If you missed the last one …
With over four hundred plant comics already it is pretty hard to find more. I’ve had to go to the Fourth Dimension to do this with most of these comics. I’m not sure what it is about the Fourth Dimension, like alien planets, but there is always some kind of man-eating plant there. As you will see, several of these storylines involve people going to or reaching into some other dimension only to find killer herbage.The idea of crossing over to some other reality is as old as H. G. Wells, a writer who created his own killer vine in “The Flowering of the Strange Orchid” (Pall Mall Budget, August 2, 1894). And Wells was far from being the first to do so. For dimensional crossing, he gave us The Time Machine (1895) of course, but also tales like “The Plattner Story” (The New Review, April 1896).
Wells inspired another generation of SF writers in the Pulps. Perhaps it is the Pulp tradition that can more truly be found in these comics. I mean, look at this line-up: Edmond Hamilton, Gardner F. Fox, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman and Sam Merwin Jr. All veterans of the SF Pulps, these men easily adapted the tropes of killer plants to new stories. Is there any wonder why I’ve found so many comics with deadly trees, vines, flowers and slimes and fungi?
Golden Age
Most of these new entries are from the Golden Age, when writers and artist were willing to throw just about anything into a comic. Nothing is too weird for the comics between 1938 and 1954.
“In Two Billion A. D. Part 1-2” (Detective Comics #23-24, January-February 1939) was written by Jerry Siegel. Slam and his pal, Shorty, use a time ship to go into the future. There they are taken prisoner and to be executed when they meet a plant man. He uses a deadly flower, drawn gun style from a holster, to take out a guard. The men from the past escape back to their time. The plant man has a pumpkin for a head.
“War in the Fourth Dimension” (Blue Bolt #5, October 1940) was written by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. The Green Sorceress gets possession of a Necronomicon-like book of spells. She uses it to create a killer tree called the Dream Plant. It attacks Blue Bolt who defeats it with his incredible strength. He discovers the thing is filled with the skeletons of its victims. Blue Bolt captures the sorceress but she disappears in a green cloud.
“Fourth Dimensional Follies” (All-Flash #24, August-September 1946) was written by Robert Kanigher. The Flash has to deal with thieves armed with a super-science pair of pliers that can pull things from the Fourth Dimension. For a page or two this includes a vine that tries to kill the retrievers. It is only a moment in a longer story.
“The Invisible World” (Green Lantern #22, October-November 1946) was written by Henry Kuttner. Unlike SF writers Otto Binder and Gardner F. Fox, Henry Kuttner did not stay long in the comic writing business. He did pen this Green Lantern tale during his short stay. GL and his sidekick, Doiby Dickles, become small and enter a world inside a fish bowl. There they discover the tree people that say “XAGLCPLP!” The trees are in a war with the Microns, weird gray-colored creatures. The Microns are starving because the tree people keep eating their food. Their answer is to grow the trees large enough to enter the normal world. GL solves the day by introducing dirt to the microworld for the trees.
“Siege of the Rykornians” (Wonder Woman #25, September-October 1947) was written by Joye Hummel as Charles Moultain. Wonder Woman, Etta and the Holliday Girls face off against a field of invading corn people. WW scares off the invasion with a giant machine that will pop those kernels. The Rykornians think it is a monster and leave the planet for good.
“Captain Marvel Jr. Fights the Cosmic War Dust” (Captain Marvel Jr #93, January 1951) was written by Bill Woolfolk. A cloud of cosmic dust causes entire planets to fall into war and destroy themselves. Freddy tries to save a plant race but fails. Earth is the next in line for destruction. Captain Marvel Jr. figures out the dust is magnetic and uses a giant magnet to pull it away. Earth is saved. The idea of killer space cloud goes back to M. P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901) and Arthur Conan Doyle The Poison Belt (1913).
“Spawn of Venus” (Weird Science #6, March-April 1951) was written by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein. An expedition to Venus encounters strange Venusians plants including a green slime monster. When the astronauts return to Earth they discover they have brought the slime with them. It threatens to cover the earth so the thing is destroyed with a nuclear bomb. Too bad all that fall out is smaller bits of slime, each ready to grow in size!
