(Planet Comics 001, 1940) Zan lives on the far-off planet Volcus and uses the energies of its magnetic core to power his spaceship fleet and capture yet more spaceships. And why does he do this? Why, so that he can turn their crew into science zombies and eventually amass an army large enough to conquer the universe! (he also has this one lady with him at all times and I’m not sure what her role is exactly because she does…
(Planet Comics 001, 1940) We’re in the 1940 run of Planet Comics now, so look out for a fair few of space tyrants with one-word nonsense names. Like Sarko here! Sarko is an Earth man who came to Mars in 1933 and set about conquering the dark side of the planet. Now it’s the near future and Sarko has his sights set on taking over the remainder of Mars and the light-side city of Ru in particular. The… Ruvians? No…
Heaven help me, I looked forward to the 1950s issues of Planet Comics to see what the Gale Allen feature ended up like and boy oh boy do I regret it. It’s one thing to only read comics from 1940, but seeing the improvements to the form after a decade or so makes it hard to go back. But I must soldier on! Happy New Year! Infographics: A conceptual drawing of a spaceship and some speculative facts about space travel…
If they’re real then why are they in a comic book? Anastacio Somoza GarcĂa: The Shield meets with the President of Nicaragua and as per usual the artist did not bother to check what the President of Nicaragua actually looked like. (Pep Comics 006, 1940) Clark Gable: Boxer Kayo Ward stars in a movie (“Hot Lips and Hot Fists,” a riff on 1933’s “The Prizefighter and the Lady” starring real-life boxers Primo Carnera, Max Baer and Jack Dempsey) and the…
(Pep Comics 010, 1940) A vile villain known as the Tarantula is extorting the young wealthy women of London and then murdering the ones who don’t pay up, and Inspector Bentley is on the case after two significant pieces of evidence fall into his lap: the latest body is left on the steps of Scotland Yard and then the latest extortion attempt is made against Deborah Morgan, whose father went to school with Bentley’s boss and you can’t beat the…
Buncha mooks this time. The ship that picked up scientist-adventurer Dean Denton and his pals from the island of Baron Blood just so happened to have a pseudo-Nazi spy (fake name Lieutenant James, code name K-192, real name unknown) committing murders on it for unclear reasons. Despite composing a crime scene to contain nothing but clues pointing to other members of the crew Denton rounds him up pretty quickly. (Masked Marvel 003, 1940) Pilot Prop Powers has to defend his…
(Pep Comics 008, 1940) It’s an old story, even this early in the history of comics: someone has developed a method for mass murdering people and is attempting to use it to extort money from a city, or else. In this case that person calls himself the Master and that method is some sort of electrical wave. The Comet of course is not cool with this kind of blatant super-villainy, particularly as he is still trying to rebuild his reputation…
(Pep Comics 007, 1940) The Press Guardian’s only recurring villain, the Claw has what can only be described as an eclectic career: In his first appearance he’s a sort of freelance spy chief working to aid the I-assume-European country of Shironia in its attempt to conquer neighbouring Lanfia by committing acts of sabotage in the US and framing Lanfia as the perpetrator so that America will withdraw its support of Lanfia. The Press Guardian exposes the scheme and sends the…
(Pep Comics 006, 1940) A man working in a London steam plant dies by falling into an industrial furnace. A horrible thing to happen! Why am I showing you this horrible thing? I am showing it to you because it is not in fact a horrible accident but a horrible murder, and we know that because the murderer left a horrible little bit of doggerel in order to crow about what he did, and he signed it “Vulcan.” Our old…
(Pep Comics 005, 1940) The Man-Monster of London, aka Monk, doesn’t actually play that big a part in the plot of this Bentley of Scotland Yard story. I mean, he’s in a lot of it, but he doesn’t have a lot of volition of his own. In brief, the Rajah of Inrak (which is probably meant to be an Indian province or kingdom and not a whole country of its own) is in London to discuss some sort of treaty…