The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: alien

  • 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 051

    A disappointingly humanoid bunch of aliens today.

    Gigantians:

    The Gigantians of Gigantia are the kind of advanced society who like nothing more than to gas on about how primitive and backward Earth is to space travellers like Rocket Rooney and his pal, but are still content to have a hereditary monarchy. True to their name, they are super huge in their natural state but have the good graces to shrink themselves down whenever their Earth visitors show up. (Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

    Inhabitants of Starergo:

    Though the Gigantians are a benevolent and technically advanced super species who live in a perfect society, they are frequently beset by various enemies who want nothing more than to utterly destroy them and who give them the opportunity to demonstrate their benevolent and advanced weapons systems – one might almost believe that they enjoy the opportunity to blast some of the nonenlightened now and again. 

    These include the inhabitants of Starergo, who attack them on the same day every year and have done so for the past one thousand years, and even though the attack always ends in a Starergoan defeat, this does not deter them. We never actually see one of the inhabitants of Starergo, but the fact that their planet’s name is “ogre rats” backward possibly indicates something of their character. (Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

    Merzoatics:

    The Merzoatics are another in the seemingly endless list of species who want the Gigantians dead, and since their attack is entirely ground-based (they have tanks and artillery in addition to the swords and pikes pictured here) we must assume that they are also native to Gigantia. This does not, alas, help them avoid the rays to the Gigantians’ paralysis ray cannon. (Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 004, 1941)

    Martians:

    These Martians are from the year 3090 CE or thereabout, which means that it is reasonably probable that they are descended from Earth colonists rather than being native to Mars. Whatever their origins, they have let a bald jerk named Pytho rise to power and convince them to enact aggression on the peoples of Mercury, a situation which continues until Pytho is undone by the efforts of the heroic Planet Payson. (Planet Comics 006, 1941)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 051

    A disappointingly humanoid bunch of aliens today.

    Gigantians:

    The Gigantians of Gigantia are the kind of advanced society who like nothing more than to gas on about how primitive and backward Earth is to space travellers like Rocket Rooney and his pal, but are still content to have a hereditary monarchy. True to their name, they are super huge in their natural state but have the good graces to shrink themselves down whenever their Earth visitors show up. (Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

    Inhabitants of Starergo:

    Though the Gigantians are a benevolent and technically advanced super species who live in a perfect society, they are frequently beset by various enemies who want nothing more than to utterly destroy them and who give them the opportunity to demonstrate their benevolent and advanced weapons systems – one might almost believe that they enjoy the opportunity to blast some of the nonenlightened now and again. 

    These include the inhabitants of Starergo, who attack them on the same day every year and have done so for the past one thousand years, and even though the attack always ends in a Starergoan defeat, this does not deter them. We never actually see one of the inhabitants of Starergo, but the fact that their planet’s name is “ogre rats” backward possibly indicates something of their character. (Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

    Merzoatics:

    The Merzoatics are another in the seemingly endless list of species who want the Gigantians dead, and since their attack is entirely ground-based (they have tanks and artillery in addition to the swords and pikes pictured here) we must assume that they are also native to Gigantia. This does not, alas, help them avoid the rays to the Gigantians’ paralysis ray cannon. (Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 004, 1941)

    Martians:

    These Martians are from the year 3090 CE or thereabout, which means that it is reasonably probable that they are descended from Earth colonists rather than being native to Mars. Whatever their origins, they have let a bald jerk named Pytho rise to power and convince them to enact aggression on the peoples of Mercury, a situation which continues until Pytho is undone by the efforts of the heroic Planet Payson. (Planet Comics 006, 1941)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 050

    ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 050

    All these fictional aliens and we don’t even get one other inhabited planet in our solar system.

