The Reptilians as they have become known are a staple of both science fiction and conspiracy theories.

They are generally portrayed in popular culture as a race of humanoid creatures that evolved from reptiles rather than mammals. Either they will be aliens from another world or they will have left this world many years ago and now be returning to our world, or perhaps they will be living underground somewhere waiting for their chance to take over.

The Reptilians are also generally portrayed as thinking of humans as vermin at best and a food source at worst. They are also often shown to have a group of humans that they have enslaved and generally mistreat torture, eat, experiment on too.

They will also often be shown to be able to infiltrate our society through shape shifting or some clever form of disguise, which is probably why they have become such a favourite of conspiracy theorists as there is often a real sense of “they walk among us” in stories about the Reptilians.

Some stories about the reptilians however may portray them as more sympathetic creatures with a culture different to ours, but no more evil or good.

In this article I will look at how the Reptilians have evolved over the years across many different mediums as well as the real life conspiracy theories about such creatures.

In The Beginning: The Treens

The Treens are possibly the first ever example of the reptilians from a science fiction perspective in popular culture.

Prior to the Treens the only known examples of reptilian humanoids were in the works of fantasy authors like HP Lovecraft. It is believed that the first ever story to feature the Reptilians was the story “The Shadow Kingdom” published in 1929. It was written by Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E Howard. The villains in this story are said to be serpent men who have the ability to take on human form through magic.

This classic adventure obviously laid down the template for many other stories that utilized the idea of lizard men living among us in secret, but where it was different to later works like V and modern conspiracy theories was that it was more of a fantasy story, with the serpent men using magic to look like us and being more comparable to creatures like Dragons.

The Treens mark the first time such creatures were really brought into a sci fi environment and depicted as a race that could theoritcally evolve rather than a total fantasy beast like a Dragon or a Vampire.

The Treens were the main antagonists of the British sci fi comic Dan Dare.

They originally came from Venus and had evolved on the other side of planet away from their human like neighbours the Therons. The Treens evolved from Reptiles and lived among gigantic Dinosaur like creatures.

They were shown to be highly aggressive and vicious and primitive compared to the Therons. When their neighbours first came to them in peace, the Treens attacked the Therons and slaughtered them, taking the Therons technology for themselves, they cannibalised it and became highly advanced creatures. They later tried to conquer earth but the Therons intervened, though Atlantis was destroyed as a result.

The Treens would later create a leader called the Mekon who was all brain to lead them and would try and conquer earth and other worlds many times.

History of the Treens.

The Treens embody many of the tropes that the reptilians would have in subsequent works.

They are depicted as being evil, vicious monsters in contrast to the perfect human society that Dan came from, and also the more benevolent race of human like aliens the Therons who aided mankind against the Treens.

The Treens were also shown to have a race of human slaves. The Atlantines. These were humans that they abducted during their first visit to earth. They generally mistreat the Atlantines and use them for experiments or as an expendable workforce.

Their appearance even is something of a template for subsequent Reptilian races. They look like us except they have scaly skin and no hair and somewhat longer faces.

As you can see the classic reptillian look really comes from them.

The Treens not only brought the idea of the reptilian into a science fiction environment, but also really cemented the idea of them as total monsters too and thus for a long while after the Treens, the Reptilians would generally be go to guys for a villain in sci fi.

We’re not so different you and I: The Gorn

This episode of Star Trek the Original Series called Arena depicted Captain Kirk in battle with a giant lizard man named a Gorn.

The Gorn slaughtered an entire Federation colony and a highly advanced almost god like alien decides to pit the captain of the Gorn’s ship against Kirk in order to sort out their differences.

This marked the first time that we had the Reptilians being presented as a race that deserved to exist just as much as we did.

Though the Gorn are the villains of the piece they are not just evil, warlike creatures like the Treens.

They attack the Federation only because the Federation had unknowingly taken one of their colonies from them and at the end the alien does have some sympathy for the Gorn telling Kirk that one day the two races may be able to live in peace.

Who says the Reptilians would be our enemies?

They come from here/ The Silurians

In the 1970 Doctor Who adventure “Doctor Who and the Silurians” we are introduced to the titular monsters that are a race of reptilian humanoids who lived on the earth millions of years before man during the time of the Dinosaurs. When a disaster threatened to wipe out all life on the planet the Silurians hid underground in suspended animation for millions of years. When they awaken they are horrified to see that mankind has taken over and plan to exterminate the apes and reclaim their planet.

Much like the Gorn the Silurians were presented in a more sympathetic light. They had a more advanced culture than ours, and they simply wanted to reclaim their own planet. There are also shown to be many Silurians who wish to help humanity and even live in peace with us, with one Silurian in the revival Madame Vastra actually marrying a human female.

However again much like the Gorn the Silurians are generally portrayed as villains when they appear.

What really helped them to stand out from previous Reptilians was the way that they along with their aquatic cousins the Sea Devils were here first. Thus in a nice twist the reptilians had more of a genuine claim to this planet than we did. Once again this would become a theme in subsequent stories involving the reptilians.

This also marked the first time the Reptilians were actually linked to prehistoric earth reptiles.

They Walk Among Us: The Zygons

The Zygons were alien reptiles that managed to infiltrate our society through shapeshifting. They were extremely hostile and sought to exterminate humanity.

Though they only appeared in one story they nevertheless became among the most iconic monsters in the shows history. They are even the favourite monsters of Tenth Doctor actor David Tennant. The Zygons mark possibly the first Reptilians who change shape and actually disguise themselves as humans and even politicians and figures of authority. This would obviously be reflected not only in later stories about the Reptilians but also in actual conspiracy theories about them too.

