Don’t bother asking to see their degrees. This unnamed scientist has been kidnapping preteens and changing them into hulking brutes via some pretty fantastical brain surgery. He of course gets his ass fatally handed to him by the Red Panther but not before he goes on about producing a new super race and as always I have to question your devotion to science if you think that your physical alterations to these kids are going to be passed on. Who…
(Planet Comics 003, 1940) The work of the Lord of Jupiter is never done, as Auro (Lord of Jupiter, natch) learns one day when he receives the alarming news that a giant flame-breathing dragon has been carrying off dozens of his subjects. And indeed, not only is there a dragon running around causing trouble but that dragon is actually a guy who can turn into a dragon and who has used his humanoid powers of reasoning to correctly identify Auro…
(Planet Comics 003, 1940) We open on Spurt Hammond, the Planet-Flyer himself, intercepting an alarming series of images from the planet Mercury. Giants? Explosions? Girls!? What could it all mean? It turns out that the girl in question is Princess Zilla, erstwhile ruler of Mercury but recently deposed by her Prime Minister Radgio, who schemes to conquer the world using mutated Mercurians such as the previously-seen giant. Which I suppose strongly implies that Zilla was the ruler of only a…
(Planet Comics 002, 1940) We are introduced to Agra when Earth-woman Ava bursts in to Auro. Lord of Jupiter’s court to warn him that Agra intends to kill him. She really talks up Agra’s prowess vis-a-vis elephant- human- and tree-slaying, and hopefully takes the time to describe his outfit which for all the world looks like it was designed by Mike Grell just after he finished with Disco Era Cosmic Boy. Auro of course does not know the meaning of…
(Planet Comics 002, 1940) Sinfo is a scientist of the unspecified future who has used his mind control technology to dominate a city of Neptunian Crab-Men and is now looking into the possibility of doing the same to the people of Earth. As such, he has captured space adventurer Buzz Crandall along with his associates Dr and Susan Curan. I have a lot of affection for Sinfo, 100% of which are because I appreciate his aesthetics. Why, just look at…
(Planet Comics 002, 1940) Having defeated the evil Sarko, Flint Baker and his crew are ready to head home to accept their accolades as the as-fas-as-anyone-knows first humans to land on Mars, when word comes from Princess Viga that the city of Ru is facing yet another deadly threat. This time it’s a giant four-armed primate that attacks three times per year and hauls Martians away to an uncertain and terrifying fate. Will Flint Baker help them? Of course he…
(Planet Comics 001, 1940) We’re in the 1940 run of Planet Comics now, so look out for a fair few of space tyrants with one-word nonsense names. Like Sarko here! Sarko is an Earth man who came to Mars in 1933 and set about conquering the dark side of the planet. Now it’s the near future and Sarko has his sights set on taking over the remainder of Mars and the light-side city of Ru in particular. The… Ruvians? No…
(Pep Comics 010, 1940) A vile villain known as the Tarantula is extorting the young wealthy women of London and then murdering the ones who don’t pay up, and Inspector Bentley is on the case after two significant pieces of evidence fall into his lap: the latest body is left on the steps of Scotland Yard and then the latest extortion attempt is made against Deborah Morgan, whose father went to school with Bentley’s boss and you can’t beat the…
Buncha mooks this time. The ship that picked up scientist-adventurer Dean Denton and his pals from the island of Baron Blood just so happened to have a pseudo-Nazi spy (fake name Lieutenant James, code name K-192, real name unknown) committing murders on it for unclear reasons. Despite composing a crime scene to contain nothing but clues pointing to other members of the crew Denton rounds him up pretty quickly. (Masked Marvel 003, 1940) Pilot Prop Powers has to defend his…
(Pep Comics 008, 1940) It’s an old story, even this early in the history of comics: someone has developed a method for mass murdering people and is attempting to use it to extort money from a city, or else. In this case that person calls himself the Master and that method is some sort of electrical wave. The Comet of course is not cool with this kind of blatant super-villainy, particularly as he is still trying to rebuild his reputation…