Roderick Kane

History: Roderick Kane was a criminal in the year 5000 A.D. who travelled via time-machine back to the year 1961. Using his superior science that he learned in the future, Kane planned to create a shrinking gas which he would use to reduce the size of Earth's population, and thus rule over the people as a dictator. After first testing the chemical gas on two animals, Kane next tested it on himself to see if it would work on humans. As he shrank in size, Kane found himself too weak to uncork the antidote bottle. Kane continued to shrink until he shrank from existance.

Height: 5 ft. 10 in. (before exposure to shrinking gas)
Demonstrated Powers: The evil Roderick Kane demonstrated no special powers save for the knowledge of advanced science learned in his future time.

Equipment: “X-32” reducing gas and enlarging gas antidote

Comment: Kane's shrinking gas predates the chemical later invented by Henry Pym (see The Man in the Ant Hill); however, being from the future, perhaps Kane's shrinking gas is actually a copy of Pym's which Kane learned from “ancient history” books.

Comment: Doctor Doom had a similar fate to Kane at the end of Fantastic Four # 10, wherein Doom also seemed to shrink from existance. It was later revealed that Doom actually entered a microverse (as first seen in Fantastic Four # 16 - “The Microworld of Doctor Doom”); it is possible that Roderick Kane also shrank down into a microverse (microverse: A parallel universe that can be reached from the Earth dimension by compressing one's own mass to a certain point, thereby forcing it through an artificially created nexus into the other universe. Microverses were once erroneously believed to exist within atoms).

Comment: Roderick Kane could be a future relative of Eric Kane - an escaped convict who discovered a race of subterranean lizard men in the story “I Found the Lair of…The Lizard Men” in Journey Into Mystery # 64 (art by Don Heck).

Comment: Kane reminds me of Paste Pot Pete (later The Trapster) as Kane's clothing looks vaguely like Pete's headgear and costume as it appeared in Strange Tales # 124 and Fantastic Four #'s 36 and 38; and since he's also a complete incompetent, maybe Kane is a future relative of Pasty's as well.

Comment: … or perhaps Kane was a future relative of Henry Pym's (not that Pym would ever admit to it), trying out an “old family recipe”.

I think his costume bears a greater resemblance to the exo-skeletal armor of FFoe Psycho-Man. In fact, he might even be one-and-the-same as…! I mean; let's face it. Psycho-Man has practically been a pathological liar when it comes to the usual super-villainous boasting of his origins.

Now that's an idea! What if the Psycho-Man was really Roderick Kane all along! As far as I know, there never were any other members of a race of Psycho-men ever shown. The whole Psycho-Man identity could just have been a fabrication of Kane's using his futuristic knowledge; and it would explain Psycho's interest in the Earth in the first place.

Or what if the Psycho-Man is really a dual creation of Roderick Kane and Elias Dane (see The Blue Glass Bottle), who shared a fate similar to Kane's when he also shrank out of existance.

A great story that I read on your web page. I loved it.
A good end with justice done.

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