    Moon-Men:

    These Moon-Men are encountered by Phantasmo (seen here in his less-nude human identity) and his pal Whizzer McGee during an impromptu trip to the Moon. They live deep beneath the satellite’s surface and appear to have a mining-based culture that is pretty hostile to outsiders, and that is all we know. While I must commend the “Phantasmo” team for not automatically making every alien race fluent English speakers or gifted telepaths, it does make for a more limited mode of storytelling. “Why are the Moon-Men mad at us, Phantasmo?” “No idea.” (The Funnies 060, 1941)

    Inhabitants of Ru:

    These very humanoid Martians are encountered by Flint Baker and his convict crew upon making the historic first second rocket voyage to Mars. They very specifically inhabit Ru, which is either the name of their country or the entire Light Side of Mars, and are a peaceful society in that sci-fi way that means that they are completely unable to deal with threats. Flint is thus required to save them from both the Earthman Sarko (late of the actual first manned mission to Mars) and then the diabolical Creature and his monster. (Planet Comics 001, 1940)

    One-Eyed Monster Men of Mars: 

    And speaking of Sarko, his plan to conquer Ru revolves around the One-Eyed Monster Men who inhabit the (non-existent) Dark Side of Mars. Though they are intensely fun-looking creatures, the One-Eyed Monster Men don’t get a lot of character development in the course of the story due to being mere foot soldiers and also possibly mind controlled.  (Planet Comics 001, 1940)

    Martians:

    As the “Spurt Hammond, Planet Flyer” series is at least initially set in the year 40 000 CE, there is a strong possibility that both the Martian and Venusian peoples pictured above are descended from some long-ago human colonists. Heck, that might just be the best backstory to explain a planet of warlike Martians or of peaceful Venusians who name their kids things like “Amoura:” because they have built their societies around the cultural assumptions and legends that tie into their planets. (Planet Comics 002, 1940)

    Despite the fact that Spurt Hammond managed to resolve the conflict between Prince Khangiz of Mars and Queen Amoura, Venus was clearly subject to some sort of political upheaval because just four issues later the planet is ruled by Queen Veloptan. Perhaps Amoura was determined to be just a bit to on-the-nose, even for Venus. (Planet Comics 006, 1940)

    Venus is another one of those conflict-averse pacifist societies, and just two issues later they are turning to Spurt Hammond once more. This time the entire planet is swiftly becoming uninhabitable and the population are forced to become refugees, prompting this array of Plutonian, Saturnian and Jovian rulers doing their best impressions of WWII 20th Century most world leaders throughout modern history. And as a bonus: a new Martian leader named Kaga! (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 049

    Yesterday we met Tuk, caveboy of the year 50 000 BCE. Today we meet all the various humanoids and hominids that populate his world.

    Shaggy Ones:

    The Shaggy Ones are a kind of Missing Link-style ape man species that we don’t really get too much of a sense of because Tuk’s foster father Ak is the very last one. If we extrapolate the whole species out from him, Star Wars-style, they were a fairly altruistic species, if a bit given to mysticism. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    Hairless Ones:

    “Hairless Ones” is not exactly a species, but a catch-all category for human-style hominids used by ape-style hominids like Ak, and therefore by Tuk. The first Hairless Ones we meet are Tuk’s parents Phadion and Rhaya, exiles from the fabulous city of Attilan and therefore retroactively Inhumans. For our purposes today we will count them as Hairless Ones, however.

    Phadion is almost immediately skewered while defending his family from a woolly rhinoceros. Ak takes Rhaya and Tuk back to his home and worships Rhaya as a goddess for several years until she is killed by a lion.

    Hairless Ones also encompasses other hominids such as Tuk’s Cro-Magnon companion Tanir. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    Goreks:

    The Goreks, who “worship stone and eat brains” are somewhere between Shaggy and Hairless, I suppose. They serve as low-level antagonists for Tuk to overcome with the help of his new friend Tanir. I really dig their Caveman Viking aesthetic – sadly they only show up the once. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    the Hairy Ones:

    A different kind of man-ape than the Shaggy Ones, the Hairy Ones very briefly menace King Amir and his subjects (yet another population of Hairless Ones, natch) in the landlocked city of Crete (!!!) before being routed by Tuk and Tanir. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    the Witches of Endor:

    Yet another group of Hairless Ones, the Witches of Endor live in a valley that is naturally filled with soporific vapours and add to their numbers by scarring captives’ faces with acid. As with the city of Crete, this is another interesting example of a thing from moderate antiquity (the Biblical Witch of Endor is historically tied to c.1100 BCE from what I can gather) transposed into comic set in 50 000 BCE. 

