The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Monster

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 055

    More aliens? Just how many more can there be?

    Fantasans:

    When time/space traveller Whiz Wilson visits Earth of the year 4400 CE, he finds that it is being bombarded by comets originating from the far-off planet Fantasa. Going there with the aid of his trusty Futuroscope, he learns that Molla, the rightful ruler of Fantasa, has been deposed by the wicked Gorano and that Gorano has a fanatical (and unexplained) hatred of humanity that is his reason for the comet attack. One quick Futuroscope-aided counter-coup later and Fantasa is back in more peaceful hands and Earth is safe. (Lightning Comics v2 003, 1941)

    Mercurian Cave-People:

    The very first outer space adventure of the Space Rovers sees them taking an unexpected rocket trip and being forced to make a landing on Mercury to get their bearings. Once they disembark they discover that the fire caused by their landing has been taken as a sign that the local deity (the Fire God, God-Style: Animistic) is angry and demands sacrifice. Ted and Jane pitch in to save the poor sacrifice, and in a rare happy ending for such people she gets to haul ass across the river to marry a dude named Kulu. (Exciting Comics 002, 1940)

    Mercurians of Thian:

    Having ruined the sacrifice, Ted is next up for being burned at the stake, and to make matters worse, Jane is hauled off by a giant bird (which turns out to be called a Mercurian Roc) before she can free him.

    Ted manages to free himself, and the two both end up in the city of Thian, which is populated by a second kind of Mercurian who are possessed of more advanced technology than the Cave-People but who look absolutely terrible. They aren’t even particularly good hosts, as can be seen here when they drug and capture the Star Rovers before the main course arrives.

    And just what is the reason that these Mercurians had for treating their guests so rudely? Because they only live for twenty years and they need people from more long-lived species to study (i.e. vivisect) so that they can live to a somewhat riper old age. 

    Since these particular tests subjects are space heroes, things go poorly from here. Head Scientist Flaedo gets electrocuted, the Star Rovers escape on Roc-back and the Mercurians of Thian hopefully reconsider their commitment to scientific ethics. (Exciting Comics 002, 1940) 

    Mercurians:

    Time adventurer Stuart Taylor and his companions Dr and Laura Hayward encounter this society of possibly human-derived Mercurians when they voyage to the year 4000 in pursuit of a man named Rogro who has stolen Dr Hayward’s time technology. The major difference between Mercurians and humans is the fact that the former all have “synthetic blood” which makes them vulnerable to extreme heat and must be quite inconvenient for someone living on what is generally acknowledge to be a pretty hot planet.

    Though the Mercurian society seems peaceful when they arrive, things go south quickly once Rogro promises the Mercurian king that he can engineer new blood for everyone if he can use the blood inside of Stuart and his friends as raw materials. The time travellers only survive the resulting riots by smashing up the protective dome over the Mercurian city (and note the fact that the writer now says that the Mercurians have a problem with oxygen instead of heat. Why? Who knows). (Jumbo Comics 019, 1940)

  • MONSTER, CRITTER AND CREATURE ROUND-UP 003

    I hope everyone likes monsters as much as I do because there are a whole lot of them to cover.

    Beaked Tyros:

    When polar explorer Anthony Conrad gets lost in an Arctic storm and falls through a hole in the pack ice, he reasonably expects to meet his demise. Instead, he falls into the subterranean kingdom of Artica and is chosen by the elderly Artican king – also a stranded former surface explorer – as his successor. 

