riot 001, 1938)

    the Ancient Ones: 

    It’s that old staple of adventure, the ancient hidden civilization! Not all of them are different enough from regular humanity to qualify as an Alien and So Forth, but I reckon a society of prehistoric Antarcticans who retreated underground when the ice crept across their lands and have indefinite lifespans must surely count. The Ancient Ones are kind of boringly benevolent, but they do have a lot of gold, which inspires hero Rocky Ryan’s crew to mutiny and thus provides a bit of excitement.

    This also allows the Ancient Ones to show off their somewhat ghoulish hobby: collecting gold-hungry adventurers in suspended animation. Or possibly practicing human taxidermy. (Big Shot Comics 009, 1940)

    Antarenes: 

    The Antarenes, inhabitants of the planet Antar, have a problem: their sun has gone out. Their solution? Head underground and set out through the void of space with their whole dang planet to find a new one. Unfortunately for Earth, rather than one of the presumably many uninhabited stars in the galaxy the Antarenes have chosen Earth’s orbit as the coziest place to pull up their planet, and the Earth is just going to have to move out of the way (and into the Sun), whether they like it or not. Fortunately for Earth, Marvo 1￮2 Go+ is on the case and Antar is rerouted back out of the Solar System to find somewhere elese to park.

    One small detail that I appreciate about the Antarenes: as a society that seems to mimic the eusocial nature of our world’s ants they of course have a Queen but we never see her, for the simple reason that she is way too important to let two weird randos just rock up and meet with her. (Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

    the Ants:

    Captain Tornado, along with Professor Bordani and his daughter Jane, are stranded on the extrasolar planet Barrang. They meet and shoot a variety of intelligent aliens while there, the first of which are these giant alien ants, who don’t figure too heavily into the plot but who do engage in intraspecies warfare and melon farming. (Popular Comics 046, 1939)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 004

    ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 004

    Now’s the time that we start pulling aliens from the vaults! So look out for a lot of A-names for the next while! Not the first one though, because something has to come up organically.

    Crillionites:

    Hailing from the planet Crillon (which boasts the majestic Crillion City, natch), the Crillionites are a caste-based society in which the Lords of Crillon (like from the title of the comic!) rule over a slave population via some sort of divine right. This societal order is threatened by Professor Wendall Keene and his crew of space explorers: Hugh, Celeste, and the also-titular Ken Craig, but whether this is due to some innate sense of justice on their part or for some other reason is never quite spelled out in their one extant appearance, as things start in media res and Mort Cowen there presumably thought he could go back and explain what was going on a bit later. No dice, Mort. (Circus, the Comics Riot 001, 1938)

    the Ancient Ones: 

    It’s that old staple of adventure, the ancient hidden civilization! Not all of them are different enough from regular humanity to qualify as an Alien and So Forth, but I reckon a society of prehistoric Antarcticans who retreated underground when the ice crept across their lands and have indefinite lifespans must surely count. The Ancient Ones are kind of boringly benevolent, but they do have a lot of gold, which inspires hero Rocky Ryan’s crew to mutiny and thus provides a bit of excitement.

    This also allows the Ancient Ones to show off their somewhat ghoulish hobby: collecting gold-hungry adventurers in suspended animation. Or possibly practicing human taxidermy. (Big Shot Comics 009, 1940)

    Antarenes: 

    The Antarenes, inhabitants of the planet Antar, have a problem: their sun has gone out. Their solution? Head underground and set out through the void of space with their whole dang planet to find a new one. Unfortunately for Earth, rather than one of the presumably many uninhabited stars in the galaxy the Antarenes have chosen Earth’s orbit as the coziest place to pull up their planet, and the Earth is just going to have to move out of the way (and into the Sun), whether they like it or not. Fortunately for Earth, Marvo 1￮2 Go+ is on the case and Antar is rerouted back out of the Solar System to find somewhere elese to park.

    One small detail that I appreciate about the Antarenes: as a society that seems to mimic the eusocial nature of our world’s ants they of course have a Queen but we never see her, for the simple reason that she is way too important to let two weird randos just rock up and meet with her. (Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

    the Ants:

    Captain Tornado, along with Professor Bordani and his daughter Jane, are stranded on the extrasolar planet Barrang. They meet and shoot a variety of intelligent aliens while there, the first of which are these giant alien ants, who don’t figure too heavily into the plot but who do engage in intraspecies warfare and melon farming. (Popular Comics 046, 1939)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 018

    I’m not sure that these guys all have degrees. 

