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Down But Not Out

by Drew Clements westofmiskatonic@gmail.com

Welcome back to the column that is synonymous with "good old comics" and stuff. At least, I like to think that someday it will be. I think it's much more synonymous with "holy crap this guy likes Jack Kirby" or "damn, what a loser!” both of which are true. Anyway, this week we'll be featuring the final entry in the Down But Not Out Monster Double Feature!!!! Dramatic-sounding, ain't it? Journey Into Mystery #62 - "I Was A Slave of the Living Hulk!" By Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers Originally released in November 1960 Reprinted in Marvel Marvel Monsters: Devil Dinosaur #1 (of 1) released October 2005 A radar station on the eastern seaboard of the United States has suddenly gone into an alert: an unidentified flying object is heading their way! The commander of the radar station, fearing a communist attack, scrambles fighter jets. Strangely, they find nothing once reaching the area where the blip occurred. Nearby, in a small town, electrician Joe Harper leaves his home to tend to a late night repair call from his friend, Fred. After jumping in his truck and driving down a lonely and dark stretch of road, something catches Joe's eyes: something's lying in the swamp just off the side of the road! Joe quickly stops the truck and runs into the swamp to investigate. Once there, he stumbles upon a shocking sight: a wrecked spaceship and a massive creature covered in fur and metal! Fearing that the creature might die from injuries sustained in its crash, Joe loads the monstrous creature into the back of his truck and heads to town for his shop. Inside Joe's workshop, the electrician has hooked the alien hulk creature up to a machine in preparation for an electrical analysis. After spending nearly all night trying to figure out how to revive the creature, suddenly it happens! The alien's booming voice echoes off the walls of the small shop, "My name is Xemnu... I come from the far reaches of the universe..." Xemnu proceeds to tell Joe of his time spent stranded on a planet with various other creatures. One day, on this planet, when a supply ship arrived, Xemnu snuck past the ship's guards and stole the ship from his captors. Unfortunately, the ship was nowhere near powerful enough to take the alien to where he actually wanted to go, so he was forced to land on Earth. Joe, a bit puzzled by the creature's story, asks why Xemnu had been stranded on a planet that had guards. Xemnu then reveals the planet to have been an "exile world to keep criminals like myself from menacing the universe!" Shocked (and who wouldn't be by an answer like that??), Joe tries to flee, but Xemnu uses his power of hypnotism to bring the human under his control. Satisfied that his power does indeed work on the inhabitants of this world, Xemnu brings Joe out of the hypnotism and explains his intentions. "I will gain millions of helpless laborers... slaves to build me another spaceship! Only this ship must be able to cross the universe--to take me all the way home!" Xemnu's plan doesn't sound so bad until he explains that the ship must be so large and powerful that when it blasts off, the force will destroy the Earth!! Xemnu, with his explanation, owns Joe, who realizes his mistake of reanimating the alien criminal. Soon, Xemnu unleashes his hypnotic rays upon the unsuspecting public of Joe's small town and soon these horrible rays reach everyone on the Earth! Joe is spared only so that Xemnu will have someone to gloat to. And so, the unfortunate Joe Harper is witness to the coming of millions of people to his small town. Xemnu orders the gathered crowd to build his spaceship o' doom and, like good little hypnotized subjects, they do as he wills. Xemnu, being the nice alien criminal that he is, announces to Joe that since it was Joe who revived him, he will be given a reward: Xemnu will take Joe with him to serve as his personal slave on his homeworld. Fantastic! Outstanding! Joe, having a hard time coping with the idea of having the Earth's death on his hands, accepts his fate, but pleads with Xemnu to find another way that would spare the Earth. As most alien criminals do, Xemnu responds with no sympathy. Later, Joe realizes that he is the only one on Earth that could possibly save it, so he puts his mind to work on trying to figure out how to stop Xemnu. Suddenly, it comes to him! A plan! Joe, while Xemnu is studying space maps, sneaks away to the launch site where the completed spaceship o' doom sits. After tricking the hypnotized soldiers to let him pass, Joe boards the ship and fools around with some wires. Apparently that's all it takes! The next morning Xemnu waves goodbye (forever, ahahahahahah... *cough*) to his loyal subjects. Joe tells the living hulk that he'd rather take his chances on the doomed planet than be Xemnu's slave. The hairy, metallic monster laughs at Joe Harper's foolishness and boards the spaceship. Xemnu clicks the launch button and a sudden blast of high voltage fuses the mighty creature to the control board... forever! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Meanwhile, Joe makes his way over to flight control and reduces the power of the ship, switches its flight trajectory, and launches it straight into the sun! As soon as the ship leaves the Earth's orbit, Xemnu's hypnotism wears off and the world's populace returns to normal. Joe goes from doom bringer to savior all in just thirteen pages! The lesson here, of course, is to never reanimate alien corpses that you find in a swamp (anywhere else is fine). Also, if someone ever tells you they're from an exile world designed "to keep criminals like myself from menacing the universe!" then you're probably better off not associating with them. Seriously though, this is a pretty decent and fun little story. I don't know that I'd call this a classic by itself, but it falls neatly in line with the rest of the stories of the same time that revolved around monsters. Speaking of the time this was released, just like the first part of the DBNO Monster Double Feature (last week's article... smarty-pants), it reflects the mindset of 1960's society--the fear of communism--though not quite as blatant as Strange Tales #89. Jack Kirby's art isn't as strong here as it would become, but it's still got some obvious Kirby elements. Dick Ayers does a great job inking Kirby's art, as usual. These two were quite the team during the early Silver Age, being paired together on many projects. The blurb on the cover of Marvel Monsters: Devil Dinosaur #1 is a bit misleading as it calls for the first appearance of the Hulk. Now, the well-known green-skinned brute appears in the new Devil Dinosaur story, so one would believe the back-up reprint would be the first appearance of the Incredible Hulk (in Incredible Hulk v.1 #1), but obviously that's not the case. But Xemnu is called the Hulk numerous times in this story, so it does fit. Here's a bonus bit of info regarding this: when this story was reprinted in a later issue of Monsters on the Prowl (#11), his name was changed to Xemnu the Titan to avoid the confusion I'm talking about here. An original printing of Journey Into Mystery #62 is going for $400 in near mint condition, so unless you've got a lot of cash to spare I'd suggest picking up Marvel Monsters: Devil Dinosaur #1. The main story of Devil versus the Hulk is a fine read and getting this back-up is a worthwhile bonus. Until next week... here's that link to the awesome Monster Blog again!