    As part of the coronation process, Anthony must prove his mettle to his prospective subjects, and step two of that process is Thrilling Arena Combat with the horrible beaked tyros “Lord of Artica’s Jungles,” and I love this thing. Though it looks like just another low-rent carnosaur at first glance, upon closer examination it has many bizarre features, including weird bird legs, thin, unpleasant-looking teeth, radially-symmetrical hands that are possibly equipped with suckers on the palms, and skin that is described as “hairy” in the caption box. Truly this is a strange and wonderful beast that sadly must be chopped up in service to the story. (Cyclone Comics 001, 1940)

    the Beast:

    When asked to prove his worthiness to wed the Princess Ahloo, our hero Abdallah knows exactly what to do: ride directly to a nearby valley full of dinosauroids and slay one of them. Though one of the pteranodon-adjacent flying reptiles that confront him when he enters the valley would probably be sufficient to satisfy Ahloo’s father, Abdallah instead opts to battle a creature referred to only as the Beast, a possibly-fire-breathing, possibly-carnivorous sauropodoid that give him a truly heroic-level challenge. And it works! He gets the girl! (Funny Pages v2 003, 1937)

    the Birds:

    These vulture-monsters come very close to destroying the Blue Bolt on his very first adventure. They are only prevented from doing so, in fact, because they work for the Green Sorceress and she has become infatuated with Our Hero here on sight.

    I’m always a big fan of these kinds of monster birds that up the ante on deadliness by throwing most of the birdliness of the creature out the window and instead give them the body plan of a griffin. Really great stuff and my only note is that some of the tails are very unpleasant to look at. (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

    Bolu:

    Meg and Mickey are two children who have access to a magical time-travel stone and use it to just kind of blunder around throughout history. In this particular instance they have ended up in the Stone Age and are only saved from being eaten by some uncharitable portrayals of our collective ancestors by the appearance of a dinosaur, called Bolu by the cavemen and of course far, far more out of place than two 20th Century kids could ever hope to be. There is some indication that the bolu was summoned by the Spirit of the Stone to save the two from becoming dinner, but if that’s the case then why do the cavemen already know about it? (The Comics 007, 1938)

    Carnicantileia:

    The swamp-dwelling carnicantileia briefly menaces Flip Falcon and his associates during one of his early adventures when he mostly uses his fantastic time-and-space machine to go to Mars. It’s a pretty impressive snake-style beast, and as such it’s a real shame that it is killed in such a goofy way, by having a big rock thrown down its gullet. (Fantastic Comics 003, 1940)

    Carnivoplant:

    The carnivoplant is a classic man-eating plant, subtype seaweed, that almost kills adventurer Kinks Mason before it in turn is preyed upon by a swarm of phosphomites. And just what are phosphomites, you may ask? Contextually, they are small glowing creatures that eat carnivoplants, and that is all the information we get. (Fight Comics 001, 1940)

    Cave Monster:

    Modern day cowboy hero Bull’s-Eye Bill and his companions meet this cave reptile while pursuing an outlaw, and as I previously observed, it was clearly meant to set up an adventure into a prehistoric underground world that subsequent creators chose not to take advantage of. 

    As for the one beast that we do get to see fight some cowboys, I really appreciate how lizardy it looks, as well as how it seems to be posing for maximum dramatic effect in every panel, even when killing a guy or writhing around in its death throes. (Target Comics v1 007, 1940)

    the Ozix:

    Someday
    when I post a picture of a creature that is just a big cat with some extra stuff stapled onto it in one of these round-ups I will be able to refer to it
    as a standard type of creature, but I simply haven’t done the work yet.
    The ozix, then, is a beast with the body of a leopard and the head of a
    crocodile – how novel a concept! Adventurer Congo Jack must slay this
    one during his adventures under the earth. (Lightning Comics v2 002,
    1941) 

    Dakk:

    Returning to the adventures of King Anthony in the sub-Arctic world of Artica, here we see him as he is about to tour his kingdom on the back of a domesticated dakk, and I must say that I like the very beast-of-burden look that they have given to this creature’s head. Sadly, this particular dakk has been poisoned as part of an attempt to assassinate the new king.

    This assassination attempt is only partially successful, as Anthony survives the fall into the jungles of Artica but is then placed in further peril at the claws of the various creatures that live there, such as this amazing giraffe-patterned water lizard.

