Giant, Undead Brains and Three-Headed Dinosaurs

Auro, Lord of Jupiter, is a rather bizarre character. He first appeared in Planet Comics #41 (March 1946), ruling Jupiter with his consort Dorna. He's murdered by a rival.

About the same time, an American scientist named Chet Edson builds a prototype rocket ship, but a saboteur knocks him out, shoves him into the rocket and launches him into space. He crashes on Jupiter, but he can't survive in the atmosphere there.

So Dorna transfers Chet's mind into Auro's body. After a few adventures, Auro's personality reasserts itself and Chet is able to only subconsciously influence the big dope into taking intelligent action when in danger.

And there's a lot of danger on Jupiter. In Planet Comics #47 (March 1947), scientists are experimenting with the brain of a master criminal named Zago, King of the Underworlders. But Zago's brain is "struggling for freedom"and soon forces one of the scientists to drop him.

Soon, the brain has grown to gigantic proportions and is mind-controlling nearby people and animals. When Auro/Chet and Dorna fly in to investigate, they run into a gauntlet of various dangers.

It looks as if they are going to be overwhelmed, but Chet influences Auro to run from the fight and get to the nearby lab, even though this mean temporarily abandoning Dorna.

Zago rewards his underling for capturing Dorna by killing them, because he's decided that everyone ought to be dead just like he technically is. He doesn't kill Dorna right away, but rather begins tormenting her with the illusion of three-headed dinosaurs. Zago might be evil, but he comes up with some pretty cool illusions.

Fortunately, Chet has influenced Auro into inventing a device that destroys Zago, ending the threat and saving Dorna in the nick of time.

This is the first Auro, Lord of Jupiter story I've read and it is delightfully goofy, jumping wildly from one plot point to another with gleeful abandon. It might arguably have benefited from some more coherent world-building, but--then again--not every work of fiction needs to have strong internal logic. Sometimes, it's nice to just go with the flow and have fun.

You can read this story online HERE.

Next week, I think we'll return to Earth and visit with Swamp Thing.