    Given my experience with Jack Kirby’s later work, I imagine that this is intended to be a kind of pre-legendary ancestral origin story for these things rather than a flattening of history in which everything sufficiently old existed at once, but filtered through the limits of Golden Age comic storytelling and Kirby’s own inexperience. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    Atlanteans:

    Speaking of which: after escaping from the Witches of Endor, Tuk and Tanir escort their fellow former captive Princess Eve back to her home, the City of Atlantis. The first time I read this I thought that it might have been the place that Tuk’s parents came from, but no, just like the contemporary Marvel Universe, both Atlantis and Attilan are extant.

    The Atlantean people are yet another group of Hairless Ones. They’re running around in at least the Bronze Age while the rest of the world is just coming to grips with stone. They are also an absolute monarchy, which Tuk and Tanir have to help Princess Eve wrest back from her evil uncle. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    Cave People:

    Finally, we have some traditional, full-on cavemen. These guys are oppressed by the wicked Bonzo the Brute until Tuk and Tanir take a hand and slay him. (Captain America Comics 004, 1941)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 049

    Yesterday we met Tuk, caveboy of the year 50 000 BCE. Today we meet all the various humanoids and hominids that populate his world.

    Shaggy Ones:

    The Shaggy Ones are a kind of Missing Link-style ape man species that we don’t really get too much of a sense of because Tuk’s foster father Ak is the very last one. If we extrapolate the whole species out from him, Star Wars-style, they were a fairly altruistic species, if a bit given to mysticism. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    Hairless Ones:

    “Hairless Ones” is not exactly a species, but a catch-all category for human-style hominids used by ape-style hominids like Ak, and therefore by Tuk. The first Hairless Ones we meet are Tuk’s parents Phadion and Rhaya, exiles from the fabulous city of Attilan and therefore retroactively Inhumans. For our purposes today we will count them as Hairless Ones, however.

    Phadion is almost immediately skewered while defending his family from a woolly rhinoceros. Ak takes Rhaya and Tuk back to his home and worships Rhaya as a goddess for several years until she is killed by a lion.

    Hairless Ones also encompasses other hominids such as Tuk’s Cro-Magnon companion Tanir. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    Goreks:

    The Goreks, who “worship stone and eat brains” are somewhere between Shaggy and Hairless, I suppose. They serve as low-level antagonists for Tuk to overcome with the help of his new friend Tanir. I really dig their Caveman Viking aesthetic – sadly they only show up the once. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    the Hairy Ones:

    A different kind of man-ape than the Shaggy Ones, the Hairy Ones very briefly menace King Amir and his subjects (yet another population of Hairless Ones, natch) in the landlocked city of Crete (!!!) before being routed by Tuk and Tanir. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    the Witches of Endor:

    Yet another group of Hairless Ones, the Witches of Endor live in a valley that is naturally filled with soporific vapours and add to their numbers by scarring captives’ faces with acid. As with the city of Crete, this is another interesting example of a thing from moderate antiquity (the Biblical Witch of Endor is historically tied to c.1100 BCE from what I can gather) transposed into comic set in 50 000 BCE. 

    Given my experience with Jack Kirby’s later work, I imagine that this is intended to be a kind of pre-legendary ancestral origin story for these things rather than a flattening of history in which everything sufficiently old existed at once, but filtered through the limits of Golden Age comic storytelling and Kirby’s own inexperience. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    Atlanteans:

    Speaking of which: after escaping from the Witches of Endor, Tuk and Tanir escort their fellow former captive Princess Eve back to her home, the City of Atlantis. The first time I read this I thought that it might have been the place that Tuk’s parents came from, but no, just like the contemporary Marvel Universe, both Atlantis and Attilan are extant.

    The Atlantean people are yet another group of Hairless Ones. They’re running around in at least the Bronze Age while the rest of the world is just coming to grips with stone. They are also an absolute monarchy, which Tuk and Tanir have to help Princess Eve wrest back from her evil uncle. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    Cave People:

    Finally, we have some traditional, full-on cavemen. These guys are oppressed by the wicked Bonzo the Brute until Tuk and Tanir take a hand and slay him. (Captain America Comics 004, 1941)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 048

    Gosh! How alien they are!

