If you missed the last one…
Fero, Planetary Detective was a short-lived character from Planet Comics #5-8 (May-August, 1940). Planet Comics was published by the same Pulp chain, Fiction House, that produced Planet Stories. Fero was an attempt to create a ghostbreaker character for the stars. The original writer was known as “Allison Grant”, a house name. The stories were either four or five pages long. The second installment might have been drawn by Gene Fawcette. The titles are mine.
The very first panel is a pretty good CV for Fero:
Fero, scientist of the Occult, super-detective of the nether-world, is the one man who can thwart the evil doings of vampires and werewolves, that have invaded the Earth from Pluto.
“The Werewolf of Pluto” (Planet Comics #5, May 1940) begins when the detective has a customer, Dr. John Wade. His daughter, Phyllis, disappeared three months ago, on the night his gardener was murdered. Since then, during the full moon, strange creatures haunt his home. Fero goes to the house on the moors to stake it out.
Wade goes alone to investigate when he hears his daughter’s voice. He is killed. When the werewolf comes for Fero, he shoots it. When Fero returns to the house he finds Phyllis. He plans to take her from the premises but a demon from Pluto shows up and tries to stop him.
Fero chokes the monster and leaves with the girl. A glowing light follows them, turns into a vampire. Again Fero fights the monster, throwing it over a cliff. It dies in the swamp below.
Pretty standard ghostbreaker stuff, with mention of Pluto being the only real difference. The werewolf and vampire are pretty easy to kill.
“The Alien King” (Planet Comics #6, June 1940) has Fero called in when the daughter of the Grand Council Man of Earth is kidnapped. Fero looks for clues. Jumping into his spaceship he flies off to “a strange Earth-like planet”. It is guarded by alien space bats.
There he finds the alien king. The monarch doesn’t hide his crimes. He shows Fero the kidnapped girl, Brenda. He will use her to sue for terms with Earth. Fero sneaks a message back to the Earth fleet, then executes his plan to rescue Brenda. The two of them take capsules that shrink them down to children size. The guards think they are local kids playing and ignore them. They escape.
While the Earth fleet fights a battle with the space bats, Fero captures the alien king.
The ghost buster angle has been abandoned for some Flash Gordon antics. Fero is little different than Buzz Crandell or Spurt Hammond now. The idea of shrinking to kid size was actually pretty good. Usually in stories they would shrink to mere inches, making the walk across the room a virtual hike.
“The Assassination of the King of Mars” (Planet Comics #7, July 1940) is a good old fashioned murder mystery. The King of Mars is discovered dead by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. Fero flies off for Gornnia, the capital of Mars. We get a peak inside his ship which is filled with strange devices including a projection machine.
Using this device, the ether shows what happened. The King was assassinated by a man. Just as he is about to pull off his mask, the Prime Minister smashes the machine “by accident”. Fero is given permission to do an autopsy on the king’s body. Dissecting his brain, he gathers an image of the killer. It is the PM, who has disappeared. Fero uses another device to track the villain through space. They arrive at Saturn.
There, he and Bud the guardsmen, capture the PM after a good punch up.
More Flash Gordon stuff. As a detective, Fero would be nothing without his gadgets. He didn’t even have the smarts to hold the Prime Minister while he did the autopsy.
“Detective Into Monster” (Planet Comics #8, August 1940) has an unknown assailant come to Fero’s office to kill him. (His name is Gimpy.) The detective steps on a button that blasts the man with a ray. Using special machines, Fero reads the man’s mind. He learns that Congressman Thompson is being “taken for a ride” to Jupiter. Fero and his new sidekick, Eric, race off in their rocketship to save him. They arrive just as the bad guys have thrown the captive out of their ship. Fero rappels down and gets the politician. The villains attack Eric in the ship, resulting in both ships crashing.
On the planet’s surface, the bad guys capture all three: Fero, Eric and Thompson. Fero talks the hoods into letting him build a new ship from the wrecks. It will only hold three people. Fero suggests drawing straws. When the ship is done, the bad guys pull guns. There will be no straws. Fero slips a pill that turns him into a monster.
As a giant he defeats the bad guys and the three good guys fly off the planet.
The last panel has Eric says: “Gee, Fero, a few more of your transformations and I’ll die of shock.”
Fero says: “Stick around, Eric. You’ll get used to me yet.”
Caption: “New adventures await Fero in the next issue of Planet Comics!”
Which proved to be untrue. The strip was not used again. The last incarnation of the shape-changing hero was never explored. And not surprising. The strip was never really the same twice, going from occult investigator to action hero to detective hero to shapechanger. This kind of bouncing around was common in the Golden Age. The comics “shops” tried out different ideas until they struck gold. Usually the ideas came from current newspaper comic strips or movies. Planet Comics had plenty of better slam-bang two-fisted characters and Fero quietly floated off into Pulp-Comic history. But for a little while we had a ghostbreaker of the stars…
Planet Comics are available for free from DCM.
Next time…The Ghost of Venus!