    This fellow is known only as the Professor, and he conducts experiments in long- and short-range mind control on Lost Hope Island until Secret Naval Agent Spike Marlin shows up in search of a missing ship’s crew. (Speed Comics 009, 1940) 

    This unnamed scientist has developed a drug that puts people into indefinite comas and has used it to kidnap and store ten millionaires, presumably with the intent of ransoming them back to their families. Before he actually gets to the point of sending the ransom notes, however, he makes the mistake of allowing his gangster hirelings go out and use the drug to mug people on the street, thus leaving a trail of mysterious coma victims that the indomitable Detective Crane follows all the way to the scientist’s secret penthouse. (Superworld Comics 002, 1940)

    Detective Crane is back to investigate the destruction of several West Virginian steel mills. It turns out that remote controlled drone bombers are responsible for the attacks, and he trails them back to a base near Pittsburgh filled with awesome robots, plus one Baranian spy who is merely dressed like a robot, presumably in case someone like Crane were to show up. The whole place gets absolutely annihilated.(Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

    Overworked and underappreciated Department Public Sanitation scientist Dr Sheldon might be justified in his workplace dissatisfaction but he expresses his negative emotions in an unproductive manner, by poisoning the city reservoir and killing thousands of people. It must be cathartic though, because the Arrow has to shoot him with one of his trademark arrows in order to prevent him from poisoning the reservoir even more than it was before. (The Arrow 002, 1940)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 018

    I’m not sure that these guys all have degrees. 

    This fellow is known only as the Professor, and he conducts experiments in long- and short-range mind control on Lost Hope Island until Secret Naval Agent Spike Marlin shows up in search of a missing ship’s crew. (Speed Comics 009, 1940) 

    This unnamed scientist has developed a drug that puts people into indefinite comas and has used it to kidnap and store ten millionaires, presumably with the intent of ransoming them back to their families. Before he actually gets to the point of sending the ransom notes, however, he makes the mistake of allowing his gangster hirelings go out and use the drug to mug people on the street, thus leaving a trail of mysterious coma victims that the indomitable Detective Crane follows all the way to the scientist’s secret penthouse. (Superworld Comics 002, 1940)

    Detective Crane is back to investigate the destruction of several West Virginian steel mills. It turns out that remote controlled drone bombers are responsible for the attacks, and he trails them back to a base near Pittsburgh filled with awesome robots, plus one Baranian spy who is merely dressed like a robot, presumably in case someone like Crane were to show up. The whole place gets absolutely annihilated.(Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

    Overworked and underappreciated Department Public Sanitation scientist Dr Sheldon might be justified in his workplace dissatisfaction but he expresses his negative emotions in an unproductive manner, by poisoning the city reservoir and killing thousands of people. It must be cathartic though, because the Arrow has to shoot him with one of his trademark arrows in order to prevent him from poisoning the reservoir even more than it was before. (The Arrow 002, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 021

    Another truckload of half-baked mooks for your viewing pleasure.

    The otherwise-normal gangsters who have gotten ahold of a piece of superscience and are using it for crime are an important part of the super-hero comic ecosystem. Here is a wonderful example of such in the form of a gang who have access to disintegrator ray pistols and are using them like regular guns during a bank robbery. Fantastic stuff. The Invisible Avenger hits them with a train. (Superworld Comics 002, 1940)

    He may be a mere hold-up man in a bandit mask (surely the lowest tier of costumed villainy until the invention of putting a nylon stocking on your head) but I am very pleased to tell you that this fellow’s real name is Solo Mogart. Also that he eventually gets beaten up by the Raven. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

    This fairly nondescript gang of generically foreign spies have access to an invisible fighter plane and the best thing they could think to use it for was smuggling people into the US. Baffling! They make the mistake of tangling with flying cadet Lucky Byrd and end up in the slammer. (Target Comics v1 003, 1940)

