Back From the Dead

History: Centuries ago, the Stone Giants were flying past Earth when their spaceship developed engine trouble. Not knowing if he could land the ship safely, the captain ordered the Stone Giants to bail out. They landed on Easter Island, buried themselves up to their necks, then placed themselves in suspended animation. The captain would awaken them when he arrived by reading a magical incantation written on a parchment that was hidden in a cave. After repairing the ship, the human-sized captain disguised himself as a human, then eventually recruited Harry Dawes, a runaway criminal, to help him find the hidden parchment with the incantation. Dawes found the parchment, and the captain read the incantation which revived the Stone Giants. Preparing to leave for their home world, the Stone Giants planned to put Dawes in their intergalactic zoo. The captain pulled off his face-mask to reveal his true nature to Dawes.

Height: 20 ft. (Stone Giants), 6 ft. (captain)
Demonstrated Powers: The Stone Giants were strong enough to dig themselves out of tons of earth. No other special powers were shown.

Equipment: Flying saucer

Comment: Speculation - Although there is no proof of any relation between the Stone Giants, Thorr, and the Things, perhaps their similarities can be explained by theorizing that they were all part of the same invasion force. Thorr and the Stone Giants never specified where they were from, so it is possible that they all came from the Things' home world of Lithodia Rex.

It is unknown if there is any connection with The Stone Men from Saturn who fought Thor in Journey into Mystery # 83; the Stone Men were smaller in size but had a similar appearance.

And while we're on the topic, Kirby also did a story for DC comics in 1959 (The Stone Sentinels of Giant Island in House of Mystery # 85 (reprinted in DC Special # 11) which used similar looking characters as the above stories; Kirby would later do a similar cover for Super Powers (second series) # 3 in 1985.

For another entry on these stone giants who came Back from the Dead, click HERE.

I believe the Stone Giants, the Things from Easter Island, AND the ironically-named Thorr are all Kronans (the ret-con name for the “Stone Men of Saturn”). And, in that spirit, I further theorize that Lithodia Rex is actually the name/title of the Kronans' ruler.

Kirby's first whack at Stone Men was in House of Mystery #85 1959, reprinted in DC Special #11 - 1971. The story is familiar - explorers discover Easter Island-like statues buried on Giant Island - turns out they are waiting for the their comrads to return from deep space and take over the planet.

I wonder if there's a connection between the secretly-living stone “statues” of Easter island and the Egyptian Sphinx (shown in at least two Marvel stories to be a living being — how this jibes with the Sphinx being Immorto's first time machine, I don't know).

Kirby also did the “Easter Island heads are really aliens” bit in DC's SUPER POWERS #3.

(Addendum: that's issue 3 of the second, six-issue SUPER POWERS series, from '85-'86, not the original four-issue miniseries.)

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