    Frog-Men:

    These two Frog-Men cause trouble for Sub Saunders when they steal his ship for a little joyriding/ piracy session. They are undone by the fact that neither of them know how to drive, and are ultimately head-konked into submission after crash landing. What this tells us about Frog-Man society is unclear – if this were a Star Wars then the Frog-Men would end up being a race of car thieves, of course, but most societies don’t work like that. (Fantastic Comics 021, 1941)

    Martians:

    Today’s selection of Martians is going to include some classic design elements! First we have this species represented by the very helpful Darek. Darek is based on the old Speculative Evolution version of a Martian, with spindly limbs due to the lower gravity and huge ears and lungs to aid in hearing and breathing in a thin atmosphere. As a bonus, he’s also from a Mars that is covered in some classic canals, and has a hint of an interesting culture and mythology thanks to some early Jack Kirby writing. And of course he is green. A true classic Martian in many ways. (Crash Comics Adventures 003, 1940)

    Martians:

    These Martians aren’t quite as cool as the previous ones, but the ruddy tint to their skin is a real classic design element for aliens from the Red Planet. I also appreciate that they look a bit like Space Elves wearing little green hats. If “Space Smith” was still being created by Fletcher Hanks when they appeared I might speculate that they were of the same species as the Brain, but I can’t in good conscience do so now. Besides, even Hanks’ version of Mars supports multiple humanoid species.

    As a bonus, these Martians help Space Smith and Dianna defeat an attempted invasion of the Solar System by an extrasolar group called the Generals of Capella. We never actually learn much about these guys due to the fact that they attack with the aid of remote controlled meteors called “sandblasts,” but when has that ever mattered: they’re going on the list. (Fantastic Comics 009, 1940) 

    Martians:

    For our final Classic Martian Design Element, we have these warlike Martians dressed in futuristic Roman gear! The connection between the planet Mars and the god Mars has dramatically extended the reach of the brush-topped helmet in fiction over the years, and given us countless Martian aggressors to boot.

    These particular Martians are hell-bent on claiming the interior of one of the Living Planet Monsters as their own, for some reason, and the fact that they attack the human colonists who are already there is especially egregious because they don’t actually want to be there, they just got eaten. This unreasonable aggression is enough to make Saber, the Spy Fighter (there to rescue the Earth colonists) use his mega-powers to grow enormous and turf the entire Mars contingent out into the void of space. (Fight Comics 010, 1940)

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 047

    ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 047

    It’s more of those dastardly (and not-so-dastardly) aliens!

    Zutarians:

    One day while on a trip to visit his magic brother in-law who lives on the sun, the Golden Knight and Alice are thrown off course and crash on planet Zutarn, where they are picked up by some friendly-yet-threatening Zutarians. As is often the case in Golden Age comics, the exact location of Zutarn is not stated – for bookkeeping reasons I’m going to say it’s in an unspecified star system, but it’s equally likely to have been intended to be somewhere within our own.

    The dichotomy inherent in the friendly nature of the Zutarians versus the fact that they take our heroes away at gunpoint is soon explained when it is revealed that their leader Tyrno is an Earthling and a real underhanded creep tyrant. Just how did a 12th Century human get to another planet, let alone take it over? Did one of his siblings marry a magic spaceman as well?

    Just how or why Tyrno is King of Zutarn becomes moot, because he attempts to murder the Golden Knight and marry Alice against her will, and in the process finally pushes the Zutarians a bit too far and so they murder him. I imagine that they must have been pretty close to doing so already, but their naturally hospitable natures finally had too much as Tyrno proved himself a bad host in addition to a tyrant. (Fantastic Comics 020, 1941)

    In Amazing Mystery Funnies 022 (aka Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 006 for all those who like their issue numbering to be consistent), Nick Nelson of the Space Patrol infiltrates a seedy space casino in order to get the goods on its owner’s misdeeds. As is only appropriate, the place is jam-packed with criminal types from across the Solar System, including:

    Jovians: 

    We have actually seen these fellows before, in the previous issue of Amazing Mystery Funnies and also about 37 instalments of “Aliens and So Forth” ago, in the person of the Haggur. I am strangely proud of Basil Wolverton for remaining so consistent with an alien design, even if it was from just one issue earlier.

