(Prize Comics 006, 1940) It’s a regular day in Mongol-dominated New-New York City of the year 1982 CE: the people are oppressed in various ways and Power Nelson is around to help them solve some but not all of their problems. Suddenly! A space capsule lands and disgorges a trio of rampaging robots! This is a perfect task for Power Nelson to handle as it it a short-term solution to an immediate problem but very importantly does not require and…
(Prize Comics 005, 1940) Late in his first incarnation, Power Nelson makes the acquaintance of Zora Doone, agent of the Interplanetary Red Cross, and the two form a very horny-but-chaste relationship. At her behest, Nelson takes a break from not freeing the people of Earth from the tyrannical rule of Seng I to investigate conditions on planet Ato, where humans are ruled… BY APES! Yes, it’s a good old fashioned Planet of the Apes situation on Ato. Humans are treated…
(Prize Comics 004, 1940) The year is 1982! The world languishes under the heel of a global dictatorship, and the economy is tanking – presumably the Mongols were running a war economy that failed to stand up to the post-world-conquering peace. Emperor Seng I offers nothing but empty promises to his subjects, until Power Nelson, as committed as ever to working within the system, bursts in and strongarms him into making… real promises? Frankly, this is Power Nelson at his…
(Planet Comics 008, 1940) Once again an adventure begins that most classic sci-fi way: Buzz Crandall and his gal pal Sandra are noodling around in space when they run smack into something, in this case a crystal sphere that houses the secret headquarters of Sophus, the Mad Philosopher. I couldn’t tell you what school of philosophy Sophus subscribes to, but it’s one with an intellectual framework that encompasses a) turning other humanoids into mist and keeping them in bottles and…
(Planet Comics 005, 1940) Gale Allen was a long-running feature of Planet Comics, which meant that she was a creation of many absent-minded hands. She is always an officer in a gendered space organization, but whether that is the Women’s Space Battalion, the Girl’s Patrol, the Girl’s Squadron and so forth varies from issue to issue. The story is set in the far-off year of 1990 but drifts farther into the future over time. She turns blonde eventually. You get…
(Planet Comics 007, 1940) Lepus-the-Fiend has a lot of classic Fletcher Hanks villain qualities: the weirdly hyphenated name, the fact that he lives on a star (to be clear: not a poetic name for a planet. He lives on a five-pointed, flaming star) and of course his hatred of civilization, which is not given a particular motivation so I am left to assume is because he is a hairy and wild looking guy. He’s not the first Hanks character to…
(Planet Comics 005, 1940) Rocko is a totally awesome alien (from a species called the Nethermen, a totally awesome name) who looks like a human with one great grandparent who was a toad and dresses in pulp sci-fi armour as he scours the spaceways for a star of sufficient heat to run all of his planet’s industry. Bad luck for humanity: the first adequate star that he manages to find while aimlessly noodling around in space (as opposed to picking…
(Planet Comics 005, 1940) We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again: comic book plots spun out of the popular pre-Pearl Harbor US position that America should stay out of the burgeoning European conflict. This time, we’re treated to a political allegory in the far future, as planet Jupiter (Germany, presumably) attacks tiny planetoid Cato (Belgium, I guess) and draws the ire of the rest of the Solar System (the nascent Allied Forces). Many on Earth (America) want to…
(Planet Comics 004, 1940) Flint Baker and co are making their return trip from Mars and due to an unscheduled diversion to Pluto in Planet Comics 003 they end up passing Jupiter on the way, at which point they are forced to make landfall to avoid an attack by outer space organisms referred to as “stratosphere serpents” despite being more like starfish crossed with octopuses. While there, Flint and gal pal Mimi Wilson do a bit of exploring and discover…
(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…