The Changing Face of Life on Venus...in Planet Comics!

 You'd think a sci-fi magazine featuring "shared universes" would be the first place you'd see...

...a consistent presentation of the Solar System!

And you would be wrong, as this one-pager by an unknown writer and artist from Fiction House's Planet Comics #51 (1947) will demonstrate!

A couple of years earlier, in Planet Comics #34 (1945)...

...a decidedly-different Venus with different inhabitants was shown by an unknown writer and future Buck Rogers/Superman artist Murphy Anderson!

But only a few issues before that, in Planet Comics #30 (1944)...

...a text feature by an unknown writer using the Fiction House pen-name "Montague Truex PhD" and artist Fran Hopper about Venus featured another race of aquatic aliens inhabiting the cloudy planet!

This doesn't even count the various versions of Venus that appeared in Planet's ongoing strips like Gale Allen and Her Girl Squadron and Lost World!

BTW, we've previously-presented two "scientific romance" versions of Venus...

Earth Man on Venus by Ralph Milne Farley...

and Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs!

They're kool retro fun!

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Pirates of Venus & Lost on Venus

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Invasion of the Lederhosen Aliens"

The writing takes an odd turn...

...as Plutonians looking like a weird mix of 1930s-40s Swiss and Germans take advantage of an unusual situation...

While not an overt Nazi analogue, these previously-unseen Plutonians from Fiction House's Planet Comics #25 (1943) seem to be looking for expanded Lebensraum ("living space"), much as Hitler's Germany did in the late 1930s!

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Planet Comics

Volume 7

Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Interplanetary Olympics"

With Earth's Winter Olympics coming to a close this week...

...it's appropriate we present the future interplanetary version held on, where else, Pluto!

Despite the fact almost all the Planet Comics series have episodes involving aliens from the Solar System, none of the Martians from the various strips match any of the others!

As you may have guessed, continuity was not a strong point in Fiction House's editorial policies!

In addition, though promised in the "next issue" blurb for the Norge Benson story at the end of Planet Comics #24, this story didn't appear until Fiction House's Planet Comics #26 (1943)!

We're restoring it to its' proper place in the story order!

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Planet Comics

Volume 7

Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Mad Scientist and His Metal Man"

Poor Norge got bounced from Monday by Lincoln's Birthday...

...but, knowing his legions of fans missed him, we just bounced him to today!

1) What are "the outskirts of Pluto"?

Pluto's a planet, not a town or city!

2) Why did Lomar claim he fled from Pluto?

He was in a cave on Pluto!

3) If the "robot" actually walked and talked, where were the mechanisms Norge would have to remove to fit in the metal shell?

This sad little tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #24 (1943) is a far cry from the earlier Norge Benson adventures.

But this time, it's the story that disappoints, not the improving Fran Deitrick/Hopper art!

The script's not cute or whimsical.

It's just bad!

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Planet Comics

Volume 6

Reading Room NORGE BENSON "Attacked by the Aurorans"

As on Earth, there are hidden races in Pluto's unexplored wilds...

...and like the hidden races of Earth, these guys are somewhat xenophobic!

Since artist Al Walker was now in the military, one of the few female artists in 1940s comics, Fran Hopper (using her maiden name Deitrick) takes over the illustrating duties in her very first comic book assignment!

Though she tries to match Walker's layout style and sense of humor, the tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #23 (1943) is but a pale shadow of what Walker would have done with the same script!

This is not a dig against Hopper!

Walker was a unique talent, and anybody following him would suffer by comparison.

Fran found her niche doing other strips like Gale Allen and Her Girl Squadron and Yank Aces of World War II, rendering over 120 stories exclusively for Fiction House via the Iger Studio during her career!

Fran passed away this past November.

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Planet Comics

Volume 6