If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by Bearshirt #3: The Tears of Y’Lala. Sword & Sorcery meets plant horror! Arthan becomes embroiled in an invasion of goblins who command the power of mutant plants. The were-bear must face off against green horrors to find the real mastermind behind the coming terror.
The vine/tree/flower/seed monsters keep on coming. Three Ages of Comics offer up more Horror, Space, Jungle and even funny animal titles featuring killer plants and super-scientific wonders. (The Jungle comics seem like a no-brainer for plant monsters, vines in particular, but they are actually quite unusual. Jann of the Jungle and Rex the Wonder Dog give us two this time around. For more on this, go here.)
I also noticed this time around that certain artists keep showing up. Jack Binder in the Golden Age and Gil Kane in the Silver and Bronze Age, drew plenty of viny horrors. This is partly due to working a lot but also being attracted to certain kinds of comics. Jack Binder had his own comics studio in the 1940s but eventually ended up drawing most of his brother Otto’s Mary Marvel stories for DC. Gil Kane drew a ton (usually inked by Bernard Sachs) for the Silver Age Adam Strange then went on to draw some vines and tentacles for Conan in the Bronze Age. Both men are important artists to Science Fiction and Fantasy comics.
Golden Age
“Horror House” (Shadow Comics #20, November 1942) was written by Walter B. Gibson. Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane go to the mansion of a rich recluse, Frew, looking into the strangling deaths of inventors. When they arrive, they find another. Turns out Frew has a python plant with coils as deadly as those of the snake. He should know. Thanks to the Shadow, he gets a taste of his own medicine at the end.
“Mary Marvel Crushes the Revolt of the Plants” (Wow Comics #21, January 1944) was written by Otto Binder. The Horrid Smoke Demon finds Mary and her friends camping in the woods. The demon makes the trees attack them, calling all plants to revolt. It is up to Mary Marvel to save them and banish the demon.
“Mysta of the Moon” (Planet Comics #37, July 1945) was written by Ross Gallun (house name). Mysta takes out an army of pod warriors by over-watering them.
“Hoppy the Marvel Bunny Plants Himself in a Greenhouse” (Fawcett Funny Animals #28, April 1948) Fawcett and the Captain Marvel Universe love plant monsters. Even Hoppy gets his turn to wrangle with some killer vines at a plant shop. After he defeats them, he gets fired by his new boss.
“The Hanging Tree” (Airboy v8#1, February 1951) has a tree filled with gold take on a sinister life through magic. The Heap snaps the entire plant in half. Plant versus plant.
“The Man of Moonlight” (Airboy #100, June 1952) was written by Ernest Schroeder and Ed Cronin. Lautrec uses a weird plant to turn himself into a shambling plant thing so he can kill his niece and nephew. The Heap shows up to pull his roots up.
“Don’t Count the Chickens” (Weird Fantasy #13, May-June 1953) was written by Al Feldstein. Little Teddy does an Audrey II, raising a weird seed into a flesh-eating monster. When the Germans invade he feeds the creature on their soldiers, allowing the thing to grow to huge portions. The American troops arrive and destroy it. Or do they?
Silver Age
Cover (Army and Navy Fun #77, September 1956)
“The Strange Seed” (Strange Stories of Suspense #13, February 1957) has a scientist, Mark Adams, discover a new seed from Africa. The plant can move away from heat, even show hate for the man who tortures it. Adams ends up with a gift from the specimen, a plant arm. If this had been a Golden Age story, he’d have had his head ripped off.
“Fangs of the Black Orchid” (Jann of the Jungle #16, April 1957) was written by Don Rico. Jann rescues a photographer who gets too close to the jungle’s man-eating flowers.
“Trail of the Jungle Amazons!” (Rex the Wonder Dog #36, November-December 1957) was written by John Broome. In one scene, Rex and his owner are attacked by killer vines. Rex rescues them.
“Fearsome Flowers” (Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #214, July 1958) was written and drawn by Carl Barks. Donald’s gardening bothers the nephews (He grows vines in their bikes and tennis rackets and stores bulbs in their bed.) They get him to give his green thumb a rest by buying some killer vines that terrorize him. No more gardening! Trust Carl Barks to draw the best plant monsters in the entire Silver Age.