The Zygons would return in the revival a few times, including in the 50th anniversary story.

Their latest appearance in the the two parter The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion established that there were several million Zygons living among us disguised as humans.  However in quite a nice inversion (no pun intended) of this old trope these Zygons are peaceful creatures who genuinely wish to live in harmony with us, with one of their number Bonnie now working at UNIT to help protect mankind from other threats.

Cutest Reptilian (whichever one it is) ever!

To Serve Man: Visitors

Without doubt the most iconic Reptilians. Though many of the tropes and characteristics associated with the Visitors in this series had appeared in previous works, this really brought them to the fore like nothing before it.

I think part of that was down to the fact that this was the first series to actually focus on the idea of reptillian aliens. Before they had only been guest stars. Even in Dan Dare whilst the Treens were the most recurring enemies of the Pilot of the Future, he still faced plenty of other monsters and villains. With V however the focus was entirely on the Visitors and their plans for us.

The Visitors came from a far away galaxy and came disguised as human beings. They were not shape shifters like the Zygons, instead they wore fake human skins. They claimed to want to help us, but secretly they wished to harvest mankind and all other mammal species on earth as a food source. They enjoy eating little furry mammals alive and guzzle human blood down by the barrel.

The Visitors would go on to inspire dozens of other similar creatures in genre series.

The Slitheen in Doctor Who were inspired by the Visitors. They too are large reptile men who hide under human skins, taken from people that they flay alive!

They also inspired the Leviathans from Supernatural. Though the Leviathans are a non science fiction example. They are still basically the same idea. A race of reptile creatures that disguise themselves as humans and seek to eat us.

A Visitor from the remake of V top, and a Leviathan from Supernatural.

The Visitors also inspired the Martians in the television sequel to the 1950’s War of the Worlds adaptation who similarly hid in human bodies and tore their victims apart.

In addition to inspiring other works of fiction about similar Reptilian beasts, V’s popularity also helped to give way to many conspiracy creatures that there were reptile men living among us in secret and planning to eat us! Its certainly after V that these conspiracy theories become much more numerous and well publicised.

The Victims: The Narn

Babylon 5, one of the greatest and most accomplished science fiction series ever made managed to come up with a really fresh and interesting take on the Reptilian idea.

Here the more Reptilian race, the Narn were the victims. Throughout Babylon 5 they are persecuted by the human like Centauri.

Prior to the start of the series the Centauri had conquered and ruled the Narn for many years. The Narn had finally managed to drive them off, but now seek revenge by exterminating the Centauri completely and utterly.

At the start of the series we are led to believe that the Narn are going to be the villains. The Centauri seem like old washed up has been’s whilst the Narn are in comparison the upstarts hungry for vengeance. As time goes on however the Narn end up biting off more than they can chew and the Centauri launch an attack against them with the aid of the Shadows and conquer them once again.

Though this second conquest of Narn by the Centauri was not as long, it was far more brutal. Their invasion of the planet alone is utterly horrific.

They conquered Narn using Mass Drivers, illegal weapons that actually managed to bring down asteroids onto the surface of the planet and shattered its cities and entire infrastructure to pieces. Billions of Narns were killed in this attack alone and N’Toth a Narn who witnessed the attack later described it as being as though the entire universe had turned against them!

The state of the Narn’s home planet after the Centauri’s attack. It was once a beautiful paradise and is now a desolate, ruined wasteland.

After the Centauri subjugate them they install laws that state that every time 1 Narn kills a Centauri, 500 Narn will be executed. They also round them up into ghetto’s and death camps and experiment on them to try and remove aggression from the Narn race. 100’s of Millions more Narn die in these experiments and whole communities are completely wiped out.

Its just such a wonderful inversion of the usual humans vs Reptilians idea. We had of course seen more sympathetic Reptilian characters like the Silurians and the Gorn, but even they were not like the Narn.

The Gorn, the Silurians and even the Zygons from the latest series 9 two parter were all still the aggressors. They were also the ones in a position of power. We saw the Silurians capture and experiment on people, the Zygons vaporize them, the Gorn destroy a whole federation colony. Thus whilst we do get to see more complex characters like Bonnie the Zygon or Vastra ultimately these Reptilians are still shown to victimize humans.

With the Narn however we have Reptilians getting victimized by human like aliens and it just looks so odd.  To cheer on the reptilian character helping to free his people from the oppressive human aliens was a great new take on what was by this point a fairly well worn cliche.

In many ways I view the Narn/Centauri conflict as being a reversal of the Treen/Theron conflict from Dan Dare decades earlier. I am not saying it was intentional. It could have been for all I know, but regardless that’s how I view it.

The Treen/Theron conflict sees two races one called the Therons who greatly resemble us and even view us as their kin. The Treens meanwhile are reptiles who are naturally violent and aggressive. The Therons try to help the Treens using their advanced technology. The Treens seeing how peaceful they were took advantage of them and managed to steal their technology and drove them out. They then became a space faring race and conquered other planets, an subjecting their people to brutal treatment. The Treens later conquer both the earth and the Therons who both eventually manage to drive them off.

The Narn/Centauri conflict sees two races the Centauri who resemble us greatly and feel a certain kinship with us. Indeed when the Centauri first met humanity they believed that they were an offshoot of their race. The Narn meanwhile are reptile like creatures who are actually quite peaceful. The Centauri occupy them and enslave them and treat them brutally for decades. The Narn eventually banish them and steal their technology and use it to conquer other worlds. Eventually however the Centauri manage to conquer the Narn once again and treat them with the utmost brutality.

