Monster of the Day #3450

Man, I just saw that Johnny Hardwick (Dale Gribble) passed away.

This story has a lengthy review over on ThePulp.Net that I won’t even try to summarize here. Suffice to say that it involves the Spider versus The Man Called Death, who uses his incredible hypnotic powers and “cities across the nation are affected by the hypnotic compulsion to kill. Hundreds of cases of industrial sabotage. Mutinies in Army Camps. A great fire sweeps a small city off the map. The entire nation is near utter chaos. He even has to rescue the President of the United States from the dominion of Death. Whew! Now that’s some story!”

It is a bit odd in that the villain in it has what might as well be actual superpowers. He can use super-hypnosis to control entire cities full of people, turning everyone there into a murderous maniac. He makes people die with a command by hypnotizing and willing them to death. The Man Called Death can even use his powers on the Spider, Master of Men, and make him see what isn’t there!

We also learn that the Spider studied Tibetan mysticism for a time when his old teacher comes to see him. You know, when I consider all the Pulp heroes and villains who studied Tibetan mysticism — to say nothing of the superheroes and supervillains from the comics — I wonder if Tibet had a college just for foreigners who wanted to learn how to use the Siddhis (Buddhist magic powers) in their careers.

Hah! I recall reading years something by L. Sprague DeCamp years ago to the effect of if all these Tibetan superman existed, then why didn’t they do anything to save Tibet from being conquered and devastated by the Chinese Red Army with the survivors being force-fed the invincible thoughts of Chairman Mao?