The Monstrefact Omnibus: Monsters of DC Comics

and cryogenically frozen mad scientists. But in terms of more monstrous foes, a few names rise to the top. There's, of course, the Man Bat hybrid man Bat. But I thought we might discuss another famous foe of the caped crusader, Waylon Jones aka Killer Croc. Now, if you grew up on the nineties Batman animated series like I did, you'll probably remember this guy is a pale, gray, scaly humanoid

with big shoulders, sharp teeth, and a skeletal face. He's at home in the waters, especially river and sewer waters, and he possesses great strength for grappling Batman. This character was created back in nineteen eighty three for the Batman comic by Jerry Conway, Don Newton, and Gene Colan. His original appearance was greener and scalier, and over the years,

designs for Killer Crock have only grown more monstrous. In the nineteen eighty three comic debut, he's roughly the size of a large man, but in the two thousand and nine video game Arkham Asylum, he's an absolute ogre that basically fills an entire prison cell by himself. The original explanation given for Killer Croc's appearance is a skin condition, probably meant to be something from the ichthiosis family of genetic skin conditions that can produce a scale like quality

of the skin. Now, I'm not sure how tasteful this ultimately is, and besides, this is hardly an excuse for other aspects of Killer Croc's appearance and character. Plus, to be clear, killer Croc has dinosaur feet and other dinosaur like qualities in his later appearances. As such, these later incarnations of Killer Croc are often explained as a severe form of atavism, a real life recurrence of a genetic

trait typical of an ancestral form. The topic is explored in the excellent book DC Anatomy of a Metahuman by SD Perry and Matthew K. Manning, with illustrations by Mean Dole. As the authors point out, a vestigial tail or an extra nipple in human beings is not too uncommon an example of this, but if the affected gene is old enough, a pre mammalian trait may be expressed in a human being. Some of our genetic pre mammalian traits can be seen

in our embryotic development. We see temporary examples of this in the dental placodes of developing human fetuses, which, according to Petrokova at All in the two thousand and six paper for the Journal of Experimental Zoology, resemble early tooth primordia in reptiles. The human fetus also temporarily develops a tail. In a twenty nineteen Howard University study identified ancient reptilian limb muscles in human embryos during the early weeks of gestation.

More startling, however, is a case reported by Walia at All in a twenty ten edition of the Texas Heart Institute Journal, when a fifty nine year old man sought medical attention concerning chest pains, doctors discovered some surprising myocardial architecture. Quote Remarkably, the morphology resembled that of the reptilian heart, that is, it featured direct communications to the ventricle cavity

and had the sinusodal characteristics of non compacted myocardium. The authors note that this was the second known case of such a heart in human beings. While the medical curiosity certainly there was certainly nothing monstrous about this, the fictional case of killer croc would seem to involve a fantastic exaggeration of reptilian ativism in a human being, and multiple cases of it at bat, impacting various bodily systems and features,

a kind of ridiculous atavism jackpot if you will now. Obviously, crocodilian morphology factors into various mythological creatures for various cultures and time periods around the world where crocodiles live or where stories of crocodiles would drift to. Traditions in Egypt, Zambia, and Indonesia involve humans that transform into crocodiles to harm others,

akin to the werewolfs of Western lore. So it's likely here that we find the closest thing to Killer Krock outside of comic books, rather than in our own human medical history. Now, let's turn our attention to one of my all time favorite comic book characters, the swamp Thing. Swamp Thing was the creation of writer Lynn Wine and artist Bernie Wrightson, debuting in the House of Secrets horror

comic back in nineteen seventy one. Since that time, swamp Thing has appeared in two live action eighties films, two live action TV series, and numerous animation and video game projects. But among comic fans, there's nothing to compare to Alan Moore's run with the character during the nineteen eighties. Swamp Thing's original origin story was not all but different from

other lab accidents spawned monsters. Scientist Alec Holland his experimental formula and a lab explosion in the Bayou transforms man into plant based monster, who in turn battles various other monsters, often in the form of doctor Anton R. Kane's Unmen, plus many others. In Moore's run with the character, however, he subverted this troupe, invoking biochemical memory experiments about plenarian worms.