You can see how the two stories have very strong similarities yet are polar opposites to each other. Both have a race that is like us and feels a kinship with us meet a less advanced race that is reptilian. The reptilians then steal technology from the human aliens and use it to not only fight them, but conquer other races. The big difference is that the reptilians in Dan’s case were always a brutal and war like race, also the human race in Dan’s case were peaceful and only wished to help the Treens who took advantage of them. In Babylon 5’s case the reptilians were peaceful, whilst the human like race of aliens were aggressive and war like and they took advantage of the reptilians. Whilst both the Narns and the Treens do go on to become warlike races, the Treens manage to conquer the human like race that made them whilst the Narn’s are once again conquered themselves.

Thus in the Treen storyline we see the reptilians enslaving humans and human like aliens and rounding them up into death camps and treating them no better than animals and the humans like Dan make big rousing speeches about never giving up, whilst in Babylon 5 we have images of human like aliens rounding up aliens who look like orange Treens into death camps, treating them no better than animals and Reptilians like G’Kar going into big rousing speeches about how they will never give up.

The opposite of V, Dan Dare, the Silurians and the Zygon Invasion.

Also what’s interesting is how the humans themselves are portrayed in both cases. In Dan Dare the humans are the heroes who beat the evil, cowardly reptilians whilst in Babylon 5 though there are humans who help the Narn, most of them keep out of the conflict and allow the Narn to be butchered.

Thus to me whether its intentional or not the Narn/Centauri conflict is an excellent reversal of a classic sci fi story.

Of course even if it were intentional I am not saying that would make Babylon 5 derivative of Dan Dare. At the end of the day nothing is original, but whatever the case I think Babylon 5 gave us a great new twist on what was again by that point certainly a very old, well worn story.

The Narn I think led to more reptilian creatures being presented in a sympathetic way as it showed that they didn’t always have to be villains like the Treens or even misguided villains like the Silurians. They could be the out and out victims too that we root for over human looking aliens.

Its worth noting that the Narn are said to have some characteristics in common with mammals such as marsupials and feline’s too, but by and large they are shown to be reptilian in origin.

Babylon 5 also had another more sympathetic reptilian race of aliens called the Drazi who in contrast to say the Treens and the Silurians are shown to be particularly sympathetic towards human beings, being one of the few races brave enough to help them during the Earth/Mimbari war.

Babylon 5 with both the Narn and the Drazi completely reinvented the reptillian cliche and brought something new to the old staple.

Figures of Fun: Omicronians

Futurama gave us quite a funny send up of the Reptillian creature in sci fi with the Omicronians.

The Omicronians are large reptilian monsters who seem to have a love hate relationship with humanity. They adore human television and other forms of entertainment, yet they also have been shown to be willing to exterminate the entire human race over not being able to see the last episode of an earth show.

Like the Visitors in V, they are shown to enjoy eating human beings and drinking their blood, and they are also far more advanced than we are too like many reptilian races in science fiction.

At the same time one episode The Problem with Popplers actually casts them in a sympathetic role like the Narn or the Silurians. Here the humans unknowingly consume billions of their children which they believe to be a tasty snack. I felt this was quite a good parody of both V and Babylon 5.

Here we had the reptiles being eaten by the humans which was a nice little reversal of V, yet at the same time we have something that was actually horrific happen to the reptilians like in Babylon 5. However whilst Babylon 5 made us feel sympathy for the lizard men, here its presented in such a flippant humorous way you can’t help but laugh, such as when Zapp Brannigan is eating the Omicronians young whilst negotiating with them!

Overall the Omicronians were quite a nice affectionate send up of an old sci fi character that first begun with the Treens over 60 years ago.

Conspiracy Theories

Incredibly enough there are people who actually believe that the Reptilians exist.

There are stories from those who have been abducted by aliens who claim that their kidnappers were reptilian in nature.

By far and away the most famous Reptilian conspiracy theory however is that proposed by David Icke which states that there are several Reptilians between 5 and 12 feet tall from the Alpha Draconis system. He says they drink human blood and can shape shift and that most of our world leaders are actually Reptillians in disguise, including Queen Elizabeth the 1st and George W Bush! He also believes they have a secret base underground.

As you can see Icke’s Reptilians tend to bare a resmbelance to many famous Reptilians from popular culture such as the Zygons and the Visitors.

Icke’s theory for such a wild idea actually has a lot of support. It has supporters in up to 47 countries and a 2013 poll showed as many as 4 percent of registered voters in America believed it to be true!

I obviously don’t think its true, but I do find it an interesting theory in a crazy kind of a way anyway, but no I don’t watch V as a documentary I must admit.

Thank you for reading and here is an extensive list of Reptilians in popular culture from the website TV Tropes and Idioms

The Reptilians Tv Tropes

 

 

Marooned on Mercury is the first Dan Dare story I ever read. I had a very mild interest in Dare after reading about its influence on Doctor Who, but I had never bothered to track it down. My father however had heard me talk about it and so he decided to buy me this story for Christmas last year and I was instantly hooked and have been collecting as many Dare stories as I can since then.

I wouldn’t say this is one of the best Dan Dare adventures. Its a great solid little story, but its not quite the classic that say Voyage to Venus is. Still it will always have a special place in my heart for introducing me to the world of the pilot of the future.

