What’s the difference between a monster, a creature and a critter? Never you mind.

Devil Flower:

These carnivorous plants are cultivated by the spy Mister K for use in assassinations and in a classic payoff the carnivorous plant grower eventually becomes carnivorous plant food. (More Fun Comics 068, 1941)

Giant Octopus:

Not only is this giant cephalopod a great example of the octopus giant humanoid head but its attack on Navy Jones and Princess Coral serves as a meet cute moment for them and their dear companion Captain Nemo as he gallantly swoops in to save the day. Plus it’s all scaly! (Science Comics 005, 1940)

King Lizard:

When giant lizards attack a peaceful New Mexico village and carry off two children, the Bird Man is all over it. He tracks the creatures to a cavern in the mountains and finds that the kids are about to be devoured by an even gianter lizard that the story refers to as the “king” but given the trends observed in nature is much more likely to be the queen.

Whatever the creature’s proper title is, the Bird Man and his arrows prevail over it and he takes the children home to their family, but not before a very charming typo refers to the beast as “King Wizard.” (Weird Comics 002, 1940)

Klang:

The wicked Dr Scowl, claiming to have been friends with the creepo scientist who originally shrank Minimidget and Ritty, captures them in order to figure out exactly how his old pal had managed to do so. When the duo object to this and start making a bid to escape, Scowl unleashes his own magnum opus, the anthropoid chimera Klang, to sort them out.

The superstrong dullard vs plucky small guy conflict resolves as it always does in fiction: with the small guy coming out on top. Sadly for Klang, this involves him being set on fire and taking his creator down with him into the depths of Hell. (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941)

Krakan:

The second giant octopus of the round-up is this fairly true-to-life critter called the Krakan and employed by the undersea monarch Neptina as a means of execution during her time as a tyrannical villain. The Krakan almost gets poor Gakk here before being driven off by Neptina’s sister Mhersa, before her time as a tyrannical villain. (Champion Comics 005, 1940)

Kraken:

If the spelling of the Krakan above bugged you, well here’s the real deal: the Kraken, a “giant cuttlefish, 1000 years old!” and capable of tossing back a sperm whale in a single bite. Like our first octopus above, this one is basically just a human head with tentacles coming out of its neck. This one even has nostrils!

The kraken has the misfortune of choosing undersea adventurer Typhon’s ship the Tarpon as its prey after finishing with that whale and learns the same lesson as so many other giant octopoids: no matter how big and rubbery you are you can’t compete with modern (or indeed futuristic) artillery. (Weird Comics 007, 1940)

Lightning Dragons:

Deployed as part of a campaign by the people of the Electric Planet against our Solar System, the lightning dragons make trouble for the inhabitants of Venus only briefly before being wiped out by spaceman Don Granval. They look extremely cool up to that point, however. (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

Lunar Land Squid:

This lunar land squid is responsible for the disappearance of Moon Post 83 (seen above as a collection of gruesome skeletons in its weird guts, and almost does the same for Buzz Crandall and his pal Sandra when they come to investigate. I really enjoy the arrangement of eyes on this fellow, and I also wonder just what the heck it’s finding to eat on the Moon to get so big.

Once again vehicular weaponry proves to be the downfall of a cephalopoid.

Buzz and Sandra also encounter these keen moon bats during their investigation, and I just think they look great. I particularly love the teeny tiny little forearm just visible on the frontmost bat. Maybe these guys are what the squid eats, but then what do they eat? (Planet Comics 003, 1940)

Man-Eating Orchid:

Mulletted hero Jungleman and his pal Louise spend a number of issues just kind of wandering aimlessly around the South Pacific in search of Louise’s missing father, and this portion of their journey sees them wash up on an unnamed South Seas island where Louise is immediately almost eaten by a plant. Like the devil-flower above, these man-eating orchids are being cultivated by gangster Bat Bunsen in hopes of profiting off of their deadly tendencies, and like Mister K he ultimately falls prey to his own plants. I really appreciate the fact that these ones are just full of skeletons, by the way.

The island of the orchids also features sundry prehistoric lifeforms, such as Bat Bunsen’s caveman subjects and these pterodactlyian flying lizards.

It is also home to the varanus, a huge man-eating lizard that even the mighty Jungleman is keen to avoid tangling with. (Champ Comics 011, 1940)

Martian Arena Monsters:

During the last few issues of the “Doc Strong” series, Doc and his pals are spirited away to Mars and tossed into an arena for the viewing pleasure of the weirdly decadent Martians.

Arena Monster A here is the one we get the best look at, and I really like the effect of putting that slender cobra bead on such a beefy body, even if it does seem to have rendered it extra vulnerable to strangulation.

Doc and Alice here are pulled out of the arena by the King of the Martians (aka Earthling Stinky Jones) before Monsters B and C here can do more than menace them, and while I like B’s rhino/mammoth aesthetic, C is clearly the best monster. It reminds me of nothing so much as the decision to make a class of monsters in Dungeons & Dragons 4e that were called “dire” and were just bigger, spikier versions of regular animals. This right here is a dire lion.

As fun as the arena monsters are, however, the design triumph of the issue is clearly these Martian beasts of burden that are the tortoise/giraffe mashup that we never knew that we needed. (Blue Ribbon Comics 009, 1940)