*smacks hood of post* You’ll never believe how many monsters, critters, creatures – and more! – we can get into one of these things!

the German Invasion Wall:

Are ludicrous war machines like this technically creatures? No, but I like them and they are close enough to giant robots that I will shelve them here rather than make up a whole other kind of post to put them in.

The German Invasion Wall is just what it sounds like: an enormous (c. 8-10 stories and of an unknown length) wall mounted on tank treads and bristling with artillery. The idea appears to be to push forward into disputed territory and fortify it against counterattack at the same time, and it is possibly the most ridiculous war machine that I have ever seen. It is deployed just once, during the attempted Nazi invasion of Alslavia, where it is destroyed by the Human Torch and Toro. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 022, 1941)

That same invasion also sees the Germans deploy this undersea fortress that is designed to surface suddenly and destroy whole fleets via sneak attack and is likewise sunk by the Human Torch.

the Green Monster of Ungah:

Fu Chang’s pal Dan Barrister is pitted against this mysterious humanoid during their campaign against the priests of Khwass, God of Vengeance. he’s an intriguing character and I wish I had more to say about him but so far as I can tell the conclusion to this story was never printed and so these two panels are our only glimpse of the Green Monster. We don’t even learn who or what Ungah is. (Wonderworld Comics 016, 1940)

the Green Serpent:

Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle faces the Green Serpent as part of a series of fetch quests he goes on to help some scientists – the scientists have contracted a disease after opening an Ancient Egyptian tomb and have sent Tabu to a lost Egyptian kingdom to find the antidote, which they in turn won’t hand over until they get the Green Serpent’s eye. The obvious thing about this beast is that it is much more of a dragon than a snake, but the interesting thing is the fact that it is resistant to even repeated applications of Tabu’s most potent killing magics and so he has to kill it by gruesomely ripping its jaw apart before he can take its eye. (Jungle Comics 008, 1940)

the Headless Headhunter:

The Headless Headhunter is one of Fletcher Hanks’ weirder creations. Supposedly the “hugest giant in the Universe,” which given the relative sizes of it, Stardust and de Structo’s head above appears to mean that it is about 20 feet tall or so, the Headhunter lives in the Space Pocket of Living Death and is just looking for a head to call its own. Does it normally consume the heads that it places on its shoulders or is that all Stardust’s doing, and if the latter, is the intent ordinarily to use the head as a head or as some sort of grotesque fashion accessory? Many questions remain. (Big 3 002, 1940)

the Hoogi:

When Rex Dexter gets his own comic book, his origin gets a slight tweaking. His former Earth lover Cynde becomes his childhood friend/rival and fellow Mars-Human, and their meet-cute (or equivalent for when you already know one another) is when Cynde ventures into the cave of the reptilian Hoogi on a self-administered dare and Rex must rescue her.

This new origin also gives a new reason for Rex’s near-superhuman physical abilities: rather than merely “it’s because he grew up on Mars” he now also has a childhood of drinking Martian Cow milk to thank for his muscles. I love the Martian Cow. It’s a wonderful example of the school of alien animal design that just starts with an Earth animal and swaps out/ adds on parts until it looks weird enough. (Rex Dexter of Mars 001, 1940)

Horned Mammoth:

We are never given an exact idea of just how big the hidden Asian plateau that contains the Diamond Empire is, but it must be positively enormous, seeing as how it is not only the site of several other (if smaller) kingdoms but also has enough wilderness area to support a population its very own elephant subspecies. Sadly, we never learn just what the horned mammoth’s horn is used for. (Pep Comics 007, 1940)

Hornosaur:

The hornosaur is just one of the many, many enormous monsters that infest the jungles of Uranus. This particular hornosaur has has the brain of mortally wounded Plutonian spacecop Captain Dakk placed inside of it by Spacehawk. I really appreciate Basil Wolverton’s ability to make a creature that is equivalent to a tyrannosaurus Rex without merely drawing a t-rex and putting antennae on it.

The only other named Uranian creature in this story is this jungle bat, which comes very close to devouring Captain Dakk before getting its head mashed in by Spacehawk. Please note its extremely weird wings.

The megafauna of Uranus, seen here running rampant over a pirate city, seems to follow the same “alien dinosaur” body schema as the hornosaur, with a lot of Wolvertonian flourishes such as that one guy’s sucker-covered neck thrown in for good measure.

Lest you accuse me of being biased in favour of big critters, here are a few of the horrible green-brown beasts that skitter in the Uranian undergrowth. (Target Comics v1 010, 1940)

Hosaurus:

The Golden Knight has a short and deadly encounter with this beast in the cave system beneath his ancestral lands. It’s just trying to take a nap in a cave when he comes along an starts pulling on its horn, and frankly I think that it was very reasonable in getting mad at him for this.

That same cave system is also home to these very fun flying reptiles that don’t fare much better than the hosaurus but were at least the ones to start the fight in the first place. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Huge Scorpions:

Jumping back in time, here is the Golden Knight in a different cave, somewhere in North Africa this time, battling some suspiciously spider-like giant huge scorpions as he attempts to discover the source of a regional curse. Whatever evolutionary pressures have caused these guys to become so huge have really done a number on their physiology: no tail, long whippy legs, spinnerets… it’s gotta be wild in there.

The traditional second monster that Sir Richard encounters in this cave is a coiling python, which I think is intended to just be a regular python but which is moving around in a way that would make a herpetologist seriously raise their eyebrows if I’m any judge, so I’m going to count it as a creature. (Fantastic Comics 004, 1940)

Zarno:

I mentioned back in the entry on Devalo that there is a thread of Saturn = Satan running through the popular culture of the early Twentieth Century if nothing else, and the very satanic-looking Devalo, ruler of Saturn, is not the only example of this in the comic in which he appears. For instance, there’s this Zarno, which is devilish in a much more Jersey Devil kind of way and which attacks Rocket Riley and his party the instant that they touch down on the Saturnian surface.

These harpy vampires (aka harpy bats) don’t really contribute to this thesis, but they are very creepy. Like the zarno, they meet their ends at the hands of Rocket Riley and his ice ray gun.

And finally: some giant leeches. (Rocket Comics 002, 1940)