    Though he escapes the lizard, Anthony is almost immediately attacked by a great horned tigrid, which is is of course a regular tiger with two little horns on its head, and another example of what I was talking about in the ozix entry.

    Finally, after stumbling upon the roots of the conspiracy against him and dealing with them violently, King Anthony makes his way home on a humble unicorn. (Cyclone Comics 003, 1940) 

    the Storm Monster:

    A giant reptilian beast that plagues an African village on a yearly basis (during a huge storm, natch), the Storm Monster meets its end after swallowing Kaänga whole, upon which he carves his way free of its guts with his trusty knife. (Jungle Comics 021, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 971: THE MONSTER

    (Fantastic Comics 023, 1941)

    The comic opens in media res, as a (the) Monster bursts into the hotel room of art critic Iona Hall and carries her off into the night. Cut to the Gorman Art Gallery the next day, where we see… Iona Hall!?

    As you might have guessed, this isn’t the real Iona Hall, and “famous art connoisseur” Dan Kenneth spots this when he is introduced to the false Hall by gallery owner Gorman. When Kenneth attempts to discover the reason for this imposture, however, he and the repentant fake are attacked by gun-toting goons and have to engage in a thrilling chase, and then, when he is able to ask the question a second time, the Monster shows up and carries away the double in the same manner as the original.

    It’s such a weird situation that Kenneth can’t even convince the police to look into it lest he be thrown in the drunk tank for challenging their view of reality. He simply has to adopt a new identity as the vigilante Gladiator in order to knock the beast out and discover just what the heck is going on.

    So what the heck is going on? It’s perfectly simple: art collector Craven has a painting by the great artist Velasquez and wants to have both it and some more money. To that end here is his plan:

    1. Bring in art critic Iona Hall
    2. Kidnap Hall as the Monster
    3. Replace Hall with lookalike June Starr
    4. Have his crony Gorman sell the painting at auction
    5. Buy his own painting for less than it’s worth
    6. Ask Dan Kenneth to give the painting the once-over for him
    7. As the Monster again, steal the painting from Kenneth
    8. Hold Kenneth responsible for the loss of the painting
    9. Collect the money from Kenneth and enjoy it while the painting hangs in his home.

    Some flaws in this plan include:

    1. Iona Hall seems to be completely superfluous to the plan, unless she is there to authenticate the painting
    2. Even if this is the case, kidnapping and replacing Hall is only necessary if the painting is fake, which it isn’t
    3. June Starr is an unwilling accomplice who acts against the plan at least three times – an unkidnapped Iona Hall is far preferable
    4. The auction is completely unnecessary if Craven openly owns the painting – just ask Kenneth to clean it for you
    5. Plus you’ve driven down the price by buying it cheap. Perhaps they sold it for the amount that they thought that they could get out of Kenneth, in which case they chose the wrong scam and they should have been doing:
    6. Insurance fraud. The scam they should have been pulling was insurance fraud

    All in all I must assume that Craven was just too excited about his cool monster suit and came up with a plan that allowed him to use it a couple of times, because that is the only lens through which this scheme makes a lick of sense.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Personal Transport – Robotic Exoskeletons), Animals (Monsters), Narrative Footballs (Misc Origin Story Guys) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 971: THE MONSTER

    (Fantastic Comics 023, 1941)

    The comic opens in media res, as a (the) Monster bursts into the hotel room of art critic Iona Hall and carries her off into the night. Cut to the Gorman Art Gallery the next day, where we see… Iona Hall!?

    As you might have guessed, this isn’t the real Iona Hall, and “famous art connoisseur” Dan Kenneth spots this when he is introduced to the false Hall by gallery owner Gorman. When Kenneth attempts to discover the reason for this imposture, however, he and the repentant fake are attacked by gun-toting goons and have to engage in a thrilling chase, and then, when he is able to ask the question a second time, the Monster shows up and carries away the double in the same manner as the original.

