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dr_hermes (dr_hermes) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-11-05 12:49:00

Entry tags:

creator: basil wolverton, era: golden age

Brain Bats of Venus... I hate those things

*Ack!* Those things are just WRONG. This story appeared in MISTER MYSTERY# 7, September 1952. Basil Wolverton had a distinctive style like no other, it had texture and solidity that made it seem both unreal and convincing. He's mostly remembered for his twisted distorted portraits that appeared in MAD and DC's PLOP, as well as trading cards. Odd stuff. He also wrote and drew POWERHOUSE PEPPER, which used more alliteration per page than anything in history. Later in life, he did religious art that seems to concentrate on the coming apocalypse and it's as unsettling as you might expect.Earthmen Rod Crenshaw and Reese Bitner make a crashed landing on Venus, slamming down on the dense mysterious jungle. Not wearing any restraint belts (of course a 1950s comic), Bitner dies from a broken neck in the crash. Oh well, Crenshaw thinks and goes out to clear the encroaching fungus off the ship and make repairs. Then he notices some native life forms that are a bit unusual.

I imagine the inspiration for these Brain Bats came from an old Edgar Rice Burroughs story, one of the Barsoom books where John Carter met these varmints that were parasitic heads which attached themselves to headless bodies and used them as steeds. Creepy no matter where the idea came from. FUTURAMA did a twist on this, with some space blobs that fastened themselves to people's heads and took over their minds. Crenshaw suffers thirst and anxiety as the Brain Bats hurry the ship back to Earth, eager to start proliferating. All those nice useful human bodies to kill and reanimate, it's like a dream come true for them. At the last minute, Crenshaw figures a way to make the spaceship crash (again!) in the hopes of killing off the Brain Bats even if it means sacrificing himself. No such luck.

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	galateus 2009-11-05 07:39 pm UTC (link)
	Shudder. Way creepier than the Brain-Globes of Rambat or the jungle conquerors from Venus. (Reply to this)

	darklorelei 2009-11-05 08:05 pm UTC (link)
	Love it! I am all about mind-controlling beasties. Also, I think 2nd person is a really odd/interesting choice to use in a visual medium. Kind of bizarre. (Reply to this)

	kamino_neko 2009-11-05 10:01 pm UTC (link)
	Those 'brainbats' look more like cephalopods than chiropterans.... (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-11-06 12:11 am UTC (link)
	Alliteration makes harsh demands, I guess. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	taggerung301 2009-11-06 12:10 am UTC (link)
	I had some of those little bastards in my house once some Raid took care of them (Reply to this)

psychop_rex
2009-11-06 03:04 am UTC (link)

Now THOSE are some nicely designed alien beasties! Far too many alien creatures, in my opinion, are thinly-disguised versions of Earth animals - usually some kind of lizard or octopus - or technicolored humans with a few extra features. The Brain Bats, on the other hand, look convincingly alien - there's a hint of an octopus about them, and a bit of manta ray, and of course their heads look like brains, but the precise combination adds up to something really unnerving. Good stuff.

(Reply to this)

	jlroberson 2009-11-06 06:14 pm UTC (link)
	This is a truly frightening and repulsive story. Must be why I like it. I seem to remember this being reprinted in...I'm gonna say MR. MONSTER? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-11-07 12:21 am UTC (link)
	It's been reprinted at least twice that I've seen, in a Michael Gilbert MR MONSTER collection and in an odd one-shot THE BEST OF HORROR AND SCIENCE-FICTION COMICS (no date I can see, although it looks like something from the 1980s). (Reply to this) (Parent)