The Master-Minds of Mars by Carl H. Claudy was the first volume in the Adventures Into the Unknown series. It appeared in three version between 1931 and 1939. Carl Harry Claudy (1879-1957) specialized in writing for young boys, with his first short story version appearing in The American Boy, November 1931 – February 1932. This serial was expanded into the novel of the same name (1933) with illustrations by A. C. Valentine. In April 1939, DC’s All-American Comics #1 began a comic book version that ran to Issue #6 (September 1939). Later adventures of Alan and Ted would continue to Issue #25 (April 1941).
Also in 1941, Carl H. Claudy spoke about himself for the fanzine, The Alchemist #5, February 1941:
…of course, all authors are supposed to love to talk about themselves, wear long hair, burn incense, write to slow music, and wear a halo. I can’t qualify. My hair is short (and thin, alas, also grey!) My incense is a cigarette, I can write in a boiler factory if I have to (old newspaper training) and I’ve been married far too long to have any halo! I have two boys of my own — both grown, married: one a doctor, the other an official of the telephone company — I even have a grandson.
The Master-Minds of Mars sounds more than a little like Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Mastermind of Mars (1927), which I have to assume was intentional. (Though Claudy is promoted as the “Jules Verne of Today”.) The author/publisher is letting the audience know what kind of rollicking adventure is being offered. Claudy was contemporary with the creator of Tarzan, being born only four years after him, and surviving him by seven. He was fifty-two when The Master-Minds of Mars first appeared in print. There were three sequels: A Thousand Years in a Minute (1933), The Land of No Shadow (1933) and The Blue Grotto Terror (1934). Several of these were reprinted in The Year After Tomorrow (1954) edited by Lester Del Rey, Cecile Matschat and Carl Carmer. The book was illustrated by Mel Hunter.
The Master-Minds of Mars follows Alan and Ted’s most excellent adventures (couldn’t resist!) when they meet professor Lutyens. Luytens is described as a cliche mad scientist: “The shock-head of white hair, the huge, beaked nose, and the enormous eyebrows were well known in scientific circles. There was in his intent gaze an almost predatory quality until one noticed that his brown eyes were, in reality, mild.” He, of course, speaks with a slight German accent, making all his ands into unds.
The two young men he selects for his venture are opposites. The bookish and pudgy Alan Kane:
Kane, the slender university graduate, looked interestedly at his companion-to-be on the unknown adventure promised by the professor. He saw a thick-set young man about thirty years old, with reddish hair, freckles, keen blue eyes, and a face that seemed impassive until it lighted with a smile. Great strength was apparent in the broad shoulders and long arms. His hands were broad and stubby fingered. He was carelessly dressed. Alan read him as independent, good-natured, courageous.
And Theodore “Ted” Dolliver is the muscle:
Now he spoke to the other man, larger-framed and less eager in manner—“You also an orphan und you 46 say you can cook. You are strong like an ox und have been an adventurer in many lands. You are not college-trained, but you say you care less for life than for great adventure?”
So our two young men are thirty and forty-six. The definition of “young” has changed since the 1930s.
Luytens shows them his anti-gravity experiments first. This is to explain his greatest invention, The Wanderer, a spaceship to take all three men to Mars. Ted is skeptical and asks how the professor knows it will work? Luytens admits he has already flown it around the Moon and seen the dark side.
As you can see Claudy is writing for children. That being said, if you added a good-looking gal to the tale it wouldn’t be all that different from what appeared in Amazing Stories or the early Astounding Stories of Super-Science. Pulp SF was always slanted towards a younger audience, one that could imagine the possibilities of space travel.
We get some episodes in the Wanderer as the men go to Mars. Things really get going once they land on the verdant planet. They arms themselves with pistols, for the professor has not brought anything heavier. He tells the boys, “We did not come to make war.”
Here they encounter the Martians. One of the boys describes them as “machine bugs”. This is because the ant-like Martians, the size of humans, work inside insect-like machines. The three flee but are captured easily.
The Martian is described:
…The Martian stood upright on two thin, horny legs, innocent of clothing. The short body, Alan saw with a gulp, was jointed like the belly of a beetle. A long and narrow head joined the body with no indication of a neck. Bulbous eyes, at least two inches across, sticking out on either side of his head, gazed impersonally at every new object his fingers brought forth. The antenna obtruded from his chest. Two thin, weak-looking arms hung at the queer being’s sides … A croaking that might have been words came from the beaklike mouth.
The trio are taken to see the king of the Martians. There is escape and recapture. Eventually they are given a box that can translate for them. They learn that the Martians were once split into two races, a soft intellectual one in the underworld and a harder, crueler one on the surface. The surface Martians conquered the underworlders and used their brain tissue to operate the mass of robots that serve their colonies. Two brains rule everything, the Great Brain and the Lesser Brain. These are “Masters” of the title.
Alan and Ted, along with a new robot that speaks English, escape though the professor is recaptured. The two return to the Wanderer and fly back to Earth. Alan realizes that they will be called liars when they relate their adventures. He doesn’t care, someday they will return and rescue the professor.
The inspiration for The Master-Minds of Mars, after that Edgar Rice Burroughs’ title, are evident. There is H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) with the split race of Martians. Claudy reverses the idea and has the surface race the evil one. Also Wells’ The First Men in the Moon (1901), with its spherical spaceship operating on anti-gravity. (Jules Verne’s here too, I suppose.) There is also Edmond Hamilton, who created the prototype for the machine-man — later to become the Cybermen on Doctor Who–in “The Comet Doom” (Amazing Stories, January 1928). The idea of gigantic brains controlling things is another stock motif, used famously later for children in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (1962).
DC Comics began a regular comic adaptation in April 1939 that ran for twenty-five issues in All-American Comics. C. H. Claudy is credited with the writing. Artwork was done by Stan Asch. Asch’s version of the Martians shows an obvious influence from the A. C. Valentine illustrations in the magazine and book. (I have to think that Claudy had visions of Buck Rogers fame when he did this comic. Philip Francis Nowlan went from Pulpster to comic book writer with his character in 1929. Why not Claudy?) The strip was not high profile, being buried at the end of each issue, under a pile of newspaper reprints. Serial fame was not to be….
First off, the story gets a slight name change to “The Mystery Men of Mars” (to avoid trouble with ERB?). The plot of the comic is pretty close to the story, which shouldn’t be surprising since Claudy wrote it.
Conclusion
The Master-Minds of Mars by Carl H. Claudy isn’t a typical children’s version of American Science Fiction in the early 1930s. Writers of juveniles, like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books (and many others) hoped to see their creations go for a long run. Claudy’s kiddy version of Amazing Stories only had four volumes, unlike Tom Swift who went to forty in his first series. Seventy-one more in the five series that followed. Even Tom Corbett, who had movies and comics, went to eight. (I guess your name has to be Tom if you are going to do space.)
Despite the lack of serial success, the Adventures into the Unknown series is better Science Fiction. Carl H. Claudy fills the books with ideas (not all original) and plenty of action. He shows that he believes children can understand and appreciate big ideas. There are the long info-dumps of explanation and “Oh-ah, amazing!” moments with some new gadget or idea floats by but over-all his books remain readable. I think this is why Lester Del Rey chose to reprint him in The Year After Tomorrow (1954).
A special thanks to Buddy Lortie and his love of all things Claudy…
