Sunday, January 10, 2010

Auro, Lord of Jupiter (Fiction House; 1940)








Two different characters using the name Auro, Lord of Jupiter appeared in Fiction House classic, golden age series, Planet Comics. The first version of Auro appeared in most issues between #1-29, and was essentially an outer space version of Tarzan, where the son of the doomed Prof. and Mrs, Hardwich was befriended by a saber-tooth tiger, after being stranded on Jupiter, where the higher gravitational pull of the planet gave him muscles as strong as steel. The artwork from today's origin story is credited to Malcolm Kildale, under a spiffy cover by Lou Fine, which is included at no extra charge from Planet Comics #1 (Jan. 1940). Auro's second incarnation started eleven issues after his first strip ended, in issue #41, when a young scientist named Chester Edson crashed on Jupiter and subsequently had his spirit transferred into the body of the original Auro, who was then resurrected as a Flash Gordon-style hero. I'll eventually get around to posting that version too.

The Catacombs is grateful to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos for providing the scans for this story. Note: The copyright for this issue, its contents and artwork belong to the original publisher and/or creators and is reproduced here solely for entertainment purposes.

Enjoy!

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