"The Long Arm of the Law" or "Fist of Fury"

During the superhero boom of the early 1940's, comic-book publishers had assembly lines of artists and writers to churn out endless variations on the superhero formula. As a result, the comics landscape became crowded with interchangeable do-gooders, but occasionally a weirdo was produced as the demand for new gimmicks grew. Few were more bizarre than this one.

The origin of the mysterious Hand is never revealed, but it is suggested that it belongs to a crime-fighter who somehow reached into the scene from afar. In its debut in Speed Comics #12 (1941), the Hand defeats two crooks who are trying to rob an oceanic casino. Not only can it produce notes written in blood from out of the void, but it also possesses "superhuman strength" that comes in useful in dealing with the criminals.

The Hand is currently in public domain, so we feel that it's only a matter of time before we see an avalanche of Hand-themed merchandise, a Saturday morning cartoon, and eventually a multi-million dollar cash-in on Hollywood's current fixation on superhero properties. We think that Johnny Depp's hand would do a splendid job at portraying the famous appendage, but we're open to other casting suggestions.





Would you like to know more?
-Download the Hand's first appearance here for free (requires CDisplayEx viewing program)

Monster of the Month

Here in the Hyper Kitchen, we value the capacity of monsters to spice things up. It's never a dull moment when your life is in mortal danger. We assert that the monsters have rocketed mankind to ever more dizzying heights of cultural excellence and we shall be celebrating them every month. So now, every lunar cycle we will present a new freakish creature from nature, mythology, folklore, film, literature, or urban legend.

February is the month of the Brainiac (pictured above), the eponymous thing from the English-dubbed version of the Mexican made horror movie El Barón del Terror. Brought to the United States by Ken Murray (the same man who introduced Americans to the cinematic spectacle that was the luchador movie) the Brainiac featured a cruel, satanic baron in seventeenth-century Mexico who was burned at the stake for his occult practices by the Inquisition. The baron vowed that his resurrection would be heralded by the passing of a mysterious comet, seen overhead at his execution. Three hundred years later in the hip future of 1961, the baron returns from oblivion to exact his revenge, now an undead thing with the ability to to slurp out his victims brain with the aid of a tubular, forked tongue. Pulse-pounding stuff.

Not surprisingly, the movie lapsed into public domain in the United States. In this ever strange world, it is somehow comforting to know that we all own a part of the Brainiac.

You can watch the entire film here.