We discussed these in our episode Devourer of Memories. His take is that Alik Holin does not survive the explosion in the swamp. He is not a man who becomes a plant like monster, but plant life of the swamp that generates a body and a sense of self in

the likeness of the dead man. It consumes, in this more stripped swamp thing of any direct connection to his human identity and opens the door for a deeper connection to the green and the Parliament of trees, essentially recreating the character as a plant elemental, a warrior of Gaia, and overall super lorax if you will. If you haven't read the Saga of the Swamp Thing, I highly highly

recommend it. Virtually nothing can touch it now. Long time listeners to Stuff to Blow your mind and general philosophy junkies might remember a similar creature. No, not Marvel's man Thing, though he's awesome as well, but philosopher Donald Davidson's swamp Man thought experiment. We've talked about this on the show as well, back in our Thought Experiment's episode. It basically

goes as follows. If a lightning strike in the swamp were to destroy Davidson's body and transform an adjacent dead tree into an exact living replica of Davidson without reusing any of the previous Davidson molecules. Then what do we have? This tree double or swamp Man. It behaves just like the previous Davidson and seems to know what he knew, But does it really know anything? In this swamp Man is a rumination on thought and meaning in knowing one's mind.

Davidson writes the following quote, My replica can't recognize my friends. It can't recognize anything, since it never cognized anything in the first place. It can't know my friend's names, though of course it seems to. It can't remember my house. It can't mean what I do by the word house, for example, since the sound house it makes was not learned in a context that would give it the right meaning, or any meaning at all. Indeed, I don't see how my replica can be said to mean anything by the

sounds it makes, nor to have any thoughts. Now. It's worth noting that Davidson, who died in two thousand and three, published this idea on Swampman a few years after More recast the origin of swamp Thing, and as far as I can tell, no one is entirely certain on how and to what extent the two are connected. Authors Chris Galliver and Nathaniel Goldberg explored the connection or possible connection in the twenty nineteen book Superhero Thought Experiments, Comic Book

Philosophy and contend Quote. While there's no evidence that either Moore or Davidson read each other, Moore's series appears to be philosophically influenced and Davidson's Thought Experiment appears to be pop culturally influenced. So perhaps it's just the case of two men on different tracks thinking deep thoughts about swamp and the self now. Gavalier and Goldberg also stress that

there are distinct differences in their treatments quote. When it comes to meaning or semantics, swamp Man is a blank slate, while Moore's swamp Thing initially mistakes itself for Alec Holland, only later to realize that it isn't Alec Holland. Swamp Man never miss takes itself for Donald Davidson. It only appears to do so. If Davidson is right, swamp Man thinks no thoughts. It can't think it's Davidson because it

can't think at all. Hmm, So ponder on all of that, and by all means, pick up a copy of Superhero Thought Experiments if you want to deeper dive on this topic. It's really quite an excellent book. Comic fans, I will leave you with this. Here's a question for you. Has swamp Thing ever actually met Davidson's swamp Man in the pages of a comic book. It seems like in general, any kind of matchup or encounter that one could possibly imagine has occurred, or no doubt will occur. I can't

help but wonder how this would go down. What would swamp Thing think about the encounter, and what would swamp Man seem to think about it but actually not think at all. Of course, we can't talk about DC monsters without talking about one of Superman's most monstrous opponents. It's time to talk about Doomsday, the brutal, spiny shouldered Kryptonian monster, best known for killing Superman in the early nineteen nineties.

While the superhero's death didn't last too long, it was certainly a great way to launch a supervillain's career, and Doomsday has remained one of the resurrected Superman's most recognizable foes. His creation is credited to Jan Jurgens Brett, Breeding, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern. In DC Anatomy of a Metahuman by S. D. Perry and Matthew K. Manning with illustrations by Mean Doyle, the authors lay out Doomsday's tragic

origin story. An alien scientist named Bertron takes a humanoid child and exposes that child to the deadly prehistoric environment of the planet Krypton. The child dies, that Bertrn resurrects the child via advanced cloning technology and reintroduces the child

to the wild with added traits to protect them. The child dies again, and the amoral Bertrand continues the cycle over and over again, using sci fi cloning technology in the place of natural selection to eventually produce an incredibly tough super being, the ultimate metahuman combatant, now virtually undying himself incapable of amazing feats of regeneration, This is the

being that will become known as Doomsday. However, as Doomsday retains the traumatic memory of his many formative deaths, he's ultimately tormented by the rage, so much that he eventually kills his mad scientist creator and continues to see the face of his hated creator in others and rages against them incessantly. It's a clever twist on evolution, melding the science of natural selection, the philosophy of Frederic Nietzsche, and

the psychological trauma. It's also interesting when we start considering the idea of resurrection from a religious and mythological standpoint. Superman in the Death of Superman's story arc quite clearly echoes the religious motif of the dying and rising God famously seen in such figures as the ancient Egyptian of