    This fellow is pretending to be Rip van Winkle or an analogous long-term sleeper for some reason related to moonshining. Maybe the full plot is interesting enough to be an entry on its own but sadly the extant copy of this comic is missing the first few pages of this story and so I have very little idea what is going on. He gets beat up and tossed in the clink thanks to crusading reporter Phil Manners. (Target Comics v1 003, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 783: PHATSO

    (Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

    Buzz “the Invisible Avenger” Allen and Will “also invisible but has no special name” Lawrence are taking an Alaskan vacation with some of the reward money they have earned via vigilantism (and it’s nice to see a variation on super-hero morality now and then – someone has to be accepting awards when offered, surely) when they, hard-core radio amateurs that they are, pick up a panicked broadcast from nearby. Making their way to the location, they find the man who sent the distress call dead and surrounded by weird ribbons of light.

    Finding that the light ribbons are solid, Buzz and Will make the amazing and completely understandable decision to grab onto them as they fly off, and end up being whisked even further North to a hidden city in the ancient Greek style.

    The lads attempt to bluff the city’s ruler, Phatso, with a bit of the old “cower before us for we are wizards” gag, but it turns out that this isn’t a primitive hidden city but a technologically advanced one, and a little bit of invisibility tech isn’t going to get so much as a shiver out of them. They also learn that Phatso is using the light ribbons to kill people and siphon the information from their minds in preparation for a full-scale Atlantean (did I mention that the city represents the remnants of sunken Atlantis?) invasion of the United States. The boys are unceremoniously paralysis-rayed and tossed in the clink.

    I really like Phatso’s villain patter, by the by. “I am Phatso, great, clever ruler of Atlantis. I can speak in any tongue and I am 212 years old!” is a terrific introduction. I just with his name wasn’t an as-far-as-I-can-tell purposeless pun, because it is annoying.

    Buzz and Will escape of course, and immediately blow up the machines that make Arctic Atlantis habitable by humans, with the wild justification that only the old people will die off and thus Atlantean civilization will be improved. Is this the morality of a hero who takes the reward cheques? Is this what I was asking for!!??

    (this is also part of a bit of a recurring theme in stories from Superworld Comics of “inflicting mass casualties” as a standard part of the heroic arsenal – the other examples are all from human vs alien stories that fall a bit outside of my self-imposed purview and so won’t be showing up here, but I assure you that it is there and it leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth once you recognize it)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 782: ERIC MACFADDEN

    (Superworld Comics 001, 1940*)

    Eric MacFadden is a criminal scientist who has some sort of longstanding beef with Hip Knox, the Super Hypnotist, that was presumably covered in Superworld Comics 001, a comics I have yet to encounter for the simple reason that it would cost me at least $ 2000 US.

    MacFadden’s signature technology is the extremely stylish mesh anti-hypnosis mask that he wears to protect him from Hip Knox’s super-hypnotism, and he even has extras made to shield his men from the same (not a guarantee from your typical self-obsessed super-villain), making them the Mask Gang.

    As Superworld Comics represents Hugo Gernsback’s sole foray into comic book publishing, people more familiar with the politics and personalities of the sci-fi pulps than I am have speculated that Eric MacFadden is in some way based on Bernarr Macfadden, an enemy of Gernsback’s, and I gotta say that he’s a plausible guy to base a super-villain on. Like, obviously a man’s whole life cannot be summed up by his Wikipedia article, but an anti-medicine physical culture weirdo who gave himself the name “Bernarr” because he thought it sounded like a lion’s roar is at the very least super-villain adjacent.

    If MacFadden is indeed based on Macfadden (he also changed his last name from “McFadden” to “Macfadden” because he thought that it was “a more masculine spelling!) due to a deep Gernsback/Macfadden beef then it would go a long way toward explaining the dynamic between the two, wherein MacFadden attempts to destroy Hip Knox and then Knox turns around and ritually humiliates MacFadden rather than seeking more traditional forms of justice, and for that reason Eric MacFadden joins the ranks of super-villains who are still at large as of their final appearance.

    I would also like to make a special note of the fact that despite Hip Knox developing anti-mask technology in Superworld Comics 002, MacFadden does not then abandon the masks entirely, as is so frequently the case with science villains when their tech is countered. MacFadden is savvy – he knows that Knox isn’t going to wear that big-ass backpack every time he leaves the house.

    *Still haven’t read Superworld Comics 001 but I am assured that he was in it.