    Martians: 

    Case in point: these two Martian space bandits. Just how are they related to the Martian species that Nelson’s partner Kodi (who was in this comic not two pages earlier) belongs to, you reckon? I am very intrigues by this disc game that they are playing – do you reckon that it is closer to cards or dominoes?

    Mercurians: 

    And then by contrast with the Martians, we have the Mercurians, who absolutely look like they are part of the same species as the one who we met last time, but who are members of a different regional phenotype.

    Saturnians: 

    I am not fond of just how lumpy this guy is. Maybe it’s a side effect of the drug smuggling and all Saturnians don’t have to deal with this much texture in their lives.

    Venusians:

    We don’t get a good look at these Venusians. They kind of look like smoother Mercurians – perhaps the two species are related somehow. 

    Plutonians:

    The owner of the casino is a fellow named Jol the Plutonian, and while he is a dirtbag of the highest order he doesn’t handle Nelson as well as he could. Rather than merely kick the Space Patrolman out of his establishment (he literally has no evidence), he attempts to have him killed, fails and gets into a high-speed space chase that ends with him crashing into the Moon and dying. Very uncool.

    Like many Wolverton aliens, Plutonians are just kind of lizardy humanoids with weird facial features, but I must say I enjoy the tentacle arms.

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 047

    ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 047

    It’s more of those dastardly (and not-so-dastardly) aliens!

    Zutarians:

    One day while on a trip to visit his magic brother in-law who lives on the sun, the Golden Knight and Alice are thrown off course and crash on planet Zutarn, where they are picked up by some friendly-yet-threatening Zutarians. As is often the case in Golden Age comics, the exact location of Zutarn is not stated – for bookkeeping reasons I’m going to say it’s in an unspecified star system, but it’s equally likely to have been intended to be somewhere within our own.

    The dichotomy inherent in the friendly nature of the Zutarians versus the fact that they take our heroes away at gunpoint is soon explained when it is revealed that their leader Tyrno is an Earthling and a real underhanded creep tyrant. Just how did a 12th Century human get to another planet, let alone take it over? Did one of his siblings marry a magic spaceman as well?

    Just how or why Tyrno is King of Zutarn becomes moot, because he attempts to murder the Golden Knight and marry Alice against her will, and in the process finally pushes the Zutarians a bit too far and so they murder him. I imagine that they must have been pretty close to doing so already, but their naturally hospitable natures finally had too much as Tyrno proved himself a bad host in addition to a tyrant. (Fantastic Comics 020, 1941)

    In Amazing Mystery Funnies 022 (aka Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 006 for all those who like their issue numbering to be consistent), Nick Nelson of the Space Patrol infiltrates a seedy space casino in order to get the goods on its owner’s misdeeds. As is only appropriate, the place is jam-packed with criminal types from across the Solar System, including:

    Jovians: 

    We have actually seen these fellows before, in the previous issue of Amazing Mystery Funnies and also about 37 instalments of “Aliens and So Forth” ago, in the person of the Haggur. I am strangely proud of Basil Wolverton for remaining so consistent with an alien design, even if it was from just one issue earlier.

    Martians: 

    Case in point: these two Martian space bandits. Just how are they related to the Martian species that Nelson’s partner Kodi (who was in this comic not two pages earlier) belongs to, you reckon? I am very intrigues by this disc game that they are playing – do you reckon that it is closer to cards or dominoes?

    Mercurians: 

    And then by contrast with the Martians, we have the Mercurians, who absolutely look like they are part of the same species as the one who we met last time, but who are members of a different regional phenotype.

    Saturnians: 

    I am not fond of just how lumpy this guy is. Maybe it’s a side effect of the drug smuggling and all Saturnians don’t have to deal with this much texture in their lives.