Cyrus and the Christian Jesus. Doomsday is seemingly something else, though not a god who has died and come back, but a mortal who has died and come back so many times that he has become at least a demi god and a potential slayer of the divine, though in many ways Doomsday is not so different. After all, there is a psychical aspect to the death and resurrection of such religious figures as of Cyrus and Jesus as well, making their deaths and resurrections also quite numerable. In a sense.

Even in cases where there is only the singular death in the singular resurrection. These events are often remembered or celebrated alongside cyclical events like the passing of the seasons and the inundation of the Nile River, but they are still singular resurrections celebrated cyclically in multitude. Doomsday, however, has

experienced a multitude of deaths across linear time. In this you could argue that he is a modern secular linear perversion of the cyclical sacred and mythic and therefore a fitting opponent for the godlike Superman. But I would be very interested to hear what you think about the matter. Finally, here's a more obscure DC villain, though he has shown up in the movies. It's mister Mind. Meet mister Mind, a tiny Venusian worm or caterpillar to be clear, he

has legs with enormous power at its disposal. Created in DC com comics in the early nineteen forties by Auto Bender and C. C. Beck, mister Mind stands as one of the primary supervillains of Captain Marvel. Not the Marvel Captain Marvel, but the DC Captain Marvel. Minds you this is the one that moviegoers may know best as Shazam. Mister Mind also makes a couple of cameo appearances in

those films. Now, mister Mind boasts incredible psychic powers in a genius level intellect to back those powers up, so he's gotten into all sorts of mischief over the years, including founding the Monster Society of Evil. He also employs at least two key bits of technology, special classes and an audio amplifier to interact with the larger world, because again, despite his powers, he is a tiny worm or caterpillar.

But what I want to focus on is his old and frankly odd origin story from the Silver Age of comics, in which he makes the interplanetary void from Venus to Earth in order to meet ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy. This was Slash is a real ventriloquist dummy. Mister Mind, you see, had heard Charlie McCarthy on Earth's radio program Transmissions and apparently mistook fiction for reality. He was, of course disappointed upon learning the truth. It's a common sci

fi trope explored on Futurama and elsewhere. Extraterrestrials pick up on transmissions from Earth and either misunderstand the difference between fiction and reality or simply lack the ability to tell the difference. There are even more sci fi works that explore the larger idea of intercepted Earth transmissions, most notably Carl Sagan's nineteen eighty five novel Contact the Si. In the sci fi here is of course that for more than one hundred years we've been busting out commercial radio

transmissions here on Earth. However, as Robert Matthews points out in a BBC Science Focus article, most of these signals were absorbed by the atmosphere or drowned out by solar radio transmissions, so our radio leakage as a planet was perhaps minimal. However, Matthew stresses that Cold War military radar transmissions are strong enough to have already broadcast our presence

out to anyone listening within sixty light years. There have also been deliberate radio transmissions aimed at communicating our existence, such as the nineteen seventy four Arecibo message sent to Messia thirteen, or at least in the spirit of such communication, but the basic idea of such transmissions either emanating from us or potentially picked up from an extraterrestrial source has

garnered much discussion and debate over the decades. How likely is alien reception or our reception of an alien transmission based on the vast distances involved in limits of possible travel speeds as we know them, How should we approach such long term concerns, and just how careful should we be when it comes to such radio transmissions or even

our radio leakage. Because while our most optimistic views of extraterrestrial contact are rosy, indeed some of the more pessimistic models, based in large part on Earth's own history of outside contact, situations in which one culture encounters a technologically superior one are perhaps best avoided. And then there's the mister Mind model, in which we managed to attract a caterpillar supervillain to our planet with our tantalizing nineteen forties radio comedy shows.

Thank goodness, we have so many Captain Marvels to deal with that sort of thing. All right, we're going to go and close it out here, but I'd love to hear from you if you have suggestions for future installments of the Monster Fact or the Artifact. You can contact us at Contact at stuff to Blow your Mind.