Animation

Ōgon Bat [Golden Bat]
'The Star of Polynesia'
(season 1, episode 18, 1967)

Dr Steele and his companions land on a volcanic island in Polynesia, where an extremely ancient, but advanced civilisation once lived. All that remains of this people is the Haua temple surrounded by several moai-shaped heads, which represent the Hapuhapu divinities. Dr Steele's mission is to find 'The Star of Polynesia', a diamond-like crystal that could advance humanity's technological and industrial progress.

Of course, Dr Steele is not the only one looking for the Star. Secretly following him is Gorgo, the evil but inept assistant to Dr Zero, a black-clad, four-eyed mad scientist who wants to rule the world. As Dr Steele's party walks towards the temple, a small spaceship emerges from the bowels of the earth carrying Titano, the king of the underground people, who also pursues the crystal to conquer the world. Titano's soldiers attack Dr Steele's team, but the latter are rescued by the superhero Ōgon Bat, a gold-armoured, skull-headed, reawakened divinity from Atlantis who fights evil and protects the weak and the righteous.

52 episodes of the Ōgon Bat anime were originally broadcast on Japanese television in 1967 and 1968, with the stories developed from the popular manga which features in the title role the world's first superhero, a caped defender who was created in 1931. This is the earliest known animation to engage with Easter Island. Even though the location is a nameless island in Polynesia, the moai-like giant heads and the rongorongo-style inscriptions clearly identify Easter Island as the point of reference for the episode. These statues are giant stone figures sticking out of the ground with large ears, unusually elephantine and pointing outwards. They are presented as artefacts of a long-gone civilisation and function as curiosities to fill the frame. Several statues are easily destroyed in this episode, either at the hands of Titano, Dr Zero's soldiers, or Ōgon Bat, who crushes them to pieces to use as weapons against his opponents. Nonetheless, they retain some of their special qualities as they are depicted as the containers and protectors of the precious Star of Polynesia, a diamond that appears inspired by the immensely valuable Star of Africa, which was found in 1905.

What renders this animation especially significant is the presence of the glyphs in the Haua temple, where they are etched onto a wall. Unlike the rongorongo inscriptions, which remain undeciphered, Maria is able to interpret these temple hieroglyphs in a very short space of time. The glyphs do not faithfully reproduce the rongorongo symbols – but then Easter Island fiction rarely does. They do, however, display a certain degree of connection with the originals, indicating that the cartoonists may have had some visual knowledge of the actual inscriptions.

Alessandra De Marco

GeGeGe No Kitarô
'The Strange Tale of Easter Island'
(season 2, episode 35, 1972)

A crooked fortune-teller murders a competitor – a more successful teller from Peru, who had recently moved to the neighbourhood. He steals her fortune-telling crystal and inspired by the work of his adventurer father, he flees to Easter Island. His father had been able to summon the evil spirit of Aku-Aku, which the crook tries to recreate with guidance from the crystal and precisely at the point that the sun turns red.

Watched by Kitarô and his companion Nezumi, a rat-like human-monster hybrid, the crook climbs up a moai only to disturb a group of bats, which fly out of the moai from its hollow head. Aku-Aku appears and he is the harbinger of death, causing a moai to topple onto the crook and crush him completely. Aku-Aku picks up the dead crook and takes him down within a hole that has been exposed by the fallen moai, and deep into the underworld. Kitarô and Nezumi return to Japan, where they are surprised to hear that the crook is now in jail. They visit him, whereupon he crumbles and becomes a skeleton.

Along with the earliest known animation to engage with Easter Island – Ōgon Bat (1967; see review above) – GeGeGe No Kitarô shows that Japan was clearly ahead of other countries in exhibiting a creative fascination with the moai within the medium of television. Both are based on long-running manga; in fact Ōgon Bat is regarded as the first comic book superhero. Kitarô is a different type of hero and one that encounters in each episode ghouls and demons from the Japanese folklore of yōkai. The stories were initially considered too unsettling for children and they have consequently been adjusted through different versions. Originally titled Kitarô of the Graveyard, the GeGeGe in this series is the cackling sound made by a monster. Kitarô, who was born in a graveyard, is 350 years old, and the last survivor of the Ghost Tribe, although he carries around the living remnant of his father, a talking eyeball that resides in Kitarô's empty eye socket.

'The Strange Tale of Easter Island' is one of 65 episodes that appeared in a series that ran from 1968 to 1972, with stories often featuring monsters from foreign cultures. Aku-Aku in this episode is from Rapanui mythology (where it is the spirits of the dead). It first emerges as large glowing eyes on a rock not dissimilar to the Rapanui god Makemake, but which is revealed to be the sockets of a living skull. Here, Aku-Aku is depicted as a figure that is more Japanese in design: an old skeleton man with long grey hair and beard, carrying a crooked stick with a small skull on top. The horror narrative extends to bats flying out of a moai (there are in fact no bats on Easter Island) and a gooey dark liquid that secretes from a moai's eye. There are many examples in Easter Island fiction that imagine stairs or cavern entrances within/ beneath the moai, but this story is alone in seeing an opening to the underworld.

Ian Conrich

Gaiking
Italian broadcast title: 'Gli Dei dell'Isola di Pasqua' ['The Gods of Easter Island']
(episode 24, 1976)

A couple of tourists stop to admire a giant moai on Easter Island. As the man is about to take a picture of the woman with one of the statues, the moai comes alive. Other moai rise up and as they emerge from the ground, revealing full bodies complete with arms and legs, they start chasing the tourists. The humans try to flee on an airplane but it is hit by laser beams fired from a moai's eyes, which causes it to crash into the ocean.

Employing their flying armoured vehicle, Great Space Dragon, Dr Daimoni and his team (Sanshiro, Pete, Sakan, Midori, Fan Lee, Yamatake and Bunta) travel towards Easter Island to investigate the event. According to the local lore, the statues can be animated by a witch. As soon as the Dragon lands, it is attacked by the moai, who as well as firing lasers from their eyes, are now armed with stone axes and spears (which appear primitive in comparison). The Space Dragon fights back with its powerful weapons, destroying all the statues. The remains of the statues reveal a robotised skeleton beneath their stone shell.

Dr Daimoni and his crew suspect that the Island may be the hiding place of the Dark Horror Army, an alien and extremely advanced civilisation from planet Zela in the Cignus galaxy, which had been swallowed by a black hole. Pete, one of the team's pilots, asks permission to explore the extinct volcano on Easter Island which they know is linked to the ancient cult of the birdman. Accompanied by Midori, the two discover across the island rock carvings of birdmen and turtles. Suddenly the two are attacked by masked men, who were the inhabitants of Zela, but have been brainwashed and turned into cyborg birdmen enslaved by the evil sentient robot Black Darius and his four generals. While Pete manages to escape, Midori is taken prisoner and taken beneath a sliding boulder to the underground lair of the birdmen. The plan is to offer her as a sacrifice to the goddess Olongar in order to bring the deity back to life.

Sanshiro, Pete and Fan Lee, save Midori from the sacrificial ceremony, with the birdmen dancing around a pyre invoking the divinity. Suddenly, from the erupting volcano, Olongar emerges in the form of a monstrous fire-breathing turtle-shaped robot. A battle between the monster and the Space Dragon ensues, but the Dragon falls back pretending to be defeated. While the four generals celebrate, the Space Dragon goes in search of Pete and Sanshiro – who were about to be killed by a firing squad of birdmen – and sets them free. In the final confrontation with Olongar (aptly called 'Operation Turtle') the Gaiking robot appears, formed by detachable parts of the Great Space Dragon in the style of the Transformers. Gaiking is assisted by the Space Dragon, which tunnels from underneath the turtle and flips it over revealing its weaker belly and then slices off its head. Together, they destroy Olongar and defeat the four Generals.

Produced by Toei Animation, Gaiking is one of the less famous robots created by the celebrated Japanese mangaka Go Nagai (aka Kiyoshi Nagai), the author of renowned manga and animation series such as Grendizer, Mazinger, Devilman and Getter Robot. Belonging to the mecha genre, Gaiking is a human-controlled robot, fighting against an evil alien civilisation that has been trying to dominate the world and destroy mankind with terrifying mechanical monsters. While most of the mecha animation series take place in Japan, and numerous battles are fought at the feet of Mount Fuji, in this episode Easter Island offers an alternative setting – albeit at the base of another volcano – for the confrontation between the forces of good and evil.

Despite being an early example of Easter Island animation, the episode reveals a degree of interest in Rapanui culture with some accuracy in its depiction. Throughout the episode several characters offer viewers bits of historical information about the island, its discovery, its lore and its mythology. A central reference in the story is the figure of the birdman, an evident source of inspiration for the warriors from Zela. These fantasised warriors, who hide underground, carry out their ceremony inside the extinct volcano of Rano Kau, near Orongo, the ceremonial village and centre of the birdman cult. The name of the turtle-shaped divinity Olongar is a transliteration of the name Orongo, with petroglyphs of the turtle (that do exist on Rapanui) included alongside the birdman carvings that can be seen at the ceremonial site. And whilst this sea creature does have mythical powers within Polynesian culture they are not those represented in this story which shows its real origins in Japanese kaiju eiga (colossal creatures) and where there already existed the giant flying turtle, Gamera.

The episode also makes considerable use of popular tropes and myths about Easter Island. One is the reference to the alleged outer space origins of the Rapanui people, with the Zela people functioning as the ancient settlers of the island and as the creators of the moai thanks to their advanced scientific knowledge. The actual ecological history of Rapanui and of its people may also have functioned as a source of inspiration for the people of the planet Zela. Indeed, the Zela people are faced with an ecological disaster caused by the nuclear explosions on the surface of their sun which gradually destroyed their ecosystem, forced them to move underground, and on the verge of extinction flee to planet Earth. The figure of Black Darius who commands the Dark Army and was initially created to help save the Zelans, eventually enslaves many of them. Such an idea may have been inspired by the intestine wars among the Rapanui tribes and the later enslavement of the Rapanui in 1862 by the Peruvian slave raiders.

Similarly, the episode capitalises on the myth of power with the moai coming alive in the most dramatic way, where unusual for moai fiction they are depicted carrying weapons. The running moai in the opening scene offers a captivating start to the episode. These moai are correctly shown facing inward, in this instance toward the volcano to honour the goddess Olongar (or so Pete hypothesises).

Alessandra De Marco

Super Friends
'Sinbad and the Space Pirates'
(season 3, episode 7, 1978)

Captain Sinbad, an intergalactic pirate who commands three galleons that fly through outer space, comes to Earth. His aim is to plunder the treasures that have been buried by earlier space pirates and these are located at Earth's ancient monuments. The flying ships contain powerful cannons that can hypnotise people to be slaves, and rays that can lift cities and buildings to retrieve the treasure beneath, as well as activate forcefields and smoke screens.

At Easter Island, the moai are lifted into the air and into a galleon through a beam of energy. Apparently, hidden inside each moai is 50 tonnes of solid gold. Batman and Robin fly down to stop the pirates "before they dig up the whole island", but the plunderers manage to escape with their treasure. Eventually, and with help along the way from Wonder Woman and Aquaman, the pirates are caught and handed over to the Intergalactic Police Force. The Super Friends advise that they will return the treasures and stolen artefacts back to their original locations.

This episode was originally broadcast on 30 September 1978. Part of a long running series of 109 episodes spanning 14 years, the Super Friends were formed when Hanna-Barbera acquired the rights to characters from DC Comics and decided to rename the Justice League of America. Whilst many of the characters are recognisably from the DC universe, the voices and storylines are more Hanna-Barbera. Introducing pirates as the villains is designed to appeal to children who would seemingly appreciate a mix of buccaneers and space ships. Yet, the notion is made especially bizarre with the pirates depicted in historical attire and with ships and accessories that have barely evolved from centuries past and in the context of space travel are highly impractical. For they require no spacesuits – pirate clothing is sufficient – and galleons are shown anchored to the land below.

The moai are plundered as giant treasure chests with their enhanced value as hidden hordes of gold. Alas, within history, numerous moai have been stolen from Easter Island and taken to foreign museums and lands. This has been done with sailing ships that are akin to the pirate ships. The plundering in this animation is very imaginative and undertaken with greater ease than the actual thefts that have been recorded in the history of Rapanui. Significantly, in this fiction the moai are returned.

Ian Conrich

Cyborg 009
'Sleep, Giants of Legend!'
(episode 5, 1979)

It is a foggy night on Easter Island and a man is terrified to discover that he is being followed by moai. He tries to escape, by climbing up the side of a cliff, but he falls and breaks his neck. The moai return to their positions.

The Cyborg team are gathered at Gilmore Labs, where Dr Gilmore gives his thoughts on the legend of the moai and how they were perceived to have the power to move independently. It is believed that they may hold an answer to the Stone Giants found elsewhere which have been threatening mankind. In particular, an examination of an arm of one of the Stone Giants shows it is similar to the moai in terms of its molecular stone structure. The team head to Easter Island, aboard their craft Dolphin II, to investigate further.

On arrival, they meet Professor Milton, an archaeologist, and explore Rano Raraku, but they are interrupted by an earthquake, which is found to be caused by the moai shifting up and down, a phenomenon called the "shaking rocks". This is followed by boulders being hurled through the air which narrowly miss the team. The whole episode is a warning to the visitors to stay away.

Back on board the Dolphin II, Milton relays that he has been on the island looking for his missing twin brother, Galton, also an archaeologist, who had apparently got close to unlocking the mysteries of the moai. The brothers had ventured to Easter Island thirty years ago; entranced by the moai, Galton stayed, whilst Milton returned to Norway. Milton's return to Easter Island was triggered by an unexpected letter received from his brother urging him to come back.

Suddenly, the Dolphin II, which has been positioned underwater, is surrounded by moai, who have entered the ocean and are trying to ram the craft. Dolphin II surfaces and flies upwards, managing to lose the moai. It is decided that the team must locate the source of the moai energy, which is coming from the sea, so Dolphin II re-enters the ocean waters whereupon the moai again give chase. Dodging the threat, they locate the energy source to be inside a cavern, which is fronted by a moai, and through whose mouth they must pass.

The cavern contains booby traps, which fail to halt the team. Deeper inside they discover a moai-filled factory. And in the middle of the moai is a strange square stone, which opens up whilst Milton is attempting to decipher its writing. Horrifyingly, Galton is inside the object, and he is now a crazed human-stone hybrid who is able to control the moai, desires global domination and believes he can become a god.

Galton assembles a giant moai, which attacks the Cyborg team. They struggle to destroy the colossus, as each time a part – such as its head – is smashed or severed, it is simply re-attached. Milton manages to divert the moai's attention and make it accidentally destroy the supporting machinery. This brings Galton's psychic control of the moai to an abrupt halt with the stone giant collapsing into pieces.

Free of the controlling devices, Galton is now able to warn the team before he dies and turns to stone. He tells them that the Gods of Asgard have begun plans to take over the world. A new tremor is triggered by the technology, causing the collapse of the cave. The team escape safely and reflect on the successful demise of Galton's evil operations.

This was the second (the first in 1968) of several Japanese television series in the long-running Cyborg 009 stories, created by Ishinomori Shotaro, which has turned to the moai at points in its long running adventures (anime – reviewed below and manga - reviewed below). The series views the moai as sources of great power that allow them to move and become objects of destruction. Like the television series Gaiking (reviewed above) this episode employs significantly the myth of movement, with the moai able to follow and threaten visitors, attack vessels, and create earth tremors through moving up and down in unison. The moai that has an ability to reassemble itself if smashed has also appeared in Giant Girl Adventures (reviewed below).

Easter Island may not be a large land mass but in moai fiction it is a site where scientists and archaeologists can easily go missing. Strangely, the English sounding Milton is associated with Norway; an idea perhaps developed from real-life Norwegian archaeologist, Thor Heyerdahl.

Ian Conrich

Drak Pack
‘International Graffiti’
(season 1, episode 15, 1980)

The Drak Pack gang – Drak Jr., Frankie and Howler (descendants of Count Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman) – arrive on Easter Island in their flying car, the Drakster, for a vacation. Frankie finds the moai “scary”; Drak Jr. tells him to relax and that the statues have been there for centuries. He adds that “nobody knows for sure who created them and why”. Very soon after they arrive, their great foe, Dr Dred, head of the evil organisation O.G.R.E. (that includes Mummyman and Vampira), begins transforming the moai into stone effigies of his own face, using his ‘facemaker’ device. His plan is to turn all the famous statues of the world into monuments of himself. Drak Jr. advises him that in altering the moai he has just “defaced a famous artefact”. The Drak Pack try to stop him flying away in his airship, but they end up crashing into a moai that crumbles to pieces. Dr Dred flies next to the Great Pyramids in Egypt setting a trap for the Drak Pack, who are helpless to stop the face of the Sphinx being altered. Finally, he flies to Mount Rushmore, but this time the Drak Pack are prepared and using a mirror they manage to deflect the power of the facemaker device. The contraption is then grabbed by the Drak Pack, with Dr Dred’s airship receiving a puncture that sends it crashing.

Villains altering the faces of the moai to be in their own image have appeared elsewhere, in the television animation series M.A.S.K. (1985) and the comic book Joker: The Last Laugh (2001). This Hanna-Barbera episode, which was the penultimate in a total of sixteen, is no more than the basic idea of a villain changing the faces of world monuments. The idea is repetitive and runs thin, with the time on Easter Island occupying almost half of the 21 minute episode. The moai which surround a single volcano are simply famous artefacts to be transformed and serve no other function. Easter Island itself is devoid of a population or society and any other form of culture. The only original element to the story is the visit of so many classic movie monsters to the island.

Ian Conrich

Moby Dick 5 (1980)

A 26-episode anime originally broadcast on Japanese television between April and September 1980, this programme’s original title literally translates as Mu’s White Whale. The giant sea creature, which is the reincarnated kingdom of Mu, is capable of flying and spectacularly emerges from the sea off Easter Island. It acts as a vessel into outer space for four heroic Mu warriors who are reincarnated as youths alongside the king’s daughter whose life has been sustained in the form of a cyborg. The team have their own flying gondolas that enter into the whale’s mouth where they unite. Before the series locates to outer space, it presents the five heroes spending their time on the shores of Easter Island preparing for their battles with Zarkon, the ruler of Atlantis. For 30,000 years ago, in a fight for planet Earth, Atlantis had defeated Mu sending it to the bottom of the Pacific. But the force sent the continent of Atlantis into space; now a colossal spaceship it has returned to Earth to recommence war where in its destruction of Easter Island the moai are blasted with its laser cannons.

The legendary lost continents of Mu and Atlantis have repeatedly been sources of inspiration for Easter Island fantasies, but this is the only instance in which they are in conflict with each other. Imagining the two continents as respectively a giant whale and spaceship is also original, with the inhabitants of Atlantis depicted as dark warmongers. In contrast, the inhabitants of Mu are now peace-loving and nature-based, dressed in clothes akin to Ancient Greece. It adds to the Arcadian appearance of Easter Island as these heroes of Mu stand around the fallen moai and remnants of a past civilisation. Other than the scene where the moai are destroyed by the laser cannons of Atlantis, the statues (as well as an ahu/ stone platform) are shown very much as scenery, monuments around which the Mu warriors debate and contemplate.

Ian Conrich

Spider-Man
'When Magneto Speaks.... People Listen'
(season 1, episode 6, 1981)

Following a period of relative peace and quiet in New York City, a blackout on the East Coast reveals the country's satellite communications system has been taken over by Magneto. Masquerading as Mr M, he demands $100 million in gold in return for the re-activation of the communications and electricity. Spider-Man realises that Magneto aims to take over a major new satellite that is about to launch, and that would give him ultimate control of global communications. Attempting to thwart the plan, Spider-Man ends up trapped aboard the rocket heading into space.

Spider-Man reverse engineers the navigation system on the satellite, and returns to Earth. It leads him to Easter Island, where he lands manoeuvring the satellite between a series of stone heads and coming to rest within a circle of moai. Standing among the imposing carvings, Spider-Man is concerned: "I knew Easter Island was an odd place, but these ancient statues really give me the willies, it's almost as if they're alive". The moai then actually begin to move, controlled by Magneto, with one nearly falling on Spider-Man and two others colliding with each other. Spider-Man refers to the moai as "Magneto's toy soldiers", and he contains the threat by spinning his web around the stone figures preventing them as a group from moving any further.

Spider-Man defeats Magneto using a modified form of the villain's technology and sends the world's satellites back to their rightful orbit, allowing global communications to return to normal. Magneto escapes and Spider-Man goes home to New York, swapping crime fighting for academia.

This series was developed by Stan Lee, through the newly created Marvel Productions animation studio, and as a way to attract the attention of the major television companies. First aired in September 1981 the series ended in March 1982 after 26 episodes. It is less well-known than Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, the NBC series that followed and which aired between 1981 and 1983.

In this episode, which was first broadcast on 17 October 1981, there is no logical reason as to how Magneto's power, which involves the manipulation of metal, would enable him to move stone statues. No attention is paid to the history of the island or its culture, with the action focused on one circle of moai. This depiction creates an uneasy collision with notable stone circles, like Stonehenge, which are familiar in western civilisation. On another level, it prefigures the ring of moai that would appear a year later in DC Comics Presents – Superman and the Global Guardians (see the review below). As in many other examples of Easter Island fiction, a moai has laser weapons in its eyes. Spider-Man uses a satellite dish to reflect the power back at the moai, blowing it apart in the process. The simplicity of the story, the ease with which the moai are appropriated and Spider-Man's typically flippant approach to crime fighting, means there is no second thought about the destruction of such cultural artefacts.

Laura Sedgwick

Miss Machiko
'The Messenger from Easter Island’
(episode 53, 1982)

Miss Machiko takes school children from the Arama Academy to a Japanese exhibition focused on Easter Island, that promotes cultural ties between Japan and Chile. Inside, the children ask various questions and Machiko responds with confidence and knowledge on the facts of Easter Island. The group then turns to a television monitor which demonstrates a most likely method for transporting the moai. A young male teacher, Mr Yamagata, tries to engage the children by showing them a moai eye made of coral and obsidian that he advises had been discovered for the first time in 1978, but they are more interested in what Machiko has to convey and follow her instead.

Later that evening, a delivery truck that has taken a wrong turn, reverses into the school yard before heading off at speed back in the direction it had just come from. The manoeuvre, however, leads to the truck doors flying open and a large crate being accidentally left behind in the playground. The next morning, the teachers and school children prise the crate open to discover inside a large moai complete with pukao. A child tries to touch the moai, but a teacher warns him away as she thinks it is “sinister” and may have been placed there by aliens.

Yamagata emerges from under the debris of the collapsed crate and protests at the moai for being in the school playground. Each time Yamagata moves, the moai turns of its own accord to face him. A clever student, Hiroshi, who refers to a book that she is carrying, concludes that the moai must be drawn to Yamagata as it sees the teacher as the “chosen sacred birdman”. The school principal concurs and says Yamagata and carvings of the birdman bear a resemblance. Hiroshi advises that they must now proceed with the birdman ritual, starting by shaving Yamagata’s head. If they complete the ritual the moai will be able to return home; if they do not, a lost moai can bring “terrible misfortune”. The children part shave Yamagata’s head and then place on him a birdman mask, before he is told he will need to pray.

On Hiroshi’s instructions, everyone hangs objects, such as wristwatches, from their ears, to give them status like the Rapanui. Yamagata has now changed into a toga and carrying a staff he invites Machiko to join him in performing a strange dance in front of the moai, whilst everyone else kneels down in respect of the statue. Yamagata plays a tune to accompany the dance, which Machiko thinks is an Easter Island “folk song”; Yamagata says he is simply playing a tape backwards. Machiko finds the whole experience, which is having no effect, “ridiculous”. So, they next invite to the school a local priest from the Arama shrine who tries to encourage the moai to return to Easter Island. He advises that it may help if Machiko becomes a Shinto princess and performs a ritual dance. Everyone joins in with the dance to help “quell the god’s wrath”. The moai shakes and wobbles in unison, which results in its pukao crashing to the ground and starting an earthquake. Both the surrounding school infrastructure and the moai begin to crack and crumble.

Meanwhile, a helicopter arrives with the original delivery men on board looking for their lost cargo. They explain that it is not a real moai and was intended for a display in the entrance to the exhibition. The earthquake was a natural occurrence – nothing to with the moai – and the carving turned each time Yamagata moved as inside the sculpture (as part of its attraction) there is a magnetic device. Yamagata, who is besotted with Machiko, had carved a metal pendant in her image, which he wears around his neck, and it is this which attracted the movement of the moai.

Based on a manga series that appeared between 1980 and 1982, this made for television anime ran for 95 episodes between October 1981 and October 1983. There were also nine Japanese live-action feature films made between 2003 and 2009. Viewed from outside Japan, the anime is rather startling for its overt depictions of school sexuality between staff and students, with Miss Machiko repeatedly presented as a sexual object and both the male teachers and students forever desiring ways of touching intimate parts of her body or seeing her underwear and exposed flesh. Equally startling is Machiko’s easy forgiving of such harassment and sexist behaviour.

The Easter Island exhibition at the start of the episode is unusually correct in its information and reveals that the episode was based on proper research. In particular, the inclusion of the moai eye follows an actual archaeological discovery, just four years before, making its inclusion commendable and the first instance in moai culture for such a reference. The birdman is also incorporated, but whilst it begins by engaging with some of the Rapanui ritual, such as the head-shaving, it soon descends into a folly, ridiculing indigenous practices with silly objects hung from ears and a tape played in reverse to create an inane tune. The episode is most revealing in the ways the school deals with the unexpected moai arrival, which on one level is treated with suspicion and as an outer-space gift. On another more significant level the moai is revered and treated as a god, an idol to be appeased and helped in being returned to his rightful home.

Ian Conrich

Special Armoured Battalion Dorvack
'When the Moai's Light Shined'
(episode 22, 1984)

Four spaceships carry a moai across a rocky wasteland in Japan as the Dorvack team try to stop the alien invaders from placing the statue onto a circular platform. When the statue and the platform meet, sparks fly and the earth begins to quake. Both sides of the battle react in shock as the stone head begins to rise into the air. The eyes of the Moai begin to emit blue beams of light whilst three other statues around the world – in Africa, North America and on Rapanui – begin to shoot similar rays. Their beams all converge to create a ball of blinding light. Before the process is continued, however, the Dorvack team use all their firepower to bring down the statue in Japan, destroying the platform it was on and causing it to plunge back down to the ground.

Dorvack is a Japanese anime that ran from 1983-1984 across 36 episodes, and alongside a toyline. It takes place in the future of 1999, as an alien race called the Idealians attack the Earth in order to make it their new home. A specialised battalion named Dorvack defend the planet against the invasion, using humanoid machines that contain human pilots.

The moai are portrayed as sources of great power with the ability to create a doomsday-like event. It is unclear whether the moai were designed to be used as weapons or if their power is being manipulated by the Idealians. Their role, however, can also be seen to be a part of a trend of augmentation that is prevalent in Japanese culture. The blending of technology with the natural or historically symbolic reflects the country's own relationship with its advancements in machinery and their uses in society.

Felix Hockey

Kinnikuman: Justice Superman vs Ancient Superman (1985)

Suguru Kinniku, aka Kinnikuman, is an idiotic superhero, from the planet Kinniku. He learns that he is the prince of Kinniku, a planet known for its great superheroes, but he must prove his worthiness for the throne through a series of wrestling bouts with brutish supermen, called Chojin.

In this film we learn that the evil Satan King, leader of the Kodai Chojin (Ancient Supermen), has long ago hidden his minion around the world where they have been lying in wait for the moment to attack. On vacation on Easter Island with a group of school children, Kinnikuman is the entertainer pulling faces at the moai and acrobatically prancing on their heads. But he is seriously challenged when faced with Stone Satan and his army, a group of moai that rise up from the ground, that Kinnikuman has to wrestle. Other superheroes, also on vacation, are faced with the Ancient Chojin at heritage monuments around the world. Kinnikuman looks to have lost, but superhero Buffaloman (who partially resembles a minotaur) comes to the rescue and defeats the moai. Satan King, however, has kidnapped the school children, who now have to be rescued from Mount Everest.

Kinnikuman is widely popular in Japan, where he began as a manga in 1979, developed into a made-for-television anime in 1983, and has generated an array of associated video games, action figures and merchandise. Kinnikuman: Justice Superman vs Ancient Superman was the third of seven theatrically released short-feature films first exhibited between 1984 and 1986. As with the other Kinnikuman stories, the world of the superhero is parodied and united with the fandom, mania and drama of pro-wrestling. The stories, which are obviously aimed at children, are basic and structured around a stream of wrestling bouts. Nearly 30 years later the WWE Superstars visited Easter Island for a wrestling match that did not see the moai come alive, but instead they were used as weapons for slamming and whacking an opponent (see the review below).

Ian Conrich

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero
'Operation: Mind Menace'
(season 1, episode 22, 1985)

Flash and Airborne fly over Easter Island while trying to rescue a hostage lashed to the railings of a Cobra FANG helicopter. They fly between moai statues, drawn here so large that they dwarf the helicopters. Cobra have mounted laser guns in the eyes of one statue. Meanwhile, the Joes’ scientists discover that Airborne’s little brother, Tommy, is telekinetic. Cobra agents break into the lab and kidnap Tommy, and it is revealed that Cobra have a secret training camp on Easter Island for psionically gifted individuals, its entrance marked with a moai. Cobra use Tommy to bring two of the moai to life - the statues haul themselves out of the earth and lumber towards the Joes. Flash refers to them as "stone bozos". Airborne and Flash are rescued by Duke and Lady Jaye as Easter Island explodes, sending the moai crashing into the sea. The action follows the Joes to Cobra's hideout in the Himalayas, and there the Joes thwart Cobra's plans regarding the psionically gifted individuals and rescue Tommy.

G.I. Joe is based upon the action figure first released by Hasbro in 1964 - his UK counterpart is known as Action Man. The line was relaunched in 1982 to provide vehicles and playsets, along with a story arc that followed the struggles between the G.I. Joe team and Cobra Command, a terrorist organisation seeking world domination. A cartoon began in 1983, consisting of two five-part mini series, until the regular series began in 1985. Created by Ron Friedman and produced by Sunbow Productions, series one consisted of 55 episodes, and episode 22, ‘Operation: Mind Menace’, first aired on 15 October 1985.

There is no single character named G.I. Joe, as the name refers instead to the team, described in each episode’s opening sequence as “America's daring, highly-trained, Special Mission force”. Each individual has special abilities that help them in their fight against Cobra. The series was primarily created in order to sell the toys, meaning that episodes often focused on particular characters and their individual adventures as they seek to end Cobra’s evil schemes. Every episode featured a public safety lesson at its conclusion, with the G. I. Joe characters giving tips to their young audience. These short scenarios gave birth to the catchphrase: "And knowing is half the battle".

Previous episodes in the first series include a cargo cult story, in which a military satellite crashes in the South Pacific and is then claimed by a primitive tribe as a god. The inclusion of the moai in the episode ‘Operation: Mind Menace’ is not surprising considering other storylines within the series. The moai are treated less as cultural artefacts in their own right, and more as monolithic props that can be moved around according to the story - even hosting weapons if it suits the needs of the plot. The island's history and culture is stripped back, becoming secondary to its existence as a location for a secret base. At no point is it considered that Easter Island may have its own local populace - the island provides more of an exotic location for the training base.