    Venusians:

    We don’t get a good look at these Venusians. They kind of look like smoother Mercurians – perhaps the two species are related somehow. 

    Plutonians:

    The owner of the casino is a fellow named Jol the Plutonian, and while he is a dirtbag of the highest order he doesn’t handle Nelson as well as he could. Rather than merely kick the Space Patrolman out of his establishment (he literally has no evidence), he attempts to have him killed, fails and gets into a high-speed space chase that ends with him crashing into the Moon and dying. Very uncool.

    Like many Wolverton aliens, Plutonians are just kind of lizardy humanoids with weird facial features, but I must say I enjoy the tentacle arms.

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 046

    ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 046

    Good lord! Aliens!

    Mupha’s Species:

    Mupha, ruler of the undersea Land of Peril, is the kind of creep who sends his subjects to kidnap women to become his queen. This eventually brings him into conflict with underwater adventurer Sub Saunders -not because Sub is looking for kidnappees but because he happens to pass by the Land of Peril and makes Mupha nervous enough to open fire on his submarine.

    As Mupha appears to have only two subjects we must assume that either a) his species is nearly extinct (which explains his quest for a mate but does not excuse it) or b) the Land of Peril is a breakaway group from a larger population somewhere, political exiles, perhaps, because of their pro-kidnapping policies. In either case, the group does not survive its encounter with Sub Saunders. 

    Also please note their stylish hooves, a very unusual feature in an aquatic species. (Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

    Martians:

    The only example of this particular Martian species who we meet is Kodi, partner to Nick Nelson in the Space Patrol. At least, I think so. See, much like the adventures of Spacehawk, “Space Patrol” is a Basil Wolverton comic, and one thing that Basil Wolverton liked was drawing all kinds of different weird-looking aliens. So while Kodi is the only big-headed orange Martian who we see in the course of the series, there are also a variety of other Martians in a range of colours and shapes and who’s to say whether they aren’t all the same species? (Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 012, 1939)

    Spider Men:

    While there are also a variety of different Venusians depicted in the pages of “Space Patrol,” I am pretty confident in my assessment that they are unrelated to the Venusian Spider Men. Encountered by Nick and Kodi as they pursue a fugitive into the deep jungles of Venus (Tropical Jungle Planet being one of the old sci-fi paradigms for the planet), the Spider Men are presented as relentless predators of intelligent humanoids. They also look great, even better than my beloved Martian Spider-Men. Imagine: a whole species of balding men with unkempt beards!

    The Spider Men manage to drag Nick Nelson back to their cave home (where we learn that they are tool users!) but are ultimately no match for the Space Patrol’s various beams and rays. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 012, 1939)

    Mercurians:

    While looking into the disappearance of a space freighter and its cargo of green diamonds, Nick and Kodi track its location to a volcanic crater on Mercury, where the ship’s pilot has murdered the rest of the crew, stolen the diamonds and dumped the ship itself into a lava pit, with the aid of a crew of Mercurian Mole-Men. As is so often the case in a sci-fi story, our impression of an entire species must be formed by the actions of one of its worst members, and we simply must assume that this kind of theft and murder is atypical, or however would our nameless villain have gotten his job in the first place?

    As for the Mole-Men, they don’t get a lot of characterization beyond the fact that they are “the savage inhabitants of the underground regions,” but as always I do enjoy Wolverton’s use of morphological similarities (specifically the ears, nose and especially feet and legs) to show that they and our Mercurian friend evolved from some common ancestor. Plus it’s hard not to love a cave-full of little glaring goblin-men. 

    The Mercurian gets a bit to smug about the fact that he has Nick and Kodi at his mercy and manages to nearly blow his own head off with a phenomenally bad shot. I do not like his knees, but I do like that horde of rampaging Mole-Men.

    Having made their way back to their ship, Nick and Kodi decide to just skip the tedious parts of the legal system (arrest, trial, state-mandated punishments, etc) and skip straight to the execution. A few well-placed atom bombs and the volcano takes care of both the Mercurian and the Mole-Men for them. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 003, 1940)

    (very similar Mercurians are featured in Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 006, 1940)