The Herculoids are awesome. In addition to the three humans who live on the planet Amzot--one of whom fires explosive rocks from his slingshot--there are:
Zok--a dragon who fires lasers out of his eyes and tail
Igoo--a super-strong ape-like creature
Tundro--a sort-of triceratops who first explosive rocks out of his horns.
Gleep and Gloop--protoplasmic creatures who can shape-change.
The original cartoons (1967-68) are more fun than a barrell of space ants and their first comic book appearance--in Gold Key's Super TV Heroes #1 (April 1968) largely capture the fun.
We never get any hint about the origin of the Herculoids (though I theorize at length in this blog). Individual episodes often involve battling evil aliens who come to Amzot to steal its natural resources.
That's what happens in that first comic book appearance, brought to us by an unidentified writer and (almost certainly) artist Dan Spiegle. A spaceship crashes on Amzot and, when Zandor and Zok investigate, they discover that a huge horde of giant ants has beenr released from the ship. The ants spit lava and have already undermined the ground around them with tunnels.
Soon, Zok is trapped under an avalanche. Igoo and Tundro arrive, but also end up trapped in uncomfortable positions.
In the meantime, another ship lands and begins mining ore. The talkative alien pilot happily explains he's going to use it for war material. Tara quickly takes Gloop and Gleep to the others, where the shape-changers are able to rescue their fellow Herculoids.
Then they all gang up on the alien ship, quickly forcing the alien to recall his ants and flee.
Like the 11-minute long original cartoons, the story jumps right into the action without prelude and runs with its bare bone plots. Spiegle's artwork captures the unique charm of the Herculoids. The alien bad guy proves to be a wimpy mama's boy when directly threatened, but with only 6 pages to work with, the story had to be promptly brought to an end one way or another.
That's it for now. Next week, we'll return to The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz.
This was the second favorite cartoon of a certain period of my childhood (bowing only to Thundarr) for so many reasons. I never ONCE got my hands on a Gold Key comic with them in it tho!
ReplyDeleteYour comment raises the all important question--who would win a fight between the Herculoids and Thundarr?
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