    It’s such a weird situation that Kenneth can’t even convince the police to look into it lest he be thrown in the drunk tank for challenging their view of reality. He simply has to adopt a new identity as the vigilante Gladiator in order to knock the beast out and discover just what the heck is going on.

    So what the heck is going on? It’s perfectly simple: art collector Craven has a painting by the great artist Velasquez and wants to have both it and some more money. To that end here is his plan:

    1. Bring in art critic Iona Hall
    2. Kidnap Hall as the Monster
    3. Replace Hall with lookalike June Starr
    4. Have his crony Gorman sell the painting at auction
    5. Buy his own painting for less than it’s worth
    6. Ask Dan Kenneth to give the painting the once-over for him
    7. As the Monster again, steal the painting from Kenneth
    8. Hold Kenneth responsible for the loss of the painting
    9. Collect the money from Kenneth and enjoy it while the painting hangs in his home.

    Some flaws in this plan include:

    1. Iona Hall seems to be completely superfluous to the plan, unless she is there to authenticate the painting
    2. Even if this is the case, kidnapping and replacing Hall is only necessary if the painting is fake, which it isn’t
    3. June Starr is an unwilling accomplice who acts against the plan at least three times – an unkidnapped Iona Hall is far preferable
    4. The auction is completely unnecessary if Craven openly owns the painting – just ask Kenneth to clean it for you
    5. Plus you’ve driven down the price by buying it cheap. Perhaps they sold it for the amount that they thought that they could get out of Kenneth, in which case they chose the wrong scam and they should have been doing:
    6. Insurance fraud. The scam they should have been pulling was insurance fraud

    All in all I must assume that Craven was just too excited about his cool monster suit and came up with a plan that allowed him to use it a couple of times, because that is the only lens through which this scheme makes a lick of sense.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Personal Transport – Robotic Exoskeletons), Animals (Monsters), Narrative Footballs (Misc Origin Story Guys) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 871: THE MONSTER

    (Zip Comics 002, 1940) 

    Mr Satan is summoned to the charmingly-named Shadow Pond to solve a series of disappearances among a group of scientists who have secluded themselves there. Upon arriving he immediately finds himself in the middle of an attack by a humanoid monster (the Monster, of course. Annoyingly, it is never once referred to as the Monster of Shadow Pond, which would be a pretty great name). He manages to pull a young woman away from the attack and is shortly thereafter introduced to the cast of characters at Shadow Pond:

    Professor Heaslip: Mr Satan’s client and the de facto leader of the scientific group.

    Mrs Heaslip: the Professor’s younger wife, recently rescued from the clutches of the Monster by Mr Satan.

    John Heaslip: the Professor’s brother, a scientist in his own right. Narrowly avoided being killed by the Monster in its first attack.

    Blake: Scientist and acquaintance of Mr Satan. Blake gets mentioned a fair amount throughout the story but only makes one appearance. Probably killed by the Monster.

    Richards: Scientist. Killed in the first attack by the Monster.

    Slade: Scientist. Killed in the attack that Mr Satan witnessed.

    Unnamed Scientist: Killed at some point by the Monster.

    Is someone in this motley crew actually the Monster? Not the dead ones, obviously. 

    Mr Satan does some investigating and is himself almost killed by the Monster. In the process he discovers that the scientists’ missing bodies are caught in a whirlpool beneath the surface of the pond, explaining why they have not surfaced.

    A plan to kill the Monster with a bomb goes awry when the device, built by John Heaslip, goes off without warning and almost kills both his brother and Mr Satan

    This explosion provides Mr Satan with the final key to the puzzle: he tracks down the conveniently-not-at-the-site-of-the-explosion John and Mrs Heaslip and confronts them with the truth: this whole affair has been about the illicit love that they share. The Monster was born out of an attempt to murder Professor Heaslip so that his widow and brother could be together (and also so that they could steal his radium ray, a device that literally had not been mentioned before it was revealed to be a motivation for murder, and which I think was added late in the game to make the story a bit less sordid). A sad and grubby resolution indeed.

