The Best of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes: Robert Darvel

Darvel, Robert. Robert Darvel was created by Gustave Le Rouge (Charley Colmes, Doctor Cornelius Kramm, Todd Marvel) and Gustave Guitton and appeared in Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and La Guerre des Vampires (1909). Robert Darvel is a Planetary Romance Hero. Darvel is an American engineer who is approached by a Hindu prince for a special project. The prince uses the psychic energy of thousands of fakirs, gathered in an isolated monastery, to send Darvel to Mars, which Darvel discovers is inhabited by a number of strange and inimical races, from flying octopi to man-sized crustaceans with antennae and claws to the Erloor, a hostile race of bat-winged vampires who rule over a small race of human slaves. Darvel overthrows the Erloor and then discovers an invisible breed of Erloor which exist in subterranean cities. These invisible Erloor are in thrall to the Great Brain, an enormous Brain in a Jar who claims to rule the entire planet. The Brain eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, but in the sequel a group of invisible Erloor, which are on Earth, threaten Darvel’s fiancee and force him to return to Mars to kill the Great Brain.