Laura Sedgwick

M.A.S.K.
'Panda Power'
German broadcast title: 'Entführung auf die Osterinsel' ['Kidnapped to Easter Island']
(season 1, episode 27, 1985)

M.A.S.K. is a Canadian-French co-produced animation series (employing Japanese animators) that was broadcast over two series in 1985 and 1986 in the US and later translated into German. The series was developed to support the marketing of the M.A.S.K. action figures with specialty masks and transforming armoured vehicles (best viewed as G.I. Joe meets Transformers). A range of paperbacks faithfully adapted the television series. The paperback for this episode (with M.A.S.K. changed to MASK), for which there was very little difference in the story, was released in 1986 (reviewed below).

Sonja Mausen

Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs
‘Legend of the Lost World’
(episode 45, 1987)

Moai appear briefly in two segments in this episode. It is revealed that moai means “sweetness of life, when there is no more war”. The stone heads here are ancient symbols of peace across different planets and dimensions, where they also act as beacons for a fleet of spaceships dispersed following a space storm. Built by a civilisation scattered across space and time, the moai are intergalactic figures that are meant to be seen by telescopes and by a race attempting to reunite. They are best understood by peace-promoting elders, who idolise the moai. These brown-hooded-robe elders bear a similarity to key Jedi in the Star Wars films, whilst the epic narrative of a lost in space civilisation and spaceships protecting settlers appears indebted to the original Battlestar Galactica (1978-9).

Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs is an American version of the 1984 Japanese anime series Star Musketeer Bismarck and is a space western in the style of the film Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and the cartoon series BraveStarr (1987-8) and Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986-9). At its core it displays many of the characteristics of mecha anime with giant robots, transformations, and teams of youthful fighters who combat aliens. The moai are depicted in a landscape that is not dissimilar to Easter Island, but also in the icy terrain of a faraway frozen planet. These beacons apparently appear throughout galaxies and act as symbols of hope.

Ian Conrich

The Three Eyed One
'The Easter Island Voyage'
(episodes 40-43, 1991)

During a trip to the local zoo, Hosuke Sharaku is kidnapped by escaping monkeys – led by the human-like Pogo – and taken to a ship. There they are joined by Hegeoyagi and police detective Umei, who have climbed aboard to rescue Sharaku. As Sharaku, Hegeoyagi and Umei search the ship, a voice from the speaker system tells them that there is no way of escape and to come below deck for dinner. At the dinner table, a wall moves to reveal a mask with glowing eyes. It tells Sharaku that it instructed Pogo to bring him alone before zapping the monkey with a laser that is emitted from its mouth. Sharaku comforts Pogo, as the mask then fades away.

Pogo awakens at night and tells Sharaku that she was coerced into kidnapping him and the two play a game in which they choose a word that links to the one said before. In the morning, the ship arrives at an island and the passengers leave. During their exploration of the island, Sharaku and Pogo split up from the adults and are attacked by a swarm of flesh-eating dragonflies. This leads to the bandage that is covering Sharaku's third eye being devoured, causing him to turn into his alter ego. With his unleashed power, Sharaku defeats the swarm.

Pogo tells Sharaku that she was taken from her homeland, Rapanui, to this island via submarine. Sharaku finds the submarine below the island. They enter and encounter Wanfo, an antagonist in previous stories, and Miste Mali, who invite Sharaku to join their organisation, which is set on taking over the world. Sharaku refuses, mostly due to their treatment of Pogo. They leave the submarine and return to the island, as the ship moves on. Sharaku offers to take Pogo back to Rapanui and, after reuniting with Umei and Hegeoyagi, he uses his powers to push the island across the sea. During the voyage, Pogo reveals to the adults that she can speak, much to their bemusement, and tells them that she is the queen of the Naji family, the monkeys on Rapanui who did not evolve into humans.

Once they reach the deserted Rapanui, Umei and Hegeoyagi rush to admire the moai, discussing their beauty and the mystery of who built them. Sharaku follows Pogo to her tribe of monkeys and it is there that she attempts to marry him, placing a ceremonial crown on his head. This causes Sharaku's eye to close and he turns back into the childlike figure from the beginning of the story. Sharaku tells Pogo he cannot marry her before fleeing with the Naji monkeys in pursuit. Hiding from Pogo and her tribe, Sharaku once again comes across Wanfo who tells him he believes the third eye family created the moai. Wanfo shows Sharaku a rock with rongorongo carved upon its surface and tells him that, with his third eye, Sharaku could read it and reveal the mysteries of Rapanui. Sharaku refuses and draws the attention of Pogo and the monkeys, who chase Wanfo and Sharaku.

Escaping the clutches of both Pogo's tribe and Sharaku's allies, Wanfo forcefully takes Sharaku back to the submarine to where Mali is waiting. Pogo sends her monkeys to attack the ship but they are halted by its electrified hull. In anguish, Pogo exclaims "Don't go!" and her tears splash across the stone face of a moai. The statues all begin to glow red and a pool of light appears at the surface above the submerged submarine. The ship is lifted into the air and then broken into pieces but a red aura surrounds the unconscious Sharaku, keeping him from harm and levitating him back to the island.

Pogo takes off Sharaku's crown, once again turning him into the evil genius. Sharaku leads Pogo, Umei and Hegeoyagi to the rongorongo text. He admits he cannot read it but asks Pogo to instead. Reading the rongorongo, Pogo explains that the Naji family built the moai to protect their descendants. Having read the writing, however, Pogo regresses back into a normal monkey so that she will not be able to reveal the secret to anyone else. She tearfully plays the word game with Sharaku one last time until she can no longer understand the words. Pogo leaves the others, not recognising them. Sharaku, Umei and Higeoyagi then return home.

The Three-Eyed One is a Japanese animated series that ran for 48 episodes between 1990 and 1991 and was adapted from a weekly manga (reviewed below). The series follows Sharaku, a young boy and the last surviving member of the three-eyed family. When his third eye is open, he becomes a confident evil genius with special powers. With his group of companions, Sharaku investigates historical ruins in order to learn about their mysteries and his family's history. A number of the supporting characters are also frequently seen in other productions based on author Osamu Tezuka's drawings, such as Astro Boy and Black Jack.

The moai in The Three-Eyed One are a magical force that tap into the emotion of the monkeys they were built to protect. The fact that they simply glow red – rather than levitating and moving across the island in a path of destruction, as in the original manga – essentially lessens their impact. As in other stories, the translation of rongorongo reveals an origin narrative, and the source of the moai construction. In this fiction, not only is the Three-Eyed One's ancestors the constructors of the moai, thereby giving them a mysticism, but Easter Island is established as a site of primary evolution where monkeys became humans, an idea that also appears in the animation The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (see the review below).

Felix Hockey

Montana Jones
'Emergency! Landing on Easter Island'
(episode 25, 1994)

Montana Jones, a pilot and adventurer, is travelling on a seaplane to Easter Island with his relative, Professor Alfred Jones, who is an archaeologist, and Melissa Thorn, a wealthy and young reporter, who is multilingual. The trio have to make an emergency landing on Easter Island due to a tornado, and it is there that they hide in the basement of a home, a hare vaka (a traditional house in the shape of an upturned canoe), which is damaged by the storm. As the storm passes, the three protagonists meet at the home a boy (who later turns out to be a girl) and whose mother was abducted by the villains of the story: Lord Zero, a rich, and eccentric master thief/ lover of precious art who is constantly seeking treasures, Professor Nitro, an inventor who constructs the villains' unique contraptions, and their two helpers Slim and Slam, who usually do more harm than good because of their clumsiness. The villains are looking for the fabulous treasure of Hotu Matua, to the extent that they have been lifting moai up out of the ground with a special machine to see if anything has been buried underneath. The three protagonists are normally guided by instructions from their mentor and sponsor, the Boston-based Professor Gerrit, whose advice on this occasion has been provided on a record. The villains manage to listen to the record on a gramophone player, with the protagonists hiding in earshot; Professor Gerrit says they should search the rocky islet of Motu Nui.

The protagonists race to get to Motu Nui first, cycling over land and then rowing over the sea that separates the rock from Easter Island. It is there that the protagonists find the nesting sooty tern, whose eggs are a sacred part of the birdman competition. Nearby, they also discover a petroglyph (rock carving) of tangata manu/ the birdman. The villains suddenly emerge and attack the protagonists, destroying the rock featuring the petroglyph in the process and revealing underneath a secret hole, which the protagonists enter. The villains follow in their contraption, which burrows into the rock and then scuttles along the underground passageway, forcing its way along as the path narrows. It is revealed that the passageway leads back to Easter Island and to a ceremonial chamber directly under the crater-lake of Rano Kau, where the protagonists find a large cavern adorned with rock carvings of the birdman on the walls and floor. The centerpiece is a moai carved from whale bone. On examining its back, the protagonists discover it is covered in rongorongo glyphs.

The villains try to steal the moai for Lord Zero's personal collection, but in doing so they trigger a magnetic mechanism that was beneath the statue. The mechanism attracts metal and the 'eggs' which are held in the 'hands' of each of the birdman carvings in the chamber. These combine to form an eye with a pupil, with the final 'egg' dropping from directly above, where it was acting as a plug keeping out the water from the lake. The vault under the lake subsequently breaks and everyone is close to drowning. At the last moment, they manage to escape, where back on the surface they watch this special moai re-emerge from a lake. The villains fly away but in the distance crash into the sea. The Rapanui woman decides that Professor Jones should record the glyphs of rongorongo in an attempt to have them deciphered. The conclusion is that the true treasure of Easter Island is its archaeological legacy.

Montana Jones is an anime television series, of 52 episodes, which was co-produced by the Italian studio Rever and the Japanese studio Junio. It is clearly inspired by Indiana Jones, from the name of the lead protagonist, the archaeologically-focused global adventures and the mechanisms that are triggered when treasures are stolen, through to the music and the period of the 1930s, in which it is all set. The series has also been conceived in the style of other animal animation – such as Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (1981-1982) – where whole worlds are imagined with specific species or breeds anthropomorphised. It is a common feature of children's fiction, which has seen dogs and rabbits populating an Easter Island-set Hungarian novel (see the review below). In that novel, the moai were dog-shaped; in this story, the moai are in the form of lions, uniting with the characters who are all anthropomorphised big cats. The broad fantasy also imagines a large cavern under Rano Kau and, uniquely in moai fiction, a secret entrance to an underground passage on Motu Nui. As that rocky islet is some distance out to sea from Easter Island it is highly fanciful to conceive a story where the underground passage joins Motu Nui to the main island.

The moai in this story are more figures in the landscape and it is only the one discovered underground that is viewed as exceptional. Instead, the animation is drawn to the birdman, whose symbol is found at Motu Nui and on the floor and walls of the cave under Rano Kau; the undeciphered writing system of rongorongo; the eyes of the moai, that are recreated here in the pattern formed by the metal eggs; and the uniquely built homes of the Rapanui, which are boat-shaped as their vessels were used to form the rooves of their buildings, when they were not being used at sea. Both the depiction of the birdman petroglyph and rongorongo are largely faithful to the originals and show a degree of research. It is therefore a shame that the island is imagined as near-deserted, with just a Rapanui mother and daughter present. However, it is worth mentioning that in this animation the Rapanui woman is portrayed as independent and both a skilled engineer and professional doctor who intervenes proactively in the plot.

Hermann Mückler and Ian Conrich

Gargoyles
'Sentinel'
(season 2, episode 39, 1996)

Finding themselves on the shores of Rapa Nui, as part of their ongoing world quest, the travelling group of companions - living gargoyles Goliath, Angela, and the dog-like Bronx, along with New York City policewoman Elisa - investigate the dark and mysterious island. Though unbeknown to them, they are being watched by Nokkar, an alien with moai features, who resides in his spaceship buried within a hillside. The alien temporarily kidnaps Elisa and erases her memory. Later she is discovered by Goliath being cared for by two archaeologists. Goliath tries to remind Elisa of her identity, but he is captured by Nokkar and imprisoned along with Angela and Bronx in the hidden spaceship. It is revealed that Nokkar is an ancient soldier who had been sent to the strategic outpost of Easter Island, to defend Earth from an army of interstellar invaders that has never emerged.

The gargoyles fail to assure Nokkar that they are native to Earth, leading to a clash of mighty powers. Goliath destroys the vessel's controls, with the companions escaping the spaceship. Above ground, Nokkar re-emerges and is about to blast the gargoyles with his space cannon, until Elisa intervenes leaving Nokkar to trust the human’s judgement and leave the gargoyles unharmed as friends rather than foe.

The cult animation series Gargoyles, was first aired in 1994 and ran for three years over 78 episodes. Created by Greg Weisman for Disney, this American television programe depicts the adventures of a clan of stone creatures who were hauled from Scotland centuries after their creation and placed into New York City were they act as urban guardians. In this episode, two mythical stone forms meet, but the moai carvings play no significant role other than as eerie figures within the landscape. Much of this episode of the animated series is shot during the night, with daylight permitted only at the end of the story.

Nokkar is a sentinel, an intergalactic protector, and a warrior, not unlike the almost mythical Japanese soldiers in World War II, who were found resolutely defending isolated Pacific islands long after the conflict had ended. The actions of Nokkar were so revered by the Easter Islanders of centuries past that he was honoured with moai erected in his image. This fantasy of the moai is not uncommon within popular fiction, and comic books in particular.

Whilst this animation is firmly within the realm of science fiction, one of the more surprising concepts within the story is the idea of a vast nine-storey high hotel, The Islander, providing hospitality to tourists. It belongs to another island culture and it is a building that is more akin to those on Hawai'i's Waikiki beach than to Easter Island.

Lauren Jenkins

The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
‘The Secret of the Moai’
(season 1, episode 21, 1996)

An alien, with a distinctly moai-shaped head, is shown experimenting on an ape when a volcanic eruption seals the alien and the ape inside the alien’s spaceship on Easter Island. Years later, Dr Quest locates the spacecraft in a cave beneath the lava flow, and Jonny finds the skeleton of the ape and the alien inside. The alien bears a tablet covered in strange markings, and Dr Quest recognises it as a rongorongo tablet, although he has never seen a metal one before. The markings turn out to be music, instead of language, and they translate the characters into musical notes. The show’s villain, Surd, attempts to use the alien technology, which appears to be an evolution-device, to regress Dr Quest and his companion, Race Bannon, to an ape-like state. Another alien ship comes down and destroys both the rongorongo tablet and the skeleton, while returning Race and Dr Quest to normality. Surd and his cronies are transported to Peru.

The Jonny Quest franchise originally began with a series that aired in 1964 and 1965, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. By the mid-1980s, the show had become part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, and thirteen new episodes were made in 1986. Work began on new episodes in 1993, and the creative team were keen to utilise accurate depictions of physics and machinery for the series. Research was even conducted into child psychology to ensure that the action would not create adverse effects on young viewers, while sci-fi and fantasy themes were explored in each episode as they investigated mysteries. The show, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, premiered in 1996. 65 episodes were originally planned, but the creative team was changed in order to finish the first 26 episodes, loosely collected under the title of 'season one'. A new team created another 26 episodes, originally intended for a separate series, but later released as a second season. The show was cancelled after 52 episodes, and the series ended in 1999.

Keeping in line with its remit to provide fantasy and sci fi mysteries for children, previous episodes in the first season investigated ghost pirates in Bermuda, the lost city of El Dorado, sea monsters, quartz statues, the Philosopher's Stone and the Mary Celeste. Alongside such narratives, the variety of myths surrounding the moai make Easter Island a rich choice as a setting. The episode ‘The Secret of the Moai’ explores the origin myths that see the statues related in some way to aliens or space travel as well as addressing ideas surrounding the evolution of mankind. However, the decision to focus upon the rongorongo tablets and not the heads is an interesting one, as it engages with the mystery of the as-yet-untranslated language. The discovery within the story that the language of rongorongo is actually musical notation is novel and differs from the warnings of doom that can occur within other Easter Island narratives.

This episode is essentially an evolution narrative, which positions the moai as being of superior intelligence and their technology as coveted devices for altering the future of mankind. Typical with such narratives the Easter Islanders are absent. Though in this story, there are, inexplicably, apes on the island. Presenting these primates as subjects of alien moai experimentation for the apparent evolution of apes into humans, positions the island as central to world science, yet it also denigrates the history and image of the island’s actual human inhabitants.

Laura Sedgwick

Les Aventures de Blake et Mortimer [The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer]
Le secret de l'île de Pâques [The Secret of Easter Island]
(episodes 21 and 22, 1997)

General Cambon is travelling by car when suddenly he is ambushed and kidnapped by gunmen hiding in a hay lorry. The villain behind the plan is Colonel Olrik, who wears a mysterious helmet that helps him to force the General to tell him the location of a secret missile site. The General manages to write Olrik's name on the ground before he dies, giving Captain Francis Blake, a MI5 (British secret service) operative, and his associate Philip Mortimer, a leading Scottish nuclear physicist, a clue for their investigations.

While Blake and Mortimer attempt to capture Olrik, a man from Easter Island intervenes and manages to steal the helmet. He is shot by Olrik, but before he dies he tells Blake and Mortimer to return it to a man named Maurata, a Rapanui archaeologist based on Easter Island. Blake realises the helmet grants the wearer the ability to hear the thoughts of others and resolves to return it to Maurata. Having distracted Olrik's henchmen, Blake and Mortimer head to the airport and fly to Easter Island.

On arrival, Mortimer in particular (who carries a guide book) is deeply impressed with the island's history. As they drive to the archaeological site in search of Maurata, they pass many moai. They encounter half-finished statues at Rano Raraku, the volcano from which the moai are quarried. There, they find Olrik has somehow got there first, and he has persuaded the locals that Blake and Mortimer have profaned the island. Blake gives the locals the helmet to enable them to hear Olrik's thoughts, which reveals him as the true villain.

Olrik escapes, and Maurata leads Blake and Mortimer into a tunnel beneath the island. There, they discover "the real mystery of Easter Island". A giant moai stands in a cavern, and Maurata takes them inside the statue. He explains the helmet was originally found within the moai, along with ten rongorongo tablets. Olrik stole nine of them along with the helmet, leaving Maurata unable to complete his translations. He tells Blake and Mortimer that the great moai was already on the island when the early Rapanui first arrived. Back then, one of the villagers put on the helmet and communicated with aliens, known as Markabians. He and the Rapanui believed the Markabians to be benevolent, and erected their own moai in preparation of the aliens' arrival. Meanwhile, the helmet caused a power struggle, so both it and the giant moai were declared taboo and buried.

As Maurata is finishing the story, Olrik returns and steals the helmet again but as he flees he is trapped under a fallen moai. With the help of the helmet, Murata and Blake learn that Olrik sold the stolen rongorongo tablets to an antiques dealer in Santiago, Chile. They also learn that Olrik spoke with the Markabians, with the aid of the helmet. The aliens will therefore soon return to earth and Maurata insists he must decipher the remaining tablets to discover what happened to the earlier invading force of Markabians. He is convinced these aliens mean harm.

Maurata and Blake go in search of the tablets, leaving Mortimer on the island, where unbeknown the aliens have now arrived. A local girl, Maria, encounters tall beings with moai-like faces wearing helmets. Impervious to bullets, they stun Maria and take her as a specimen aboard their ship. Mortimer sneaks on to the ship where he is captured by Markabians and subjected to brain scans. They question Mortimer, intent upon finding out what happened to their invasion force 900 years earlier. Their quest to understand, mirrors Maurata's desire to translate the rongorongo tablets. In the process, Mortimer learns that the giant moai are in fact transmitters, scattered across the galaxy to allow the Markabians to communicate. These aliens travel through space, removing "inferior life forms" to enable the domination of their own species. Their plan involves defeating humanity using lethal psychic waves.

Meanwhile, Blake and Maurata have travelled to Paris in search of the tablets. The antiques dealer had sold them to a Parisian museum, where they are now on display. Unable to access them during opening hours, Blake and Maurata sneak into the museum at night so that Maurata can make rubbings of the hieroglyphs. They are not alone as two aliens arrive, but Maurata and Blake manage to escape in the aliens' spaceship. Suddenly there is a thunderstorm, and the noise of thunder causes the two moai aliens to disintegrate into sand on the museum floor.

Back on Rapanui, Maurata explains that according to the rongorongo, an earthquake caused the destruction of the aliens. Mortimer has noticed their vulnerability to low frequency noises, so they set off dynamite on the island, which causes the remaining aliens to disintegrate. Their abandoned spaceship becomes an ultra secret research facility; Blake and Mortimer note the potential for the Markabians to return, or threaten life elsewhere in the universe.

The original Blake and Mortimer comic, an action-adventure mixing the detective and science fiction genres, first appeared in the Belgian Tintin magazine in 1948. The subsequent television series in 1997 was produced in French (and made available dubbed in other languages) by Ellipse, with thirteen stories filmed, each divided into two episodes. Le secret de l'île de Pâques is the eleventh story, and whilst the first nine were based on the comic book by Edgar P. Jacobs, the last four – which includes Le secret de l'île de Pâques – were created especially for television. Part Bulldog Drummond and part Sherlock Holmes, of all the moai culture made-for-television animation this is probably the richest and most rewarding of the storylines, offering a wealth of material and ideas.

Most notable is how the Rapanui are represented. Where so much of moai fiction presents Easter Island as abandoned or uninhabited, this story actively populates the island with an indigenous community, moreover with contemporary representations of the Rapanui. They are generally shown to be proud people, interested in their ancestry and intent upon preserving their history and culture. Maria is a positive depiction of an independent and astute Rapanui woman, and the new ultra-secret research station, which the story shows being disguised at the end, is left in the hands of the Rapanui to manage. It is also significant that the rongorongo tablets are translated by Maurata, an indigenous scholar, and not the common figure of a visiting white man. Learning of Maurata's intent to urgently translate rongorongo, Mortimer declares "are you serious? So many scientists have struggled for years to discover their meaning!", to which Maurata responds, "yes, but remember I was born here".

Maurata's reverence for the tablets stands at odds with the position of both the antiques dealer and the museum, who treat them as a commodity to be exchanged and acquired. No other example of moai fiction has placed rongorongo so central to the story and whilst the tablets became the writings of the moai themselves in Jonny Quest (see the review above), here they are given a chance for the earlier Rapanui to communicate the evolution of their culture – which interestingly fictionalises a preference for revering moai kavakava before the giant alien moai acquired its importance – as well as providing clues for destroying the invading alien species. Here, the idea of something as basic as sound being able to destroy the mighty invaders appears inspired by H.G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds, where the aliens are defeated by the common cold. In reality, there are 26 existing rongorongo 'tablets', not the ten presented here, and all the known tablets are scattered across the world's museums and archives with none on Easter Island.

Laura Sedgwick

Rex the Runt
'Easter Island'
(season 1, episode 3, 1998)

Rex the Runt and his loyal gang - Bad Bob, Wendy, and Vince - get together once again, this time to go on holiday in New Zealand. Unfortunately, whilst flying their helicopter over the Pacific Ocean, they run out of fuel, crash-landing on the island of “people with big fat heads”, also known as Easter Island. Here, they are greeted by Moai and his travelling companions – brother-in-law Damien and old school friend Rick. Much like Rex and his gang, the moai state that they are on “a bit of an expedition, doing Earth type things”, caravanning on the Island as they do every few thousand years. The moai are from outer space and they abduct Rex and take him to planet Thribb, as a specimen and a mascot. Once there, Rex is put on display before a crowd of moai and treated as a “lower life form”. Not far behind, Bad Bob, Wendy, and Vince are travelling through space in a tin can they found on the beach. They crash on to planet Thribb, interrupting the proceedings, and rescue an ungrateful Rex.

This Aardman animation short, from their earliest television series, foregrounds their trademark plasticine animal escapades. The scenarios in which the gang find themselves are surreal, yet the charm of the animation invites the viewer to follow the fantasy and share in the adventure. The idea of four dogs travelling to New Zealand in a helicopter is absurd enough, but Aardman’s depiction of the moai as walking, talking aliens - voiced by Eddie Izzard - extends the bizarre nature of the narrative.

The moai begin as seemingly ominous characters, but soon emerge as talkative aliens on holiday. In this comedy, the moai are sophisticated pipe-smoking adventurers, which contrasts dramatically with the sausage-eating gang of dogs who are naïve and a bit dim. In particular, there is Bad Bob with his obsession with “meat derivatives” whose idiocy synchronises with Vince – "the one with the teeth". Crucially, the island is devoid of any local population, with the moai imagined as a foreign and unearthly presence.

Lauren Jenkins

Flint the Time Detective
'Moah'
(season 1, episode 19, 1998)

Dr Goodman presents another adventurous assignment to Flint and the Time Team. They must retrieve Moah the time shifter who has been located on Easter Island. Flint and the team hop on to the time cycle, setting the co-ordinates for the year 1560 to the remote and “pretty” island of Rapa Nui. Upon arrival, they are greeted by a cute looking Moah and the friendly islanders. But not all is as pretty as it seems following the arrival of Petra Fina and her cronies - the mischievous thieves of time itself.

Moah is turned by Petra Fina into a giant evil moai, which Flint and his team is initially unable to stop in his attempt to wreak destruction on the island. Eventually transformed back into the loving Moah, Petra Fina next sends a tsunami towards the island. Moah now transforms into Moah Monster and with a stamp of his mighty stone foot, he awakens the moai guardians who emerge from the sand and along the seafront, forming a huge seawall of statues. Proving their role as protectors, the large stone faces save the team and the islanders from the tsunami, enabling Flint, Moah and the time team to safely make it back to the Bureau of Time and Space.

This colourful anime, directed by Hiroshi Fukutomi, was first aired in Japan in 1998 as part of a series that ran for 39 episodes. The characters resemble those from Digimon and Pokemon in the way that they transform, fight, unite, and possess special powers. Moah, in particular, emphasises his shape shifting abilities as he transforms from the small stone face with big pink lips and large eyes, who is not dissimilar to a Mr Potato Head, to the ominous and indestructible giant Moah with a mighty stone fist for smashing and crushing, and molten lava gushing from the top of his head.

In popular culture the maoi are regularly represented as either aggressive or comic figures. Flint the Time Detective is no exception to this tradition as Moah, who is repeatedly referred to as the guardian of the island, portrays both character traits. Nevertheless, when the moai of the island emerge from the sand, they act as the final guardians forming a collective wall protecting the islanders from peril.

Although the moai are depicted facing out to sea when saving the islanders, they do in fact face inland, and this is a common misunderstanding in popular culture interpretations of Easter Island. However, there are references to Anakena beach and the sweet potato, which suggest a certain degree of basic research within the animation. At several points, the Time Team discuss the creation of the moai, and are advised that their origins remain a mystery. Drawn to the popular myth of creation, this programme ignores the fact that there is no ambiguity as to who created the moai.

Lauren Jenkins

Superman: The Animated Series
'Knight Time'
(season 3, episode 2, 1998)

After an encounter with Roxy Rocket in Metropolis, Superman discovers that Batman has gone missing from Gotham City. In his absence, Robin has been battling criminals on his own. Superman investigates and suspects that Batman has been put under mind control. He dresses as Batman and, together with Robin, breaks into the Explorer's Club in Gotham, a museum-like space filled with relics and antiques, where masks evoking African art and stuffed animals crowd the edges of the room.

Bane, the Riddler and the Mad Hatter are using the Club as their criminal headquarters. Bane voices a desire to "break" anyone who stands in their way, also threatening to crush Batman's spine. Here, he references an iconic moment from the Knightfall storyline in the Batman comics, in which Bane breaks Batman's spine over his knee. Having thrown Superman (dressed as Batman) across the room, Bane picks up a moai and throws it at the superhero. The ease with which he does so underscores his incredible strength, which has been supplied by the Venom chemical which has been pumped directly into his body. The monolithic stone head appears to have crushed the Caped Crusader, but from underneath he suddenly kicks the moai free and launches it back across the room.

Robin imprisons the Riddler and Superman subdues Bane. The Mad Hatter provides a clue allowing Superman and Robin to track down Batman at an abandoned Wayne Aerospace facility. There, they discover Superman's old nemesis Brainiac is the villain behind Batman's mind control. Superman defeats Brainiac and Batman regains control of his mind, allowing Superman to return to Metropolis.

Superman: The Animated Series ran for three series between 1996 and 2000, following the success of Batman: The Animated Series, which aired originally between 1992 and 1995. An additional spinoff series, Justice League, allowed for the introduction of Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Lantern.

Like an episode of the Justice League cartoon, which saw Aquaman throw a moai at Wonder Woman (see the review below), this story reduces the moai to an object to be tossed freely at enemies. Yet, unlike the Justice League episode, this sequence divorces the moai from its Easter Island context, transforming it into a convenient prop found in a museum. The moai is not displayed at all, and is part of a seemingly private collection of an Explorer's Club, hinting at the institution's exclusivity and ability to acquire the rarest of artefacts. The cultural connotations of the moai are stripped away, and the sequence relies on its status as a monolithic stone object that is included purely to showcase the strength of both Bane and Superman.

Laura Sedgwick

Histeria!
'Really Oldies but Goodies'
(season 1, episode 9, 1998)

The episode begins with a series of skits focused upon the practices of ancient Egypt. An advert explains mummification practices while riffing on the techniques employed by used car salesmen, and a later segment uses a quiz show format to present facts about the ancient Egyptians and an infomercial explains the use of trephination. Each of the sketches is designed to present facts about ancient Egypt to educate young viewers.

A rousing musical number closes the episode, exploring the history of Easter Island from the moment of its "discovery" in 1722. Singing moai take centre stage covering aspects of the island's history. The moai even acknowledge the theories of "crackpots", such as the notion that aliens left the moai on the island – shown here in a spaceship literally dropping moai from above – advising young viewers to be skeptical of what they hear about the statues. In the closing credits, moai briefly reappear as happy pilots of a spaceship.

Histeria! aired on Kids' WB between 1998 and 2000. The show used a Saturday Night Live-style sketch format for its 52 episodes and it follows in the footsteps of the widely successful Horrible Histories, which also presents history and education through a mix of popular culture and humour. The Horrible Histories book, Awesome Egyptians, one of the first in the series, had been published in 1993. Histeria! was explicitly designed to comply with FCC regulations regarding the educational nature of children's programming. Each episode features a historical focus, such as the American Civil War, the Vikings, famous inventors, the Tudors, and women's history.

Much like Time Warp Trio, Doki and Go Jetters, Histeria! explores Easter Island in an educational context aimed at children. Its focus is commendable as is the engaging and entertaining manner in which information is relayed. Jacob Roggeveen is introduced and so that children can easily remember the date the year 1722 is emphasised on an egg that dances past the Dutch explorer.

Unfortunately, Roggeveen is said to have "discovered" Rapanui, which completely removes the islanders that were there before. In fact, they are nowhere to be seen in a western-centric musical number that even has the children of Histeria! demonstrating the construction of the moai as opposed to a foregrounding of the active skills of the indigenous population. There is an attempt at accuracy through the inclusion of the pukao (which they call "hats") in the song, but the volcanic crater, Rano Raraku, a major moai quarry, is bizarrely shown to be on a neighbouring island. The segment lasts for just ninety seconds at the episode's end, making it feel like a 'filler' in an animation otherwise dedicated to the ancient Egyptians.

