(Weird Comics 005, 1940) Blast Bennett, space adventurer of the year 5940, is just noodling around the galaxy one day and decides to stop off to stretch his legs on a desolate ice planet, at which point he falls in a hole and becomes embroiled in a civil war, because he is a comic book protagonist and his every move draws him closer to the nearest source of adventure. The Ice Planet is ruled by the presumably-benevolent Empress Ilera –…
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…
(Weird Comics 005, 1940) There are exactly two reasons why I gave Dr Hsin his own entry rather than sticking him in the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up, and the first one is his creation/henchman Mako, aka the Perfect Man. I just can’t resist a man with a tube coming out of his head, especially when that man is some sort of cyborg frankenstein. The second reason is that Hsin’s plan – to steal the blood from hundreds of…
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…
(Weird Comics 004, 1940) The Wizard of Zoro really takes the prize for the Most Charming Atrocity of 1940 when he swoops down on a small town and turns everyone into the kind of semi-anthropomorphic giant frogs that you get in Victorian greeting cards. Do I love that he then enslaves the frogs? No. Do I endorse the fact that he singles out an attractive young woman for special torment by turning her boyfriend into a snake? Of course not….
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) The Wizard is the first of five villains to challenge the Sorceress of Zoom for the role of top villain in her own dang feature. He is unique among that group for being the only villain in the story he appears in, as while the rest of his peers come at the Sorceress while she is engaged in some nefarious activity, the Wizard shows up while she is peacefully hanging out with her friend Allan. Once…
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…
(Weird Comics 001, 1940) The Sorceress of Zoom is just what it says on the tin: a sorceress from Zoom, which is a magical flying city that she lives in and controls. She’s another of the Golden Age’s surprisingly large number of headlining super-villains, only instead of being a mad scientist or a more conventional crook she is a mercurial magic woman who just kind of flies around harassing people. Sometimes she’s almost okay and other times she’s one of…
You won’t believe these guys. the Mermen: Some undersea jerks who capture explorer Typhon and his crew. Their leader is a real creep named Neptune who has a nigh-fetishistic plan to freeze the crew – and particularly sole female crewmember Cecelia – into blocks of ice and then breathe fire on them. Luckily for all who might venture beneath the waves, he drowns (?) during Typhon’s escape. (Weird Comics 002, 1940) the Beaked Men: The Beaked Men of Mercury’s mountains…