If you missed the last one….
Science Fictional Horror tales have their own small niche in the larger spectrum of speculative fiction. It sadly has never received its own name. (I once suggested Sci-Hor, but not seriously.) H. G. Wells is the dean of the SF/Horror tales but Mary Shelley is the mother. Frankenstein (1818) was the first SF novel as well as a Gothic Horror tale. Shelley never wrote about killer plants though. Wells gets credit often but he was really an also-ran. Frank Aubrey’s The Devil-Tree of El Dorado (1896) is really the first bestseller on the idea. The entire theme dates back even further to poorly reported finds in South America.
The theme of killer plants takes many varieties including haunted forests, plant women, contagious grass as well as the usual Science Fictional killer plants. These become even more spectacular when you take them into space. The “spaceman” hero dates back to 1928 and Buck Rogers. The comic books naturally took a page out of the newspaper comic strips and created a pile of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon knock-offs. Many of these spacemen heroes encounter space terrors.
The Flash Gordon comic strip featured “The Constrictor Plant” in The Monsters of Mongo (April 22-November 18, 1934).
“Buzz Crandall” (Planet Comics #5, May 1940) was written by ‘”Bob Jordan”. Buzz and his girlfriend, Sandra, land on a planet where the plants rule and the men have devolved into “headless” beings. The plants are like giant pitcher plants. They grab Buzz with their tongue-like appendage (ala the cover of Amazing Stories, September 1927). A revolt to free humanity is a given.
“Dark Side of the Moon” (Hit Comics #12, June 1941) written and drawn by Maurice Gutwirth. Blaze and pat take a trip to the Moon. There they are attacked by several different types of plant creatures. Blaze yells out: “Let go, you radishes!” His amazingness rescues them in the end.
“Mystery of the Time Chamber” (Planet Comics #52, January 1948) written by “Ross Gallun” ( a pseudonym meant to hint at “Raymond Z. Gallun” perhaps?) Mysta is called to Vitan, where scientists have created a killer plant in their search for more productive crops. The solution to the crisis lies in time travel…
“The Harp of Death” (Manhunt #7, April 1948) was by an unknown writer. This one seems like an odd choice for a detective comic but Space Ace is a detective of a galactic sort. He and Jak Tal fall fowl (pun intended) of the Bird-Men of Jupiter who use plants to capture their victims.
“Planet Without Death” (Strange Mysteries #2, November 1951) the writer is unknown. Kip Grant, a dying scientist, seeks the source of eternal life on the planet Chloros. He and his girl, Mary, go to the planet and met Jado. She is explains that the tree-people grow then die and go back into the Earth to be reborn. She wants to escape this cycle and see the stars. Kip takes her back to Mary but Jado tries to kill her out of jealousy. Jado dies instead from chlorosis. Her last act is to release chlororspicrin, poisonous gas. That’s a lotta dying for a planet without death… Eddy Murphy’s stand-up about Captain Kirk and green women comes to mind here. (Warning, language is pretty blue, not green.) Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan from Farscape and Jabe from Doctor Who are two plant aliens found in later television shows.
“Gee, Dad…It’s a Daisy!” (Shock Suspenstories #2, April-May 1952) was written by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein. An expedition to an alien plant has one member who loves plants, Hartly. Later Linden pulls the petals off a daisy doing “She loves me, She loves me not…” Hartly freaks out. Exploring the planet, the crew slowly disappears one by one. The alien trees are able to move and strangle the spacemen. Only Hartly remains to hear the tree play the same game with Linden’s limbs.
“Prisoners of the Incredible Plants” (Space Action #2, August 1952) The writer of this comic is not known. A spaceship crashes on a strange asteroid where plant monsters eat their crew. Only by the sacrifice of one spaceman do they escape to return to destroy the evil plants.
“The Planet Eaters” (Weird Mysteries #1, October 1952) was written by an unknown author. The first space explorers discover a planet that was destroyed by plants. They return to Earth to report then blow themselves up because the ship is infested. Unfortunately, the seeds rain down on Earth. This one reminds me of Clark Ashton Smith and E. M. Johnston’s “The Planet Entity” (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Fall 1931).
“Flower from Pharaoh” (Space Adventures #8, September 1953) has Earthmen searching for new planets because of overpopulation. A plant that comes from a promising planet proves to be a terrible blight. If it gets loose on Earth there will be no population problem anymore. The writer is not known.
“Interplanetary Safari” (Space Adventures #11, May-June 1954) was written by an unknown author. The strip stars Ron Adams, “Bring-Em-Back-Alive” Interplanetary Explorer. He and his crew, saddled with the daughter of a rich man, Halliday, go in search of the planet Xarto. When they arrive they find the flora more like fauna. This one feels like it was inspired by Arthur K. Barnes’s Gerry Carlyle series in Thrilling Wonder Stories.
“Octopus Tree” (Tom Corbett, Space Cadet #1, May-June 1955) was written by Joseph Green, the creator of Tom Corbett. When Professor Norsgaard’s ship crashes on Venus, Tom and the crew go to save him. Tom will have to deal with the Haysee, a tentacular tree if he wants to save the day.
The character was inspired by Robert A. Heinlein’s Space Cadet and started as a radio script that became a newspaper comic strip in 1951. In 1950 Tom made his way onto television, and later a comic by Dell appeared to promote the show. By 1955, Prize Comics had the contract for a Tom Corbett comic. Frankie Thomas Jr. played Tom on TV for five years.
Conclusion
Comic book writers, like Pulp writers, are pretty sure space will be filled with space terrors. They don’t always look like trees or vines but then again, they are from space… The other kind of tale we don’t find here is the tree that takes revenge for a murdered soul. That kind of story is supernatural. Space terrors tend to use the biological type of plant monster instead.
Plenty more SF Plant invasions in the Silver Age of Plant Monsters…