Laura Sedgwick

Dilbert
‘Art’
(season 2, episode 3, 1999)

The moai are displaced by large stone blue ducks in one episode of Dilbert, in which the office worker is given the task of manufacturing art. With the aim of exploiting the art world, Dilbert succeeds in creating an art phenomenon. In a scene which never made it to the final version of this episode, the moai are toppled over a cliff and lie on top of each other, as the blue ducks triumph. The episode is a satire demonstrating the fallacies of modern art. The supremacy and absurdity of the ducks is clear in which ancient stone wonders are pushed aside by false idols.

Ian Conrich

Cyborg 009: Conclusion God's War
(parts 1–3, 2002)

This made for television anime of the concluding parts of the popular manga is a free adaptation that adds and alters much from the original source that was left unfinished following the sudden death of author Ishinomori Shotaro. See below for the two reviews of the manga, that was a later attempt at adapting the unfinished story and which differs in many ways. For instance, the television adaptation does not contain the crocodile men, the capture of Francoise or the giant female moai that all feature in the manga version.

The moai that is discovered in the undersea cave off Japan is in both versions, but in the television adaptation is depicted with a third eye in the middle of its forehead, with all three eyes glowing red when it comes alive. This adds to the appearance of power and superior ability/ control that the moai has over people. The three parts of the adaptation combined extend over slightly more than an hour and this permits in some places room for the story to be developed and have added context. So the transportation of the moai from the cave to mainland Japan is shown in a montage of images that includes it being carried first by helicopter and then by lorry. Though both the manga and anime conveniently avoid showing how the large moai is possibly removed from the undersea cave.

When Cyborg 009, Joe Shimamura, travels to Easter Island he is shown in the manga to be completely alone, driving to the moai by himself. Interestingly, the anime adds an islander, a Rapanui taxi driver, who drops Joe off at a site that appears near to ahu Tongariki. The driver says that he will pick Joe up later that evening. The appearance of a local driver connects the story to the island's contemporary society and an industry built around tourism, but it still fails to properly populate the location.

Amongst the archaeology, Joe experiences a hallucination of levitating moai that try to crush him and the birdman, which swoops down and attacks. In the manga, the birdman is singular; in the anime, there is a gathering of birdmen who stand atop of the moai heads, before attacking Joe with their piercing spears, beaks and talons. Finally, the anime adds a floating island at the end, upon which a titanic battle will take place. As the island emerges from the sea and rises into the sky its architecture is shown to be a combination of ancient and arcane designs consisting of pyramids, temples and moai. Floating islands in Japanese popular culture can be traced back to at least the anime Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which was inspired by Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels.

Ian Conrich

Rokunga: el último hombre pájaro [Rokunga: The Last Birdman]
(2002)

On a windy and dark Easter Island, a wooden carved figure with a skeletal body and short chin beard walks around, old and tired, clutching a stick and a flaming torch. This moai kavakava narrator tells the story of the last birdman on the island and blames the white race for bringing illness, slavery and civil war to Rapanui. The land given by the Creator, Makemake, has been devastated and a foreign god aims to usurp his position. Many Rapanui were taken away as slaves in big wooden ships and those who returned brought with them death. The narrator mourns that no one will ever be able to read the sacred tablets (rongorongo) and the only ceremony left is the birdman cult (tangata manu), although the chief resulting from this competition will soon have no tribe to rule. As this apocalyptic story is narrated, another moai kavakava is carving a petroglylph, that is not displayed to the audience until the end of the animation film.

This gloomy atmosphere gives way to past images of the birdman cult, which is narrated by the moai kavakava in a luminous presentation of Easter Island with tribal music and a procession of the main contestants. Rokunga is introduced as the last birdman, destined to replace the current tangata manu by collecting the first sooty tern egg of the season from the rocky outcrop of Motu Nui. After a fierce race, including swimming under water and between sharks, Rokunga climbs the sea cliff and proclaims his victory with a 'Bird's Cry' supported by Makemake (the protector of migratory birds), here, depicted as a fiery god accompanied by thunder. A storm forms and the sound of thunder echoes back in the final scene while Rokunga raises the egg triumphantly.

The moai kavakava's torch brings us back to the sombre volcanic setting, now with two other wooden figures chiselling stone. As a colossal petroglyph of the birdman is revealed, the narrator claims that Rokunga was the last chief of the Rapanui. Only his image remains on the stone, but he will rule forever. The moai kavakava closes the narration with a chant and his senile and tired voice suggests, with a strong elegiac tone reminiscent of the ubi sunt motif, that the Rapanui and their traditions have been wiped out.

Directed by Erwin Gómez, with a script by Erwin Gómez, Gonzalo Oyarzún and Ignacio Iriarte, this 8-minute 3D animation film from Chile (in Spanish) is the second one directed by Gómez and tells the story of Rokunga, the last registered birdman, who was given the title in 1866 or 1867. With this film, Gómez intended not only to entertain, but also to spread the history of Easter Island beyond the usual focus on the moai. In fact, the moai are entirely absent from a narrative in which moai kavakava presents a story which is centred on the island's culture after the last moai had been erected.

The figures in this short – moai kavakava and tangata manu – are all inspired by actual carvings, which are brought to life as animated characters that continue to exhibit the surfaces and movement of objects that otherwise have been made of wood. The birdman is especially interesting as these are not humans competing in the annual race, but a group of wooden artefacts associated with the folk crafts of Rapanui, complete with accentuated features.

Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas

Justice League
‘The Terror Beyond’
(season 2, episode 15, 2003)

This episode sees erstwhile Justice League member Aquaman team up with Dr Fate and former gangster-turned-zombie Solomon Grundy to defeat an ancient evil. Superman, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl track down Aquaman and Dr Fate, but to prevent anyone from further interfering with his plans, Dr Fate teleports everyone away from his headquarters. Aquaman and Wonder Woman are sent to Easter Island, where they engage in a battle among the moai. Here, the moai are depicted as silent monoliths. During the battle, Aquaman picks up one moai and drops it on Wonder Woman. She lifts it off herself and tosses it aside, demonstrating her Amazonian strength, before hurling Aquaman into a second statue, which leaves a crack in its forehead. Aquaman throws Wonder Woman into the ocean and their fight continues underwater. The rest of the episode is dedicated to the fight between the Justice League and the interdimensional creature that Dr Fate and Aquaman have been attempting to contain.

The Justice League series began in 2001 and ran for two seasons, becoming Justice League Unlimited after the end of season two in 2004. Both seasons consist of twenty-six episodes, with narratives that often span two or three episodes. 'The Terror Beyond' comprises episodes fifteen and sixteen, although the battle among the moai occurs in episode fifteen. The series is based on the Justice League of DC Comics, and is not dissimilar to Marvel Comics’ team The Defenders. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, most of the characters retain their origin stories from their individual story arcs.

While this episode engages with Lovecraftian mythology and the legends surrounding Atlantis, ‘The Terror Beyond’ ignores the rich mythology of Easter Island. Instead, the island is presented as desolate and devoid of life. Moreover, it does not engage with the moai, which are scattered in a very haphazard style and which function as little more than set dressing. The moai are used as visual shorthand to ground the battle between Wonder Woman and Aquaman in a location that is ancient and far away. As within other popular fictions of Easter Island, the moai aid a narrative that needs to emphasise isolation and distance. Neither superhero shows any regard for the status of the moai, which is problematic since both characters have origins in mythical places: Wonder Woman originates among the Amazons and Aquaman hails from Atlantis. The sequence in which the moai appear is less than 90 seconds long.

Laura Sedgwick

One Piece
'Jinginai Time'
(episode 282, 2006)

A group of moai standing in a line complain they are bored. Cut to a story involving three mafia-styled gangs who fight over who will be the leader of an island. The gangs and their associates end up killing each other leaving a last man standing, who declares he must therefore be the leader. Realising, however, he is now alone he is desperate for this all to have been a dream. The story suddenly moves back to Easter Island with one of the moai saying this had been his dream. The declaration frustrates the dreamt gangsters, dead and alive, and they demand "who the hell are you?".

Originally broadcast in February 2006, this short television anime is built around a simple joke with the moai bookending the story. Comic moai create humour either through an ability to move or through their immobility and fixed position. Like the moai in Night at The Museum, these stone figures are going nowhere, yet they do exhibit the myth of movement with their power of speech. The story of the mafia gangs also goes nowhere, as the gangsters are all 'alive' at the end. It is a circular narrative within a bigger circle that presents island life as repetitive.

Ian Conrich

Time Warp Trio
‘Birdman or Bird Brain?’
(episode 15, 2006)

Freddi, Samantha, and Fred arrive on Easter Island, where they discover a giant moai. The statue is pushed over by Maki Puhi, a hostile local, and it narrowly avoids hitting the children. They are rescued by another islander, Kai. It is revealed that the trio have ended up on the island after the text in their time travelling book morphed into rongorongo script.

Kai believes that the children have arrived on the island to help him win the birdman competition so that he can oust Hanga Ui, the current birdman. Hanga Ui has become tyrannical after four years in charge and seeks to destroy all of the other clans. Kai and his uncle aim to end his rule, and the kids offer to help. Freddi has to climb down the cliff and swim to the birdman island, Motu Nui, where she not only finds the required sooty tern's egg, but also the copy of the book that they need to send them back to their correct period in time.

Meanwhile, Kai's uncle teaches Samantha how to read the rongorongo tablets while recounting the history of the island. This new knowledge enables her to read the found book, allowing her to translate it back into English. The trio's involvement sees Hanga Ui ousted from power, and Fred crowned as birdman, although he passes these powers onto Kai's uncle so that he may return home.

Time Warp Trio is an American/Canadian animated series, based on the children's books of the same name by Jon Scieszka. The show was originally aired on Discovery Kids in the US. Its original run lasted from July 2005 until September 2006, with 26 episodes aired. The series followed the adventures of Joe, who receives a book from his magician uncle that allows him to travel through space and time with his friends. Other episodes in the series deal with journeys to twelfth-century Mongolia, ancient Egypt, nineteenth-century New York and mediaeval Scotland. The educational remit of the series extends to the availability of teaching resources online, which accompany the episodes and further explore the mythology and history of the locations visited by the children.

Unlike many other cartoons, Time Warp Trio actively considers the Rapanui, their language and belief systems. This episode is divided between the action typical of cartoon series aimed at children - in this case following Freddi's quest to bring back a tern's egg - and an exploration of Rapanui's history and culture, with some words and concepts emphasised. The customs of the island form the basis of the narrative, particularly surrounding the birdman cult and the rongorongo tablets, and while the moai are depicted they do not constitute a central part of the story. The extent to which the language of rongorongo is featured is exceptional and the episode is largely accurate in covering the birdman cult. Dates are, however, muddled, with the story set in 1765. The destruction of the rongorongo tablets is blamed, for instance, on competing tribes in the mid eighteenth century, approximately one hundred years before many of the tablets went missing.

Laura Sedgwick

Pokémon
‘Nosing 'Round the Mountain’
(season 11, episode 6, 2008)

The Pokémon series is known for presenting unusual characters and creatures who possess strange powers. A moai-like Pokémon made an appearance in the animation episode ‘Nosing ’round the mountain’. This rock-type Pokémon character is called Nosepass. In this episode, Turtwig, who belongs to the main character Ash, battles Alan who is the trainer of a Nosepass Pokémon. The battle takes place on Mt Coronet, the highest mountain in the Sinnoh region (a realm of the Pokémon world). The battle must take place on Mt Coronet otherwise Nosepass will not evolve into Probopass (an advanced form of Nosepass). The evolution into Probopass is successful, but then Team Rocket kidnap Probopass and take over his mind with their mind control machine. Alan, Ash and the rest of Ash’s friends join together to save Probopass.

This animation is part of the wider popular Pokémon (or Pocket Monsters) media franchise, which was created in Japan in 1996. In this episode Nosepass/Probobass have an electromagnetic energy force that they use to battle other Pokémon. Bizarrely, the main source of this power is located in the character’s big red nose. Combined with the hat, which Probopass wears and which resembles a pukao, this character would appear to have been influenced by the moai. Japanese popular culture has shown a significant interest in the moai and Easter Island and in a kid culture where power is acquired and employed, it is unsurprising that the moai have served as inspiration for such fantastic creatures.

Catherine Welsh

Inazuma Eleven
‘Can they Defeat It! The Impregnable Fortress’
(episode 4, 2008)

Toot & Puddle
‘Swing Shift’ and ‘Doors, Drawers and Floors’
(episodes 1 and 5, 2008)

Toot and Puddle are two pigs who live in Woodcock Pocket with other animals, such as a kangaroo. Puddle generally likes to remain at home and explore the surrounding area, whilst Toot likes to travel to new places and countries – “the more places you go, the more you know” – sending and bringing back photos and souvenirs of his adventures. In the first episode, whilst Puddle tries to fix a broken tyre swing, toot visits Easter Island, mailing home a postcard of the moai and taking lots of photos whilst on Rapanui. This segment is brief and surprisingly conveys extremely little about Easter Island other than it offers a tourist destination.

An American-Canadian animation for National Geographic Kids, Toot & Puddle lasted for just one series of 26 episodes. It seemed designed in part to introduce children to the wonders of the world, whilst simultaneously maintaining the security offered by home. In episode 5, ‘Doors, Drawers and Floors’, it emerges that Toot had brought a small moai back home as it appears suddenly in a bathtub.

Ian Conrich

La Pallastrike sull'Isola di Pasqua [Strikeball Match on Easter Island] (2008)

Yara, Mike and Lez live in a city where a number of kids have mysteriously disappeared while playing strikeball, a ball game which is now forbidden. Despite the ban, they decide to go and train in that same square where the other kids have vanished, dominated by a moai statue at its centre. When the statue is hit by a ball, it suddenly comes to life: from its eyes a tremendous ray of energy emanates opening up a space-time vortex that swallows up the kids and transports them to Easter Island. There they come across three Mohip, moai-looking locals who welcome them revealing that the strikeball game was in fact invented on the island, where it is played with a flatball, that resembles a frisbee.

Unfortunately, Easter Island is ruled by an evil tyrant, Nemesis, who loves to organise strikeball matches. The problem is that whoever loses against his players, the so-called Moaia, is turned to stone. The Moaia suddenly appear and challenge the kids to a strikeball match; Yara, Mike and Lez lose and aided by the Mohip run away in order not to be captured by Nemesis' henchmen. The Mohip decide that they will challenge Nemesis and his team of Moaia to set their people free from the tyrant's yoke. They face Nemesis in his own throne hall adorned by many moai. At stake is Yara, Mike and Lez's freedom, and since the odds are against the Mohip, the kids decide to help them train for the big match.

The game eventually takes place in a packed stadium dominated by a giant moai and includes the kids who had disappeared from the city who have now been turned to stone. The Moaia resort to all sorts of tricks to win the game, and seem to have the better of the Mohip. Yet, when Yara enters the pitch, she drives the Mohip team to victory. Nemesis is thus defeated and the spell imprisoning the kids is broken. Yara, Mike, Lez and the other kids are transported back home, the Mohip are now the Island's heroes and Nemesis, together with his pet frog, is left to sell drinks and merchandise to the stadium crowds.

La Pallastrike sull'Isola di Pasqua is one of the last in a series of extended short animations that was produced in Italian by chocolate/ confectionary company Ferrero to promote its goods between 2001 and 2008. Available as a collectible inside Ferrero's Kinder range of chocolates and sweet cake packs, Pallastrike was also turned into a computer game and board game. The plot and theme is rather generic, showing a group of good kids championing values such as fair play, team spirit and sacrifice to help the locals defeat a ruling villain. This children's animation effectively unites Italy's football obsessed culture and its Roman history of gladiators in arenas where loss of life awaited the loser. Many of the ideas were echoed in the very British animation Early Man (2018), that combined cavemen, eccentricity, and football.

The setting of Easter Island for a soccer-like match in Pallastrike is an exotic one, and rather unexpected with the isolated Pacific locale also depicted as the home of this imaginary strikeball game. The moai on Easter Island are nothing more than ornamental statues, adorning Nemesis' throne and throne hall, the old abandoned stadium, and the new strikeball arena. By contrast, the statue in the city reflects the popular myth of moai as statues capable of coming alive, of wielding great powers and of functioning as a dimensional or spatial passage between different places. However, no explanation is given as to how or why the statue has ended up in this western city.

Nemesis is a pantomime villain who is often ridiculed, either through his passion for knitting or by the presence of his pet, a big frog that wears a Polynesian-styled koru-like pendant. In fact, Nemesis' attire more recalls the Incas than the traditional costumes of Rapanui, with one of the Moaia also dressed in a Mexican wrestling costume. Furthermore, the Island is depicted as covered in luscious vegetation from which the moai stick out, and is more in keeping with certain representations of the Mayan and Incan jungles that have been popularised by action and adventure fiction, such as those involving Indiana Jones. Such conflation of South American history with Rapanui is unfortunately common in popular culture. Beyond mere appropriation, the animation does not provide any insight into the culture of Rapanui.

Alessandra De Marco

YooHoo & Friends
‘The Meerkat Conspiracy’
(season 1, episode 20, 2009)

The YooHoo gang arrive on Easter Island searching for another magical “Green Seed”, but the villainous meerkat brothers have followed them there and tie the team to the base of a moai. Worse still, they snatch the “seed pouch” in which the team have been storing other Green Seeds, which they have been collecting on their adventures. The meerkats go in search of the next Green Seed following the direction indicated by the magical light emitted from the seed pouch. At a cave with a closed entrance, the meerkats press a stone button bearing hieroglyphs, whereupon it reveals a miniature moai from behind a sliding panel and the door to the cave subsequently opens.

Deep within the dark cave the meerkats find a glowing Green Seed atop a pile of brightly shining crystals. The greedy meerkats decide to take not just the seed but all of the discovered treasure, which unbeknown to them immediately activates a wooden fish carving, bearing rongorongo, and which is positioned just outside the cave entrance. The carving glows brightly and triggers the door to the cave which closes shut, trapping the meerkats inside. This in turn sparks the moai that holds the gang captive. As the moai’s eye sockets glow, the team are set free, with the rope that holds them dropping magically to the ground.

Upon reaching the cave, one of the YooHoo team, Roodee, tries to decipher the rongorongo hieroglyphs on the fish carving, but finds the words it reveals – which include “rattlesnakes” and “flowers” – to be too cryptic. However, after a bit of time and effort, and using his encyclopaedia, Roodee manages to decipher the hieroglyphs which reveal that “the island is full of ancient treasure”. The rongorongo further reveals that the cave can only be opened from the other side of the island where a row of moai hold the secret. There, only one particular moai holds the “key” and that figure is facing in a different direction. The problem is that all the moai that they find at this particular location face the same direction, so the team spread out to solve the puzzle. It is only then that they discover a miniature moai buried in the grass. This figure is turned 180 degrees and it immediately opens the cave door. Behind it the YooHoo team find the meerkats asleep, who are forced to hand back the seed pouch. The YooHoo team fly out of Easter Island on their hang-gliders made of leaves to start a new adventure.

YooHoo & Friends is a South Korean made for television animation aimed at very young children. Sold globally and dubbed into numerous languages it grew from a range of South Korean plush toys that were marketed first in 2006. Each of these toys is based on an endangered animal with the ‘cute’ factor increased by giving the critters big exaggerated eyes. As part of the extended merchandising world of YooHoo, a series of children’s books were later released, with this Easter Island episode transferred into a storybook that makes a number of significant changes (reviewed below).

Whilst the magical Green Seeds are constant to both the animation and the storybook, the concept that Easter Island is also a location of special powers is present alone in the television episode. Roodee, a capuchin monkey, consults his encyclopaedia at several points to better understand Rapanui and on the first occasion he relays that “based on what I have read this is a magical island”. For moai act as devices to operate cave doors, and they also emit energy triggered by rongorongo. It is here, that the animation is most interesting with not only the rongorongo hieroglyphs introduced to a story for children of an early learner age, but unique within all moai fiction is the depiction in this YooHoo adventure of rongorongo on a fish carving. This artefact is based on the Concepción ika tablet, which can be seen in a Chilean museum. Alas, such a depth of research is partly spoilt by having the episode open with Latin American music on the soundtrack.

Ian Conrich

The Simpsons, The Critic, Futurama, and American Dad

Sight gags and verbal references to Easter Island have occurred across a number of episodes of the popular television series The Simpsons, where the moai are used as easy references for an exotic and faraway holiday destination. In the episode ‘The Two Mrs Nahasapeemapetilons’ (season 9, episode 7, 1997), Moe mentions Easter Island as a place that he has been planning to visit “for years”, and his attraction to the location is further emphasised by an Easter Island T-shirt that he wears whilst working behind the bar. The T-shirt commercialises the island in a fantasy image that depicts two moai kissing, but the joke is on Moe, who in conversation with Homer appears unaware that there are “giant heads” on the island. In contrast, the much travelled Selma and Patty Bouvier have visited the island and a holiday snap appears in the episode ‘The Black Widower’ (season 3, episode 21, 1992), and a framed picture in ‘Much Apu About Nothing’ (season 7, episode 23, 1996). In the episode ‘The Wettest Stories Ever Told’ (season 17, episode 18, 2006), Bligh and his crew on The Bounty, disembark in Tahiti, where crew members that include Bart observe Easter Island heads being carved. The moai here are yet again short-hand gags for the exoticism of Polynesia, with Tahiti in the Simpson’s world able to unite a variety of South Pacific references into one location.

The producers of The Simpsons, Gracie Films, also made The Critic, a short-lived animation that lasted for just two seasons and 23 episodes between 1994 and 1995. In the series, there is a repeated gag about a boy from Easter Island who attends the United Nations High School in New York. The show’s surrealism extended to an awkward imagining of this native Easter Islander having a large moai-like stone head, its monstrosity and abstract form isolating and marking the child out from a number of social situations.

The Simpsons-inspired Futurama, similarly drew freely on popular culture and a simplified history of the world, with brief gags involving the moai. In the Emmy-nominated episode ‘Jurassic Bark’ (season 4, episode 7, 2002) the robot Bender aims to impress and show he can be like a dog, by fetching a large moai. The supposed difficulties in moving the moai and the distant location of Easter Island, make this ‘fetch’ particularly surreal. And in the episode ‘When Aliens Attack’ (season 1, episode 12, 1999), a group of moai appear at the tourist site Monument Beach, where other great monuments, such as Mount Rushmore and Big Ben, have been relocated since the 27th century thanks to the efforts of a super-villain. These beach-sited monuments positioned out of context echo the famous Statue of Liberty scene at the end of The Planet of the Apes (1968). But as aliens then proceed to destroy each monument, the scene also evokes the destruction in Mars Attacks! (1996).

A super-villian is also connected to Easter Island in the ‘For Black Eyes Only’ episode of American Dad (season 8, episode 13, 2013). As the second part of the 2-part episode ‘The Tearjerker Saga’, this is heavily indebted to James Bond and has CIA agent Stan Smith visiting Roger the alien in an Easter Island maximum security prison. Roger has various lives throughout the series, and in this episode he plays a bond super-villian, Tearjerker, who is so depraved that he is held captive in a prison cell deep under the ocean under Easter Island. Some of the world’s greatest maximum security prisons, such as Alcatraz and Devil’s Island, have been on inaccessible rocky lands, surrounded by sharks. The isolation of Easter Island within the Pacific, in shark-infested waters, lends itself to the surreal imagination of American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane. Once again within popular culture, Easter Island is fantasised as a location for a super-villian.

Ian Conrich

Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up (2010)

Between Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) and Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), Twentieth Century Fox released a two-part short animation featuring Scrat, its popular acorn obsessed critter. In part one of this extreme adventure, Scrat pushes his acorn into the ground creating a vast fissure that takes him and the acorn all the way down to the Earth’s inner core. There, as he continues to pursue his precious acorn he manages to move the Earth’s tectonic plates and create the continents that are known today. And as Scrat is pinged around the Earth’s inner core, hitting its sides, he also manages to alter or create versions of several of the world’s most famous monuments – the moai of Easter Island, America’s Mount Rushmore and Egypt’s Sphinx – where this critter’s features are immediately imprinted into stone. The result sees a Scrat-moai joining a line of Easter Island statues. This absurdist fantasy is closest to Mars Attacks! (reviewed below), in which humour emerges from an outside force dramatically altering moai which for centuries had remained unchanged.

Ian Conrich

Phineas and Ferb
'Candace Disconnected'
(season 3, episode 10, 2011)

Having lost her fourth phone in four months, Candace is bereft after having her final replacement accidentally crushed. She asks Phineas and Ferb to build her a new one. Their version includes a voice activated transporter app, capable of moving the user to any location, providing they use the trigger phrase "go to...". While talking to her friend, who is watching a documentary about Easter Island, Candace asks her why anyone would want to go to Easter Island. The app translates her innocent question into a command and transports her to Rapanui. A shot of the island shows her standing atop a cliff, looking down at a range of heads looking out to sea.

Meanwhile, Dr Heinz Doofenshmirtz has invented a Pick'em up-inator to collect Vanessa from school in his stead. He also discovers Norm's prototype head in the basement, which he takes back to his lab. Back on Easter Island, a bird steals Candace's phone and takes it to her nest, forcing Candace to climb down a cliff in order for it to be retrieved.

Fortunately, a passing sea turtle is a secret agent and notifies Carl that Candace is in trouble. Carl alerts Perry the Platypus, who sends the Pick'em up-inator to the island. It grabs Candace just as she falls from a broken branch on the cliff face and returns her home, albeit without the phone. The Pick'em up-inator takes Norm's old head to Easter Island. There, deposited among the moai he exclaims, "finally, a place where a head can be a head".

Phineas and Ferb ran from August 2007 to June 2015, and was broadcast on the Disney Channel. It follows the adventures of stepbrothers Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher. A sub plot explores the attempts of Perry to foil the schemes of Doofenshmirtz, a mad scientist whose inventions often go awry. The show uses a 'gag of the week' format to frame their adventures.

This episode uses Easter Island as an inaccessible destination to underscore how far Candace is transported, since there is no other narrative reason for the choice. Timbuktu is used as a second far-flung destination at the close of the episode. As with many other depictions of Easter Island, the local population is removed, which aids in reinforcing its status as remote. Yet Rapanui's apparent isolation is contradicted by the speed with which the Pick'em up-inator reaches Candace and returns her home.

The relatively short episode does not engage with the moai but it does connect in an abstract way with the island's cult of the birdman (tangata manu), with the bird egg replaced by a mobile phone. Candace's scramble down the cliff face recalls that of warriors at the start of the birdman race, though the competition is not emphasised. Few viewers would be directly aware of the cult of the birdman, turning the sequence into a simple adventure for the unaware.

Laura Sedgwick

Total Drama World Tour
'Rapa Phooey!'
(episode 22, 2011)

When the remaining four contestants of Total Drama land on Rapanui, they are given indigenous headwear of different colours and told to collect the eggs of their own colour from moai-like statues, which feature the faces of the contestants that have already been eliminated in previous episodes (these are toppled like dominoes at the episode's end). Alejandro and Cody work together, as do Heather and Sierra. The four of them are then chased by a giant condor before being instructed to return the eggs to the bird's nest whilst simultaneously singing. Three of them fail, but Heather manages to return all her eggs and thus wins this particular competition. The contestants are then given a vote as to who will be eliminated, leading to Sierra receiving three votes against her. All four stay on, however, as it is revealed that nobody can be voted out this round.

Total Drama World Tour is the third season of the Canadian animation series Total Drama, in which nineteen fictional contestants compete in a game against each other in a range of challenges. Characters are also voted out of the competition, until only two remain to compete in the final. The third season, which is located in a different part of the world for each episode, brought in the new rule that the contestants must burst into song when a specific bell is wrung. The contestants are instructed throughout by the weekly host, who this time is dressed as a Rapanui man (in place of the island's complete lack of a local population) and whose surfer dude mannerisms are incongruous. Near the start it is conveyed that the island is a world heritage site, but only after the team's airplane has knocked over a moai on its way to landing on Rapanui. The airplane pilot does manage, however, to haul the moai back to an upright position, and miraculously all by himself.

Unfortunately, there is little depth to this children's programme which casually borrows the moai and the birdman race for an adventure which is inspired by the format of contemporary television programmes such as Shipwrecked, Coach Trip and Big Brother. The latter is especially referenced in the frequent cuts to the contestants' video diaries.

Felix Hockey

Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
'A Dubious Duo'
(episode 42, 2012)

Yuma and Kite play in a tag duel against the brothers Quattro and Trey in an attempt to rescue Kite's brother. During the battle, Quattro and Trey work as a team, defending each other and reinforcing their monsters. This is in contrast to the protagonists' team as Kite uses abilities that weaken his teammate. During his turn, Trey plays the card 'Chronomaly Moai' before sacrificing it in order to summon 'Chronomaly Machu Mech', a 'number' card with incredible powers. Due to Kite's arrogance and disinterest in playing as a team, he falls for the brothers' trap with the episode ending on a cliff-hanger.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal is an anime series that ran from 2011 to 2012. It is based on the manga written by Yoshida Shin and is part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, originally created in 1996. Central to all versions of Yu-Gi-Oh! is the card game of the same name. Players use cards representing monsters, spells and traps to attack the other player, taking away their 'life points' until a player has no more. Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal takes place in the near future, where a young boy named Yuma and the spirit, Astral, hunt down players with 'numbers', incredibly powerful cards that have the ability to possess the owners, in order to claim them and regain Astral's lost memories.

The card 'Chronomaly Moai' is a level 5 monster with a significant amount of power in both attack and defence. As a medium tier monster, one card must be discarded in order for it to be played. Its special ability is that if it is in attack mode when being destroyed, it can quickly change to defence mode. This use of a moai, depicted here with an immense jaw, implies its durability and strength as it is able to survive devastating attacks. Its defence mechanism also causes it to be seen as more a force of protection than an aggressor.

Felix Hockey

Toriko
'Who are the Strongest Partners? Whole Island Cooking!'
(episode 131, 2013)

As the cooking competition intensifies and enters its third round, the contestants are given a challenge to cook an entire island. Each pair has to choose an island and they range widely in nature. Komatsu has partnered with Toriko, a renowned Gourmet Hunter, and having collected the ingredients from their Gourmet Island, they realise that the greatest food riches and nutrients are actually within the sea. Toriko dives into the ocean and manages to retrieve a giant oyster, which is the size of an island. The oyster is covered in many moai, and after Toriko administers an almighty punch to its hard shell it opens up to reveal its delicious meat. The judges, the Gourmet Seven, taste all the meals cooked by the contestants and those that are put through to the next round include an elated Komatsu.

First appearing as a serialised manga in 2008, Toriko was made in 2011 as an anime for Japanese television that lasted for 147 episodes. This episode combines reality television with the contemporary craze for competitive cooking programmes, but all set within a futuristic gladiatorial environment complete with chefs with hyper-masculine bodies and magical powers. Within such a surreal concept anything is possible, including a giant Oyster Island unexpectedly covered in moai. The anime cares little for why or how these moai are on an oyster, but they help to add to its phenomenal appearance.