Synopsis

After a successful attack on the Red Moon, Dan Dare and his friends are presumed dead by Earth officials, but they have actually instead crashed landed on Mercury.

Now trapped on the planet, little does Dan know his archenemy the Mekon is also hiding there along with his army of Treens and is aware of his presence having monitored Dan’s ship crash from his base. 

Dan and his team, Digby, Professor Peabody, Sondar, and an Atlantean named Urb are captured by strange creatures who take them to their base. Dan and his team naturally are unable to communicate with the bizarre Mercurians.

The Mercurians toss Dan and his team into a massive pit one by one where they are attacked by a massive creature below. The creature forces them to follow the Mercurians whom it serves. Professor Peabody deduces that the creatures are in fact friendly and simply want to help them survive on this planet. She says that their best chance is to try and communicate with them somehow. Dan reluctantly agrees though he is still worried about Digby who was taken somewhere else by them.

The team are taken into a massive city where they are reunited with Digby. Digby explains to them that the Mercurians are friendly and have found a way for them to breath in their base without helmets on but not on the surface of the planet. Digby also warns them that the Treens are on the planet. He hasn’t found a way to communicate with them, but one of them has found a Treen badge.

Meanwhile the Mekon who has been monitoring Dan says that he must be captured at once before he can find a way to communicate with the Mercurians. He also demands they be captured alive as they are somehow vital for his plans to bring about the destruction of earth.

The Mercurians soon seal Dan and his friends in a room as the Treens approach. Dan realizes to his horror that the Mercurians for some reason are working with the Treens. The Treens enter but are overpowered by Dan and his team. Professor Peabody uses one of the Treens gas masks for Digby whilst Dan manages to escape in the Treens own spaceship along with Sondar.

Unfortunately in his haste to leave Professor Peabody is left behind whilst Digby and Urb are captured and taken to the Mekon. On top of that Dan discovers that he has walked right into the Mekons trap. The ship is programmed to take him back to his base. Fortunately however Dan almost forces the forces the ship to crash. This shows the Mekon that he would he would rather die than be his prisoner and as the Mekon wants Dan alive he is forced to hand control of the ship over to Dan. 

Professor Peabody manages to escape from the Treens meanwhile but soon comes into contact with the Mercurians again. Fortunately she not only manages to reason with them but also manages to find a way to communicate with them too being able to learn their language which is musical in nature.

She soon contacts Dan and he returns to see her and the Mercurians. Peabody tells Dan that the Mercurians are not in league with the Treens after all and that they have tied up the Treens who came to capture Dan and his team.

Peabody says that the Mercurians don’t have a high opinion of either the Mekon who has been on their planet for a while or of the human race and had hoped that they would both finish each other off explaining why they betrayed the humans earlier. She also says that the Mekon has enslaved a good deal of their population and is forcing them to ship much of their resources to his army as part of a master plan.

Whilst Dan and Peabody are talking the captured Treens manage to slip away. Dan wishes to go after them to prevent the Treens from reclaiming the rocket, but Peabody warns him it would be suicide as the Treens would be waiting for him at the exit with their paralyser rays.

She says that they instead should try and convince the Mercurians to help them. Dan reluctantly agrees. Peabody is able to convince the Mercurians to take them to the Mekons base using the back door where they will be safe from the Treens.

Unfortunately the Mekon who has been monitoring them knows they are coming and plans to lay a trap to capture all of them. Digby and Urb however manage to catch the Mekon off guard and pull him off his chair and then smash his monitor. Though the Treens quickly overpower them their actions buy time for Dare and his team.

The Mekon orders that Digby and Urb be put to death, but secretly tells his Treen guards not to harm them as he needs them both alive for his plan. He simply wants them experience fear.

Dan, Peabody and Sondar with the aid of the Mercurians manage to overpower several Treens but unfortunately Peabody becomes separated from Dan and Sondar. Dan and Sondar meanwhile discover the survivor of the Kingfisher a ship that was believed to have been destroyed during man’s first exploration of Venus.

The survivor is in fact the captain of the ship himself D’Arcy. Though D’Arcy is seemingly in the employ of the Mekon he denies working for the monster. He claims that the Treens he and others are working for here are refugees from the Mekon who are planning to overthrow him and save both Venus and earth.

The Treens soon capture Sondar and Dan and D’Arcy does nothing to help them believing that they are working for the Mekon instead. Meanwhile Peabody along with a Mercurian is able to sneak her way into the base. 

The Mekon attempts to trick Dan. He wants for some reason Dan and the rest of the earth men he has tricked into working here such as D’Arcy to return to earth. He tries to convince Digby and Urb to return to Dan and tell him that the Mekon is not on this planet and that they should leave. He tells them that he simply wants them to leave so as not to disrupt his plan here. Digby refuses to suspecting there is some reason he wants them to leave and so the Mekon decides to kill them by ejecting them to the planets surface. He will then have the Treen, Mistag that the men that D’Arcy  is a part of believe is in charge tell Dan that Digby and Urm were killed by fleeing onto the planets surface when they tried to escape before the Treens could explain to them that they meant them no harm.

Dan demands to see their remains as proof and Mistag agrees to take him to them as proof. Just as he is doing this the Mekon’s men prepare to push both Digby and Urb out of an air lock to their deaths. Fortunately Peabody and a Mercurian find and rescue them and alert both Dan and the other men there including D’Arcy that they are being tricked by the Mekon.