    We also get to see the full Monster getup, and while some of the other diving-suit-modified-to-look-like-sea-monster examples we have are a bit more monstery, this might just be the best looking weird diving suit. Lust look at that eye stalk/periscope!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 871: THE MONSTER

    (Zip Comics 002, 1940) 

    Mr Satan is summoned to the charmingly-named Shadow Pond to solve a series of disappearances among a group of scientists who have secluded themselves there. Upon arriving he immediately finds himself in the middle of an attack by a humanoid monster (the Monster, of course. Annoyingly, it is never once referred to as the Monster of Shadow Pond, which would be a pretty great name). He manages to pull a young woman away from the attack and is shortly thereafter introduced to the cast of characters at Shadow Pond:

    Professor Heaslip: Mr Satan’s client and the de facto leader of the scientific group.

    Mrs Heaslip: the Professor’s younger wife, recently rescued from the clutches of the Monster by Mr Satan.

    John Heaslip: the Professor’s brother, a scientist in his own right. Narrowly avoided being killed by the Monster in its first attack.

    Blake: Scientist and acquaintance of Mr Satan. Blake gets mentioned a fair amount throughout the story but only makes one appearance. Probably killed by the Monster.

    Richards: Scientist. Killed in the first attack by the Monster.

    Slade: Scientist. Killed in the attack that Mr Satan witnessed.

    Unnamed Scientist: Killed at some point by the Monster.

    Is someone in this motley crew actually the Monster? Not the dead ones, obviously. 

    Mr Satan does some investigating and is himself almost killed by the Monster. In the process he discovers that the scientists’ missing bodies are caught in a whirlpool beneath the surface of the pond, explaining why they have not surfaced.

    A plan to kill the Monster with a bomb goes awry when the device, built by John Heaslip, goes off without warning and almost kills both his brother and Mr Satan

    This explosion provides Mr Satan with the final key to the puzzle: he tracks down the conveniently-not-at-the-site-of-the-explosion John and Mrs Heaslip and confronts them with the truth: this whole affair has been about the illicit love that they share. The Monster was born out of an attempt to murder Professor Heaslip so that his widow and brother could be together (and also so that they could steal his radium ray, a device that literally had not been mentioned before it was revealed to be a motivation for murder, and which I think was added late in the game to make the story a bit less sordid). A sad and grubby resolution indeed.

    We also get to see the full Monster getup, and while some of the other diving-suit-modified-to-look-like-sea-monster examples we have are a bit more monstery, this might just be the best looking weird diving suit. Lust look at that eye stalk/periscope!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 836: MORGANA LE FAY

    (Top-Notch Comics 009, 1940) 

    It’s another version of Morgan le Fay, less than two weeks after the last one! Will le Fay end up being the mythic/fictional character with the greatest number of comic book interpretations? Possibly!

    This version of Morgan le Fay, Morgana le Fey, is after revenge on Galahad for the death of her husband the Knight of the Griffin and so sends out squads of knights to find him and bring him back to be tiger food. Unfortunately for her, her knights are pretty unprofessional and fail to question the fact that the “Galahad” that they capture is unusually scrawny and meek and in fact turns out to be Garlan, Galahad’s squire, doing a bit of roleplay while his boss is asleep.

    Once the real Galahad shows up, Morgana’s men prove to be as inadequate at combat as they are at knight-identification and she is forced to play her trump card: the Monster. An eight-foot tall green guy who looks like he just stepped out of a science fiction comic, the Monster proves to be a match for Galahad and his horse.

    Lucky for Galahad, Garlan is on-hand to save the day by delivering the poorly-named magic sword Scabor to him as he and the Monster are battling in the depths of Morgana’s moat. It’s a heroic act for the lad, and it really underscores how terrible it was when he was captured earlier in the story and Galahad did not go after him because he was late for a meeting.