Ian Conrich

Doki
'Mysterious Moai'
(season 1, episode 14a, 2014)

Anabella has made a totem out of modelling clay which proves too heavy to move without assistance. While pondering the solution, Doki draws their attention to the moai, establishing parallels between moving the giant stone figures and their totem. Reading from a book on Easter Island, Doki notes the origins of the moai in a quarry and their movement down to the shore some 22km away. The gang decides to solve a "famous mystery" – how were the moai moved – in order to address their own problem.

Oto and Doki fly to Easter Island (as an "expedition team") looking for clues to solve the mystery while the rest of Team Doki try out suggestions to move their totem at the clubhouse. They discount the use of magic or dragging the statue using a rope. After standing on a pencil, Doki realises the statues could have been moved using rolling logs. The group combine the use of a pulley – demonstrated earlier in the episode while moving a heavy tyre – and a skateboard to move their statue.

Doki is a Canadian children's television programme aired on Discovery Kids. It made its debut in April 2013 in Latin America and 57 episodes have been screened so far across three seasons. The show follows the adventures of Doki, a dog, and his friends, which include Oto the aardvark. Other episodes see the gang explore underwater shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea and play musical instruments at a festival in Rio de Janeiro.

The educational content of this episode is higher than that of other children's cartoons involving Easter Island, with it addressing environmental and historical issues and physics. The programme has clearly engaged in a degree of research and it is sensitive to some cultural issues. For instance, the group point out that the moai are protected by law, preventing anyone from now touching them. However, the islanders are talked about in the past tense and Rapanui is depicted as abandoned.

Doki repeats the ancient legends of the islanders that "the statues walked to the shore", though the point is undercut by the irreverent image of Doki and Oto in moai form walking. Meanwhile, their joke that a giant moved the statues is a simple fantasy. Both theories are ultimately disproven through the gang's use of physics, grounding the transportation of the moai in reasoning. That said, in reality how the moai were transported is yet to be proven conclusively, with there being a number of existing competing theories. One of these theories does give the appearance of the moai moving as if 'walking', as the upright carvings could have been toggled into position using a coordinated group of rope pulling movements.

Laura Sedgwick

Rick and Morty
'Something Ricked This Way Comes'
(season 1, episode 9, 2014)

Summer starts working at a new shop, 'Needful Things', that is run by the Devil. Inside is an array of strange, exotic and special objects ranging from shrunken heads to aftershave that can make men irresistible to women. On one side of the shop is a moai, part of the collection of items that people apparently desire most. Scientist Rick refers to the goods as "Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury, Friday the 13th the Series, voodoo crap magic". Bradbury is also referenced in the episode's title with a play on his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. The episode, however, borrows more from Stephen King's novel Needful Things, which is indebted to Bradbury's story.

Ian Conrich

Inspector Gadget
'Head Case'
(season 1, episode 14, 2015)

With the use of dynamite, MADtana Dan who is working for the evil Dr Claw and the secret organisation M.A.D., reveals an ancient artifact that had been buried underground on Easter Island. Opening the casket he finds inside a helmet but he has no idea how it is activated, much to the frustration of Dr Claw, who desires its powers without delay. Inspector Gadget, a bumbling cyborg, is sent to Easter Island to investigate and intervene and flies in his car with his niece Penny and Brain, the dog.

Gadget arrives on Easter Island, which he foolishly believes is called "Easter Egg Land" and he is left wondering "where are all the eggs?". Admiring the moai he also wonders where "are their bodies…and their hats?", which he thinks have been stolen by Dr Claw. He wanders off to find their "hats…and chocolate eggs…and that Easter Bunny", but accidentally activates the helmet, which is being worn by MADtana Dan. Its activation awakens the moai, who rise up out of the ground. The movements of the moai are controlled by MADtana Dan, with the stone giants copying everything he does – this includes a moai being directed to grab Penny and Brain.

Completely oblivious to the moai threat, Gadget is not engaged until he receives his new car. This transforms at the push of a button into a giant robot (Transformers-style) and leaves him prepared to fight the moai. Unfortunately, in a simple blow a moai crushes the robot-car and then its fist pounds down repeatedly onto Gadget. Brain tries in vain to steal the helmet, though Penny successfully manages to infiltrate its frequency and she takes control of the moai before they can fly off to destroy a city. The helmet is dislodged and lands on the head of Inspector Gadget, who cannot see what is happening. The moai imitate Gadget's behavior, which includes flying high above Easter Island. As Gadget tugs at the helmet he pulls off his own head; the moai do likewise and consequently crash back down to earth, landing as detached heads on the island and narrowly missing a family of tourists. Dr Claw is defeated; he wonders how hard would it be to destroy Fiji.

Originally a popular children's television animation that began in 1983, and that was later made by Disney into a live-action film in 1999, the series was remade in 2015 using CGI. Alas, the quality of animation is poor and more akin to an inferior computer game, but Inspector Gadget remains the lovable fool who solves crimes by accident (and with the help of his assistants). He is a combination of the incompetence of Inspector Clouseau – from whom his fashion sense is borrowed – and the gadget enhanced James Bond.

The fact that he is a cyborg allows for a diversity of tools to appear from within his body and especially from his ever-present hat. It is this hat that is imitated in the opening credits, where a moai sports a new pukao (many foreigners see the pukao as a hat when it represents a topknot of hair) and which extends into a running joke with Gadget erroneously believing that the crime committed has been the theft of the hats for the moai. Much of the episode's humour is unoriginal, involving eggs and the Easter Bunny, as is the idea that the moai can be awoken and rise from the ground. Though the flying moai who pull off their own heads is a creative answer for how the stone heads appear dotted around the landscape.

Ian Conrich

Pichintún
‘Mana: Un niño Rapa Nui’ [‘Mana: A Rapanui Child’]
(episode 131, 2015)

Mana, a Rapanui child, guides us on a colourful and musical journey around Easter Island and his town Hangaroa. As Mana walks along the island, and past a toppled moai, he describes his homeland as colourful with many flowers and fruits. The wind, however, is strong leaving him clinging to a tree before literally being blown away together with his pet pig.

This child describes one of the oldest traditions on the island, here presented as curanto, a cooking technique whereby seafood, meat, potatoes and vegetables are prepared in a hole which is dug in the ground. The bottom is covered with stones which have been heated in a bonfire until red. Mana speaks of the variety of fish around Easter Island, particularly the nanue, which is his favourite, and one called titebe, a balloon fish that inflates when threatened and can be poisonous.

Mana introduces us to Rapanui’s most important festival: Tapati. The festival began in the 1970s to promote the Rapanui culture and in particular for generating interest and a sense of identity amongst the children. During the festival, dancing and singing competitions take place, together with traditional sporting events such as swimming, canoeing, horse racing, haka pei (a sledge race employing trunks of the banana tree) and the island triathlon. The entrance to the Tapati main stage is framed by two wooden carvings of moai kavakava. There, Mana dances tamuré, a primarily male dance originally from Tahiti. His uncles paint his body with kiea - white, black and red paint. Mana proudly shows the painting of Makemake on his chest and manu tara/ the birdman on his back, which are similar to the carvings his ancestors made in stone.

Rapanui people love music. When they are together, Mana’s father plays the guitar, his mother sings, one of his brothers plays the drums and the other the ukelele. Mana loves singing too and playing football, but what he loves more is to row the vaka (outrigger canoe). Races are frequent, with Mana winning this one as his opposition come across a balloon fish that makes them stop right before the finish.

The episode ends at the line of moai with their pukao at the beach at Anakena. Mana says this is a sacred place – “they remind us of our ancestors” – and he builds his own miniature moai out of sand in homage to the stone colossi. There is a view at night, by the beach, as spirits appear to rise upwards from the moai forming the image of Makemake in the sky. The last image is a photo of an actual child, who is presumably the inspiration for the protagonist: Mana Henua Hugueño Araki, aged 10, who lives with his family on Easter Island.

Directed by Patricio Veloso for the Cultural and Education TV Department of CNTV (Chile), with a script by Juan José Parada, this 7 minute animation is intended for young children. It is part of the Pichintún series whch introduces the viewer to everyday scenes of life and culture of young children from the different Chilean ethnic groups – such as the Aymara and the Mapuche. A companion episode, Florencia: Una niña Rapa Nui (reviewed below), shows other aspects to Easter Island, but from the perspective of a young girl.

Mana: Un niño Rapa Nui is part of a welcome growing trend to show, in the context of education, the society of contemporary Rapanui or the myths and legends from the islanders’ perspective. Most of these texts are being produced regionally, within Rapanui itself or within Chile, a country which sees the island as part of its geopolitical territory. On one hand it is encouraging to see a positive engagement with contemporary Easter Island, but on the other hand the desire to contain Rapanui as an ethnic group of Chile is wrong. The Rapanui’s origins are Polynesian and not South American. This leads to some fundamental misdirections within the animation with the earthen cooking technique described as curanto, which is a Chilean word, when the practise which is similarly found in Polynesia is called on Rapanui umu pae. There is also a conflict in the depiction of Mana and other islanders, who are sometimes shown in contemporary clothes but elsewhere spend much of the animation (Mana in particular) wearing a primitive dress/ loin cloth. This can be excused in part by the Tapati festival which is a time of the year in which tradition is celebrated, but Mana’s entire time spent out of contemporary clothes (even at night and away from the festival) gives an unfortunate impression to the viewer, which in this instance is quite young.

Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas

Pichintún
‘Florencia: Uua niña Rapa Nui’ [Florencia: A Rapa Nui Child]
(2015)

A young Rapanui girl, Florencia Araki, is introduced along with a song that relays the sports that she enjoys: riding, snorkeling and canoeing. She states that she lives on Easter Island, a land of moai, which for her is always blue skies and white clouds. Florencia helps her father with his garden, planting fruits and vegetables. She explains how they sow, putting sticks next to the seeds to secure them against the wind and bricks around them for protection. They plant parsley, tomatoes and bananas.

Florencia provides a list of the animals they own – pigs, cows and horses – as she mimics each one. Next she rides her horse, arriving soon at the beach where both she (and unexpectedly her horse) snorkels. Underwater, she names various local forms of sealife, in particular the balloon fish and tuna. Then she bathes in a pool whilst speaking about the island’s turtles.

Her favourite place on the island is Anakena, and it is there whilst watching the moai with their pukao, that she explains their construction. She proposes that perhaps the Rapanui moved them with the aid of ropes and banana sticks. After sledging down a hillside with her father, she speaks about the Tapati festival, an event held every February, which attracts people from all over the world. The entry to the venue is framed by two moai kavakava figures. The party ends with fireworks and the election of the Tapati king and queen. Florencia, who loves dancing, looks up at the camera and says, “In my house, I am the queen”, before being embraced by her father. The animation concludes with images of the real Florencia (aged 9) singing, and an indication that she lives with her family in Hangaroa.

Very similar in structure, design and style to Mana: A Rapa Nui Child (reviewed above), this 7 minute short copies its sister animation, which was produced by the same company as a companion for an evolving Chilean television series aimed at young children. As companion films, Mana presents Rapanui culture from the perspective of a young boy, whilst Florencia is from the perspective a young girl. Such is the relation between the two that Mana and Florencia (along with their pet animals) even appear briefly in each other’s stories.

The Pichintún series attempts to unify the different ethnic cultures within Chile’s geopolitical territory, but in doing so it mythologises lands with utopian narratives established through the eyes of children. As Florencia swims underwater off the Rapanui coast she encounters a sunken moai, an experience that is found in reality, but where it exists as a fake placed in the sea by a modern diving company, which the programme fails to convey. Likewise, whilst the Tapati festival gives Rapanui the opportunity to dress and perform in traditional costumes, Florencia wears hers beyond the realms of the event, which gives a false impression that her clothes form part of her regular/ everyday appearance. The animation is, however, positive in its aim to include aspects of contemporary Rapanui life, from the domestic to the social, with the Tapati festival central. The body art of Florencia’s father is also notable with the motifs of Makemake and the birdman included on his chest and back.

Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas

Go Jetters
'Easter Island'
(season 1, episode 34, 2016)

The Go Jetter pilot, Xuli, is tasked with a quest to develop her navigational skills. Having requested "somewhere hard to find", she is given the coordinates to Easter Island, introducing young viewers to the concept of longitude and latitude. The point is repeated that there is "nothing there" at the location, underlining the remote nature of the island. The show's villain, Grandmaster Glitch, is also on Easter Island, ostensibly to enjoy its isolation. Instead, he finds himself overrun with tourists flocking to see the nearby moai. In frustration, he commands his robot helpers to build a new statue elsewhere on Easter Island to draw the tourists away. They build a giant neon pink poodle which Glitch destroys in a fit of pique. The Go Jetters arrive, wishing to see the moai for themselves. Seeing parts of the broken poodle hurtling down the hill, they employ their skills and use futuristic technology to save both the tourists and the ancient moai. With disaster averted, the Go Jetters take a group selfie in front of the moai.

Go Jetters is an animated television series for young children, aired on the BBC's CBeebies platform. The programme was originally only shown on its website as a one-off but its popularity led to a more traditional series-based format. Go Jetters is aimed at the 4-6 age group, and focuses upon teaching children about the countries of the world and their history. The first episode was aired in 2015, while a second series began in 2017. Created by Barry Quinn and Katie Simmons and produced by Boulder Media and Giant Animation, series one consisted of 52 episodes, and episode 34, 'Easter Island', first aired on 22 September 2016.

In each episode, the Go Jetters mentor, Ubercron (a brightly coloured unicorn), passes on information about each new destination with three "funky facts". The four Go Jetters are a combination, in part, of the Power Rangers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with their assembled powers and overseeing mentor. Each Go Jetter possesses different abilities, such as fixing things, gymnastics, or marked intelligence. The plots revolve around the Go Jetters thwarting the nefarious schemes of Grandmaster Glitch, a former Go Jetter cadet. Many of his plans involve locations associated with famous world landmarks, feeding into the educational remit of the show.

The moai in this episode are treated as cultural artefacts and represent the heritage of this remote island. Ubercron notes that the first settlers arrived on the island using their "amazing navigational skills", before telling the Go Jetters that the islanders built the moai to honour families and protect the island. Significantly, the educational nature of the programme aims to establish a number of facts, rather than the myths of Easter Island. That said, the island is depicted as largely barren and desolate, with no inclusion of the local Rapanui. Instead, the focus remains on the largely white horde of tourists that flock around the moai with cameras. The piece of modern art – the Jeff Koons inspired large pink poodle which Glitch's robots build – is quickly destroyed as worthless, with its broken remnants subsequently acting as a threat to the genuine works of wonder. As with the episode of the television animation Dilbert (see the review above), the existence of the ancient moai is threatened by absurd constructions of modernity.

Laura Sedgwick

Dimension W
(13 episodes, 2016)

This television adaptation exhibits striking animation and it sticks faithfully to the original story published a few years earlier (see below). Frames, situations and dialogue are repeatedly directly copied from the manga, with a notable difference being the slightly changed order in which it cross-cuts to particular narrative strands. On encountering the moai in the manga, Mira stops to admire them and poses alongside. In the anime, the car is still forced to stop due to boulders on the road that need moving, but Mira is no longer drawn to the moai, whose backs now face the protagonists. In this adaptation, the attraction of the moai has been removed; they are kept in the background and are of even less interest for the narrative.

Ian Conrich

Pokémon: Sun and Moon
'Mallow and the Forest Teacher!'
(episode 39, 2017)

The twentieth season of the long-running Pokémon series was subtitled 'Sun and Moon'. The format followed previous seasons with the opportunity to introduce creatures, objects and devices with some ease. The tropical island location for Sun and Moon also allows for an engagement with images of exotica and is a strange mixture of Hawai'i – with "aloha" used as a greeting – Australia, Borneo and Sumatra with koalas and orangutans in the forest. With previous stories introducing moai-inspired images (see the review above) it is perhaps not a complete surprise to see a central character being suddenly replaced by a moai, with its frozen features helping to establish a protagonist's look of disappointment. The function of this occurrence can be understood through the myth of presence, where in popular culture moai can seemingly emerge anywhere.

Ian Conrich

The Ollie & Moon Show
'Easter Island Art Adventure'
(season 1, episode 39, 2017)

Ollie and Moon are two cats that live together and who love to travel the world to understand other cultures. In this episode, the two cats are trying to make clay statues of each other in their back garden. Moon has finished hers, but Ollie is struggling whilst also impressed by the “amazing” statues on Easter Island that he sees in a book. With twelve hours left before the clay sets, Ollie and Moon take a plane to Easter Island – complete with the lump of clay in tow.

Arriving on Easter Island, Ollie and Moon are in awe of the line of moai at ahu Akivi. Moon poses in front of the moai, whist Ollie tries to sculpt her likeness. But Moon is an impulsive and easily-distracted cat, challenging Ollie’s attempts at creating art. A local called Sophia, who is a tattooed rhino, appears and tells Ollie and Moon of a Tapati festival that afternoon that features music, dance, food and a competitive race.

Knowledge of the festival further distracts Moon, making Ollie’s task even harder. Meanwhile, the islanders take a surfing break, followed by hill sledging on “banana tree trunks”. Unfortunately, Sophia loses control and as a desperate Moon tries to get out of the way she splatters into Ollie’s sculpture. Ollie, however, is not disappointed as he realises that the chaotic sculpture that he now has reflects the essence of the impulsive Moon.

Based on a series of books, this French children’s animation, consisting to date of 52 episodes, is like other children’s animation, such as Doki (reviewed above), in which Easter Island becomes a necessary destination to solve a local conundrum. However, unlike other similar examples of children’s television, Ollie & Moon combines animation and actual photography, but with moai often placed out of context: the moai which are found on the slopes of Rano Raraku are reused here numerous times and positioned rather freely. It is pleasing that the Tapati festival is mentioned, but there is no attempt to properly engage with the event. And Sophia the Rapanui rhino is certainly original, but on an island where all the characters are animals – including a lion, ostrich and a giraffe – narrative decisions are focused on the young audience for whom the animation is intended

Ian Conrich

Wacky Races
'Easter Express'
(season 1, episode 4, 2017)

The perpetual racers are on Easter Island. With the race in progress the mouth of a moai opens up and the competitors find themselves within a large cavern. There in front of them is a giant alien moai seated on a throne. Muttley steals a precious idol from an altar, which awakens the giant moai. The giant subsequently turns to the moai dotted around the island and commands them to awaken: "arise my brothers, the Earth is finally ours!". With laser beams from the giant moai's eyes the moai awaken and pull themselves out of the ground. They in turn blast laser beams at the Rapanui, "the puny heads", whose heads increase in size, causing them to topple over. The beams continue across the world causing humans to fall over as a result of growing big heads. It is left to the Wacky Racers to save the day, with Muttley and Penelope Pitstop combining to return the idol to the giant. The heads of humans everywhere return to their normal size and the moai are fixed back in the ground around the island landscape.

With a number of racing computer games setting the action on Easter Island it is not surprising to find Wacky Races eventually drawn to the location. In this reboot of the popular children's animation, Hanna-Barbera incorporates the moai, where previously in its many cartoons and comics they had largely been ignored – unlike DC and Marvel who seem obsessed with Easter Island. The moai have multiple functions in this cartoon, from being the subject of puns and sight gags, such as a car pinging like a pinball against a collection of carvings, through to aliens that exhibit both the myth of power and the myth of movement, emerging from their slumber and having the ability to fire body-altering beams from their eyes.

Like other fiction before, the cartoon borrows from Indiana Jones with the theft of an idol, which commences a narrative strand of action and danger. It also borrows from tiki culture with Muttley, the committed tourist, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and lei flower garland. It extends to the depiction of the Rapanui, who are grass-skirt wearing natives. However, the representation of the Rapanui is extremely problematic, as it contains the locals within a Flintstone-like primitive make-do culture that includes a microphone consisting of a coconut on top of a bone, and an overweight male wearing a coconut bra.

Ian Conrich

Legend of the Three Caballeros
'No Man is an Easter Island'
(episode 5, 2018)

The moai are guardians preventing evil lava lizards on Easter Island from flowing out of a volcano and destroying the world. Two villains, the wealthy Baron von Sheldgoose, and his talking staff, that contains his imprisoned ancestor, the dark sorcerer, Felldrake, land abruptly on Easter Island. There, they manage to relieve the moai of their guardianship duties, by convincing them they should take a holiday. The joyous moai rise up out of the ground and party in a style akin to tiki culture and popular images of Polynesian beach vacations.

The lava lizards are now free to flow, but José, Panchito, Donald Duck, Ari the Aracuan bird and Xandra, the Goddess of Adventure, come to the rescue to stop the impending disaster. Through Xandra’s Golden Atlas, a book that contains information on mythological places, they are immediately transported to Rapanui. Donald’s inane movements inspire a new dance in the moai, whose stomping inadvertently causes the lava lizards to retreat back into the volcano and their queen to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Sheldgoose and Felldrake manage to escape and set their sights on another group of stones – Stonehenge. Meanwhile, with the moai back in the ground, Ari leaves them his boom box, to help with the boredom; the music-loving statues tapping their underground feet to the rhythm.

The Three Caballeros was a 1944 Disney live-action and animated musical feature film (Disney’s seventh animated feature), designed as an attempt to connect culturally with Latin America. Each of the three central characters/ the caballeros – Donald Duck, the Brazilian parrot José and the Mexican rooster Panchito – were reintroduced for a contemporary audience in a television series that began in November 2018 (premiering first in the Philippines, before a January 2019 release in Southeast Asia) and has so far established 13 episodes. The series sees the caballeros travel to different world locations, accompanied by Xandra, the now requisite Disney all-action princess. Many of these locations involve world wonders such as the Pyramids, the Nazca lines and Mount Rushmore.

The deep-voiced moai in this episode are presented stuck in a “rock-bottom job” committed to an “endless, boring, sacred duty” and in need of a vacation: as one declares, “I haven’t had a vacation in five hundred years”. They awaken with the introduction of a catchy musical number very much in keeping with a Disney style, that mixes entertainment, clever lyrics, energy and humour. Here, the partying moai – male, female, and a baby moai – limbo and conga dance, water-ski, water-slide, wear Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses and drink cocktails against a background of tiki torches and exploding fireworks. One, whose feet “are killing me”, even reclines in an easy chair. The humour borrows from the many comic strips and single frame cartoons that humanise the moai, whilst associating island life with a leisure culture that is more commonly depicted via Hawai’i within the Disney world. Previously, Easter Island as a party-like celebration of a tiki culture had only occurred in Joker: The Last Laugh (reviewed below), in which the villain also sought a vacation.

Ian Conrich

Nuku-Nuku
(20 episodes, 2019)

Funded by Chilean television, this series of 20 short Spanish-language episodes (each approximately 4 minutes long) is located entirely on Easter Island. Intended for children, the stories are presumably set in the very early 1950s, as the first episode features Roberto Parragué, flying the ‘Manutara’, which was the first plane to land on Easter Island, in January 1951. Alongside Parragué on this flight is a young Chilean boy, Martín, who leads the viewer through a range of cultural experiences.

The series is notable for its use of stop motion animation, which is interspersed with hand drawn/painted 2D animation, that are favoured for moments of storytelling, history and more complex motion. Episodes focus on a diversity of cultures and traditions and include the moving of the moai, the birdman competition, wood carvings, body paintings, sealife, food and cooking, the string game kai kai, and the origins of the Rapanui people. The series emphasises togetherness (nuku-nuku means to gather and come together), community and friendship with Martín sharing his adventures with three Rapanui children. It is designed as an educational programme and the filmmaker, Vivienne Barry, sees a connection with the Montessori approach to childhood learning.

The idea for the series came from workshops on Easter Island, where the Rapanui presented suggestions for the content. This has been carried through to production with numerous Rapanui involved in the crew. The music is authentic and performed by the Rapanui using local instruments, whilst the islanders provide the voices for many of the characters. Conceived as a programme in which the Rapanui presented their culture to an overseas audience it is part of a growing range of cultural products disseminating Rapanui life and legends from the perspective of the islanders. Other examples include the comic Varua Rapa Nui (reviewed below) and the children’s book Varua, A Boy of Easter Island (reviewed below).

Ian Conrich

SpongeBob SquarePants (1999- )

There is a popular perception that a moai features in the episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants. The series draws repeatedly on cultural aspects of the Pacific, in particular Hawai’i. The references can be quite abstract and in this context both Squidward’s home and Mrs Tentacles’ home are more a fishtank version of a tiki than a moai. There are elements of a moai in these homes, such as the elongated head and high forehead, but not enough to make them a significant form within Moai Culture.

Ian Conrich

Ogú y Mampato en Rapa Nui [Ogú and Mampato in Easter Island] (2002)

A film adaptation of the popular comic by Themo Lobos, which was only Chile's second feature-length animation (and the first since 1921), Ogú y Mampato en Rapa Nui was also Chile's submission for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2002 Oscars. The film is also known as El Misterio en la Isla Encantada (The Mystery on the Enchanted Island) and Mampato: The Movie. For a plot synopsis, see the review of the comic below.

Compared with other film adaptations this is very close to its source, yet there are important differences. The Rapanui men have been hyper-masculinised for the film and they now display broad and muscular chests. Consequently, they appear more heroic and noble and less comic, whilst the women in the film have been sexualised. The villain, the king/ Grand Chief is much darker – he now has pointy teeth and red skin, and resides in an imposing room with a line of moai flanking his throne. The film has added musical numbers – which would be less successful in a comic – and a man who constantly carries a guitar, an instrument that is anachronistic in a film set in pre-European contact times. The pineapple that Ogú finds is also out of place, originating from South America.

There is less of the detail to the range of cultural artifacts of Rapanui, that was found in the comic, with references to rongorongo removed. The film, however, does add a moment where eyes are added to a newly erected moai, a ceremony that the Rapanui believed brought the carving to life. It is significant that the Rapanui were consulted in aspects of the film's production, which may explain some of the changes. Rapanui singer-songwriter Mito Manutomatoma wrote a number of the songs and performs here with his band Fusíon Rapa Nui. The music was in collaboration with Chilean guitarist Joe Vasconcellos and most likely explains the appearance of the guitar-playing islander.

Ian Conrich

The Incredibles (2004)

Sergeant Frog the Super Movie 5 (2010)

An adaptation of a Keroro Gunso (Sergeant Frog) manga, this feature length animation was shown widely at cinemas in Japan – its country of production. The fifth film in a highly popular animation franchise, it is up to a point a faithful adaptation – see below for the review of the original manga story.

A 75-minute film permits greater opportunity to expand and explore a story that was originally a relatively short manga. Half of this adaptation is devoted to an extended battle between Sergeant Frog (a harmless extra-terrestrial army-styled frog now living on Earth) – along with Fuyuki, a Japanese boy, and their companions – and a giant aku aku creature that threatens to destroy everything. The film, unlike the manga, has Sergeant Frog's special platoon of soldiers, each with their own unique skill, absorbed into the aku aku, giving it increased strength and power.

Moreover, the film adds a monolithic moai-faced mountain (bearing carvings of tangata manu/ the birdman) that erupts out of the ground, and that acts as a form of transmitter. As it shoots a laser beam into the sky, it is encircled by a series of rongorongo hieroglyphs. This releases from far out in space an army of golden moai (made from star fragments), with each etched on their torsos tangata manu patterns. These moai hurtle to Earth and are stopped by Sergeant Frog with moments to spare.

Assisting Sergeant Frog and Fuyuki are two Rapanui children, a boy and girl, who look like twins and are called Io and Rana, which combined translates as "hello", in the indigenous language. These children are the ancient power of the island, its "mana", who have taken human form. In the original story there was just one child, a boy; the film creates a gender balance, but it also populates the island with a community, albeit one that appears for a small section of the film. Here, contemporary Rapanui women are seen in the island's town of Hanga Roa, with a group of children also engaged on their way to school. A problem with the manga was that it had shown just one Rapanui on the island – the boy spirit – which was as good as suggesting the island was uninhabited. The manga had also made this Rapanui boy unintelligible; for much of the story he speaks in rongorongo that not even a special device, a translation badge, can decipher. Yet, in the film, the same badge now works and the Rapanui are therefore understood.

Like the manga, the animators appear to have researched the moai and the geography of the island. In addition, the animators of the film have depicted with some accuracy aspects of buildings in Hanga Roa, including the main church. It is positive that a number of the bad mistakes in the manga have been addressed and corrected, with makemake no longer conflated with tangata manu. Both appear at various points in the film, with Io and Rana first appearing wearing moai kavakava masks. The character reappears in an extra-sensory experience, where he is re-interpreted by the story as a "mana" or power residing within a moai. That moai is levitated through the touch of Io and Rana and is a source of energy, with other moai realigned to acts as weapons to destroy the aku aku. Like the original manga there is some sensitivity to the heritage of the island, with Io and Rana told by Fuyuki that they should not touch the moai.

Creative additions made by the film to the manga include the miniature moai figure – which motivates the journey to Easter Island – now depicted in the shape of Sergeant Frog. And always looking for a new military opportunity, Sergeant Frog re-imagines Easter Island as a Thunderbirds-inspired island complete with launch sites that will be his new base of operations. Later on, he fantasises that within the crater of Rano Raraku he could build his own army of mechanised moai. These are clearly shown to be the foolish imaginings of a driven but lovable anime character.

Ian Conrich

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!, The Adventures of Tintin, and Hop

The 2012 claymation comedy The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (in the US titled: The Pirates! Band of Misfits) continues an interest in Easter Island that was previously shown by the producers Aardman in an episode of the animation short Rex the Runt. This feature-length film includes two short scenes featuring moai, one of which also shows Easter Island’s location on a map. In this film, the Pirate Captain and his crew team up with Charles Darwin to try to win the Pirate of the Year Award, while attempting to avoid the pirate-hating Queen Victoria. During the opening credits sequence, the pirate ship is shown crossing the globe and visiting certain islands and continents. Upon arrival on Easter Island, the ship knocks over several moai as if they were bowling pins (a gag found previously in the film Mars Attacks!) and continues on its way. In a later scene at Darwin’s home filled with artefacts collected during his sea voyages, the pirates are chasing after the thief of the Captain’s dodo bird when they fall into a bathtub which then crashes through the floor and slides at speed down the staircase. A moai is in the corner of the landing into which the bathtub collides, causing it to tumble face-first down the stairs. As exotic figures in the home of the founder of the theory of evolution, the moai alongside the dodo is an unusual pairing that briefly unites two powerful island myths.

In The Adventures of Tintin (2011), the most well-known moai which is now in the British Museum, Hoa Hakananai’a, appears in the background of a scene which takes place at the palace of the wealthy merchant Omar ben Salaad, in the fictional city of Bagghar, Morocco. The opera singer Bianca Castafiore is performing for ben Salaad and his guests, and many of his prized possessions can be seen behind Bianca as she sings. Similar to The Pirates!, the appearance of the moai in The Adventures of Tintin is rather brief and merely illustrates the importance of the owner.

Using Easter Island as the location of the Easter Bunny’s home and workshop is a recurring theme in fiction. It is not surprising that the Easter-themed film Hop (2011) places the Easter Bunny’s candy factory on the island. The Easter Bunny and his son, E.B., are shown entering the underground factory through the mouth of a moai, which lowers its lips to reveal an elevator. Later, the young E.B. decides that he does not want to replace his father as the next Easter Bunny and runs away to Hollywood instead to pursue his dream of becoming a drummer. Climbing out of the moai’s nose using a rope, E.B. enters a circle of moai facing each other where he chooses his destination on a computer screen. The eyes of the moai begin to shine and a hole opens in the ground in the centre of the circle into which E.B. jumps in order to be transported to Hollywood. This circle of moai is shown again when the Pink Berets, the royal guards, are sent to Hollywood to bring E.B. back to Easter Island. The moai are employed in this fiction as objects of power and mystery able to create a portal to another land. They are also a part of a common fantasy that the moai are supposedly hollow and contain secret lairs.