The team then escape into space using one of the Mekon’s own ships. The Mekon manages to trap them in space, though he is unable to bring the ship down without killing them. The Mekon orders that they surrender but Dan naturally refuses. The Mekon attempts to starve Dare into surrender as there is no food on board the ship.

Dan still doesn’t cave and whilst on the ship he is able to monitor what is happening below on Mercury. Peabody works out that the Treens have enslaved most of the Mercurians and are forcing them to harvest their own food source for the Treens. She tells Dare that this food source is a poison to everyone else. Dare realizes that this is why the Mekon wants him to fly this back to earth. Somehow he has found a way to weaponize the poison in this fruit. A Treen ship would never get to earth without being spotted and captured, so the Mekon wanted earthmen to fly it back to earth in an earth ship. He knew that no member of space fleet could be forced to take it back to earth or be willing to either. Thus he was trying to trick D’Arcy and later Dare into flying his weapon to the planet. 

Later the Mekon sends a squad of Treens to Dare and his team with food only giving them it if Dare swears to serve him. Urb however is able to defeat the Treens with the aid of a Mercurian named Samson and capture their ship. Dan then connects the Treen ship to his own and uses it to break free from the Mekons trap and lands on the planet below. 

On the ground Dan, Digby and Samson go alone to infiltrate the Mekons base believing they stand a better chance if there is only a few of them. Unfortunately they are soon captured. They are taken to a Treen named Garlok one of their leading scientists who has found a way to harness the poison as a gas. The Mekon plans to release it on earth where it will be so lethal it will destroy all life on the planet to the smallest insect. He also intends to use it to exterminate the Therons and reclaim Venus.

The Mekon manages to capture the rest of Dan’s team and threatens to use his virus on them unless Dare agrees to fly the virus over earth. Fortunately Dan manages to outsmart the Mekon by grabbing a sample of the virus which he threatens to break unless the Mekon lets his friends go. With no other choice the Mekon reluctantly agrees for now.

Dan attempts to contact earth to get reinforcements to Mercury as well as warn them that the Mekon is here. The people of earth are surprised to see that Dan is still alive. Unfortunately whilst they are talking the Mekon manages to teleport himself to safety. With the threat no longer applying, as the Mekon isn’t there and the Treen guards are happy to die for their cause.

Dan and Sondar still escape, though they are forced to surrender the virus. Dan along with Samson, Peabody, Digby, Urb and the rest manage to escape to the Mercurians main city where they try and convince them to fight against the Treens. Dan manages to sway the peaceful, placid creatures to fight just as the Treens are preparing to massacre them. The Mercurians fight back and manage to catch the Treens off guard holding them off long enough for Dan to create an explosion which destroys most of the Treen ships and cripples their army. With their main invasion force destroyed by Dare, the Treens are utterly defeated.

The Mekon manages to escape however with several of his Treens and destroys his base before Dan can apprehend him before Dan can apprehend him, vowing to return.

With the Mekon defeated and the Mercurians saved, Dan and his team are returned home and hailed as heroes for having saved humanity again.

Review

Marooned on Mercury suffers from having a somewhat similar premise to Voyage to Venus the first Dan Dare story. Like Voyage to Venus this adventure revolves around Dan trying to convince a group of peaceful but ultimately useless aliens to fight against the Treens.

Having said that though I think its handled much better here. In Voyage to Venus Dan has a few words with Volstar leader of the Therons and then that’s it. Dan manages to convince him to change the way his people have lived for thousands of years in a matter of seconds. Here however even after a big rousing speech Dan fails to really convince the Mercurians and its only when the Treens attack that they realize the reality of the situation, that the Treens are not simply going to enslave them but slaughter them.

The story has many other strong points too that I think help it rise to the level of a minor classic. Its may be not quite on the level of Voyage to Venus, and it may in some ways be derivative of it, but there is a lot to enjoy here.

To start with Professor Peabody is excellent in this story. Its quite incredible really how progressive this character is for a 1952 comic.

She at no point is presented as being the most vulnerable member of the crew because she is a woman. She is cunning, resourceful and throughout this story she is arguably the most vital member of the crew above even Dare himself. Without her the crew would never have been able to communicate with the Mercurians and also without her Digby and Urb would have been killed and Dan most likely would have fallen for the Mekon’s scheme. There are so many moments where she has to survive on her own without any other characters and throughout pretty much all of the story her solutions are presented as being the correct ones above even Dare’s. Really whilst Dare might be the charismatic leader, Peabody is the brains behind the operation.

Of course at the same time Dan is not undermined as he is still the main character and is ultimately the one who brings down the Treens. I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to undermine the main character whether they are male or female simply because well if the focus is on the side character then its their story not the main hero’s.

Fortunately here they are able to give Peabody enough to do whilst still making Dan the hero.

I was very surprised the first time I read this story to see a female character like Peabody. I expected given when it was written almost the 40’s for  any women in it to be damsels in distress with massive breasts, fawning over the male hero and getting captured every two minutes by the villain.

To see Peabody, a non sexualized female character who was a scientist that the male hero respected as an equal, who the other characters came to for advice and who came up with the solutions to many of the problems in the story was very surprising. Even today sadly I think there are few female characters like that never mind in 1952.

The Treens are also used brilliantly here. They are shown to be manipulative, amoral and vicious. There are some very disturbing moments when we see them experimenting on the Mercurians. Garlok is a great Josef Mengele type of villain.

The Mekon however I don’t think is given quite as much to do here, but he still gets some wonderfully vicious lines of dialogue. I think the Mekon is shown to be more sadistic in this story as seen in his torture of Digby.

