The Green Death!
In the Motto Grosso region of Brazil, a strange and deadly new plague has arisen: the Green Death! Its symptoms really aren’t mentioned — other than the obvious key words “green” and “death” — though one scientists refers to it as a “terrible body wasting disease.” Judging from the pictures, it turns people into green hippy zombies. As the rural farmers flee from the disease, they spread it to the larger towns and cities of Brazil until a full epidemic of Green Death has broken out.
Luckily, scientists from the Grant Institute of Medical Research have sent a team into the jungle to find the cause of the disease and develop a cure. Unfortunately, their native porter betrays them and they are captured by a local tribe of headhunters and imprisoned. The head scientist meets an unfortunate end, but the beautiful-female-scientist-hiding-under-a-mousy-façade and her hunky fellow scientist survive. Something to be said for being a good looking junior scientist, I guess.
All is not lost though, as one of the members of the expedition is really the Golden Age hero “The Hurricane” in disguise. He rescues the scientists and kills the evil witch doctor who was behind the Green Death. He also managed to “convince” the witch doctor to hand over the cure to the plague. As the remaining scientists are flown to safety, Hurricane unleashes his fury on the tribe of headhunters, destroying the whole town — if not the entire populace. Such is the vengeance of the Golden Age.
The Green Death resembles two plagues we’ve seen before: the Yellow Death from Superman and the Red Death from Doc Savage. Of course, this story predates the Yellow Death by three months, and the Red Death by nearly fifty years.
Motto Grosso is an actual region of Brazil, but the tribe mentioned, the Jivaro, live in Peru and Ecuador, not Brazil. I don’t think there are any Mayan ruins in Brazil, either.
This Hurricane story is from Captain America Comics #2 (June 1941), by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.
August 6th, 2009 at 8:13 am
As a Brazilian, I can clarify some points:
- “Mato Grosso” is a state name, which means something like “thick grass” in Portuguese (our language).
- Brazil was not Mayan territory. Most of the country was originally (before Portuguese came at the end of the XV century) a tupi or guarani territory.
August 6th, 2009 at 9:08 am
You beat me to the clarifications :)
August 6th, 2009 at 10:21 am
The Red Death from Doc Savage was actually in the original books, so unless this comic was published in the late 1800’s, it didn’t precede the Red Death by 50 years.
August 6th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Also, shrinking a head is a process that can take a while, as after removing the skull, you have to wait for the natural shrinking that comes with the curing of the flesh. (Yes, it’s gross)
August 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Good thing these malicious witch-doctors never spread plagues before they’ve figured out how to cure them. At least they still have THAT much of a code of ethical conduct.
August 6th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
The Doc Savage story ( The Man of Bronze) that the Red Death comes from was published in 1933 predating that story by 8 years!
August 6th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Would hair length even be affected by the head-shrinking process? From the look of Doctor Clay’s moustache and eyebrows, it looks like they may have stayed their original length, while the flesh around them shrunk.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Hair growth after death is an old-wives tale. The hair stays the same length. As your skin dries out and shrinks, it pulls back and reveals more of that which was embedded in the skin.
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