“Professor Bleent in Africa” (Mad Magazine #45, March 1959) was written and drawn by Don Martin.
“The Secret of Planet X!” (Tales of Suspense #2, March 1959) has a space tyrant get a dose of his own medicine. He ends up on a planet where the humans serve their plant overlords.
“The Dancing Trees of Polaris Eight” (Mystery in Space #58, March 1960) was written by Gardner F. Fox. Ditmos uses his strange instrument that can make plants dance to have a tree attack a guard while he is busy spying. The music works on any kind of plant, turning it into a viny killer.
“The Robinson Crusoe of Space” (Adventure Comics #276, September 1960) was written by Otto Binder. This tale is mostly about robots. (It is an Otto Binder story after all.) But for two pages the robot encounters space plants that try to eat him.
“The Fantastic Flower Creatures” (The House of Secrets #38, November 1960) Strange pods produce giant plant worm monsters that go on a rampage. They stop their destruction when they flower, becoming beautiful blossoms.
“Dinner Time on Deimos!” (Journey Into Mystery #94, July 1963) was written by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber. A millionaire goes to the Martian moon of Deimos to make himself even richer. After he crashes, he find plants that try to kill him. He also finds the locals who have no use for money, surviving off a small bean crop. He is stranded for good and will have to join them.
“Carnivorous Plants” (Kona #13, January-March 1965) Inner cover filler about real carnivorous plants.
“Planet of the Outcasts!” (Action Comics #322, March 1965) was written by Leo Dorfman. This one starts with a fantastic, fast-growing plant but proves to be the work of Plant Girl. The rest of the story doesn’t have any foliage.
“Magenta Seven” (TV Century Annual, 1966) has a text story by an unknown author that features a giant space plant.
“An Alien Phobia” (Magnus the Robot Fighter #19, August 1967) was written and drawn by Russ Manning. Captain Johner and his alien companions encounter a strange plant that the aliens can’t endure.
“The Swots and Blots” (Smash & Pow! #138, September 1968)
Bronze Age
“Seed of Evil” (Dark Shadows #22, 1973) was written by Arnold Drake. Osmond Kalyustin brings Pod People to the greenhouse from the Florida Everglades. It is up to Quentin Collins to stop them with fire.
“The Potion” (Ghost Manor #25, September 1975) was written and drawn by Wayne Howard. The professor’s assistant wants to become super powerful so he drinks plant food and becomes a tree.
“The Creeping Menace” (Flash Gordon Annual, 1977) has Flash Gordon facing off against a giant plant invasion.
“Doppleganger” (2000 A. D. #52-55, February 18-March 11, 1978) was written by Gerry Finley-Day. Dan Dare stops an invasion of pod people. We get to see one guy being formed inside a pod.
“Just Like The One….” (Archie’s Giant Series Magazine #469, April 1978) This one has no real monster in it but Archie and Jughead are watching a killer plant movie at the drive-in. This freaks them out later when they see a plant that looks like the monster.
“The Planet of the Plants” (Walter Lantz’s Woody Woodpecker #168, August 1978) has Woody, Splinter and Knothead go to a distant planet in a spaceship built by an inventor. On the other world, they find intelligent plants. They bring home some of the aliens and win at the flower show.
“My Friend, My Killer!” (Flash Gordon #37, March 1982) was written by George Kashdan. Lost in the jungles of Mongo, Flash and his companions discover a lost city where they worship a false god. They are sent to the arena to die in the clutches of the Serpent Plants. Flash fights with a mace against the killer plants, knocking out the king with a thrown weapon. The people change their ways under a new ruler.
“The Gift” (The X-Men/Alpha Flight #2, January 1986) was written by Chris Claremont. Not an important element in this story but one of the mutants can use plants to hold back giants.
Conclusion
Here’s an ad that made the rounds in the Silver and Bronze Ages of comics. What reader of plant monster stories didn’t want one of these bad boys? And only a buck! My brother had one back in the late 1970s. I don’t think he got it from the back of a comic book though. I remember being mostly disappointed since the carnivorous thing was little different from my mother’s house plants. It did react to stimulating the trap, closing on your finger if you waited long enough. We tried to feed it dead flies but no go. In the end, I think it starved to death. All the same, it obviously had an effect on me and my love of man-eating plants.
Plants must have been fun for artists to draw.