If you missed the last one…
Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the garden, more plant monsters show up. I was surprised to find so many of them since I have catalogued over 200 so far. And that’s not even counting issues of characters like Swamp Thing or The Heap. The bounty of plants that want to kill you just keeps growing. This bouquet is a little different in that the writers are usually known. Most often with the Golden Age nobody remembers the poor sap who has to pen these green masterpieces. The authors are indicated where known. All others are unknown. As always, many of these comics are available free at DCM.
“Land Beneath the Sea” (Amazing Man #6, October 1939) was written and drawn by Frank Thomas. This was an episodic comic with Chuck and Jerry wandering in a strange land beneath the sea called Aquatania. They stop to climb a tree and find it has other ideas. Frank Thomas is not the same FT who worked for Disney.
“The Ivy Menace” (Amazing Man #6, October 1939) was written and drawn by Tarpe Mills. If one plant monster wasn’t enough, the very next comic gives you another! Professor Hampton out in New Jersey has a cat that starts a green armageddon. The plant covers the world but is destroyed with bombs.
“The Vampire Killer of Star City” (Marvel Mystery Comics #20, June 1941) was probably written by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. A blood-sucking fiend stalks the city. The Vision finds the diary of Dr. Rhonik and learns of his botanical experiments. Later he sets the plant man on fire. Nice!
“Super Snooper” (Police Comics #1, August 1941) was written and drawn by Gill Fox. Super Snooper is watching the apartment of Dr. M. Balm. The mad scientist sends him a flesh-eating flower. The papers report Snooper missing for seven days. It turns out he and the plant are playing cards.
“Mary Marvel Battles the Predatory Plants” (The Marvel Family #54, December 1950) was written by Otto Binder. A horde of cactus and other plants do a break-and-enter. Mary gets on their trail. Florist, Jack Joddy,is behind the robberies. Joddy feeds Mary to a man-eater but Mary Marvel explodes out and captures him.
“Ibis Battles the Plant Men” (Whiz Comics #134, June 1951) was written by Bill Woolfolk. Ibis saves a botanist friend at his greenhouse. He is being attacked by a plant man. Zarnak, the evil and mad scientist, is behind the attack. He drops the seeds of the green ones from a helicopter during a rain storm. The city is invaded by plant men. Zarnak gets a taste of his own medicine, when he is attacked. Ibis makes all the plant men disappear with his Ibistick.
“The Man Eater!” (Young Men #9, June 1951) starts with a botanist going into the jungle, searching for the legendary Garbanale. He finds it, enters it, thinking it is a cave. He ends up plant food. This one may have been inspired by Manly Wade Wellman’s “Gardinel”. Wellman wrote of the pitcher plant that looks like a house in his Pulp stories as early as Weird Tales, January 1946.
“A Mountain to Something” (Super Duck #38, June 1951) has Super Duck ignoring his girl friend’s desire to win a gardening contest and goes mountain-climbing. He runs into a talking thistle that he gives water. The flower pesters him and follows him home. Duck kicks him into the neighbor’s yard and she ends up winning the contest. Uwanna is not pleased.
“The Green Peril” (Airboy v8 #9, October 1951) has Dr. Cosgrove’s assistant, Graham, tending “the green peril”, a killer vine grown in soil from the swamp that created the Heap. Graham allows a cutting to escape. It goes on a rampage. Only the Heap can stop it. Plant monster versus plant monster. I don’t think even Swamp Thing ever did that! (Unless you consider that time he fought himself?!)
“The Farmers From Space” (Strange Adventures #27, December 1952) was written by Sam Merwin. Martians try to use the Earth to raise their red plants. The red invaders arrive in the form of a dry rain. A scientist destroys them by spraying them with chorophyll, the green pigment of Earth plants. Merwin, who I suspect was Sam Merwin Jr., former Pulp editor, probably got this one from H. G. Wells and his Red Weed in The War of the Worlds (1898). Merwin left editing or a couple years in 1952-1953 and lived by freelance writing.
“The Diet of Donald Moore” (Spellbound #12, February 1953) begins with milquetoast Donald Moore trying to improve his health. He develops a super-chlorophyll formula that turns him into a healthy plant.
“Tarzan and the Man-Eating Tree” (Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #43, April 1953) was written by Gaylord DuBois. Tarzan journeys to a lost city where the inhabitants worship the giant plant, Kalachar. He frees the people from slavery to the plant and the high priest ends up a meal for the vined horror.
“Invasion From Venus” (Space Adventures #6, May 1953) has New York of the 26th Century invaded by giant Venusian plants. The invasion is courtesy of Drox, Viceroy of Venus. The attack fails because Drox doesn’t realize the ocean is salty. Talk about not doing your homework! Rex points out if the invasion had been in Detroit it would have succeeded because the Great lakes are fresh water.
“The Killer Plant of Pal-U-Don” (Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan #68, May 1955) was a back cover filler. I don’t remember any plant monsters in Pal-U-Don. (ERB experts, prove me wrong.)
(The Adventures of Bob Hope #36, December 1955-January 1956) is right on the border between the Golden Age and the Silver. Bob Hope’s comic fits quite nicely into the Silver Age’s new Comics’ Code policy (notice the stamp on the cover) . This comic length tale has Bob face off against at least three different monster plants. The plot, as usual, has Bob chasing a girl. This one is rich and her daddy has carnivorous plants. Some strange little guys with feathered headdresses appear to take a plant back to their master. This turns out to be daddy, who has gone broke because of a blight in Africa.
Conclusion
As always the long history of plant monsters before the comics hangs over these stories. Pulp writers like Otto Binder and Manly Wade Wellman wrote for Pulp magazines that borrowed from H. G. Wells and Frank Aubrey. By 1955, Bob Hope is making fun of the whole idea of man-eating plants. The plant monster surely belongs in the Valhalla of Monsters along with Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man.
Next time…Return to the Silver and Bronze Age!
