The Chronic Rift

I first heard about this book over a year ago, and since then it has subconsciously entered my mind several times (thanks again to Ken at the Jabootu website).  Now that I finally got my hands on a copy of it, I see that those "you-gotta-read-this" recommendations were right.  This book is a collection of comics by the late Fletcher Hanks, written between 1939 and 1941 and collected in this volume in 2007.  They tell the stories of various heroes, including "The Super Wizard" Stardust (pictured on the front cover of this volume in his "tubular spacial"), "Mystery Woman of the Jungle" Fantoma, and Buzz Crandall of the Space Patrol.  On the surface these are simply super-hero stories where people with incredible powers save mankind again and again.  But the really interesting part is when you look closely at the artwork and really examine the stories, and you'll start to see what a weirdly imaginitive guy Fletcher Hanks must have been.

The artwork, while illustrating action-packed stories, is strangely static, and characters like Stardust don't seem to change expression or even have the ability to turn their heads!  And reading these stories can feel like a fever dream; I have a feeling that a psychiatrist would have a field day with these.  I mean, when the bad guys decide they're going to take out a target (usually New York City or sometimes the entire Earth), they REALLY go all-out.  As in, using a combination of an oxygen-destroying ray and radio-controlled devices (???) to take over the world (which led to one of my favorite lines, "Every big shot in America is to die by suffocation, all at the same time!")  Or how about that whole "I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets" idea?  That springs from the mind of Lepus-the-Fiend, who decides to create a wild and primitive universe by taking two civilized planets (Venus and Earth) and smashing them into each other.  Talk about overkill!!!

But then, inevitably, the hero of the story shows up after a LOT of destruction has already happened, uses the "better late than never" philosophy and takes out the bad guys.  Often by using things like gravitational powers, powers of the mind, or a wide variety of powerful rays.  Our hero's revenge is often just as bizarre as the villains' plans.  Like the time that Stardust used his transforming ray to make De Structo's head grow until it had absorbed the rest of his body, then he threw the head into the Space Pocket of Living Death, where it was picked up by the Headless Headhunter who then placed the head on his own shoulders, where the head was absorbed into the Headless Headhunter's body!

All I can say is ... WOW.

In case you were wondering what kind of a man could come up with such ideas, the end of this book is a story (in comic form) about how the editor Paul Karasik tracked down Hanks' son to learn more about what kind of a man he was.  It turns out that both his life and death were quite tragic.  He wasn't a good father or a good husband.  The jury is still out on his comic creations, and whether they demonstrate that he was a hack or a visionary.  I argue that these stories are something to behold in either case, but you can read his work and see for yourself.

I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! is available now, and the second (and ostensibly final) collection of his work called You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! is coming out at the end of July.