Jennifer Wagner

Minions (2015)

Following the success of Despicable Me 2 (2013), Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment made a spin-off feature film, Minions, starring the lovable yellow critters. At the home of supervillain, Scarlet Overkill, Minions Kevin, Stuart and Bob are shown a room full of treasures: “just a few things I stole to help fill the void”, Scarlet informs. The room is filled with golden treasure and artworks that include Michelangelo’s David and Andy Warhol’s Campbell's Soup Cans. There is also in this treasure room a moai, with the suggestion that it too is unique, priceless and highly desirable. Its brief appearance is similar to a scene in The Adventures of Tintin, in which the power of an individual is underlined by the ownership of a moai.

Ian Conrich

Fiction Films (excluding animation)

Der Goldene Abgrund. Schiffbrüchige des Lebens [The Golden Abyss. Castaway of Life]
(French release title: Rapa-Nui; Italian release title: Atlantis; Austrian release title: Frauen im Abgrund [The Woman of the Abyss])
(1927, directed by Mario Bonnard)

Based on the novel Rapa-Nui by André Armandy (see the review below) this is the earliest known film to feature Easter Island. An adventure-romance – a common fiction of the time – it has only recently been restored and screened publicly after long being unavailable. The director, Mario Bonnard, had fled to Germany from Italy following Mussolini's coming to power in 1922, and was subsequently hired for this German/French co-production (the third of his films for the German film industry). Filmed in studios near Berlin and on location in Sicily and Rome – which provided the necessary exotic foreign land – the eruption of the volcano, however, was stock footage taken from an earlier film depicting Mount Vesuvius.

The film is relatively faithful to the original novel, but there are some key differences. In the novel, the heroine, Oedidée, the daughter of a sun god, is the last survivor of an all-powerful ancient race of superior humans, that lived on a continent (of which Rapanui is all that remains) and which disappeared in a natural disaster. In the film, Oedidée is divided into two women – twin sisters – who were separated at birth following a maritime disaster, with one sister Jola (renamed Oedidée in the French version) rescued and living on Rapanui.

The film's sex and violence pushed the boundaries of the time, with the German censor, for instance, requiring six cuts to intertitles and specific scenes. Internationally, The Golden Abyss, which was titled differently across its markets, received mixed reviews, especially regards the performance of the cast – which included notable stars of the period such as Liane Haid, who played both twins. A German critic interestingly described this Gothic adventure as a cross between Edgar Allan Poe and a Karl May western.

Ian Conrich

Aloma of the South Seas
(1941, directed by Alfred Santell)

As children, Tanoa is betrothed to Aloma, by his father, the king of a Pacific island. Soon after, Tanoa travels to the USA to acquire an education. Fifteen years later, the king dies and Tanoa returns to take the throne, but Aloma has been having romantic meetings at a secret pool with Revo, Tanoa's cousin and childhood friend.

Revo is the film's villain and he casually murders a man, shooting him from distance, to maintain his control of Aloma. Tanoa learns of the crime and after a fight with Revo banishes him from the island. However, Revo returns for Tanoa's coronation and shoots dead the priest, who is conducting the service. Revo then begins firing on the islanders from above with a machine gun. The island's volcano erupts, spewing rock and molten lava, apparently angered by Revo's crimes. The islanders flee, Revo is killed by a rock fall, and Tanoa saves his wife, Aloma.

Released less than four months before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought America into a war in the Pacific, Aloma of the South Seas is the second time that LeRoy Clemens' Broadway play of 1925 had been filmed (the previous occasion was in 1926). The film betrays its theatrical origins and is very staged and constrained as a production. The island action and sets are clearly studio-based, with the landscape behind appearing on an obvious canvas. The studio setting was also the result of the film's aesthetic choices, with this being an early three-strip Technicolor film (the first feature, Becky Sharp, filmed entirely in this process had been only six years earlier; The Wizard of Oz, just two years earlier). Filming in a studio enabled the control of the colours in front of the camera and this is maximised through an array of Pacific island artifacts, not least the fabrics (including the sarongs) and flowers on display. The film was subsequently nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography.

It was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, presumably for the scenes at the end where the volcano erupts. In retrospect these are poor and film critics at the time were not convinced, nor with the film as a whole. The two lead actors, Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall, were taken from another more successful Pacific island production, John Ford's The Hurricane (1937), and were recast for a film that was clearly looking to exploit that screen partnership and the increasing appeal of Technicolor (despite its expense). From the performance, musical numbers and design, the film feels forced and is unconvincing with the images of the Pacific an awful hash of cultures and myths from Hawai'i, French Polynesia, Samoa and Easter Island (with seemingly bits of Africa and Ancient Greece included). From Easter Island, the moai are borrowed and they first appear in the last third of the film dotted in and around a pool and a ceremonial space. Some are toppled and crushed when the volcano erupts and they largely function, like so much else, as set decoration.

Ian Conrich

Wake of the Red Witch
(1948, directed by Edward Ludwig)

Mothra (1961)
(1961, directed by Honda Ishirō)

A vessel near the Caroline Islands is caught in a typhoon and shipwrecked. Some of the crew are discovered on a Polynesian island that has been used for nuclear testing. It was believed that the island was uninhabited but natives remain and are immune to the high radiation due to a special juice drink. A Japanese expedition to the island is undertaken but many of the locals are shot at and killed. The natives turn to the revered Mothra, a giant caterpillar/moth, for protection. In a ritual involving chanting and dancing, Mothra is hatched from a huge egg.

Either the film's geography is very wayward or the typhoon must have been powerful as the ship is blown a vast distance from Micronesia to Polynesia. Whilst in reality the Japanese have never have been allowed to conduct nuclear testing, this fantasy borrows from the actions of the French and imagines islanders who were left behind despite planned evacuations prior to the tests. It is an original element of this film's fiction, but the other points of reference are an awful muddle. The Polynesians are poorly disguised Asians, who are depicted as primitive (almost stone age) islanders. Little if any research has been conducted for cultural accuracy with the ritual dancing unlike anything in Polynesia, or the wider Pacific islands. The giant man-attacking plants and two miniscule island women, who can fit into the palm of a hand, extend the fantasy's extremes.

During the ritual to awaken Mothra two large moai carvings are visible in the background, but they are nothing more than basic artefacts meant to signify a Polynesian culture. Reference is briefly made to a lost continent that apparently united Polynesia, which borrows from the legend of Mu. Furthermore, a Japanese expert discovers in a cave an unknown writing system, which loosely connects with rongorongo, and in this instance is deciphered using other Polynesian languages.

Ian Conrich

Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.
(1966, directed by Byron Paul)

Lieutenant Robin Crusoe, of the United States Navy, is forced to eject from his airplane over the Pacific Ocean, 300 miles west of Port Moresby. He drifts at sea for more than 4 days until he finds an island that appears deserted. As well as discovering the wreck of a Japanese submarine and a NASA space chimp on the island, he also encounters a huge statue, called Kaboona, a “great god” that apparently only speaks to a visiting chief. This empowers the chief, giving him control of all the women in his tribe, keeping the men in servitude and having a system of sacrifices. Crusoe finds a secret back entrance into the hollow statue and by using a series of devices found on the Japanese submarine he is able to project his voice from within Kaboona and create effects where its eyes flash red and green, and fire and then water are shot from its mouth. The ruse is exposed, but with the chief trying to regain control his men flee in panic as the Japanese flares within Kaboona accidentally explode. Finally, as all sides reconcile, the chief says he wants his daughter to marry Crusoe; the American has other plans and he and the astro-chimp escape the island whereupon they are rescued by a US Navy helicopter.

Of the many film versions of Daniel Defoe’s castaway story Robinson Crusoe, this Disney production most revisits the Douglas Fairbanks 1932 adventure film, Mr Robinson Crusoe. Both feature spirited Americans who ingeniously (and rather implausibly) craft modern-day amenities and a comfortable standard of living from the island’s resources. Of the two, Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. is more of a comedy, albeit an inane family film, with Dick Van Dyke in the lead role. The astro-chimp, which Crusoe calls Floyd, is a topical inclusion to the story at a time of the USA-USSR space race, whilst the chief’s daughter (played by Hong Kong-American Nancy Kwan) is given the name Wednesday. Together, the three become Disney’s own Tarzan/Jane/Cheetah. Socially and politically, the film is also interesting for its overt inclusion of protesting island women, complete with placards – including “We Fight for Rights” – demanding equality, at a time when the feminist movement of the 1960s was in its infancy.

The island is unnamed and in the cultural mélange it sucks in a wide variety of sources. The women appear Asian-American, some perhaps even Micronesian, the men wear giant masks that belong to Papua New Guinea, and the outriggers are arguably more Polynesian. Unsurprisingly for an American film, the biggest source of ideas for this Pacific-set fantasy is Hawai‘i, visible for instance in the dancing and lei flower garlands. Moreover, Kaboona is inspired by the Hawaiian word kahuna, which itself is a modern invention from the Hawaiian language which has come to mean a shaman or sorcerer (often also associated with sacrifices). This great statue is a remnant of another civilisation, with vines growing over its features suggesting an ancient past. Hawai‘i and Polynesia have their tiki carvings, but this statue – its circular mouth aside, which the film employs to dramatic effect – bears the greatest resemblance to the moai of Easter Island.

Ian Conrich

Boom!
(1968, directed by Joseph Losey)

On a secluded island in the Mediterranean, a young man named Christopher Flanders arrives unannounced, seeking Mrs Goforth, a rich widow of five husbands who lives there, and who rules over both her servants and the nearby villagers. After Flanders is attacked by her dogs, Mrs Goforth takes him in and becomes intrigued by this stranger. A friend tells her that Flanders has been nicknamed "the angel of death", due to his history of being present at the end of a number of rich old women's lives. During their time together, Mrs Goforth decides to take Flanders as a lover but warns him that he was mistaken to believe her death to be near. Eventually she succumbs to illness, however, and dies with Flanders by her bedside.

Boom! is adapted from the Tennessee Williams play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. It stars the then-married couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, although the characters they play are supposed to have a much bigger age gap. Noel Coward also appears in a supporting role as 'the witch of Capri', an old friend of Mrs Goforth. The film failed to make a profit at the box office and received mostly negative reviews. It was the third of Taylor's four Tennessee Williams films, but she could not rekindle the success of her earlier adaptations Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). Its main attraction was the on-screen partnership of Taylor and Burton. By 1968, Taylor was on the fifth of her eight marriages (two eventually with Burton), such that it was not difficult to see some parallels between Taylor and her on-screen character, Mrs Goforth, a serial-marrier.

Moai appear in a number of shots, on the cliffs overlooking the sea. They are often in the background and are part of the wealthy-lifestyle of Mrs Goforth, suggesting opulence. Along with the cryptic dialogue and elaborate costumes, such as Flanders' samurai garb, the moai also add to the otherworldly atmosphere of the film.

Felix Hockey

Chariots of the Gods
(1970, directed by Dr. Harald Reinl)

Two years after the publication of Erich Von Däniken's best-selling book, Chariots of the Gods?, and a year after his book Gods from Outer Space, this West German documentary adaptation was produced. The film benefitted from an international release and a cultural climate in which the books had remained very popular. Von Däniken's book claimed the word's ancient wonders showed proof of alien visitation. Seven minutes of the ninety-minute documentary focuses on Rapanui, with the segment drawn first to the birdman petroglyphs at Orongo, accompanied by the absurd suggestion that the carvings of a bird head with beak on a human body, could actually be of "helmets equipped with oxygen masks". Unsurprisingly, the documentary is also fascinated by the moai and in a mixture of fabrication and twisted fact the viewer is erroneously advised that the moai were carved from extremely tough rock that stone tools would barely scratch, that Rapanui has strong magnetic forces across the island landscape and that two priests, who then suddenly disappeared, moved the moai using the power of flight. Despite a few verbal references to the islanders, they are not shown and the island appears barren and windswept, the point underlined by an exaggerated sound of the wind on the film's soundtrack. The moai are foregrounded on the film's artwork, with two large heads looming over Egypt's pyramids. One moai looks skywards turned towards a rocketship that is blasting into space and beyond the poster's frame. The watching moai is most aligned with space travel, making clear the proposal that the archaeology of Easter Island is of another world.

Ian Conrich

Les Soleils de l'île de Pâques [The Suns of Easter Island]
(1972, directed by Pierre Kast)

Godzilla vs Megalon
(1973, directed by Fukuda Jun)

The Godzilla series of films are Japan-centric, yet this should not disguise the fact that the narratives are fantasies born from the wider Pacific. Godzilla is a creation of nuclear testing in the Pacific and Pacific islands feature throughout the series. Godzilla vs Megalon emphasises the high impact of nuclear testing (by foreign powers) in the Pacific, with earthquakes at the start of the film. The testing is also destroying the ancient kingdom of Mu/Lemuria, referred to here also as Seatopia, which is located under the Pacific Ocean. A third of their three million year old peace-abiding kingdom has been destroyed, so they awaken Megalon to annihilate the human race (with the help of an old Godzilla foe, Gigan).

Mu is a mythical kingdom, which was created by James Churchward in the 1890s (with his first such book published in 1926) in an attempt to convince people of a possibility of a lost continent of the Pacific, similar to Atlantis. Churchward presented Easter Island and the moai as remnants of Mu, and all that remains visible of the sunken continent. Godzilla vs Megalon continues the association with the citizens of Mu communicating with Easter Island, which is represented here by the line of moai at Tongariki. Mu itself is a futuristic vision very much design-dependent on the ideas of modernity of the early 1970s, with the sets and costumes all pure whites and silver. There is within this civilization a distinct cult of the moai, with a large silver moai standing over the citizens of Seatopia as they worship and dance at its feet. Such scenes are brief and appear to have been inspired in part by Beneath the Planet of the Apes, made three years earlier, with its hidden and evolved civilization who worship an atomic bomb.

Ian Conrich

Sky Pirates
(1986, directed by Colin Eggleston)

The film’s most interesting moment is at the end where Harris and Melanie confront Savage in an Easter Island cavern. In the preceding cave passages, golden icons are discovered and include, rather bizarrely, basic gold statues of moai kavakava and of tangata manu.  Even more fantastic, the film positions the western idea of a library of ancient books stored in this cave. Whilst the idea of a hidden library is far-fetched and the islanders never had books before the arrival of Europeans, the idea appears to be inspired by the rongorongo tablets, the earliest form of Polynesian writing of which the majority of examples have been destroyed.

Ian Conrich and Adam Crowther

Rapa Nui
(1994, directed by Kevin Reynolds)

Mars Attacks! and Night at the Museum

Arguably the two most popular appearances of moai in film have been comic cameos in action-fantasy blockbusters. In the science fiction feature Mars Attacks! (1996), based on the trading cards and directed by Tim Burton, alien invasion includes the destruction of significant landmarks. In one brief sight-gag, the aliens treat a line of moai like skittles and bowl them over employing a giant bowling ball. The scene is short but for many is highly memorable.

More significantly, in the Night at the Museum films (2006, 2009 and 2014), a moai at New York’s Museum of Natural History comes alive after hours. This moai talks (but otherwise does not move) and repeatedly requests that he is given bubblegum. The humour is in the stupidity and in the simplicity and catchiness of the moai’s expressions: “dum-dum”,“gum-gum”, “fun-fun” and “son-son”. The nature of the statements, and the voice of this moai, suggests that this statue is devoid of intellect. Yet in most popular imaginings of the moai, in which they come alive, they are depicted as having a superior intelligence.

Ian Conrich

Television (excluding animation)

Gilligan's Island
'Voodoo'
(episode 73, 1966)

The skipper finds Gilligan in a cave where he has discovered hidden treasures buried in the ground. Whilst Gilligan is in awe of the jewellery, the skipper becomes wary of "Voodoo" that may be protecting the treasure. As the two leave the cave, a witch doctor, who had been spying on the pair and disrupting their plans, sticks a pin in the neck of a voodoo doll that looks like Gilligan. The subsequent reaction from Gilligan indicates the effectiveness of the voodoo.

After Gilligan gives out the cave's findings to the other islanders, he and the skipper are persuaded by Thurston to go back and look for more treasure. All of the shipwrecked islanders convene at the cave and watch as Gilligan digs up a small golden moai statue. The witch doctor again waits outside and this time places a fire beneath dolls of all seven of the islanders, which leads to them running into the sea to cool down.

The next day, the witch doctor turns the professor into a 'Zombie', who stares into space without moving or talking. The skipper and Gilligan decide to return all of the treasure to the cave, which allows the professor to regain consciousness. In the final scene, Gilligan makes a voodoo doll of the witch doctor and stabs his behind as the man, who emerges from the bushes, then howls in pain and runs into the sea.

Gilligan's Island was a popular American television sitcom that ran for 98 episodes from 1964 to 1967. The series featured seven characters that were shipwrecked on a tropical island with the various episodes focusing on their attempts to interact with and escape their environment. The series also spawned two sequel films made in 1978 and 1979.

The moai briefly seen in this episode is both a treasure and an unobtainable object as the castaways have to return it along with the other buried items in order to lift the curse. As a seemingly recognisable symbol of another culture – extricated from its cultural origins and merged with Caribbean dark practices to satisfy an American fantasy – the moai stresses the exotic more than the other gems or jewellery. But like the feature film Sky Pirates (see the review above), which features golden objects of Rapanui culture, the idea is an utter fabrication with Easter Island containing no gold deposits.

Felix Hockey

The Muppet Show
(episode 320, 1979)

In one of the many musical numbers that were featured on The Muppet Show, a jazz-styled 'Hawaiian War Chant' is sung (in Hawaiian) by a variety of puppets. These include singing penguins, parrots and pigs in grass skirts in an animal melee that is overseen by a cliff top monkey that throws coconuts on the performers below. Predating the talking moai in Night at the Museum (see the review below) and the musical number in Histeria! (see the review above) is a singing moai, who not only speaks Hawaiian but says words such as "hubba hubba". Whenever moai speak or sing, they are given a deep voice, presumably as that matches their monolithic form. The guest star for this episode was Sylvester Stallone.

Ian Conrich

Comic Books

Puck
‘Rob the Rover’
(no.1091–1095, 20 June–18 July 1925, Amalgamated Press)

Rob and his companions Dick and Old Dan are flying over the Pacific when they decide to head to Easter Island. Dan has been there before, voyaging by ship from San Francisco to the South Seas, and he says it is “an interesting place and well worth a visit”. Unable to see a landing site they set their hydroplane on the water near to shore, where the observe a hillside of moai – “[h]uge heads […] and exactly all alike”. The three travellers conclude that what they are seeing is “very likely […] some native place of worship”. They take pictures of themselves amongst these wondrous carvings, which they say are “on a par” with the Sphinx and the pyramids of Egypt. Then out of nowhere a herd of wild pigs emerges and charges at the adventurers, who clamber up on to the moai to a position of safety. It is only when a group of Rapanui “dusky warriors” who are “skilled hunters” chase the pigs away that the three companions can come down. The Rapanui are friendly with the chief greeting the strangers in English and offering them food and rest. A banquet of food is provided with the Rapanui supplying “amusement in the form of a war dance”.

Soon after the three companions depart Easter Island, but they do not get far before they are forced to land their plane at sea to conduct repairs to a wing. Approaching them fast, however, are twin waterspouts which will wreck their plane if they cannot to take to the air quick enough. They climb high, but are still caught in the tempest of the waterspouts which toss them around before they manage to regain control of their plane. Down below they spy a group of indigenous fishermen clinging to their upturned canoe, with others trying to stay afloat whilst floundering in the sea. The hydroplane touches down again and picks up the survivors who are extremely grateful and bestow a necklace upon Old Dan. The plane takes the survivors back to their nearby island, where their community is delighted to see them. Rob, Dick and Old Dan are “hailed as wonders” and made special guests of the chief, who speaks a little English. Suddenly, a native man comes running and alerts everyone to the fact that a number of “fully-manned” war-canoes from a rival tribe at the other end of the island is fast approaching.

The friendly islanders try to halt the intruders, but this tribe is too numerous and they swarm on to the land taking control and imprisoning Rob, Dick and Old Dan, who had been the focus of their intentions. Along with the chief and a number of his warriors they are tied up and taken on the canoes back to the enemy tribe’s home, where the captives are presented with great local satisfaction and celebration. The three companions are placed under guard in a tribal hut. Later that evening as two locals bring them water and food, Rob sees his chance to escape, with support provided by Dick and Old Dan, who tackle the guards. Pursued all the way to the beach, Rob finds an outrigger and manages to sail at speed out to sea, under a “brisk breeze”. At dawn, however, Rob fears he is now lost with no land in sight.

Despairing and exhausted, Rob lowers his sail and decides to have a nap. This results in his boat drifting, whereupon he is rescued by a group of friendly pearl fishermen. Unbeknown to Rob, the friendly rescuers are from Rapanui, who take him to the island and nurse him back to health. As soon as he can walk again, Rob climbs back into his airplane and he takes to the skies to locate his missing friends. He is able to identify the island they are on and from there he flies to “civilisation”, a “busy trading port of the South Seas”, where a British warship is anchored in the harbour. His hydroplane is met by a boat which takes him to meet the British Consul. The diplomat offers Rob two planes which accompany his into the air and to a planned rescue of his “chums”.

Back on the island of “savages”, Dick, Old Dan, the friendly chief and his warriors are each being tied to large carved posts, “weird wooden figures” as part of a ceremony that involves a war dance. At that point, the three airplanes fly past and scatter the panicked savages. The captives are untied and the protagonists fly the friendly islanders back home, where “a fuss” is made of Rob, Dick and Old Dan, before they set off on another adventure.

By far the earliest known comic to feature Easter Island – serialised over five weekly issues in 1925 – this was from an age when European comics were largely text based and had not fully turned to drawing speech bubbles. Puck was a British comic “for boys and girls” that had existed since 1904, with the ‘Rob the Rover’ stories created by Walter Henry Booth, and first appearing in 1920. An extremely popular and early boys’ own adventure comic, ‘Rob the Rover’ was translated into various languages and reprinted overseas, where it had an especially strong following in Scandinavia, and was renamed Willy på eventyr (The Adventures of Willy). There it was read by a young Thor Heyerdahl, who was later to convey that this particular story had been his original inspiration for wanting to voyage to Easter Island.

In fact, only part of the story takes place on Rapanui, with nine frames depicting anything that could be recognised as belonging to the island. Eight of those frames occur in the first part of the story which is dominated by images of the moai – presented here as identical, but also positioned incorrectly – and that create a sensational beginning to the adventure. But after this first instalment the moai are forgotten and do not reappear, even after the protagonists return to the island. However, in a single frame in the fourth instalment, when Rob has returned to Rapanui and is being nursed back to health, he is depicted lying in bed in a hut, with a statue that appears to be moai kavakava behind him and another carving of presumably tangata manu/ the birdman, hanging from the ceiling. Alas, the Rapanui, who are welcoming and hospitable, appear nothing like they should and are spear-wielding grass-skirt-wearing primitives. They play pipe like instruments have carvings adorning the posts to their homes, and speak pidgin English. The wild pigs are a further anomaly and unique to this example of moai fiction.

The story also problematically shrinks the Pacific, now positioning what was an isolated Rapanui in proximity to at least one other island – populated by a tribe who also appear more Melanesian – and within an easy flight of a South Seas port with a British consular office. The story, filled with words such as “chums” and “savages” is very much a colonial fantasy where the white man is the hero, either saving the friendly native, or resourcefully defeating islanders who present a threat.

Ian Conrich

Action Comics
'Three Aces'
(no.28, September 1940, DC Comics)

Three fine pilots, Fog Fortune, Gunner Bill and Whistler Will are paid well to explore Easter Island, in an "attempt to discover who put those giant statues there". They fly to Easter Island in their three planes, but on arrival are warned by a resident foreigner to be careful of the Rapanui, as they "have grown resentful of white explorers".

The Three Aces establish a plan to chart the island by flying first over a mountain range and then into the "mysterious valley of the giants!", where on the ground they discover a row of monolithic stone carvings. Suddenly, the Three Aces are attacked by the Rapanui and, as the aviators retreat, Fog Fortune slips and falls off a cliff edge and on to a tree branch which functions as a lever causing a section of the cliff to open revealing a hidden tunnel. Deep inside they find a cave of fossilised giant men, and a chest of scrolls on which are written in Egyptian the secret of Easter Island.

The scrolls reveal that these giants tried to reach the moon, but their experiments unfortunately attracted a comet, which brought with it a deadly germ that turned the men into stone. As a smaller species of man, humans were unaffected and survived. The Three Aces find a way out of the cave, carrying the "precious scrolls" with them. Their delighted sponsor tells the Three Aces they will be given "full credit" for their discovery.

This is the second earliest known comic to depict Easter Island. It is an action adventure that unites jungle fiction and fantasies of heroic pilots from an age in which the Pacific and aviation were very much associated with heroism, risk and exploration. The native Rapanui are referred to as "savages" and live within the jungle. They emerge from the dense vegetation and attack the Three Aces with bows and arrows, with one native depicted with a large ring through his nose. The geography of Easter Island is similarly of another land, with mountain ranges and a valley introduced that are more suited to a Tarzan adventure.

At a time when the perceived mysteries of the distant Easter Island fuelled myths related to a primary question of who could have created the monoliths, the Three Aces are tasked with solving the riddle and they do this easily, by accident and within a short 6-page story. The revelation that the moai are in fact fossilised giant men, make this comic the first fiction to reimagine the stone carvings as 'frozen' inhabitants of another time or place. The narrative that is established here indirectly equates the ancient race of giant men with the dinosaurs, who generally have been assumed to have been destroyed by an Earth-bound comet or meteor. The linking also of this race of giants to Egypt is brief (mentioned in just one sentence) but opens up fascinating questions as to why the comic felt the desire to work within the story this reference to another ancient civilisation.

Ian Conrich

Zig et Puce et le Professeur Médor [Zig and Puce and Professor Médor]
(no.12; Paris: Hatchette, 1941)

Two young boys, Zig and Puce, are at home with their companion, Alfred, an auk. They are all frustrated and bored, as they are not on their regular travels. Their ennui is broken by Professor Médor, who calls at their home saying he would like to borrow the auk to attract the flying oryctérope, a strange creature that is a cross between a giant kangaroo and a bat. Apparently, the cry of the auk is similar to that of the oryctérope. For the adventure, Zig and Puce take with them their horse, Marcel.

The team travel by boat to Mexico, where Zig, Puce and the Professor are kidnapped and taken on a second boat. Alfred and Marcel swim after them and provide an escape for the others from the vessel. They are subsequently rescued by another boat heading for Australia, but that captain soon regrets taking them on board, especially after the behaviour of Marcel. He drops them off at the next piece of land – Easter Island.

On Rapanui, they admire the “famous statues”, and then discover a little egg. The Professor says it is the egg of the flying oryctérope; a barefooted islander arrives and says it is the egg of the manu tara (the sooty tern). The Rapanui man disappears, but soon returns with a group of friends. They call the Professor a king, as he has found the first manu tara egg of the year, and say his head must therefore be shaved, only to discover that under his hat he is already bald. The Professor is held aloft and carried away, whilst another Rapanui man shows Zig and Puce petroglyphs of a birdman (that resembles Alfred, the auk), and of a reimiro (ceremonial breastplate), alongside the words “Make Make”. The man advises that the Professor is now the tangata manu (birdman) for the year, having been chosen by Make-Make, their god.

A feast is prepared for the Professor, who is now installed on a throne in an underground house. Zig and Puce realise they cannot wait for a year until the Professor’s honorary position ends, so they devise an obstruction. Alfred sits on Zig’s shoulders and Puce places his coat around them to make them appear as one – as the birdman. Zig-Alfred enter the underground home astride Marcel the horse, who thinks the whole idea is ridiculous, and declare they are the birdman come to take the Professor. Part of the plan succeeds with the Professor freed, but the Rapanui now want to keep the ‘birdman’, and form a dancing circle around Zig-Alfred, whilst sharing a song. The Rapanui offer the ‘birdman’ a fish, which is too tempting for Alfred and he breaks disguise. Alfred and Zig make a quick escape with the help of Marcel. Puce creates a distraction for the chasing Rapanui and manages to defeat them all, in doing so saving his companions, who call him a hero.

Next, they encounter a man, Pakomio, in a military uniform complete with epaulettes. He says he is a “big official” who registers everyone who arrives by boat at Hanga Roa, and he is not a savage like the islanders they have so far met: “other residents of the island are civilised”. He orders the team to the home of the Governor. On meeting the Governor, they are told that such visits to Easter Island are rare, yet only the day before two other foreigners had arrived to study local antiquities. They are the Governor’s guests, but Zig and Puce recognise the two as the dastardly men who had earlier been their kidnappers.

The Governor is suddenly brought a telegram that advises him there is a pirate ship nearby, which is carrying war contraband. As the telegram is read out, the two kidnappers flee but not before leaving a note demanding 100 sheep and three million pesos, or their ship will bombard the island that evening. They escape on Marcel, but he refuses to comply and smashes them against a tree. Now captive they are brought back by Zig and Puce to the Governor’s residence. Defiant, the kidnappers say their ship will attack that evening. At night, Zig rows out to the pirate ship and tells the crew that if they fire on the island they will kill their bosses. The pirates, however, do not care as they were planning to mutiny, so they commence firing on the island. Zig rows back to shore and with Puce, Alfred and Marcel, runs for cover. In the process, they observe the giant flying oryctérope. The team tries to capture the creature, by baiting it with a carrot, but it grabs Zig in its mouth and flies away.

Puce, Alfred and the Professor chase after the creature and discover a bad smelling underground passage, with petroglyphs on the walls to its entrance. The Professor believes the entrance to the passage was opened as a result of the pirates’ bombardment. Inside they discover the flying oryctérope, who drops Zig from its mouth and instead chases after the Professor. As the Professor runs through a narrow opening, the creature tries to follow but it becomes stuck. The team escapes from the underground system, but so does the creature which now flies after the pirate ship, sending the vessel fleeing. As the team celebrate, Alfred’s cry of delight attracts the creature. It first goes after Marcel, who initially is unafraid, but then gallops away in fright and hides behind a moai.

As the team regroups they wander further into Easter Island, where they are confused as the terrain now seems very different. A moai they observe proves they are still on Easter Island, but now they encounter dinosaurs including a diplodocus and woolly mammoths. The Professor believes they have been transported to another time, possibly as a result of the underground system. As he sits down on a rock to try and comprehend the situation, the Professor reflects on his knowledge of the lost continent of Lemuria, which sunk into the Pacific Ocean, following a cataclysmic event. He concludes that the moai and the underground system are remnants of Lemuria. The island was “forgotten by man” whilst the animals of old continued to live in favourable conditions. The Professor decides that if he can capture the creatures and present them in a zoo back home he will be rich. But as the Professor turns to rejoin the rest of the team he is attacked by a cave bear.