    Presumably Morgana le Fay would have continued to vex Galahad going forward, but the series ends while she is planning her next move. 

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 019

    MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 019

    Science for all! Whether they want it or not! 

    Doctor Ivan has been pursuing a scheme in which he is systematically taking out insurance policies on everyone he knows and then having them murdered, and he is extremely smug about it. Now, I’m no expert in insurance fraud, but I have to say that I am certain that it requires a bit more subtlety than that, even if you’re doing it as a one-off. Forget the fact that the Flame shows up after the third murder; I would expect some raised eyebrows down at the insurance company after the second. (The Flame 003, 1940)

    Dr Gung is an old associate of magical arch-criminal Elena, and is the one who saves her from execution after the Karoly Gore affair by means of some death-simulating drugs. 

    Gung’s main line of inquiry is the use of his signature ray to destroy men’s minds and turn them into mindless robot soldiers, something that works perfectly well on regular guys sourced from the nearby populace but when tried on Mr Mystic goes badly enough that Dr Gung ends up shrunk to a few inches tall and then blown to smithereens along with his entire mansion. (The Spirit Section, 23 June 1940)

    Ghantse is one of those mad scientists who talk a lot about their grand plans but don’t actually get a chance to put them in motion, so it’s a real mystery whether he actually would have been able to fuse several human brains together into a single entity who would “know all” like he claimed or not, but he sure was willing to try. Along the way, he made two major mistakes: 1) targeting Mr Mystic for brain extraction and 2) somehow ending up with the Shadowman, the literal embodiment of death, on his payroll, the latter being compounded by the fact that the Shadowman hates Ghantse’s guts, and so not only releases Mr Mystic from his chemically-induced paralysis before Ghantse can extract his brain but also blows Ghantse’s entire base to kingdom come. (The Spirit Section, 22 September, 1940)

    Doctor Zorn, an eccentric roboticist living on Puerto Rico, is possibly the world record holder for escalation, as he manages to go from an argument about a late loan payment to unleashing his voice-controlled super robot (aka the Monster) to activating his lab’s self-destruct mechanism in the space of about half an hour. 

    Given that this is what he started shouting immediately after showing off his robot to a young woman, I do suspect that Doctor Zorn was primed for this kind of thing and was just looking for an excuse, like a man who has just bought a katana standing in his kitchen. (Thrilling Comics 005, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 649: THE MONSTER

    (Funny Pages v4 008, 1940)

    Betty Thomas is the recipient of the sort of inheritance that seems to be aimed at causing trouble: her uncle Henry has left her a fortune, provided that she is of sound mind thirty days after the will reading. If she isn’t, the money goes to a secondary inheritor. This is of course the cue for someone to employ a huge hook-handed goon and start a nightly campaign of terror designed to drive her out of her gourd, and the entire rest of the Thomas clan are suspects! Is it sarcastic bad boy Bob Thomas? Crime novelist George Thomas? The sinister unnamed housekeeper? Surely it couldn’t be the saintly Dr Freman Thomas?

    It is of course the saintly Dr Freman Thomas, who like his employee the Monster learns the hard way that the Arrow doesn’t cotton to gaslighting in his New York.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 649: THE MONSTER

    (Funny Pages v4 008, 1940)

    Betty Thomas is the recipient of the sort of inheritance that seems to be aimed at causing trouble: her uncle Henry has left her a fortune, provided that she is of sound mind thirty days after the will reading. If she isn’t, the money goes to a secondary inheritor. This is of course the cue for someone to employ a huge hook-handed goon and start a nightly campaign of terror designed to drive her out of her gourd, and the entire rest of the Thomas clan are suspects! Is it sarcastic bad boy Bob Thomas? Crime novelist George Thomas? The sinister unnamed housekeeper? Surely it couldn’t be the saintly Dr Freman Thomas?

    It is of course the saintly Dr Freman Thomas, who like his employee the Monster learns the hard way that the Arrow doesn’t cotton to gaslighting in his New York.