The Mercurians are brilliant creations. They are interesting idea, particularly in the odd way they communicate, but their design is really quite special. Sadly though none of their characters are really that well developed. Again in terms of characterisation they are something of a retread of the Therons.

The story is pretty straight forward though there are some nice twists along the way, such as finding out the members of the Kingfisher have survived. It also moves a long at a nice pace too. There’s never a dull moment.

Overall whilst I wouldn’t say this is one of the all time best Dan Dare stories, its still a great solid adventure overall. It was my first Dan Dare story and managed to captivate me despite some heavy continuity references to Voyage to Venus and the preceding story. Ultimately it was exciting enough to not only still keep my interest but draw me into the world of Dan Dare and make me want to find out more.

Notes/Trivia

• This strip ran from the 27th June in 1952 to the 20th February in 1953.
• This is the second appearance of the Mekon in Dan Dare.
• This is the third Dan Dare story.
• It is never explained how the Mekon survived his apparent death at the end of Voyage to Venus.

 

 

 

 

One of the classic Dan Dare strips, this marked the final part of the Man From Nowhere Trilogy and featured the Mekon finally conquering the earth. Widely considered to be one of the best Dan Dare stories, this adventure would go on to have an influence on many subsequent invasion earth stories.

Synopsis

Dan, Digby, Lex and Flamer return to earth after a 10 year absence. The space pilots had travelled half way across the universe to battle the evil Phants. After foiling the Phants invasion, Dan and the others are forced to go back into suspended animation for the long journey home. They take along a small alien animal named stripey who flamer had grown fond of back as a pet

When the travellers awake back in London 10 years later however, they discover that it is deserted. Dan and his friends explore the abandoned city, and are soon ambushed by robots who take them to their master, the evil Mekon. The Mekon reveals that in the years his enemies were away the Venusian tyrant managed to conquer the earth with the aid of his new robotic servants, which he has called his Elektrobots who can also fly.

The Mekon ruthlessly orders Stripey whom he views as useless put to death much to the horror of Dan and the others.

The Mekon then shows Dan that he has shipped many people off to work in labour camps on other planets in order to expand his empire beyond the solar system.

The conditions in these camps  are horrifying and many people are dying from being worked to death, starvation and the brutal treatment at the hands of the Treen guards. The Mekon is also carrying out experiments to see if his human slaves can survive the conditions on other planets many of which have resulted in the humans deaths.

Finally he is also using human beings to learn about their past. The Mekon feels that there are too many gaps in human history due to early myths and legends, and so he wants to find out how human’s survived in prehistoric times and how they did things like build ancient cities. The Mekon therefore forces a group of enslaved humans to rebuild the entire city of nineveh under the same conditions as years ago and drugs several humans in a way that causes them to lose all of their memories, and regress to the level of cavemen and then places them in jungles that resemble prehistoric earth, complete with cloned specimens of ancient animals to see how they would survived.

The Mekon then takes Dan to one of main labour camps where Dan sees several of his friends from Spacefleet HQ. Dan manages to briefly escape the Mekon and discovers that there is a small resistance group hiding in the camp made up of ex Spacefleet men. Unfortunately Dan is forced to return to the Mekon who threatens to kill his captive friends unless he comes back. 

The Mekon takes Dan and his friends back to Venus where he reveals that he has kept his old friends, Sir Hubert, Hank, Pierre, and Professor Peabody in suspended animation for 10 years.

The Mekon reveals that he has captured them in an effort to force Dan to obey his will. The Mekon wants Dan and his friends to serve him. He believes that if he kills them they will be martyrs, but if the great heroes are shown to serve him, then it will crush the last bit of hope and resistance left in humanity.

Digby, Lex and Flamer meanwhile are soon visited by the benevolent Treen Sondar who aided them in previous battles against the Mekon. It is revealed Sondar managed to infiltrate the Mekon’s army and that he was the Treen the Mekon ordered to murder Stripey. Sondar of course hid Stripey instead and now returns him unharmed to Flamer, Digby and Lex inside an old food cannister.

Dan refuses to help the Mekon, and all of his friends saying they would rather die than help a monster. The Mekon then attempts to torture Sir Hubert in order to break Dan by experimenting on him to remove his positive qualities from his brain.  Dan and the others manage to attack the Mekon however, catching him off guard and rescue Sir Hubert before the Mekon can experiment on his brain.

Dan comes close to capturing the Mekon but unfortunately the tyrant is able to summon his special guard the Selektrobots, larger, more powerful yellow robots. Dan is still able to make a deal with the Mekon to take him back to earth and though the Mekon agrees, he promises Dan he will rue the day he ever asked to return home.

Digby meanwhile seemingly driven mad by hunger agrees to serve the Mekon. Digby however is in fact lying and secretly plans to turn on the Mekon as soon as possible. Only Dan however is aware that Digby is acting and the others think he has turned traitor.

The Mekon subjects Digby to a mind test to see if he is being genuine. Digby manages to pass the test by focusing his thoughts entirely on food. The Mekon thus believes he is easy to control as he cares about nothing but food.

Digby later reveals to the others when they are alone that he is tricking the Mekon and is still loyal to humanity.

Flamer figures out that the Mekon is controlling the robots through a single speaker on his flying chair and plans to gain control of the speaker so he can turn the Mekons own robotic servants against him. Flame also sends Stripey to the resistance movement for his own safety.

Meanwhile Digby finds it difficult to keep pretending that he is working for the Mekon as he is forced to work his friends including Dan in the labour camp mercillesly.