Awakening in bed at the home of the Governor, the Professor talks of the dinosaurs they saw, but Zig and Puce have no idea what he is saying. Puce relays that actually the Chilean navy arrived to save the island and they arrested the pirates. The Professor now doubts that he even saw the flying oryctérope. The Governor asks the team to join him for dinner as there may not be another boat passing by for two or three years. The Professor asks the Governor if he has a book that explains dreams.

A pioneering comic that began as a comic strip in 1925, this was amongst the first of the Franco-Belgian publications to include speech bubbles. Zig and Puce is also the earliest known French language comic to feature Easter Island. The story and characterisations are quite simplistic and the story is fragmented, with narrative gaps and key plot elements forgotten – symptomatic perhaps of a serialised comic. This, however, needs to be placed in context, and seen as a product of its age. The earliest examples of moai fiction are adventure-fantasies, and they are devoid of science fiction, but populated with pirates, smugglers and jungle tribes. Zig and Puce also reflects the last stage of a great age of exploration that had been strongest in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when new lands offered weird and wonderful fauna. It is not surprising that the kangaroo - seen as a most curious creature, when first encountered by Europeans on Captain James Cook’s initial voyage of 1768-1771 – is employed as the major component in this comic’s hybrid animal. Giving the marsupial bat wings, enables it to fly whereas many other new fauna, that were found in the Pacific, were distinctly flightless. The creature is a wild fantasy that was later echoed in the giant kiwi birds of Easter Island found in the comic Kona (reviewed below), which saw another relocation of indigenous fauna in order to fulfil a myth of Rapanui.

Alfred the auk, a regular in the comic since 1925, when he was found on route to the Arctic, is a fauna of interest as he becomes a stand-in for the birdman – here, literally, part bird and part man – with the illustrations keen to find commonality between Alfred’s appearance and the birdman as it appears on rock art. For such an early comic, the narrative is actually progressive in its inclusion of images of the reimiro and Makemake, especially, on the walls of an entrance to a cave. Yet, the Rapanui, are again depicted as fools and barefooted savages, fitting the stereotype that was so often given to natives in faraway lands. In contrast, the Chilean Governor is presented as civilised, though overly associated with ceremony and, curiously, on an island of only men. But then, in this entirely male-centric story, even the animal companions are male.

Ian Conrich

Whiz Comics
'Lance O'Casey'
(vol. 3, no.13, February 1941, Fawcett Comics)

Lance O'Casey is a "swashbuckling sailor of fortune" based in the South Sea port of Maloana. Looking for adventure he sails the seas in his schooner accompanied by his pet monkey, Mister Hogan. On this adventure, they are joined by Captain Doom, a pipe-smoking man with a big white beard. As they pass Easter Island, they realise that the beacon from the lighthouse is shining from the wrong place. They decide to investigate as there have been many ships wrecked recently in the region.

The wrecking of the ships has been planned by Weasel Wiggins, "one of the worst men in the South Pacific". He is based on Easter Island and aided by the subservient native islanders. Meanwhile, Lance, his monkey, and Captain Doom land on Easter Island and discover the moai and a tribe of small monkeys. Mister Hogan makes friends with these monkeys who help the simian scout the island. They find Wiggins and his gang, who shoot at the monkeys, alerting O'Casey and Doom to the danger, who then take refuge in a ruined altar.

A storm approaches and Wiggins sets the fake beacon to lure another ship on to the rocks. O'Casey, Doom and Mister Hogan manage to get the real lighthouse working and overpower a group of Rapanui who try to thwart their efforts. Mister Hogan is sent to destroy the fake beacon, whilst O'Casey and Doom fight with Weasel and more Rapanui on a nearby beach. This is two against many, with the odds stacked against O'Casey, but Mister Hogan and his fellow monkeys arrive to the rescue and help win the battle.

O'Casey and Doom help refloat the boat that has just been stranded on the rocks. At the same time Wiggins and his henchman try to escape on another boat, but that is wrecked on a sunken rock and they are killed by sharks. The heroes leave Easter Island and Mister Hogan bids a tearful farewell to his fellow monkeys. Later, it is revealed that Mister Hogan has sneaked on board the schooner a monkey girlfriend, a wife to be who will be named in the next issue.

At a time when popular culture had barely engaged with Easter Island and research/ studies had not be widely disseminated, this comic presents a fantasy that is far removed from reality. In essence, this is a pirate adventure, with Captain Doom speaking in pirate-talk, and Weasel Wiggins acting like a modern day wrecker, creating false beacons to lure ships to their demise. Precisely why, is never answered by the story. The manner in which Wiggins lords over the subservient Rapanui is out of tropical island fiction where a sole westerner creates a new lifestyle away from the city and as a figure superior to the natives.

The idea of a lighthouse on Easter Island is fanciful, bringing western technology to a story that otherwise presents the Rapanui as primitive. The lighthouse belongs to pirate fiction, whilst the 'native' monkeys have also been transplanted on to the island from another part of the world. Moreover, the Rapanui are of another continent, and are more African, or Afro-Caribbean, than anything else. They speak in pidgin, "what you tink?", says one; more worryingly, they are referred to as "blacks" at several points in the story. This is very much a boy's own adventure, with no men in the fiction and the only female being a monkey introduced in the final two frames of the story.

The moai appear on just page 3 of this 8-page story and are poor renditions of the carvings appearing here as just a few flat stones no taller than a human. As Captain Doom advises, nobody knows where they come from.

Ian Conrich

True Comics
'Voyage of Mystery'
(no.12, May 1942, The Parents' Magazine Press)

1785, and French explorer La Pérouse is tasked by the King of France with a scientific expedition to the Pacific. La Pérouse's ship sails around the Pacific for three years including visits to Easter Island and Samoa. But then he disappeared and after 38 years the natives of a "tiny South Sea isle" gave the captain of a British ship a sword hilt bearing the initials of La Pérouse. Apparently, the French had been shipwrecked nearby in 1788, with some of the men leaving in a row boat never to be seen again, whilst those that remained "mistreated the natives" and died. The story ends with the question, "who will ever know the true end of La Pérouse and his voyage of mystery?".

This account of legendary sailor La Pérouse fills four pages of an educational comic that focused on illustrating true stories. This is the earliest known example of an educational Easter Island comic strip and it is revealing that the focus is on a white European as opposed to the Rapanui. In fact, the frames depicting La Pérouse on Easter Island (he had arrived on 9 April 1786) show no Rapanui, yet natives (as savages) appear in the frames devoted to Samoa, where La Pérouse's crew was attacked and twelve died. The title page for this story presents La Pérouse standing confidently in front of a moai with a sword in his left hand and a flag in his right hand as if the land has just been conquered.

As with other early comics attempting to illustrate the moai there is some distance between the drawings and the actual carvings. The mysterious moai serve to enhance the story of La Pérouse who disappeared somewhere in the Pacific. As La Pérouse declares, "those statues belong to a lost civilisation" and "what race of supermen carved these statues?". Unfortunately for a comic that aims to be educational it gives the impression that La Pérouse was the first European to sight Easter Island and that nothing was known in 1785, yet the Dutch, Spanish and British respectively had all visited the island earlier in 1722, 1770 and 1774 and had surveyed and documented aspects of the geography and culture.

The captain who was given the sword hilt was actually Irish and he captained the St Patrick. The anonymous "tiny South Sea isle" was in fact Tikopia, part of the Solomon Islands, with the ship wrecked on neighbouring Vanikoro. La Pérouse was the subject of a more extensive narrative in a 2016 French bande dessinées (see review below).

Ian Conrich

Super Magician Comics
'Blackstone Discovers the Lost Land of Lemuria'
(vol.2, no.5, September 1943, Street and Smith Publications)

Blackstone the magician is stranded on a floating island with his assistant, Rhoda, and their three native helpers, Ketchum, Fetchum and Fixum. These three helpers are held enthralled by Rhoda, who wears a costume to make them believe that she is a sun goddess. With Blackstone's airplane fixed they plan to "hop" to Easter Island, which is "only a few hundred miles" from their current location. But they are jolted by a tremendous tidal wave, which picks up this small floating island with the team on board. They are transported by the wave to another, bigger island, which has suddenly been "lifted up from the ocean floor". Blackstone concludes that this is Davis Land (and Lemuria), a submerged continent, "which had disappeared a few centuries ago and was due to return".

A tribe, called the Kenawa, arrives by canoe on this resurfaced continent and they believe Blackstone is Hotu Matua, who has come from a land called Bolatu, "where nobody ever die". Blackstone performs a quick magic trick, using a seashell, to convince them of his power. Another tribe, called the Menehune, arrives by canoe and they are pacified by Rhoda, who makes them believe she is Namaka, "the great sea goddess". The two tribes are normally enemies, but Rhoda convinces them to be friends.

The team discover moai on the island and as Rhoda explores further she slips and falls into a volcanic crater containing a steaming asphalt lake; luckily she is rescued by Blackstone. The tribes are becoming uneasy, so Blackstone performs two more magic tricks to maintain his control. But the Kenawa chief discovers how one of the illusions was achieved, so Blackstone creates a further two magic tricks; unfortunately, this results in inter-tribal warfare. The tribes then turn on Blackstone and Rhoda as they think they are fakes. The magician and his assistant use a magic cabinet first to deflect the spears and then to enable their vanishing act.

The duo, chased by the angry tribes, arrives at a ring of moai. Astonishingly, the central moai comes alive and topples the other stone figures pushing over the natives. However, as this moai surges forward it stumbles on a rock, falls down and breaks open, revealing inside Ketchum, Fetchum and Fixum. Blackstone says that he had earlier cased them in molded asphalt to make them look like a moai, and as part of another trick. The team runs for cover and a ship of passing whalers, "bound for the Antarctic", rescues Blackstone and Rhoda. Ketchum, Fetchum and Fixum decide to stay on the island, and watch the two feuding tribes quickly annihilate each other. This leaves Ketchum, Fetchum and Fixum as the new owners of Lemuria, as Blackstone and Rhoda sail off to their next adventure.

In terms of its racial depictions, this is without a doubt the most offensive of all moai culture comics. The cover image bears very little relation to the story inside, which stretches across an unusually long 34 pages. The native depicted on the cover is not featured within the story, there is no scene in which Blackstone hurls the skull of an ape-man, and there are no pygmies of Lemuria. There are, however, two Polynesian tribes who land on the resurfaced island of Lemuria and they are depicted as simpletons and savages, who either speak few words – a mixture of Hawaiian, Rapanui and a made-up language – or miraculously moments of English, where necessary for the story. Worse still, Ketchum, Fetchum and Fixum are deeply racist thick-lipped black stereotypes. They are easily controlled buffoons who speak an awkward English and are designed to offer humour at their own expense. Blackstone is seen as Hotu Matua, who was actually Rapanui's legendary first leader and original settler, even though the magician is a white American. Here, the comic is probably borrowing from the voyages of Captain James Cook, who was apparently seen by the Hawaiians as their returning god, Lono.

Super Magician Comics began in 1941 and lasted for 56 issues until 1947, with Blackstone (based on the real-life magician, Harry Blackstone Sr.) appearing in many of the adventures where trickery helps to overcome threats and challenges. Yet the magic – the process for which is often explained to the reader – is crude and unconvincing and the situations full of holes. These include a barefoot Rhoda, surviving completely unharmed from a steaming volcanic crater and Ketchum, Fetchum and Fixum manipulating a giant hollow moai made from asphalt. The story is more interested in emphasising racial stereotypes than exploring the moai and it is not until near the end that the stone figures have a narrative function.

The comic is, however, a very early and significant example of moai culture and is the first to imagine the moai coming alive, albeit as a trick. Such a fantasy would not be explored again for another twelve years, when it was then evolved into the idea of the moai as actual slumbering giants (see the review for House of Mystery below). The notion of a fake moai was also a first and was next explored in World's Finest Comics (1947), and more importantly in Laugh (1962; see the review below). Yet, the essential difference is that House of Mystery and Laugh introduced science fiction and alien encounters to their stories. In contrast, in the 1940s, moai fiction was focused on the natives as the unfamiliar beings in adventures that were closer to jungle narratives than anything conceived from outer space. In such stories, the mythical lost continent of Lemuria – a nineteenth century fantasy – serves as the basis for a repositioning of Easter Island and the moai as fictional remnants of this sunken civilisation. In Super Magician Comics, it is casually merged with the legendary land mass that English buccaneer, Edward Davis, supposedly found in 1687, whilst he was searching for a mythical new continent. To date just two other comics, Konga (review below) and Lion and Thunder (review below), have built into their story a Davis Land/ Davis Island.

Ian Conrich

Le Téméraire
'L'Étrange Ile de Pâque' ['Strange Easter Island']
(no.17, 15 September 1943, Société Nouvelle La Platinogravure)

The second earliest known French comic to focus on Easter Island, Le Téméraire, was published in Paris during the Nazi occupation in World War II. It was permitted as its stories were somewhat sympathetic to Nazi ideologies, and typically featured blonde haired heroes in cartoon strips that could be viewed as racist or anti-Semitic (as on the back page of this edition). The comic was for the French "modern youth", as its subtitle states, and it was just one of two such publications for children published in occupied France.

Printed on large format paper, it is just eight pages in length with two pages in this issue devoted to Easter Island. This includes the cover, which presents a colourised copy of an earlier illustration that emerged following Pierre Loti's 1872 voyage to Rapanui. The image, which suggests the collapse of a race of people, is highly manufactured and presents a cluster of moai, of which one has fallen, alongside a collection of skulls. A Rapanui man, his head resting in his hands contemplates two skulls, whilst a nearby man sits on a ledge, his long hair blowing in the wind.

Inside the comic, the information references the French expeditions of Loti, La Pérouse (1786), and Lafontaine Aube (1877), with La Pérouse featuring on the opposite page in his own separate account. The comic pushes narratives of mysteries and knowledge/people lost and unknown, as well as cataclysms and disasters, which connects back to the cover image. It has a section on rongorongo and even offers translations of ten hieroglyphs – suggesting they represent amongst others 'eyes', 'sun', 'lizards' 'god'. However, the boldest part of the page attempts to position the Rapanui as proto-Aryan/ "primitive Aryan people". Through rongorongo it argues that the Rapanui can be traced back to the civilisations of Egypt, Elam and the ancient settlement of Mohenjo Daro (found in modern day Pakistan).

Ian Conrich

Vaillant
‘La mystérieuse Île de Paques’ [‘Mysterious Easter Island’]
(no.53, 4 April 1946, Vaillant)

First published illegally as Le Jeune Patriot (The Young Patriot) during World War II, and then after the war formally as Vaillant, this French weekly magazine that combined comic strips, puzzles, stories and education, was originally overtly republican. A large format paper that was folded in a way that it became 8 pages, it often contained accounts of distant foreign cultures and world history, with this 1946 issue featuring a splendid front cover colour illustration of an imagined fire dance on Easter Island. The story inside is given one full page and is a cultural-historical record framed as the account of the magazine’s “dear friend”, Winchester, the ace of reporters.

What follows is text that is largely uncontentious and accurate for its time, including facts about the homes of the Rapanui looking like upturned boats and that vegetables are grown in subterranean openings in the volcanic ground that allow the vegetation to be protected from the wind. The magazine asks Winchester some inviting questions, such as “Is it true that the Rapanui are red?”, to which Winchester talks about body and hair being painted red for cultural practices. The page is supported by numerous sketches including one of moai kavakava and another of tangata manu in the top left and right corners respectively. Elsewhere, there is artistic licence in an imagined scene, where warriors ready themselves on a cliff top before the start of the civil war, with their women and children standing on a high vantage point to watch the combat. On the opposite side of the page and, most interesting, is a drawing of a scribe, engraving rongorongo on to a wooden tablet (albeit with the hieroglyphs appearing too large). These latter two images and the front cover were illustrated by Jacques Souriau.

Ian Conrich

World's Finest Comics
'The Boy Commandos – The Faces of History!'
(no.29, July 1947, DC Comics)

A freighter at sea is caught in a magnetic storm that renders the ship helpless, whereupon it is drawn up on to a reef around Easter Island and wrecked. In the morning, a gang of criminals emerge, headed by Rollo, introduced here as the "world's fattest man". They use machinery to offload the cargo and then set fire to the ship destroying all evidence, in an act of modern day piracy. The next day another ship is sailing through the Pacific with the Boy Commandos on board, which includes Rip, Andre, Brooklyn, from New York, and Texas, a Texan. They are on a mission to Easter Island, sponsored by a museum: "we promised the museum we'd bring back one of them!", states a team leader as they arrive on the island. The group stands in awe at the size and number of moai. They start to haul one of the moai ("weighing about 50 tons") towards their ship, employing a crane and ropes, but they are suddenly halted by Rollo's gun-carrying thugs.

The unseen Texas swings into action on his lasso and temporarily helps to stop the thugs, but he and Rip fall from a severed rope and onto the face of the moai they were trying to haul. They crash through the face of the moai, which is exposed as false and hollow, with inside a secret control room and look-out post. The rest of the team are outnumbered and overpowered. Rollo explains his "diabolical" operations and his underwater electromagnet that is switched on at night and is "powerful enough to attract any metal object two miles away!". The magnet is powered by steam from deep inside the island's volcano, where the captured members of the team are now taken and suspended over its edge from a rope on a crane's slowly descending winch.

They are left dangling as a cargo-laden ship is spotted, which distracts Rollo and his gang. Whilst they are gone, Rip and Tex rescue their colleagues. To stop the wrecking of the ship the team then start rolling boulders over the volcano's edge to block the steam. At the shore, the Boy Commandos attack Rollo's gang and this time win. Rollo escapes in a boat, free to appear in another story. Back on their own ship, the Boy Commandos have new cargo – Rollo's thugs as prisoners and a moai that they have taken from the island.

In only the second DC comic to visit Easter Island, a key question that persists for the writers is who built the moai and why. The story is dominated by the dastardly actions of Rollo, but the moai are also largely centralised, featuring prominently on the title page and opening the narrative with the statement, "mystery of the ages!": "why and when were the great stone heads placed in this remote isle, looking out to sea?". Removing the native islanders from the narrative allows the myth of creation to grow. At least the earliest-known comic depicting Easter Island – 'Three Aces' in Action Comics (see the review above) – had presented the Rapanui. That said, the 'Three Aces' story is so problematic/ offensive in its depictions of the Rapanui, that their absence entirely from that fiction would have been preferable.

Despite a cover with Batman, Robin and Superman, none of the DC superheroes were yet to visit Easter Island, a location that would later become popular for DC. This would have to wait until 1954 and a story involving Wonder Woman (see the review below). Instead, the Boy Commandos, none of whom have superpowers, are left to halt the criminal actions of Rollo, a mastermind who would not be out of place in a Batman adventure. Written in 1947, when political correctness was seemingly much less of an issue, Rollo's deviousness is partly defined by his obesity. For he is man so overweight that he has to be carried and moved around by machinery. This man is described as a "bizarre figure" and "a massive blob of flesh so immense that he cannot walk". Strangely, the fake and hollow moai that is hauled is described as weighing "50 tons", and the evil genius Rollo has a magnet that can attract metal ships from two miles away, which seems pointless when considering Easter Island's isolation and the lack of ships that would have sailed that close to the land (particularly one that is described here as abandoned).

Rollo and the leaders of the museum expedition wear pith helmets, suggesting the foreign (and perhaps tropical) challenges faced by these adventurers. The helmets also suggest a colonial presence on an island that is described as "lonely", and from which the expedition plans to take a moai – without, of course, any permission. The tragedy of such cultural plundering is unwittingly reinforced in the final frame of the story, which states that the team with its moai onboard sails for home "peacefully".

Ian Conrich

Operation Peril
‘The Time Travelers’
(no.7, October 1951, Michel Publications/ American Comics Group)

Dr Tom Redfield owns a spaceship, which he uses for time-travelling adventures. Professor Brice of Central University asks Redfield to travel back to the year 750 to Easter Island to gather answers about the creation of the moai. Accompanied by his girlfriend Peggy, Tom lands on an island “swarming” with warriors. To blend in, Tom and Peggy change into Polynesian floral-patterned clothes. “It shoudn’t be hard to slip into the main camp now!”, says American Peggy. As an added advantage, the time machine allows Tom and Peggy “to understand the language of any place we visit”. As they approach the main camp they find a row of moai in a straight line, as Tom notes unlike the scattered moai in the photo shown to them by Professor Brice.

The warriors are not native to the island but invaders from Rotuma and they cannot sail home until they have made “a suitable sacrifice to our gods!”, who will give them the favourable winds they need for their voyage. The warriors start with a firewalk over hot coals, but within the frenzy Peggy is separated from Tom and her disguise is exposed. This is particularly dramatic as she is the only woman amongst men. Peggy is given a hypnotic drink by Tarako – the leader of the warriors and chief of the Rotuma Federation – who desires Peggy as his queen

Peggy exposes Tom as an outsider and he fights off the warriors by throwing at them the burning coals. But he is thwarted by Peggy and subsequently becomes the necessary sacrifice to the gods. Tom is strung between two moai with a fire lit beneath his dangling body. He is saved by using his remote control to turn on the turbo boosters of his spaceship which blasts a wall of air, “moving at two hundred miles an hour”, setting Tom free. The blast also scatters the moai, which are still upright but no longer in a straight line.

Meanwhile, Tarako and his war party have journeyed to Peru and the gold-laden city of Cuzco where, on the snowy slopes of the Andes, he and Peggy dream of enslaving one hundred thousand Incas. The Incas fear the Rotuman invasion but are saved by Tom’s spaceship, which zooms past and creates an avalanche that wipes out many of the Rotuman warriors. The grateful Inca princess, Lanura, rewards Tom with a passionate kiss. Tom proceeds to lead the Incas to triumph over what remains of the invading Rotumans. He also defeats Tarako and threatens to kill him unless he releases Peggy from the spell. She is restored to Tom by a powder and Tarako returns “peacefully” to his islands, whilst Tom and Peggy fly home.

One of the very earliest comics to fictionalise Easter Island, this adventure owes much to the popular weekly cinema serials of the time. These were noted for their impossible situations and last minute dramatic escapes, improbable technology, romance, resourceful heroes and stories of women needing to be saved. Popular culture’s fascination with Easter Island began to really emerge in the 1940s at a time when the islands of the Pacific were becoming increasingly important and less remote for American audiences. With Easter Island still very much an enigma for many foreign writers and readers, it is not surprising that this comic takes great freedom in its storytelling and imagines the small Polynesian island of Rotuma as being a mighty warrior nation. They are all-conquering across the Pacific – for them there are no more islands “left to conquer” – and even up to the Peruvian coast where their next assault is on the Inca Empire. This amalgamation of cultures into a single story includes firewalking, which has been practiced in parts of Fiji, feathered headbands, and Rotuman canoes with moai prows. The story can even be read as presenting the construction of the row of moai on the beach as part of Rotuman culture.

The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific and Pacific rim feature in most of the frames in this story, but yet again the Rapanui are marginalised and are entirely removed from Easter Island. They are not even mentioned in dialogue. Instead, there is one row of moai, which the story presents as positioned contrary to how they are scattered over the island today. As Tom declares after activating his spaceship’s rockets, “every one of the idols has been shoved out of position by the blast – exactly as they’ve been found by explorers in modern times!”. In fact, in reality, the moai are both “scattered” and in lines, but on ahu, or platforms. Moreover, the moai are not as old as the year 750, as this story posits.

Ian Conrich

Strange Adventures
'The Secret of Easter Island!'
(no.16, January 1952, DC Comics)

An archaeologist has a desire to solve the mystery of the moai. In order to fund his expedition to Easter Island he is accompanied by a friend's wealthy father and some of his rich business associates, who have little interest in the cultural and scientific aspects of the trip. On the island, the archaeologist blasts charges on a slope and uncovers a buried metal crypt. Behind its door the diverse group of four humans discover a "great hall of mysterious relics". They also find two extra-terrestrials, with faces resembling the moai, who awake from their slumber and through telepathy offer the men gifts of whatever they desire.

The archaeologist asks for knowledge so that he may understand who these visitors are, where they are from and the purpose of their visit to Earth. He is told, "Our civilisation on a planet of the star Sirius was a great one! We desired to civilise all other worlds in the universe". In a flashback, an exchange occurs between two aliens as the original spaceship approaches earth: "A beautiful world this third planet - but still barbaric", "Yes, but we can civilise its people – the science we teach them will bring them peace and plenty!".

The spacecraft subsequently lands not on the Easter Island as we know it today but on the mythical Pacific continent of Mu, of which Easter Island was the highest point. The inhabitants of Mu create moai statues resembling the extra-terrestrials which were located on the top of Mu's highest mountain. The islanders were offered advanced technology but did not use it wisely. As an alien informs, "we taught the people of Mu, giving them great scientific secrets...But they misused their powers to fight each other, and unchained a terrible disaster! […] They were not worthy of their knowledge!".

One aspect of the "terrible disaster" was the flooding of underground volcanoes and the sinking of Mu into the sea, leaving only the highest mountain still visible above the ocean. As Mu all but disappeared the indigenous population was wiped out leaving only the extra-terrestrials, who put themselves into a state of suspended animation in the hope that future generations would discover them and that these, hopefully, more advanced humans would be 'worthy' of the knowledge and powers that could be shared.

Two of the other men accompanying the archaeologist ask for wealth, which is given in the form of diamonds and strength, the latter provided via a 'Z-ray' that stimulates the growth of muscle tissue. The final man asks for the power to control others, which comes via a 'psycho-helmet' which would allow him to command anyone near him. The man with the 'psycho-helmet' attempts to gain all of the extra-terrestrials' powers and threatens to destroy them if they do not cooperate.

It transpires that the giving of the initial powers had been a test to see how humans would use, or misuse, them. Once again, the human race is seen to be not yet worthy and the extra-terrestrials return to their state of suspended animation, having erased the memories of the three men who failed their test. Only the archaeologist who simply asked for knowledge is praised by the extra-terrestrials. He is allowed to keep his knowledge of them and their mission, but only on the condition that he tells no-one else. In the final frame of this story the archaeologist asks himself, "How long before they wake again? How long before Earthmen are wise enough to receive the scientific powers of those who sleep beneath Easter Island?".

Oddly, the front cover illustration to this comic depicts humans being threatened by an aggressive-looking alien with moai features, who declares "You have betrayed the secret of Easter Island! Now – await your doom!". As with many other publishers of comics there is a perception that greater financial returns can be achieved from appealing to the stereotype of threatening, combative aliens rather than more peaceful and beneficial encounters. In fact, the visitors from outer space described in the pages inside are far from aggressive. Apart from being unusual in presenting extra-terrestrials in a more positive light this storyline goes further than most other comics of the time in providing a back-story for the origins of not only the moai but also Easter Island itself and the fate of the original human inhabitants. In doing so, it was the first comic to connect Easter Island with extra-terrestrials and it is telling that the story was written by the well-known science fiction author Edmond Hamilton, who was the first person to introduce aliens into moai culture with his 1926 short story Across Space (reviewed below).

This narrative can be read as a form of morality tale concerned more with the frailties of the human characters than the advanced abilities of the extra-terrestrials. Published just seven years after the end of World War II and during the early years of the Cold War it can also be read as a tale of unease and an inability to trust human intentions. For technology can equate to power, but as advances are made there are serious questions as to whether humankind exhibits sufficient responsibility to harness it appropriately. The story warns that any abuse of the technology will lead to destruction.

There is a brief mention of tablets containing "ideographic script" which the archaeologist has deciphered, but this early comic book reference to rongorongo is undeveloped. The opening page also presents the archaeologist within a San Francisco museum, where he stands staring at a moai on display. Comics up to this date had generally depicted the moai as distant objects. This is the first time in a comic that a moai is shown on display within a western institution, though the carvings continue to be regarded as mysterious: "the greatest secret of the past – I could solve it, but no one is willing to give me a chance", says the archaeologist. As popular culture was starting to discover Easter Island it was convenient for the moai to remain unfamiliar and devoid of their real cultural and historical context. In doing so, fiction could populate the void with its broad fantasies.

Roy Smith and Ian Conrich

Il Vittorioso [The Victorious]
‘Rapa-Nui – Isola misteriosa’ [‘Rapa-Nui – Mysterious Island’]
(vol.16, no.40, 5 October 1952, Azione Cattolica)

Like the French weekly publications Vaillant, Le Téméraire and Tintin, Il Vittorioso (1937-1966) is part comic and part educational magazine, with the stories/ reports predominantly addressing history and world cultures. Interestingly, Il Vittorioso was published by a Catholic association, which promoted wholesome and morally positive comic content as a direct response to the dominant Italian comics that were being read by young people.

One page of this Italian language large format publication is devoted to Rapanui, with three supporting sketches included. This feature is typical of the period with fact mixed with imagination, unfortunately leaving the reader believing the entire piece as true. In this account, moai are wrongfully depicted adorning the rooftop corners and ends of buildings at Orongo. A strange-looking moai is also drawn with a gripping hand. But it is the magazine’s cover that is unquestionably its most spectacular element, with a full-page colour image of three people – who are possibly tourists – riding across a landscape populated with an excess of moai. Most striking is the large head and shoulders drawing of an indigenous woman, who dominates almost half the cover but does not appear elsewhere within the magazine. The implication is that she is a Rapanui woman but her appearance is far from reality with her nose rings and braided hair placing her more within Africa.

Ian Conrich

Action Comics
'Tommy Tomorrow – The Easter Island of Space!'
(no.180, May 1953, DC Comics)

The story begins with a reference to Easter Island, with its "weird, giant statues" existing as "one of the greatest mysteries of all time". Fast forward to the future and Colonel Tommy Tomorrow of the Planeteers, who "tries to solve the perilous puzzle of The Easter Island of Space!".

Astronomer Dr John Garrow observes through his telescope a strange new planet, a "cosmic mystery" and "a world such as no one ever dreamed could exist!". It lies in an "unexplored sector" and is considered inhabited or "was so once!". Believing it may contain "valuable scerets", Tommy and fellow Planeteer, Brent Wood, are assigned to fly Garrow and his assistant Kaimes to the new world. Garrow is hiding from the Planeteers the full details of what he saw through his telescope and Kaimes proposes that any secrets they may find should belong to them only.

Travelling through a meteor storm, they arrive at a "weirdly silent world" where in the sky above are three moons each bearing giant faces, which have been carved into their rock. Tommy says that they remind him of the moai on Easter Island. They discover an abandoned and destroyed city, whereupon a television screen is automatically activated.

The transmitted message warns the team of the evil of Tarnach, which had wrecked the metropolis. Tarnach was a great but evil scientist who desired power and was therefore exiled from the planet to the third moon. Promising revenge, Tarnach then set about carving his terrifying image into the rock of the third moon, which then in an attempt to gain control fired atomic bolts from its eyes at his home planet. The planet's remaining great scientists, Karrul and Dorn were sent to this moon and they managed to destroy Tarnach but they were mortally wounded in the fight. The inhabitants of the planet evacuated for another world, but first they carved the faces of Karrul and Dorn into the other two moons as monuments to the deceased heroes.

