I picked up a recent issue of Adventure House‘s High Adventure magazine, issue #173, which reprinted an early science fiction serial from The Popular Magazine in 1930: “Morgo the Mighty.”
The cover image of a man being carried of by a giant man-bat creature within what seems a large cavern was intreging. Street & Smith’s The Popular Magazine started off as a boy’s magazine, but quickly shifted to being an adult general fiction magazine competing against Argosy and similar pulps, though was never quite as successful. It lasted nearly 30 years before merging with Complete Stories. “Morgo the Mighty” was an attempt at shifting the tone of the magazine, but clearly didn’t succeed as the magazine only lasted about a year more.
The author of the piece is given as Sean O’Larkin, a pseudonym for John F. Larkin (1901-65). He used that name for several pieces in The Popular Magazine around that time, and he appears to have made his fame as a screenwriter, completing about 30 or so screenplays in the 1930s and ’40s.
So let’s look at the story. It’s an interesing lost-world tale, set in a huge cavern in Tibet, the size of Kansas we are told. It was serialized in four parts, and I found it unusual that it was cover featured on the first three installments! With other serials, they would cover feature only the first. High Adventure reprinted the first and second covers, the second on the back cover. The third featured our main hero and his companions being threatened by a giant chicken!
Our narrator is pilot Jerry McRory, who meets a fellow pilot in Darjeeling, India. Jerry’s friend is about to fly a millionaire and a couple of scientist over Kanchenjunga, the world’s third tallest mountain (though here they claim it’s the second, which even then they knew K2 was the second). Jerry’s friend shows him a strange diamond pendent, which he names “She of the Heads,” as it has the head of a woman, a lizard, and a bat.
Through a strange series of events, Jerry’s friend is killed by a dacoit, and the pendent stolen, and Jerry is recruited to fly the plane, a Junkers G 38, a real plane, to the peak. Strangely the author says this plane is “tailless,” but this is not correct.
Once over the mountains, Edgar Kenvon, the millionnaire, states his plan to also fly into a huge cavern he has learned about within the mountain. He threatens Jerry, and he does as told. They find this cavern, which is strangely lit, and inhabited! They see strange creatures on the floor, including man-like beings. And there are strange giant man-bats that attack the plane and cause it to crash. Jerry survives, but it seems his companions are dead or missing.
Jerry soon meet Morgo the Mighty! Morgo is a Tarzan-like character. He has been living in the cave since he was 10, brought by his explorer father, and remembers little of life outside the cavern. He has allies in a group of man-bats. But he is opposed to someone named Zorimi, an evil figure who rules the cavern and has his own group of man-bats under his control. The cavern is a dangerous place, with various giant creatures who can kill them, including giant ants and chickens. Jerry also meets a young girl, Nurri Kala, who appears to have been brought from the outside world by Zorimi and remembers little of it as well.
The three of them join up in the fight against Zorimi. Who is Zorimi, and why does he oppose Morgo? Will they triumph? What will become of them? Will they stay or return to the outside world? Read and find out.
Am always on the look for new lost-world tales, and this was an interesting one. Check it out for yourselves. Adventure House does a great job of bringing interesting old pulp tales back to life. High Adventure has reprinted a lot of good stuff.