Flamer later manages to sneak out to the resistance movement where he reveals to them his plan to overthrow the Mekon. With their aid he manages to escape back to the camp with equipment. Unfortunately Stripey follows him and in order to prevent him being noticed by the Mekon, Digby (who had earlier tricked the Mekon into taking the prisoners back to Venus) is forced to drop his ruse and attack the Mekon. The Mekon decides to take Digby back to Venus in order to find out why he tricked him.

On the way there Dan uses Rockets given to Flamer by the resistance movement to escape from the Mekon in one of his own ships. He along with Stripey who stows away on board his vessel, stumble upon The Sargasso Sea of Space, an area of space where every lost space ship eventually drifts to.  

Dan discovers two castaways on board one of the ships, Bob King and Angus McFarlane. Their ship was damaged during the Treen invasion of earth and though they managed to escape from the monsters, their ship eventually drifted to the Sargasso sea where they have been forced to survive on food from all the other derelicts. The two men help Dan repair his original space craft, the Anastasia, which drifted here before the invasion. Once she is repaired the three men set off for Venus to bring down the Mekon.

The Mekon contacts Dan and tells him to to surrender or else he will execute all of his friends. Whilst Dan tries to trick the Mekon, Stripey jumps in front of the camera. As soon as the Mekon sees the dog, he realizes that the Treen he ordered to kill Stripey betrayed him. Fortunately Sondar is able to rescue, Peapody, Hank, and Sir Hubert from being executed and together they escape to the Southern Hemisphere of Venus, the former land of the Therons. Though the Mekon has conquered the Therons just like on earth there are still resistance movements and Sondar plans to find one of them.

Dan meanwhile manages to trick the Mekon with Bob and Angus’s help. Bob and Angus fly the ship Dan stole from the Mekon and the Mekon being unaware of the Anastasia captures it thinking it is Dan,, whilst Dan really flies into the southern Hemisphere where he reunites with his friends. Later when the Mekon attempts to interrogate Digby, Angus, Bob, Flamer and Lex they manage to overpower him and Flamer takes control of the Mekon’s mike in his chair and uses it to give the Elektrobots orders that cannot be countermanded to turn on and destroy each other. 

On earth the Elektrobots begin to massacre each other. Without the aid of their robotic servants the Treens are overpowered by their human servants and many of them are captured whilst others flee.

Whist the Elektrobots are finished the Mekon summons his back up army the Selektrobots who are able to capture Digby, Flamer, Lex, Bob and Angus. The Mekon then sends an army of them to earth, planning to reconquer the planet.

Dan meanwhile has made contact with a group of Theron rebels, led by his old friend Volstar who have located the second communicator that the Mekon uses to control the Selektrobots.

Unfortunately the rocket they have built is not capable of releasing the war head from a safe distance and returning to land, as they lack the resources. Therefore it is a suicide mission. Dan nevertheless accepts and goes to destroy the Mekon’s second control device. Dare is successful in destroying it just as the Selektrobots arrive on the earth. The Mekon’s army is completely defeated and he is captured once again. Dan meanwhile is rescued from certain death by Sir Hubert in the Anastasia. Unfortunately the ship is almost destroyed by the Treens who on the last order of the Mekon try and kill Dan.

Dan is able to land the Anastasia in the lava belt of Venus where a gigantic monster known as the Silicon Mass dwells. Dan is able to escape with the aid of his friends and the Therons. He is also able to rescue his ship from being devoured by the Silicon mass using technology gleaned from the Treens. 

The Mekon however quickly manages to escape, though in his attempt he is seemingly consumed by the Silicon Mass. Dan believes he has seen the last of the monster, but Digby has a feeling he has escaped.

Following this earth begins to rebuild, with the Selektrobots now being reprogrammed to serve humanity. Dan and his friends are hailed as heroes and Spacefleet is re established.

Review

To modern readers The Reign of the Robots probably seems like just a straight forward, albeit extremely fun action adventure story. In truth its actually a very bold and ground breaking story.

The Treens in this story are clearly meant to represent the Nazi’s. Much like Terry Nation would later do with the Daleks, Frank Hampson is not subtle in the comparison’s he draws between the villains and the Third Reich.

We see the villains round people up into concentration camps and perform horrific experiments on them. There is also a disturbing scene where a Treen tells Dan that all of the weak and infirm of their own species were not allowed to live.

The Mekon and the Treens were always used as a metaphor for the Nazi regime but never quite as strongly as in this story.

The idea of basing a villain so heavily on the Nazi’s probably seems quite mundane and unoriginal nowadays, but back in the 1950’s barely a decade after the war had ended this would have seemed quite daring, especially in a comic aimed at children.

Much like The Dalek Invasion of Earth would do almost ten years later, this story plays on the paranoia people had during the war of a German invasion of England with the Treens much like the later Daleks even marching by familiar London landmarks.

However what’s great about the story is whilst it does present us with a horrifying what if the Nazi’s had won scenario, it also manages to be upbeat at the same time by showing us all the people of earth remain united against the Mekon. There are no Quizlings or backstabbers here. In contrast to other end of the world stories like say Day of the Dead that show us the last humans fighting amongst themselves, this is very much an optimistic story that shows us how the spirit of man will never be broken.

Whilst some of the World War 2 imagery may be lost on contemporary readers the story still holds up almost 6 decades later as it is still above else a gripping page turner.