Kaimes imagines how powerful he could be in possession of Tarnach's weapons so that night he steals Tommy's rocketship to fly to the third moon. There he starts firing on his marooned comrades. Tommy realises they can use "space-sleds" left by the previous inhabitants and he and Brent fly these straight into the eyes of the moon's face. As the eyes explode, Tommy and Brent use hand-rockets to parachute to safety. They climb inside the mouth of the moon face where Kaimes is found inside. A hand-rocket thrown by the Planeteers brings a rock fall crashing down on to Kaimes. Tommy and Brent flee the cave-in and escape in their spaceship. Reflecting on their visit to the newly discovered world, the Planeteeers conclude that "those great faces will watch it forever, as they have watched it for ages!".

On the surface, Easter Island is a tangential reference point for this outer space fantasy. It is never depicted, and mentioned in just three separate frames, with the moon faces more reminiscent of Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon (1902). However, the writers of this comic clearly had Easter Island firmly in mind when constructing their story. The new world that is discovered is faraway and in a previously unexplored space sector. The vastness of the Pacific is swapped here for the vastness of the galaxy, with the new planet abandoned by its population who have left behind monumental giant faces carved into rock, that look across the silent terrain. By the early 1950s, the possibilities of Easter Island for popular fiction led to an opening up of new adventures, which saw this comic take an immediate broad turn to extend the fantasy far into outer space.

Ian Conrich

Adventure Comics
'The Girl of Steel'
(no.189, June 1953, DC Comics)

The father of one of Superboy's classmates, Lana Lang, is an archaeologist who has recently returned from Easter Island. Whilst there he uncovered a small belt made of strange metal, which Lana tries on and in doing so immediately acquires new powers. She now has the ability to fly and lift heavy objects (the device has "anti-gravitational powers") and be invulnerable to bullets (the device also has "anti-magnetic qualities"). The belt proves Lana's father's theory that the carvers of the moai were extra-terrestrials. As he tells a fellow archaeologist, "I believe these were carved by a race of superior people, who landed here many years ago from another planet". Alongside the belt they also discover a space helmet.

Lana discovers that her new powers make her almost like Superboy, so she fashions herself a costume and becomes a superhero, Sky Girl, saving Smallville from crime and danger. This provides competition for Superboy's heroism, but Sky Girl is vulnerable to heat and wood. Superboy discovers that Lana is behind Sky Girl and speaks with her father who suggests the belt is destroyed. The belt is hurled by Superboy, "far out into space".

The storyline develops around the superpowers Lana Lang temporarily acquires as a result of wearing a special belt. The original owners, the extra-terrestrials, are never shown but are established to be a highly advanced race: "people thousands of years ahead of us in scientific development". The moai appear in a single frame but they are a poor rendition of the actual stone figures – a symptom of a time when popular culture's myths of Easter Island were primitive. Yet, as comics were beginning to incorporate Easter Island into their narratives the distant civilisation clearly functioned as an easy tool for introducing technology and powers that were found nowhere else on earth. In this story, the powers are comparable to those of Superboy, a refugee from another planet.

Like many of the comics of this period, romance is also a central element of the story with the belt briefly giving Lana equality alongside the young Clark Kent, whom she idolises. The independent young girl is soon, however, contained by masculinity with her father and Superboy agreeing to permanently remove the device that gave her the special powers.

Ian Conrich and Roy Smith

Wonder Woman
'The Stone Slayer!'
(no.65, April 1954, DC Comics)

Important scientists have started to disappear – eleven so far – and if their knowledge fell into enemy hands it would be "catastrophic to America!". In a military intelligence projection room a film is screened that mysteriously shows there is a stone carving of Wonder Woman on Easter Island, despite the fact she has never been there before. Wonder Woman, accompanied by military man Steve, flies to Easter Island in her special jet, where en route they witness an ocean liner being lifted into the air in 4 severed parts, damaged as a result of quadruple lightning strikes. Wonder Woman lassos the parts together again and lowers the liner back to the ocean surface and to safety.

Once on Easter Island, Wonder Woman and Steve gaze upon the moai and question how and why they were built. But they are suddenly paralysed by rays shot from the eyes of the Wonder Woman statue. A door opens from within the statue and men with giant heads emerge taking the captive Wonder Woman and Steve down a staircase, deep inside and into "a huge underground chamber". There they discover the kidnapped scientists and Wonder Woman is told that she has been lured to the island through the statue of her, which was constructed as a decoy. These large-head men reveal they are from the planet Lapizuria and another solar system. They had come to Earth as an advance party to observe the planet before an invasion force arrives, but they crashed into the sea off Easter Island.

The moai were constructed in their likeness as a signal to fellow Lapizurians that they were marooned on Earth. Passing ships were attacked simply as target practice in preparation for the invasion, and the scientists were then kidnapped to help the aliens build a spaceship. The scientists did not possess the necessary knowledge, but through telepathy the aliens learnt from their captives that Wonder Woman was the sole person on Earth who did possess spaceship-building knowledge. Wonder Woman refuses to help and is told she must therefore die.

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, a Lapizurian spaceship arrives, the aliens decide that as they depart they should destroy Wonder Woman by tying her between the spaceship lifting off and her stone carving. The effect actually awakens Wonder Woman from her paralysis and she hurls the carving of herself at the spaceship which is destroyed and prevented from blasting further rays at Easter Island and the prisoners.

This was the first time Wonder Woman visited Easter Island, but it was not the last. She later visited the island in the comic Super Powers (1985), where yet again a stone figure was carved in her likeness (see review below), in an issue of the comic JLA (2000; see the review below), and in a children's animation, Justice League, in 2003, where she fought Aquaman (see the review above). The four fantasies produced across different decades reveal much about the evolution of Wonder Woman, the ways in which she has been drawn, and the narratives in which she featured in American popular culture.

In a world of male scientists and soldiers, Wonder Woman's power and knowledge are supreme, but she still acts within their service. The story contains fragments of a cold war narrative/fear, with kidnapped scientists, captives forced into building a spaceship, decoys and mindreading for gaining information. The final frame has Wonder Woman issuing a warning to the men (and to readers): "we all have to be constantly alert for a treacherous blow – no matter from whence it may come!".

Significantly, this is the first comic to associate the moai with a fear of alien (or foreign) invasion. It therefore needs to be noted that the origins of the thread of alien invasion moai narratives that runs through so many later fictions, commenced here with a cold war fear. It is also the first story to bring secret moai doorways, stairs and underground passages to the fiction, as well as the first to imagine the carvings as weapons and therefore as active rather than passive figures. The aliens in this story are more human looking than those that were to follow in other fantasies, and these are funny-looking kilt and cap wearing men that seem part Scottish and part Egyptian, albeit with very large heads that would surely unbalance their bodies.

Ian Conrich

Mystery Tales
‘The Stone Heads!’
(no.24, December 1954, Atlas Comics)

A man lands by boat on Easter Island to research the moai for his new book: “I was hoping to throw some light on the origin of the giant, fantastic stone heads”. The researcher takes photographs of the moai, but when he compares them to the images published in the “standard text on the island” he observes that over a twenty-year period they have not only moved, but also “their facial expressions had subtly changed”. Looking further back in older books he learns that half of the moai were once “lying flat” whereas all are now standing upright.

The man speaks to the Rapanui, “of which only a few hundred still lived on the island”. One advises, “Always here! But how got here, we not know!”, although he adds that his grandfather had been told by his grandfather of long ago “big fire thing like volcano fly into ocean by shore!”. The researcher investigates and discovers by the shore increased radiation in or under the water. He dons his scuba diving gear and swimming to the sea bed the man finds a flying saucer and climbs inside. In its control room, he sees a map of the world, on which spots are marked, leading the man to conclude that these aliens were planning a conquest of Earth.

Back on land, the man realises that the moai are not statues but “they were living, alien creatures who had reached Earth”. He digs at the foot of a moai and to his horror finds that they have bodies. He concludes that the moai came from a different “time dimension” where things are slower giving them their apparent “stoniness”. Moreover, the gravity of their world has allowed them to grow very large. As he writes his diary entry he wonders why the moai are looking skywards, as if “watching for the coming of the other ships”. In the final frame, a fleet of flying saucers arrive as the moai rise up and in doing so suck the man into the ground.

The Myth of Movement can be traced back into Rapanui legends in which the moai were said to have walked into their positions. A modern version of the myth began in a 1943 issue of the American publication Super Magician Comics (reviewed above), in which a moai comes alive, albeit the result of a trick, with three men inside a model manipulating its animated body. It is, however, in this 1954 Mystery Tales comic that the defining version of the modern Myth of Movement was born, with the moai seen as slumbering aliens awaiting the point at which they would arise. Unlike Rapanui legends this is not a story of the moai moving into position, but of the moai removing themselves from the places in which they have been buried. The Mystery Tales story was written at a time of alien invasion narratives, when post World War II, scenarios imagining world conquest were increasingly leading to a fear of unfriendly visitors from another planet and Earth’s advances in rocket technology rapidly gave life to new stories of unidentified flying objects.

The result is a comic which, as the progenitor of the modern Myth of Movement, establishes a path in fiction that ‘resolves’ the mystery of the unearthly moai by viewing them as survivors of a crashed spaceship. Appearing in an Atlas Comics publication, a label which would become Marvel Comics, this particular myth was then magnified through later Marvel stories with a similar theme, that appeared in Tales to Astonish (1959, reviewed below), Tales to Astonish (1961, reviewed below) and Tales of Suspense (1962, reviewed below), with each republished in later Marvel issues. It is in these stories that the movement of the moai is made more dramatic as they walk and talk; in this Mystery Tales story, movement is unseen (even the final frame is a little unclear), with the researcher concluding the statues move very slowly and their changed position and appearance is detected only through studying differences in photographs. The story was republished in the UK in the comic Secrets of the Unknown (no.41, 1966).

Ian Conrich

Tintin
(no.336, 31 March 1955, Dargaud Editeur)

March 1722 and Jacob Roggeveen, captaining his Dutch ship which is sailing from Santiago, Chile to New Zealand, becomes stuck at sea when the wind drops. Going nowhere, the drinking water on board becomes fetid and the crew becomes restless and talks of rebellion. Lieutenant Jan reads in a book that 36 years previously an explorer had found an unknown island towards the 27th parallel. Jan takes a crew of men in a row boat to explore the possibility of such land whilst also following the flight of an albatross. Upon later sighting Easter Island, and after a period at sea, the men exclaim "Happy Easter!" and "It's a true resurrection!".

Reaching the shore, the crew observe the Rapanui to be like other indigenous people of the Pacific, and describe the moai as a "wall of bizarre statues". The Rapanui, who have never seen white men before, are friendly and offer the Dutch sailors baskets of fruit containing bananas and oranges. They also delight in eating local eggs. The sailors erect a wooden cross near the coastline in recognition of Christ and their salvation. With the wind having now picked up, the main ship with Roggeveen arrives soon after. The Rapanui are "brave people" but they ran into the hills when the main ship fired cannon shots to announce its arrival.

Roggeveen instructs his crew to collect provisions – water and fresh fruit – to enable their onward journey. But they also decide that they should take one of the lighter moai as it will be of interest to Dutch scientists. The sailors find the moai they select to be very heavy and after a few hours decide to pause for the night and continue in the morning. That evening they watch fires in the distance and Jan says that the Rapanui will have the Dutch crew "on spikes". Roggeveen dismisses Jan's active imagination. In the morning, the crew again works hard to move the moai down a hillside and towards their ship. This time, the Rapanui, wielding spears and bows and arrows, are watching them closely from behind rocks. The Dutch grab their guns, but Roggeveen tells them not to fire for fear of "provoking a carnage".

Roggeveen approaches the Rapanui and tells them he is a "friend". The captain is unable to communicate but one of his crew says he can understand a little as the Rapanui speak the language of "the islands of the South". The crewman says that the Rapanui will leave them alone if they stop trying to remove their god. Roggeveen subsequently orders his men to abandon trying to move the moai. The Rapanui furthermore ask that the sign that the Dutch built to their own god, the wooden cross that was erected, is also left on the island to give protection. The cross is left in the middle of a cluster of moai as the Dutch sail away. The Dutch note the exact position of the "unknown" place and decide to give it the name of 'Easter Island'.

Roggeveen has been the subject of a range of moai comics, but this was the first. A four page untitled story, it appeared a year before the British comic Topper, with its one page feature (reviewed below) and three years before Spirou with its fanciful narrative imagining the Dutch encounter with the Rapanui (reviewed below). This edition of the French comic Tintin is equally fanciful in its story. So much of what it presents was never recorded in Roggeveen's log, whilst most of what was recorded is absent. The story is yet another Easter tie-in designed to foreground the link between the religious holiday/ festivities and a distant Pacific island. In this comic, the moai are sacred gods and are compared with the wooden cross that the Dutch erect amidst the stone colossi. Roggeveen never recorded the cross (three crosses were erected by the Spanish in 1770) or an attempt to remove a moai. With later foreign ships taking moai without permission, this comic surprisingly offers a more peaceful and respectful conclusion to an act of cultural plundering.

Ian Conrich

Topper
'Easter Island: Mystery Island of the Pacific'
(no.165, 31 March 1956, D.C. Thomson)

Topper was a British comic for children, printed on A3 tabloid size paper. Filling one complete page of this issue is a series of eight coloured stand-alone frames each detailing a specific fact about Easter Island. This is the earliest known British comic to engage with Easter Island and one of the earliest anywhere to relay educational information. By the time of this comic, celebrated Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl had been on Easter Island for five months and was attracting interest in his work, which is repeated in one panel that states "it is possible that the first natives to settle on the island came by rafts from South America". But with the associated best-selling book, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island, not published until 1957, the Topper comic freely fills in gaps, makes many mistakes and employs some artistic licence to illustrate points.

For a British comic it is rather strange that Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen is presented but there is no mention of Captain James Cook. The moai are bizarrely shown singular on small and short square plinths and not the ahu (platforms) that are rather different. It states that each moai had a pukao (topknot), which is incorrect and this is repeated in the drawing for the moai that was taken by the British in 1868. In fact, moai Hoa Hakananai'a, which the British stole aboard HMS Topaze, never had a pukao. The birdman race depicts the competitors racing ashore on a sandy beach with no sign at all of the reality of a steep rocky cliff. Here, a waiting elder is shown wearing a birdman hat, whilst the penultimate panel is wrong to say that "[t]he King and all his wise men died in captivity" following the Peruvian slave raids of 1862. Such narratives further romanticise a series of images that are designed to appeal to young readers.

Ian Conrich

Pepito
'L'Ile des Surprises' ['The Island of Surprises']
(no.43, 19 July 1956, Georges Lang)

Little pirate captain Pepito and his fellow buccaneers, Ventempoupe and Crochette, are stuck on an unknown island after their little boat sinks. They maintain a fire in the hope that they can be seen by their mother ship, the 'Peanut', and be rescued. A volcano on the island suddenly erupts resulting in earth tremors and lava flowing towards the sea. The trio hurriedly build a raft but Ventempoupe sees they are being watched by a native and gives chase. He soon discovers it is a trap: he is ambushed by a group of natives and tied to a stake whereupon he finds they have already captured Crochette, but not Captain Pepito.

The buccaneers, the "white men", are blamed for the volcanic eruption and will be sacrificed. From Pepito's hiding place he hatches a plan to rescue his companions. He discovers what he believes are cannonballs and has the idea of firing them from a volcanic vent. Alas, these are found to be balls of cheese that splat on impact. Meanwhile, a flow of lava has burnt through the ropes restraining Ventempoupe and Crochette, setting them free.

Pepito restarts his cheese ball cannon, but the first missile lands straight in the face of a fleeing Crochette. The natives are not far behind and Ventempoupe and Crochette turn to face them and fight. They are backed up by Pepito and his cheese ball cannon which fires missiles at the natives. The trio now spy their ship, the 'Peanut', and race to the sea. They swim to a rescue boat, just managing to escape a shark which a sailor bashes on the head with an oar. The sailor declares he does not want to be told anymore about unknown islands for they have far too many unwanted surprises.

Pepito is an Italian comic book that began in 1955 and lasted just two years, but it was more popular in France, where issues were published for twenty-eight years. This edition is one of the earliest known French comics to engage with Easter Island, though the place is never mentioned by name – it is simply an unknown island, or an island of surprises. However, populating this volcanic island is a series of stone heads, some of which bear a pukao (or topknot) as can be seen on the front cover. These are stone carvings inspired by the moai and are drawn in a style of modernism that was popular in the 1950s. Also of the period are the heavily stereotyped islanders whose difference is exaggerated as spear-carrying nose-pierced toothy simpletons or as primitive stone-age brutes who believe in human sacrifices to placate a volcano god.

Ian Conrich

Mystery In Space
'Riddle of the Runaway Earth!'
(no.40, October-November 1957, DC Comics)

Archeologist Joel Cobb discovers an unusual machine within a moai. It transmits a telepathic message to him revealing the history of a race of aliens, with facial features resembling the moai. Exploring the universe they found only lifeless planets until they reached Earth, which at this distant time was the ninth planet of the solar system. Discovering primitive ape-men the aliens constructed a “cosmic engine” within the planet to move it closer to the sun as “warmed by the sun … those primitive creatures will evolve”. Leaving behind the moai as representations of themselves they departed to outer space. As Cobb discovers this the earth suddenly leaves its orbit of the sun, seemingly returning to its position as the ninth planet in the solar system. Cobb suspects this is because the alien’s cosmic engine has somehow become reactivated. Digging beneath the moai he discovers a vast chamber containing the engine. He deciphers the controls and fixes the Earth’s course. As the Earth returns to its original orbit Cobb learns that it is about to collide with a white dwarf star and manages to stop the planet just in time. Earth returns to its position as the third planet from the sun and Cobb realises that the unexpected movement of the planet was designed to avoid a collision with this star. He hides the chamber the machine inhabits and destroys his research to prevent something of such power being abused in the future.

This highly fantastic story, published in 1957, can be seen as an example of the common portrayal of the moai in comic books and science fiction as being closely linked to extra-terrestrials. The story ignores entirely Easter Island’s native population and history, instead choosing to view the presence of the moai on the island as a complete mystery. Within the tale the moai were created by benevolent aliens in their own image in order to show that they had visited Earth and also as a marker of the site of their hugely powerful technology. Therefore, this is a story that can be seen to be engaging with both the myth of power and the myth of creation in its treatment of the moai.

The story follows the common trope that suggests that as the moai are such huge and weighty creations whoever created them must be in possession of a vast amount of power. In this instance, this power extends as far as being able to move the Earth itself. Whilst the aliens within the story are depicted as using this power for good it is important to note that the story takes a dimmer view of the human race. The lead character decides to conceal the presence of the earth-moving technology fearing that, if revealed, it will be used irresponsibly. The comic also engages with the myth of the Easter Island archaeologist as a great adventurer and with the idea that there may be a hollow moai concealing a secret to the island's activities.

Peter Munford

Spirou
'L'ile Mystérieuse' ['The Mysterious Island']
(no.1042, 3 April 1958, Editions J. Dupuis)

It is Easter Sunday 1722 and Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen and the crew of his three captained ships spy previously uncharted land, which they decide to call Easter Island. As Roggeveen deliberates how best to engage with the islanders, a canoe comes alongside and a sole Rapanui boards a boat. They give this "savage" a meal and he mistakes the knife and spoon as pendants and sticks one in each extended ear lobe. And unsure what to do with a glass of wine he throws the liquid into his face.

As night falls, the canoe is sent back with gifts to show the good intentions of the Dutch visitors. At dawn, the Dutch approach the island with care and realise that the giants that they saw from a distance are not the islanders but in fact stone statues, which they understand are the gods of the Rapanui. One sailor declares Rapanui to be a "funny island", whilst another says he is scared. They note that there are no trees and cannot comprehend the great achievement of making, transporting and erecting the moai.

A high priest invites Roggeveen and his crew to follow him up a slope and into a cave, where inside a crater they witness the place where the moai are created. They also discover a large example of rongorongo, which they cannot decipher. Meanwhile, the high priest has climbed the high ridge of the crater, where he then pushes a moai that begins to wobble. Fearing this is a trap, one of the sailors shoots at the high priest, and without any orders from Roggeveen. The sailor is reprimanded by Roggeveen and told he will be put in irons.

As Roggeveen and his men leave the crater they encounter an angry population shouting for the Europeans to die. Roggeveen orders his crew to be careful and to not shed blood needlessly. Back on board their ships, Roggeveen realises that they left their rations behind on the island and they cannot sail without them. His officer warns that they cannot go back as the population is enraged. Roggeveen says they will fire their cannons at the moai with the aim of demolishing two or three. This quells the unrest and, to placate the Dutch, the Rapanui send them canoes of food. In return, the Dutch leave the islanders fabrics and glassware, and treat the wounded high priest.

Roggeveen departs pondering the unanswered history of the island and wishes rongorongo could be deciphered. The modern-day host, pipe-smoking Uncle Paul, who heads the story, concludes by telling the reader that Jean-François Champollion had deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphics and he asks who will translate rongorongo. Uncle Paul advises the reader that they can observe a moai – one taken from the island by Pierre Loti in 1872 – by visiting the Museum of Man in Paris.

For a story that gives the impression it is educational, there are a worryingly high number of mistakes and fabrications. This French comic says Roggeveen saw Easter Island on 6 April, when it was 5 April. A high priest is shot and survives, with nobody dying, when in reality the Dutch shot and killed ten or twelve Rapanui (according to Roggeveen's own account). Moreover, the Dutch cannons in this story fire at and demolish three moai, when that definitely never happened. The official log of Roggeveen records that a sole Rapanui did board a Dutch ship, but no meal, cutlery or wine was given though it was recorded that the man was startled by a mirror where he saw his own reflection and that he was gifted the mirror, a pair of scissors and two strings of blue beads. A chief showed Roggeveen the site of plantation and food production but not Rano Raraku, as the comic imagines. Much of the encounter in this comic is an embellishment of Roggeveen's visit and at worse a fiction. Certainly, Roggeveen makes no record of rongorongo (or rock carvings of the birdman, which appear in one frame), but the comic is particularly interested in this aspect of the island's culture as it connects with and promotes the work of the French scientist Champollion (for a French readership).

Finally, the comic encourages readers to see for themselves a moai in Paris. Admittedly, the illustrations in this publication manage to capture a reasonable likeness of the moai but a visit to Easter Island (or better research) would have added to the resemblance. In this comic the moai are positioned all wrong – one balanced on the crater edge of Rano Raraku is especially dramatic but completely detached from reality. Presenting the moai singularly on high-raised plinths also removes them from the truth.

Ian Conrich

House of Mystery
'The Stone Sentinels of Giant Island'
(no.85, April 1959, DC Comics)

A group of scientists are sailing across the Pacific studying ocean currents. It is a route that many ships have sailed previously so they are surprised to sight an uncharted island. They land on the island and discover three giant stone head carvings which they note are reminiscent of those on Easter Island. When they investigate inland they find pools of seawater and marine vegetation. This leads them to conclude that the island must have risen from the ocean relatively recently, which only deepens the mystery of who had carved the statues.

One of the scientists finds an inscription that he is starting to decipher when there is a rumbling sound and the group are astonished to see one of the statues coming to life with its full body emerging from the earth. The scientists run away and are pursued by the monolith. They manage to hide in a cave where Spears, who had been deciphering the inscription, tells the others what he has learned. Many centuries ago the island had been part of the mainland where a spacecraft had landed and the aliens on board had built a dome-covered base that was protected by giant sentinels. These sentinels were needed to protect the base from dinosaurs and were powered by a ray from a distant star. When the aliens departed the sentinels remained to continue their guarding duties. Since that time the island had sunk beneath the sea, and being disconnected from the controlling ray the sentinels became immobile with silt and sand covering the lower part of their bodies.

Exploring the cave system they have entered two of the scientists find the alien base. Meanwhile, the other sentinels are also awakening. Spears is able to read instructions in the base's control room and activates a mechanism which produces clouds of blue smoke on the surface of the island. This acts as a barrier to the ray that has been powering the sentinels and they become immobile again. The scientists take this opportunity to make their escape. As they sail away from the island they see it sinking below the surface of the sea.

Whilst Rapanui is not named, this isolated Pacific island is clearly inspired by Easter Island, of which one of the scientists is reminded when he sees the stone monoliths. A common storyline in moai fiction is the imagining of the stone figures as slumbering giants. This comic follows on from Mystery Tales (reviewed above), which then seems to inspire rival company Marvel Comics to revisit its own idea five months later in Tales to Astonish (reviewed below). Another root of the fantasy would appear to be in Thor Heyerdahl's best-selling book, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island, which was published just two years earlier in 1957. That book presented Heyerdahl's studies of the island and the moai, which included the excavation of some of the figures revealing that they had significant bodies extending below ground.

In moai fiction, the moai were yet to talk – that did not come until Tales to Astonish (September 1959). There is therefore no verbal interaction between the humans and extra-terrestrials, but the communication void is filled by the deciphering of a carved inscription that is undoubtedly a reference to rongorongo. Popular culture has fantasised that the inscription would helpfully reveal the answers to the perceived mysteries of the moai, and unlike the researchers who have spent decades trying to unlock the writing system the scientist in this story has the wonderful ability to understand what it says within minutes

With the indigenous population absent the story allows the moai to have a history that extends back into prehistoric times, where they are shown forming a defence against attacking dinosaurs. Such Pacific islands neither had nor could possibly sustain these dinosaurs, but the introduction of a beached sperm whale into the story (referred to here as a blue whale) allows for a demonstration of the moai's strength and guardian duties which requires that all beasts are repelled from the site. A whale-tossing moai is arguably the story's most unique moment.

Roy Smith and Ian Conrich

Tales to Astonish
‘I Was Trapped By The Things on Easter Island’
(no.5, September 1959, Marvel Comics Group)

The first of two issues of Tales to Astonish that were drawn to the myths of Easter Island, this story was later reprinted in Where Monsters Dwell no.24 (October 1973; see the review below). The cover image here was largely retained for the reprint, with the only differences in the colours employed. But they have led to a significant change for the image, with the blue sky of this cover changed to red for the reprint and the yellow daytime sun changed to a night-time moon. The alterations have the effect of making the cover more sinister for the reprinted story in Where Monsters Dwell.

Ian Conrich

Tales to Astonish
‘Here Comes Thorr the Unbelievable’
(no.16, February 1961, Marvel Comics Group)

Marvel returned to the moai of Easter Island for the second time in Tales to Astonish, in a story set on an unnamed Pacific island. The story was reprinted in Where Creatures Roam no.3 (November 1970; see the review below), which features a cover similar to this one but with some interesting differences. The stone giant in Tales to Astonish is called Thorr, but he is changed to Thorg in the reprint – possibly because that name sounds more threatening, or more likely it was to avoid confusion with the superhero Thor, who first appeared in a Marvel comic in August 1962. The name change is the only alteration to the story.

When Marvel re-used the cover of a similar moai fantasy from Tales to Astonish no.5 (1959) for the cover of Where Monsters Dwell no.24 (1973) they simply altered the blue sky of daytime to a more ominous red sky. The same approach has occurred here, with the bright blue of the Pacific darkened for the later reprint. However, the image here has undergone additional changes that are more notable with the reprinted cover redrawn and the borders altered. For the reprint cover, Marvel have either added detail and extended the borders of the original image, or they have returned to a drawing which could have been trimmed when it was first employed for Tales to Astonish.

The reprinted cover for Where Creatures Roam has added two rowboats to the bottom of the image, indicating both the party’s arrival and a route for their escape. Four additional figures – three in the bottom left corner around the boats and another falling off the top of Thorr/Thorg – appear on the cover of Where Creatures Roam, but are absent here. Meanwhile, Tales to Astonish has an additional figure of a man standing on the head of a second stone giant and firing a gun at Thorr/Thorg – which is missing from the cover for Where Creatures Roam. Removing this character renders the humans defenceless and without firepower. On the cover for Tales to Astonish, the character that tells the group that they had been warned not to awaken the giant is an intrepid female, but the responsibility for relaying that statement is switched on the cover of Where Creatures Roam to a fleeing man, and in doing so silences a previously vocal woman. The zoomed-out image on the cover of the later comic also adds a smoking volcano to the left side of the frame. An erupting volcano is part of the fiction, but the large group of companions has nothing to do with the story inside which features just an archaeologist and his wife who travel to the island alone.

Ian Conrich

Tales of Suspense
‘Back from the Dead!’
(no.28, April 1962, Marvel Comics Group)

Later republished in Chamber of Chills no.11 (July 1974; see the review below) and Tomb of Darkness no.16 (September 1975; reviewed below), the moai of Easter Island are featured on this cover in the top left corner of the 4 frames. The covers for the later reprints both take creative liberties and introduce a woman that is not present in the story. This cover image is the most faithful to the story and is the only one to feature the old man who commands the slumbering moai to rise. Marvel’s sister title Tales to Astonish, which also ran between 1959 and 1968, published two further moai-inspired fantasies that saw the stone figures come alive.

Ian Conrich

Konga
'The Lost Worlds'
(no.7, July 1962, Charlton Comics)

Professor Trams relays the legends of lost continents: of Mu, Lemuria and Atlantis. Focusing on Atlantis, Trams says that some believe that it existed and that "people of the lost land survived!". Trams takes the reader next to Central America and the mighty Mayan civilisation to present evidence of the survival of the Atlanteans. The Spanish conquistadors had destroyed much of ancient Mayan culture, but in 1930 a Brazilian scholar translated a rare preserved Mayan manuscript. The text revealed that the Mayan's ancestors had long ago survived the sinking of their homeland. Professor Smart turns to the Olmec heads of Mexico and the moai on Easter Island as further proof of a once formidable lost world. He concludes by stating, "some feel that Easter Island was the burial ground for a chain of lost islands that vanished soon after being discovered by Captain John Davis in 1687. And so we leave the answers to you. Did the lost worlds really exist?".

Drawn by Steve Ditko, who was later to join Marvel Comics and help create Spider-Man, this short 3-page story is presented as a fact-based history lesson that is designed to create more questions (the final image ends with a giant question mark) than answers and to raise the fascination of its readership in an unfamiliar part of the world. Professor Trams (which is 'Smart' written backwards), smoking his pipe, standing next to a globe and appearing in various headshots at points in the story, is a man of knowledge and a figure of authority who guides the reader through the 'facts' much like the narrator or guide in a documentary film.

Mu is mentioned, but surprisingly is abandoned for Atlantis as the story's focus for the legends of lost Pacific lands. The buccaneer Edward Davis, appears here as John Davis and he is credited with discovering "a chain of lost islands", which mixes some fact with plenty of fiction. Davis was searching for a mythical new continent and seemed to have discovered a new island, which he called Davis Island in 1687. It is that discovery that inspired the voyage of Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who was then acknowledged as the first European to encounter Easter Island in 1722. The fantasies that Davis Island opens up are rarely developed in moai culture and the possibilities have occurred on just two other occasions, in Super Magician Comics (see the review above) and the British comic Lion and Thunder (see the review below).

Ian Conrich

Justice League of America
'The Challenge of the Untouchable Aliens!'
(no.15, November 1962, DC Comics)

Phantom stone creatures emerge and disappear out of nowhere. They can touch objects on Earth, but earthlings cannot connect back leaving the Justice League of America (JLA), with their assembled superpowers, unable to fight effectively. The JLA in this comic are Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, J'onn J'onzz, the Atom and Green Arrow.

