Mummies, those shambling staples of Universal and Hammer horror movies, weren’t quite a big enough threat to satisfy Silver Age comic book readers.
No, they had to have giant mummies — that was the ticket!
These seemingly undead Godzillas lumbered through the pages of Marvel and Charlton comics.
Marvel cover-featured giant mummies in Mummex — King of the Mummies! (Tales to Astonish 8, March 1960); I Defied Gomdulla — The Living Pharaoh! (Journey into Mystery 61, Oct. 1960); and When the Mummy Walks (Tales to Astonish 31, May 1962).
In all three cases, the “surprise twist” turned out to be that the monster mummies weren’t dead Egyptians at all, but aliens.
But then, they sort of had to be. From 1954 until its demise, the Comics Code Authority prohibited depictions of the “undead,” including mummies.
In his inaugural exploit, Charlton’s magical revamp of the venerable Blue Beetle fought Kha-Ef-Re, a giant pharaoh revived by the detonation of a hydrogen bomb.
The Egyptian contribution to the giant monster genre didn’t end with mummies, of course. Sphinxes also made popular menaces.
Marvel’s taste for mummies wasn’t confined to the 1960s. In Supernatural Thrillers 5 (Aug. 1973), N’Kantu the Living Mummy debuted as a series character.
About Author
