The Martian Plant Creature

History: The planet Mars was once a fertile world populated by a humanoid race. After centuries of drifting through space, the plant creature landed on the surface of Mars and attacked the inhabitants. The plant creature began to destroy all living matter with a deadly gas it emitted. Seeing no hope of defeating the plant creature, the Martians evacuated their planet. Centuries later, in the “future” year 1971, astronaut Chuck Dawson was launched into space on an exploratory mission to Mars. Upon landing, Dawson found Mars to be a desolate, dead world. Dawson was then captured by the plant creature, who forced Dawson to fly it back towards Earth in his spaceship. Thinking of the death and destruction the creature would cause on Earth, Dawson sacrificed himself and ignited his ship's fuel supply, thus destroying the spaceship and leaving the plant creature adrift in space.

Height: Variable
Demonstrated Powers: The Plant Creature had the power of mobility, was intelligent, and could communicate with mental telepathy. The Plant Creature could emit a posion vapor from its “mouth” which could instantly destroy living matter; the vapor could also act as a shield and protect the plant creature from explosive shells and disitegrator beams by smothering the effects of attack.

Comment: The plant creature did not actually originate on the planet Mars, but had landed there previously centuries earlier.

Comment: It is unknown if the plant creature had any connection with the plant-like alien Groot.

Comment: It is unknown if there is any connection between the plant creature and the H'ylthri - the sentient plant race living in the dimension of K'un-Lun (introduced in Iron Fist (vol. 1) # 2)

Comment: The fate of the Martians was never revealed, although some (such as real-life theorist Richard C. Hoagland) believe that the Martians migrated to Earth following a planet-wide disaster.

Comment: It is possible that the Mars of centuries earlier was inhabited by John Carter (the character created by author Edgar Rice Burroughs) or Gullivar Jones (the character created by author Edwin L. Arnold), both of whom had series published by Marvel.

This may well be the first early Marvel monster story I ever read. It is certainly my personal favorite. Track this one down and enjoy, true believer!

Since there are a lot of Martian races around in most of fictional universes, 'twould be nice to know how these people looked like. Burroughs Martians (from the planet Barsoom, as he reported) came in different colors - John Carters folk was red-skinned for example. Oh yeah, and all the females laid eggs. Even if they were from the look of splendid princess Dejah Thoris… mhmm… …er… mammal.

I thought I saw a similar story on the t.v. show The Outer Limits, second version.
The sacrifice of this pilot was similar to the sacrifice of the man carried off by The Titan.
Both men died heores, but hated by the general population.

Hi,
Chuck Dawson died a hero. No one ever knew that he was a hero. It is sad how he was hated for crashing the ship, when in fact he saved everyone's life by doing that.
John Cartwright did a similar thing when he gave his life to save humanity from the invasion of the Titan creatures from Atlantis.
Martyrs should be remembered. Heroes should be venerated. Life and fiction are sad when they are not.

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