It’s just wall to wall action and there really isn’t a dull moment. It also moves through so many different exciting locations and set pieces, from a deserted London to the Treens concentration camp, to the Mekons base on Venus to the Sargasso sea of space to the jungles of the Therons. These different and exotic set pieces give Hampson a chance to really spread his wings as an artist, more so than many other early other Dan Dare stories such as Marooned on Mercury, or the preceding story Rogue Planet which were set on the one planet.

The villains even without the Nazi parallels are still effective. The Mekon is a fascinating character the way he claims to have removed all of his emotions, yet paradoxically is still shown to be consumed with hatred for Dare. His reasons for keeping Dan alive, that he wants his help to rule the universe are lame, and I love the way we later find out that its actually just so he can prolong his agony and break his spirit.

My favourite moment though is when the Mekon is being held prisoner and they tell him to call off the last of his Treens and he instantly orders them to kill Dare no matter what. Its a brilliant twist that the Mekon who views himself as entirely logical is just so spiteful and petty.

Of all of the supporting characters Digby gets the best moments such as when we see him trick the Mekon. I love the way that he is able to trick the Mekon the greatest mind in the galaxy simply because he is such a simpleton, as he doesn’t have any deep thoughts for the Mekon to scan.

The Mekon and Digby’s interactions are lots of fun because you couldn’t get two more different characters. Digby is so sweet and lovable whilst the Mekon is just so vile, cowardly and sadistic. The Mekon probably calls Digby fat fool about 17 times in this story.

The only character who really doesn’t get anything to do in this adventure sadly is Professor Peabody. Its not so surprising that a female character wouldn’t be given much to do in something from the 50’s but still its a bit of a shame as normally Peabody was a more progressive character who was often given an important role in the story such as in Marooned on Mercury. In fact in just about every Dan Dare story I have read so far Peabody plays a crucial role in the story, but here she really just stands at the side which is a bit of a shame.

Still overall this is an excellent adventure that really is impossible to put down. I cant imagine how hard it would have been to have gone a week between strips back in the 50’s.

The Treen Invasion of Earth vs The Dalek Invasion of Earth

This story was a big influence on the Doctor Who serial the Dalek Invasion of Earth.

The Dalek Invasion of Earth sees the four main characters, the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara arrive back on earth after a long absence only to discover London deserted. They later find out that in their absence the Daleks have invaded and conquered the earth and are ruling it with the aid of robotized human servants called the Robomen. The Daleks also have set up massive work camps across the world too.

Our heroes are able to defeat the Daleks by taking control of the speaker that they use to control the robomen and give them new orders to turn on the Daleks.

The story also uses the Daleks as a metaphor for the Nazi’s in very strong ways

As you can see there are quite a lot of strong similarities between the two stories. It could also be argued that the Selektrobots look somewhat similar to the Daleks too.

Rise of the Pepperpots!

Again I am not accusing the Dalek Invasion of Earth of being a rip off of The Reign of the Robots, I just personally find it interesting seeing how stories can influence others. It was reading about Dan Dare’s influence on Doctor Who that got me interested in Dan Dare in the first place.

I think where the Dalek Invasion of Earth differs from Reign of the Robots is that it is much darker and less epic. The limited budget of Doctor Who meant that it couldn’t possibly span the many exotic locations across the entire solar system like The Reign of the Robots does.

However it does present us with a somewhat grimmer picture of life under an alien invasion. We see the full extent of the Daleks horrific experiments with the Robomen. The Robomen are people whose brains the Daleks have experimented on, and turned into living dead men. They are still awake underneath but they can’t control their own bodies. Eventually after a few weeks the Robomen have a complete breakdown and kill themselves.

The Robomen are a much more frightening concept than the Selektrobots and there are many disturbing moments with them, such as when we see a Roboman kill himself after he breaks down, or when one Roboman murders his own brother.

The human characters in the Dalek Invasion of Earth are also somewhat more morally grey. Many of them give up on the resistance and others even betray their fellow humans and work for the Daleks. There are plenty of Quislings and back stabbers in the Dalek Invasion of Earth, in contrast to the Reign of the Robots which features all of humanity remaining united against their oppressors.

I think its interesting to see the differences between Frank Hampson and Terry Nation’s style of writing. Terry Nation was a far darker writer who was more willing to push the boundaries in terms of what was acceptable.

It was this aspect of his writing that arguably made him one of television’s most celebrated writers as he did things that shocked audiences such as the Daleks themselves, who were seen by many people as too terrifying to be allowed on television. Then of course there was his later series Blake’s 7, which featured unsympathetic, even villainous lead characters, main characters being framed for being pedophile’s and main characters regularly dying too.

Hampson on the other hand was obviously a much more optimistic writer. His work generally tended to have a happier ending and tended to show us characters who were above all decent, kind hearted people. Whilst some might say this made his work less adult than Nation’s, personally I think it allowed it to be just as groundbreaking. After all it was Hampsons optimism and hope for the future that made him do things like give strong and prominent roles to women and ethnic minorities in a time when virtually no one else was.

I feel that Reign of the Robots and the Dalek Invasion of Earth two fairly similar stories, both in many ways sum up all that was great about both Hampson and Nation, two pioneering science fiction writers as well as what was ultimately different in their approach even when exploring similar ideas and concepts.

Notes/Trivia

• This story ran from 22 February 1957 to 18 April 1958. That’s also including the mini story “The Ship that Lived” which followed on directly from it. The Ship that Lived has often simply been reprinted as a part of The Reign of the Robots.
• This is the Mekon’s 4th appearance in Dan Dare.
• The 3rd and final part of The Man From Nowhere Trilogy.