“Heroes Out of Time!” (Mystery in Space #3, August-September 1951) was written by Manly Wade Wellman as Robert Starr. When Anne Rell invents a time machine, she uses it to pull famous people out of the past. One of these is Doctor Indigo Maylor. He has found a way to give plants intelligence. He sends his giant carrots on a rampage to get even for his being hanged as a witch in 1760. Anne must pull Napoleon and Ben Franklin from the past to help defeat him.
“Vixens of Venus” (Space Adventures #3, November 1952) was written by an unknown author. The Vixens of Venus invade the Earth, first by planting Venusians plants to support the giant insects that will help take over. The Earthmen pull blades of grass from the strange garden to use as swords. The plants in this story aren’t the usual man-eaters but they are unusual.
“Circle of Death” (Weird Horrors #5, December 1952) was written by an unknown author. Switching gears from SF to Horror, Stacey Coulton goes to the old family home where a circle of trees promises evil. His uncle has called him home but Stacey only wants to find a hidden treasure. He digs in a forests where the trees look like they have faces on them. The trees claim him even as he is overjoyed about the money. Stacey, like his uncle, becomes a ghost and fades away.
“Rescue Through the Fourth Dimension” (Mystery in Space #22, October-November 1954) was written by Sid Gerson. In an attempt to rescue the prince of the planet Xtar, a dangerous tentacle plant from the dark side of the planet gets loose in the lab where the fourth dimensional machine is kept. Bert Brandon is allergic and sneezes on the thing, killing it. This is an episode in a story that isn’t really about plants. It is one of the few plant monster stories that acknowledges allergies.
Silver Age
The Silver Age doesn’t produce as much here but we do see how writers like Edmond Hamilton work old ideas into superhero comics.
“The Earth-Crawlers” (Journey Into Mystery #57, March 1960) A giant tree threatens to take over the planet after an African witch-doctor curses the men who have come to his land. An inventor defeats the plant by using restricting its water. He then begins to think of a way to machine that harnesses nagging wife’s voice.
“Will the Star Rovers Abandon Earth?” (Strange Adventures #159, December 1963) was written by Gardner F. Fox. This long interstellar search tale has an incident where Karel lands on the planet Xar and is attacked by an Azuranian tree. She evades it by stepping onto red rocks where the tree won’t go. The plant then sprays her with blue bubbles that cause her skin to turn blue. Karel can never return to Earth but must remain on a heavy gravity planet because of this infection. Later, Doctors on the Moon cure her.
“The Super-Stalag of Space!” (Adventure Comics #344, May 1966) was written by Edmond Hamilton. A long tale about an interstellar prison but it features Plant Lad’s first appearance. The boy can turn himself into a red blossom with green tentacles. He got this ability after being infected by spores. The scientists of his world feared if he stayed a plant too long he would remain one. The character was replaced by the less interesting Chlorophyll Kid.
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age seems a great distance from those old Wonder Woman pieces but even superheroes of the 1970s can still find a plant here or there.
“Let There Be Darkness” (The Flash #237, November 1975) was written by Denny O’Neil. The Green Lantern comes to the planet Zerbon to deal with the Olys. They are creating a barrier in space to cut off the planet’s sunlight. This field of gathered asteroids will kill the plant-people of Zerbon, taking away their food source. GL destroys the barrier but makes an enemy of the Olys.
Conclusion
As always, I don’t know if I will find more killer plants as I look through old publications. Odds are I will. They are out there, lurking, ever-growing, ever-ready to grab an unsuspecting victim in a Horror comic, to challenge the might of any superhero, or simply crawl out of some nether dimension to fry our imagination. The success of the TV show The Last of Us (and the video games it came from) pretty much guarantees there will be new comics filled with fungus horrors for us to enjoy. Because everything old is new again it seems. The Ruins (2008) certainly proved that with people shocked at bloodsucking vines in a pyramid even though Clark Ashton Smith wrote the same thing back in 1933. Evergreen. How appropriate an expression here.
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