High above the Earth in a Sky Fortress, a new American defence system is being tested which can rapid-fire nuclear shells thereby intercepting and destroying incoming missiles. Before, however, the test can begin it comes under attack from an unseen force, leaving the people inside falling out of the sky. Superman and Wonder Woman are on hand to help catch the hurtling humans who are placed back on board the fortress whilst it is gently brought back to earth. But neither can stop the atomic cannon from being stolen by the invisible force. The cannon is now turned on a skyscraper, leaving Flash to evacuate the entire building in quick time. Wonder Woman and Superman next focus on the missile from the failed test, which is lassoed and thrown into outer space, and then on the cannon, which is crumpled beyond use.

An emergency meeting of the JLA is called where they learn that the USA, the Soviet Union and "England" have had their "most destructive weapons" stolen. The message also alerts them to sightings of stone giants in three global cities. The JLA split into three teams to investigate.

J'onn J'onzz, Green Lantern and Aquaman arrive in Tokyo, where they see a stone giant staring skywards. He has been waiting for a nuclear missile to arrive. The JLA attempt to send the missile away from harm and into outer space but they are initially stopped by the giant. Another giant is found under the sea firing nuclear missiles and is attacked by Aquaman. The trio succeed in containing the threat, but all are now in the clutches of the two giants. Then suddenly the giants disappear, releasing the trio.

Next, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Atom arrive in Brasilia, Brazil, where they find two stone giants waiting. Strange lightning follows, commencing a defence system that coats the city with a material that protects it from foreign attack. The system has been activated, as a weapon within the clouds is causing a rain to fall that would otherwise dissolve the city. The JLA intervenes to try and halt the rain, but they are hindered again by the giants. The Atom manages to switch off the rain machine but as he falls back to earth he is caught in a giant's fist. Wonder Woman and Superman are held too by a stone fist before all three superheroes are abruptly released as the giants disappear.

At Central City, Batman, the Flash and Green Lantern find the giants using another stolen device, pushing this one into the ground and causing an earthquake. Green Lantern grows multiple hands, which manage to hold the shaking city buildings together. Batman and Flash go after the giants but they are caught in the stone fists unable to fight back. Green Lantern is powerless too as the giants go after him with the aim of stealing his magic ring. He lets them have his ring but he has willed it inert and as part of his plan the giants now disappear to their own dimension. There, the ring probes the giants' minds allowing Green Lantern to understand the situation.

A few days before, the giants had exploded a cobalt bomb at the same time and place as Earth had detonated a nuclear bomb. The giants live in another dimension alongside Earth, separated by just a single minute. The simultaneous exploding of the two bombs created a shift in the time continuum. The giants are scientists (six of them), who have now been able to peer into the human dimension of Earth for the first time. The minute that separates the two worlds is narrowing and the three cities of impact that would lead to an immense nuclear holocaust are where the giants have appeared and intervened, trying to destroy the human cities first.

Batman, Flash and the Green Lantern, with the help of Lantern's ring now enter the dimension of the giants where they try to move these alien cities out of the way, whilst also battling the monoliths. The giants plead with the JLA to stop fighting and listen, because if they manage to move the cities everything will be destroyed in both worlds. Quick-thinking Green Lantern realises that he can save both worlds if he simply resets Earth back to the one minute that separates the two dimensions. All is saved and the grateful giants thank the JLA.

By late 1962, there had been a small rush of Marvel comics depicting the moai in fantasies where they come alive and as stone giants threaten helpless humans. Whilst Easter Island is not directly referenced in this comic, the depiction of these stone giants bears sufficient connection to the moai, who act here as figures trying to warn the Earth about the unfolding global crisis as a result of nuclear testing. 1961-1962 was a particularly acute period in the Cold War with the arms race and strategic missile deployment creating an increased fear of permanent and catastrophic world damage, that this comic reflects. In a tale of nuclear destruction it is no coincidence that one of the cities of concern in this story is Tokyo.

Ian Conrich

Laugh
'The Jaguar – The Immortal Alien'
(no.141, December 1962, Close-Up, Inc.)

Archaeologists digging on Easter Island believe they may have found the answer to the origins of the moai. Major Kress's theory is that the statues had been built by aliens in their own image. Unfortunately, Kress died in a shark attack off Easter Island. Excavating beneath a moai the team find a sarcophagus made from volcanic rock, from which suddenly emerges alive an alien whose head resembles the stone carvings.

The creature of curiosity is taken to the USA, where scientists test and examine it "before we take him on a world tour!". The alien's body is made of "indestructible metal", which survives experiments in which a hand grenade is exploded and flames are introduced to a testing chamber. Superhero The Jaguar, has been watching these experiments and decides to introduce his own – poison gas. This makes the moai panic and run, as it speaks for the first time "no!". The Jaguar grabs the moai and rips open its metal 'body', revealing inside Major Kress. His plan, along with two associates, had been to collect "millions" from being exhibited globally and then to disappear.

In the decade since 1952, when a comic had become the first to visualise the fanciful idea that the moai and aliens are connected, there had been a handful of stories that had explored the possibilities of extra-terrestrials within moai culture fiction. Despite its simplicity, this comic takes an original alternative approach and counters those stories presenting the notion that such thoughts of aliens is hokum. Of the countless comics that have since followed, the revelation that an archaeologist/ scientist is responsible for enhancing or manufacturing the mysteries of Easter Island has been rarely repeated and can be found in a much later adventure involving Scooby-Doo (see the review below).

The fake alien moai in the Jaguar story chalks a series of hieroglyphics onto a blackboard; an early comic book depiction of rongorongo. Under the watchful gaze of a group of white male experts, who are not "able to decipher his hieroglyphic language", there is talk of taking this wonder on a world tour. It evokes the way that first encounters saw inhabitants of new lands taken on western ships, whereupon their cultural and biological difference was exhibited on foreign stages.

Ian Conrich

El Eternauta [The Eternaut]
(no.14, January 1963, Buenos Aires: Editorial Vea y Lea)

First published in 1957 in weekly newspaper instalments, El Eternauta is a classic science fiction Argentinian political comic, that was created by Hector Germán Osterheld and Francisco Solano López. It featured space and time travel, radioactive snow, dystopian worlds and alien invasion, and a protagonist, The Eternaut, a traveller through eternity, who is part of the human resistance. The story is set in the near future in 1963, when this new edition was published. Despite moai appearing on the front, the image does not relate to the content within, which is a comic combined with short fiction and non-fiction news, and includes a republication of El Eternauta. The cover image is reminiscent of others from around the same period, such as Amazing Stories (reviewed below) and Las Esferas de Rapa-Nui (reviewed below), in which a large moai is foregrounded either against a sky of alien worlds or of recently arrived space travellers whose rocketship is in the background.

Ian Conrich

Tarou
‘Le Secret de l’île de Paques’ [‘The Secret of Easter Island’]
(no. 111, April 1963, Artima)

Voyaging around the Cape Horn and into the Pacific, Tarou, his girlfriend Denise, and their friend Gérard experience a storm before sailing into calm seas. They are heading to Rapanui and Gérard advises that it has just 230 inhabitants. On reaching the volcanic island, they moor their yacht in an inlet and the three, along with Tarou’s companions, Salvator the lion, and Bali the monkey, take a smaller boat to the shore. The island appears deserted, but Denise spots some islanders at a distance; Tarou thinks they may be afraid of his lion and monkey. Gérard approaches the islanders, but he finds he is unable to speak their language. The islanders therefore communicate using hand signs and indicate that the visitors should go to another side of the island, where there is “something unusual”. The friends proceed, but with caution.

As they venture, they see their first moai, whereupon Gérard advises that the statues have existed for a long time and were carved by the ancestors of the current islanders. Gérard, however, realises there is something strange and he goes back to the boat to fetch some photos he has of Rapanui. Returning to Tarou and Denise he is able to show them with the help of a photo that this moai they have been observing was previously not part of the landscape. They compare the moai with others nearby and conclude they are made of the same volcanic material. Gérard thinks the new moai could by a sailors’ hoax.

As they are conversing, Bali, the monkey, climbs to the top of this new moai, making it wobble and leading Tarou to realise it is hollow. Suddenly, the moai topples over, narrowly missing Tarou. Now on its side, a voice emanates from within the fallen moai. Tarou is asked to control his lion and only then does a strange-looking man, wearing a telepathy helmet with an aerial-like device on top, feel comfortable to emerge from the moai. The stranger, an electrical engineer, says he will take the trio to his laboratory – a vast room which is located beneath the moai and reached via a series of stairs – but he asks that Bali and Salvator remain behind as his appliances are very fragile.

The stranger talks of his past. He had manipulated a rare metal and realised that whenever he transported it whilst passing by people he could hear their thoughts. With the help of a friend, called Storm, he developed the telepathy helmet and then sold the invention to an unnamed nation, which gave him an advance to perfect the device. The money allowed him to build his installation on Easter Island, with the new moai scaring away the islanders and making sure he would be left alone. Gérard is concerned about the impact such a device will have on mankind, whilst the stranger insists that Tarou tries on the helmet so he can demonstrate its power. But without warning, Tarou punches the stranger and knocks him unconscious. Tarou’s friends are confused by this moment of brutality, but they soon understand that they were actually in danger. The stranger had forgotten that whilst wearing the helmet Tarou could read all his thoughts. Tarou had therefore intervened before the stranger was able to use a gun he had stored in a draw. It appears that the stranger had been planning to eliminate Tarou and his friends.

The villainous inventor is tied up, whilst Gérard now puts on the helmet to communicate telepathically with Storm, who is based “nearby” in Tahiti. Gérard deceives Storm into thinking he is communicating with his inventor friend and so he reveals the coordinates for his location. Without further delay, the team with the inventor as a captive (and still unconscious) leave Easter Island and travel by yacht to Tahiti. An hour after being knocked out by Tarou, the inventor awakens on board the yacht, but he remains dazed, which Gérard says will aid them in capturing Storm. After five days at sea, Tarou, Denise and Gérard land on a small Tahitian island and, as their continued attempt to deceive Storm, and make him think nothing is amiss, they force the inventor (still dazed) to walk in front of them whilst wearing the helmet, which has now been deactivated. At the point at which Gérard reveals to Storm they are armed and attempts to take him prisoner, Storm knowing he has been betrayed lunges at the inventor sending the two of them off a cliff and to their deaths on the rocks below. Gérard says they will pass the knowledge of the metal and the invention to honest scientists.

Tarou, subtitled ‘son of the jungle’, was a French Tarzan, brought up by tigers as a child, when he lost his French father and indigenous mother in a Pacific storm. He first appeared in the French Aventure magazine in 1949, later in Dynamic and Ardan, before featuring in his own publication, Tarou, in 1954. That lasted for 222 issues until 1973, when his creator, Bob Dan (the pseudonym of Robert Dansler), died. Despite the cover for this adventure, where Tarou wears a singlet, and other adventures in which he appears bare-chested and more Tarzan-like, Tarou spends his time in this comic dressed as an ordinary man in a thick jumper and a pair of trousers. His unusual companions – the lion and monkey – which would also establish him as a Tarzan-figure, have minimal function in this story (halfway through they are left outside of the laboratory and practically forgotten) and appear more like pets. As with the adventures of Tarzan, Tarou is the man of action and the white saviour, whilst the indigenous people he encounters are either savages or frightened, and therefore need to be fought or rescued (in this story the latter).

Whilst this is a relatively early comic for moai culture, it is surprisingly unsophisticated in its use of Easter Island as a location, with the story also astonishingly simple, interventionist and full of narrative weaknesses. Easter Island was presumably chosen by the inventor so he could experiment in isolation, but there are better and easier places to build such a hideaway in the world – and one that would not require an underground construction, with a decoy moai on top. The islanders also would have surely seen the ‘secret’ laboratory and moai being built and consequently not been afraid. But in this story, Easter Island as a perceived land of wonders and mystery becomes an appropriate location for a telepathy helmet, albeit one that looks rather silly. And with the comic reducing the population to a small number of 230 people, they become disposable figures, imagined as primitive inhabitants, wearing loin cloths and forced to gesticulate to communicate, and who bear no resemblance to the Rapanui.

Within moai culture, evil geniuses and mad scientists have been easily attracted to Easter Island, and there have been other stories imagining a hollow moai containing a secret – see, for instance, World’s Finest Comics (reviewed above) and Mystery in Space (reviewed above). In the fantasy that is Tarou, there seems little need for research, with Easter Island simplified to one large volcanic cone. But interestingly the moai in one frame, which are unlike those found in reality on the island, have been copied from a sketch originally drawn in 1877 by a French explorer, Alphonse Pinart. It has been re-used elsewhere, but only within French popular culture – on the cover of the comic Big Boss (reviewed below), on a trade card (reviewed below) and on the cover for the 1990 edition of the novel Les sphères de Rapa-Nui (reviewed below).

Ian Conrich

Pilote
'Ile de Pâques: Mystérieuse et Sauvage' ['Easter Island: Mysterious and Wild']
(no.209, October 1963, Dargaud)

Appearing in a French comic that was best known for introducing popular characters such as Astérix, this double page centre spread presents a full colour illustrated education map of Easter Island. Post publication of Thor Heyerdahl's best-selling book, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island, in 1957, there was greater knowledge available for comics that wished to be educational, as opposed to fictional, in their narratives. This is clear in one side image in this double spread that shows a moai head consisting of a much larger body below ground, a fact established through Heyerdahl's excavations of a number of the carvings. Furthermore, it is clear in a series of images on the right side of the page that illustrate one of the theories tested by Heyerdahl as to how the moai were raised into position.

Much of this comic is accurately drawn and labelled and includes good illustrations of rongorongo, moai kavakava and even Makemake, though the carvings of the birdman at Orongo have erroneously been given an extra leg. Further errors include a pukao being moved by just two men, and many of the moai depicted facing out to sea, albeit they function here as simple icons showing specific locations. Tellingly, the map and images are historical and show the Rapanui and its culture in the past. It is frustrating that the people and culture of contemporary Rapanui are apparently of no interest for a text that was aiming high in its educational value.

Ian Conrich

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane
'How Lois Lane Fell in Love with Superman!'
(no.53, November 1964, DC Comics)

Lois Lane is assigned to cover earthquakes on a remote jungle island and her editor arranges for Superman to fly her there. Upon arriving, Superman loses his powers due to a discovered piece of kryptonite. The island features large moai-like statues and is populated by oversized plants and creatures. Superman is required to use ingenuity rather than his powers to protect Lois. This impresses Lois and they kiss, but as they do a snake attacks them. Superman manages to defend Lois, but is bitten by the snake. The bite has no harmful effect though and Superman discovers his powers have returned.

In this comic book, the moai feature in a single panel of artwork. For the purposes of the story they are situated on the fictional Bamboo Island. Unlike many comic book stories featuring the moai this one offers no thoughts on their presence, and nor does it depict them as living creatures or of extra-terrestrial origin. Instead, they function purely to demonstrate the foreign, mysterious and, therefore, threatening nature of the island. This is reflected in Lois Lane’s remark “I want to film them!”, which positions the statues as objects of curiosity. This comic is therefore a clear example of how the moai became shorthand for denoting the exotic and the mysterious in Western Culture.

Peter Munford

Aventuras de la Vida Real [Real Life Adventures]
‘Kon-Tiki’
(no.108, December 1964, Editorial Novaro)

Whilst focused on the 1947 journey by raft by adventurer Thor Heyerdahl – that crossed the Pacific from Peru to French Polynesia and did not include Easter Island – this comic cannot resist bringing in a few references to the moai. Mexican comics have exhibited a continuous fascination in the life, work and theories of Heyerdahl, for which this is the earliest known example. Presumably the level of interest is due to Heyerdahl’s beliefs in the connections between South America, Rapanui and Polynesia, which Aventuras de la Vida Real is keen to emphasise where possible.

Early in the comic, on a date of April 1940, Heyerdahl and his wife are on the Polynesian island of Fatu Hiva when suddenly in the jungle they come across a monolithic statue. It resembles more a moai than anything found on Fatu Hiva and Heyerdahl comments that it is similar to prehistoric monoliths found in Peru. In reality, the statues of Peru and Fatu Hiva are distinctly different. Towards the end of the comic another moai (badly drawn) is depicted with the reader told that Easter Island contains remnants of the Peruvian culture that once flourished there. Both moai depicted in this comic are poor representations, with one quite amateurish and the other relocated appearing as a stand-in for statues found on a different island. Meanwhile, Heyerdahl’s theories on the settlement of Polynesia from South America have since been proven wrong.

Ian Conrich

Kona
‘The Island of Buried Warriors’
(no.13, January 1965, Dell Publishing)

An earthquake strikes near the deserted Stonehead Island in the Pacific. Fearing the “famed statues” may be destroyed before their secret has been solved, an ultra modern hydrofoil, called ‘Explorer’, rushes to the location. On board are Dr Henry Dodd, his daughter, two grandchildren, and Kona, ‘Monarch of Monster Isle’. The hydrofoil’s rudder is damaged in a tidal wave and as the gang attempts to steer the craft they are attacked by a giant tentacled sea creature that pulls Kona under the water. Kona breaks free and climbs back on board the hydrofoil, just before a second tidal wave strikes that pushes the helpless craft up on to the shores of Stonehead Island, where they encounter many moai figures. As a pre-planned mechanism, water flows from behind resting moai and in doing so pushes them upwards forming a circle of stone heads that appear to be protecting a volcanic crater.

Suddenly from within the crater a group of giant kiwi birds surge forth. But they are called back to the crater by a native blowing on a conch shell. He commands the kiwi and they start to remove a water-proof covering that has been placed over many warriors: “long ear Polynesians […] considered extinct for five hundred years!”. They are the “mighty Akuns”, conquerors of all neighbouring islands who had the moai built by slaves. The warriors have since been under the covering inside the crater in suspended animation waiting their time to return to rule. Henry tries to rationalise with the Akuns that the world has moved on and the are no longer rulers, but they refuse to listen.

The kiwi birds attack Henry, his family and Kona and the Akuns throw a net over these foreigners. The leader of the Akuns blows again on his conch and giant albatrosses arrive. These are harnessed to the Akun’s outriggers and pull them at speed through the ocean, with Henry’s grandchildren on board as captives. Henry, his daughter and Kona give pursuit in their hovercar, a hexagonal-shaped airplane. The giant albatrosses attack the hovercar forcing it to crash.

Meanwhile, the Akuns arrive ashore startling the “pygmies of a primitive Pacific island”, who thought the Akuns were only legend. The Akuns tell them to submit or die. The pygmies quickly yield and the Akuns declare a tribute to the war gods and start to sacrifice Henry’s grandchildren. Shoved into an “escape-proof pit”, the helpless children see a wooden panel raised in a side wall, releasing into the arena a giant crab. Just in time, the hovercar arrives with Kona leaning down to grab the trapped children. The giant crab attacks the hovercar, but Kona fights back and delivers a fatal stab to the crustacean.

The Akuns, with the pygmies under their command, launch their outriggers for another island to conquer. Realising the power of the conch, Kona jumps from the pursuing hovercar into an outrigger and grabs the prized shell. Kona blows on the conch and directs the albatrosses to pull the outriggers back to Stonehead Island. There, the giant kiwi birds now under Kona’s control re-emerge and pierce the arms of the warriors with their long beaks injecting them with a fluid. This sends the warriors into a trance that directs them back into the crater where they will sleep for another seven thousand moons. The kiwi birds cover the warriors with the waterproof sheet and the albatrosses topple the moai.

Arguably the most creative and imaginative of all moai fiction, this fantasy seems inspired by the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, in particular his prehistoric tale The Land That Time Forgot and his jungle adventures starring Tarzan. For Kona is a loincloth-wearing hero who leaps and swings from heights, controls animals (in this story birds) and fights giant creatures without hesitation. He is encountered by the Dodds family in the early Kona comics, when in a story that is indebted to Jules Verne’s novel The Mysterious Island, their blimp crashes on a lost prehistoric Pacific island of giant creatures. In later comics, like this one, Kona travels with the Dodds family to faraway lands.

This is a wondrous story of a giant squid-like creature attacking a hydrofoil and a giant crab attacking a flying car. The giant kiwi birds are particularly fanciful with their long beaks being re-imagined as giant needles for injecting drugs. In reality, the harmless kiwi bird is a small and rare semi-nocturnal animal native to New Zealand that has external nostrils on its beak for sniffing out food. In this story they are the guardians of an island that is clearly meant to be Easter Island.

The Easter Islanders could be viewed as being represented by the Akuns, long-eared warriors who had the moai constructed by slaves. These are, however, blue-skinned warrior people with no redeeming qualities, who seek to conquer and rule over a wide expanse of Pacific islands, whilst offering human sacrifices to their gods. This is in a manner similar to the mighty warrior Rotumans depicted in a 1951 Operation Peril comic also involving Easter Island (see review above). In these stories, the moai are associated with a powerful race of Pacific island warriors, but crucially there is a refusal to recognise the Rapanui people as the true creators of these impressive stone carvings. For the sake of popular fiction, Easter Island functions in this comic and many others as an abstract space. As this comic advises on its opening page this is a “silent, sinister island, populated only by huge stone faces of some alien people”.

Ian Conrich

Walt Disney Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.
(1966, Gold Key/ K.K. Publications)

From the 1960s into the 1970s Gold Key published countless licensed comics that were adaptations of popular film, television and cartoon releases of the time. It had a particular commercial relationship with Walt Disney and adapted a number of its productions, including Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (1966, reviewed above), a castaway film which was received much better at the box office than it was by critics. This 32-page comic is largely a faithful adaption of the Disney film, judicially selecting and condensing the essential parts of the story. Within the film is a moai-like statue in the jungle, called Kaboona, which apparently only communicates with a local chief, thereby giving him control over his tribe. The artists for the comic have interestingly made this statue less moai-like and more human in appearance. Most noticeably, gone is the jutting mono-brow, replaced by separate curved eyebrows. Its eyes and mouth are now oval, instead of respectively square and circular, and its nose is now more regular in its form, with the nostrils removed. The changes show how with a few adjustments a moai-like statue can lose its resemblance to the figures on Easter Island. The comic has also replaced the jungle floor in front of the statue with a stone-built platform upon which a native woman now kneels – both additions helping to make the arena in which this deity functions more sacrificial and like an altar.

Ian Conrich

Spirou
'La Tragique Expédition de La Pérouse' ['The Tragic Expedition of La Pérouse']
(no.1448, 13 January 1966, Editions J. Dupuis)

Spirou had previously depicted the voyage of Jacob Roggeveen to Easter Island, in a 1958 Uncle Paul historical story (reviewed above). Elsewhere, La Pérouse has been the subject of comic book stories in True Comics (1942, reviewed above), Le Téméraire (1943, reviewed above), Die Eroberung der Welt (first published 1979, reviewed below) and as La Boussole & L'Astrolabe (2016, reviewed below). This particular Uncle Paul story, which is designed to be educational, shrinks the tragic voyage of La Pérouse into 4 pages, where La Boussole & L'Astrolabe had employed 46 pages for the adventure. Consequently, Easter Island appears in just two frames. In the first, the senior crew stare at a moai and reflect on the abilities of the Rapanui people. They recognise that the Rapanui revere the statues, but they do not understand how the same people could have built them when they live in huts shaped like overturned canoes. There is no mention of the statues having been toppled, which is believed to have begun before their visit. In the second frame, they are shown gathering provisions from the island – grain and sheep – before continuing on their voyage. Few comics mention the voyage of Edward Davis, who supposedly was the first European to find Rapanui in 1687. This comic is more confident about the discovery and asserts that he found Easter Island and that it was in 1686.

Ian Conrich

Captain Marvel
'The Invisible Aliens'
(no.1, April 1966, M.F. Enterprises)

On board a plane, Captain Marvel along with fifty passengers is caught in an electro-magnetic storm that forces them to land on a paradisiacal island. There, he discovers giant footprints and a colossal computer in the middle of a jungle. After deciphering an ancient tablet, he finds that the advanced civilisation that used to inhabit the island discovered the fourth dimension and was subsequently destroyed by ‘creatures’. A door opens and Captain Marvel enters the giant computer, where he meets these creatures who are shaped like giant stone heads, and battles them using his superpowers. The creatures are too strong and he is forced to escape through an underground tunnel. He makes his way back to the plane only to find the giant stone heads have encircled it and are asking the crew and passengers for help. Suspicious of their intentions, he follows them back to the computer where the giants ask the plane’s crew to seal a hatch, but when they become suspicious, the heads threaten to take them hostage in exchange for Captain Marvel. When the crew fight back, the heads beg for Marvel’s help as he is the only one who can help them get back to their own dimension. Captain Marvel agrees and helps to send them back home by using his body as a lightning conductor; in return, the giants help to teleport him back onto the plane.

M.F. Enterprises, who published this comic, were a minor outfit who began with this particular edition and had collapsed by the end of the following year. Captain Marvel was originally the name given to Fawcett Comics’ character between 1940 and 1953; M.F. Enterprises took the name and conceived a different superhero, most notably one who is capable of splitting his body into different parts. Although this particular story does not make a direct reference to Easter Island and the moai, the comic book clearly depicts moai-inspired stone figures as Captain Marvel’s ‘Invisible Aliens’. The ‘heads’, as Captain Marvel calls them, walk, talk and have superpowers, but they appear rather strange as they are shown as having a head, arms and legs but no body. Another aspect which hints at Easter Island is the mysterious ancient tablet written in a forgotten language, which is reminiscent of the rongorongo tablets. Today’s linguists and anthropologists are some way from understanding rongorongo, but the superhero that is Captain Marvel takes only seconds to decipher his tablet using his “computer-like brain”. The tablet is an oddity within the story and even Captain Marvel remarks on its anachronism: “Strange such an advanced civilization used tablets to write on…when they built a giant computer!”.

The presence of the computer, like the message left by the ancient civilisation which was destroyed by the heads, remain unexplored in the text, as the reader is given no developed explanation about the people and their ancient knowledge. Similar to other such texts, these natives are quickly put aside as the island becomes a mystery devoid of people, but inhabited by giant stone statues. The presence of the moai in this comic book is a simple way of exploiting the myths behind Easter Island in an attempt to create new adventures and villains for Captain Marvel to battle. This is understandable due to the period when the comic was released, 1966, when interest in Easter Island had risen significantly, due not least to the publication of Thor Heyerdahl’s 1958 book Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island.

Patricia Porumbel

Dossier Negro [Black Dossier]
'El Diablo de Rapa Nui' ['The Devil of Rapa Nui']
(no.8; Barcelona: Graficas Jorba, 1969)

Augusto Breck, a much-travelled man and collector of artefacts, is awoken during the night by a hideous floating face. When he switches his bedroom light on it disappears, but he is so worried that he phones his friend, a doctor, Bertold Coleman, during the middle of the night, and he arrives at Augusto's home without delay. Augusto shows Bertold his collection of world artefacts including a stone carving of a head, which is the face he has seen in his nightmares. He tells Bertold that he had stolen the carving from a secret and sacred cave of a family on Rapanui, that was guarded by an aku-aku spirit. Those who intrude into the cave are said to suffer punishment followed by death. Augusto does not believe in witchcraft, but every time he has gone to sleep, this demon carving has appeared in his nightmares growing bigger and bigger, where it is on the verge of crushing him. Bertold has not been listening properly to this story as he has been overcome by the eyes of the demon carving; Augusto says, "do you understand now?".

Bertold thinks that Augusto has been too obsessed with his books and travels. He suggests that Augusto takes a break, leaves the city, and stays with him at his villa by a lake. They leave together in Bertold's car. Upon arriving at the villa, they discover that the carving is in Augusto's luggage, but he assures Bertold that he did not put it there. Bertold does not believe him; Augusto says he is not crazy.

The two friends row to the middle of the lake, whereupon Augusto tosses the carving overboard, and it sinks twenty metres down into the mud. The two friends can now relax and they spend the rest of the day playing tennis, horse riding and fishing. They return to the villa for dinner and are shocked to see that the stone carving has re-emerged and is now sitting on a mantelpiece. Bertold is a rationalist and does not understand how this is possible. One of the rangers for his estate arrives and reveals that he placed the carving in the villa as he had found it on the edge of the lake, but this does not explain how it rose from the watery depths. Augusto takes a hammer and smashes the carving into pieces; Bertold instructs his servant to take the bits and scatter them in all directions.

The two friends retire to their rooms for the evening. Bertold is worried about Augusto's mental health; he admits there is something about the mask, but he does not subscribe to Augusto's belief that it is demonic. Suddenly, Bertold hears the horrific screams of Augusto coming from the bedroom next door. Augusto screams for help and that "it's growing…growing! It will crush me!". Another scream, then silence. Bertold asks his servant to help him break down the door. Augusto is discovered lying dead on his bed.

Bertold calls the police, telling them a man has died in "very strange" circumstances. The police investigate and the coroner reports that Augusto's bones had been broken by a heavy object. Bertold decides to tell the police superintendent everything but he does not accept the story. Demoralised and knowing that nobody will believe him, Bertold returns to his home in the city. He begins to question what he has experienced, but as the day turns to night and his room darkens the carving reappears floating in front of his eyes and growing in size. Bertold orders it to go and throws his glass at its head. He switches on the light and the mask vanishes; Betold wonders whether he had dreamt the demon and that he is going crazy like Augusto. But there on a cabinet sits the stone carving staring at him. As the carving then rises, Bertold is terrified that he will be its next victim.

Dossier Negro, Spain's first horror comic, began in 1968 and lasted for 218 issues. It was noted for its striking covers – graphic and often gruesome – and for publishing the early work of many famous Spanish illustrators. The publication's emergence coincided with a wave of popular interest in Gothic narratives that was especially strong in countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, with the films of Hammer Studios most notable in the latter. Other British producers of Gothic horror films include Amicus, who was known for its omnibus format of several short stories linked by a framing narrative. This story, 'El Diablo de Rapa Nui', could easily have appeared in one of those omnibus films, where the horror was frequently constructed around stories of guilt and revenge, theft and inanimate objects that come alive. In fact, this story is reminiscent of the Amicus feature film, The Skull (1965), based on a short story by Robert Bloch, in which a collector of unusual objects is affected by the possessed skull of the Marquis de Sade. It also appears to borrow from Edith Wharton's short story 'The Eyes' (1910), in which a pair of haunting eyes repeatedly appear at night at the side of a terrified man's bed. Following familiar Gothic narratives, 'El Diablo de Rapa Nui' is a tale of the uncanny that sees the protagonists and the supporting characters questioning what they have seen, experienced and heard and whether it can be explained as the result of drinking or madness.

The entire story takes place at three homes – those of Augusto and Bertold – but the country is never made clear. Rapanui appears in just one simple frame as a flashback in a cave and the location would have been unknown if it had not been stated in the text. The comic essentially exploits Rapanui as a faraway place that can conveniently become shorthand for the 'exotic' and thereby 'demonic', through an object of cultural importance (which appears in colour on the front cover). The stone carving of the demon head, which is an ancestral possession and is associated with the sacred, is twice referred to as 'she' though the drawings do not make the gender explicit. Aku-aku is once again referenced to give a semblance of anthropological 'depth' to the fantasy, but the carving is unlike anything found within Rapanui culture (unsurprisingly) and is pure fiction. What is interesting is the subtext that the theft of such objects is wrong – Augusto later repents and wishes he had not stolen the carving – and that the act will haunt those who have transgressed.

Ian Conrich

Grandes Viajes [Great Journeys]
‘La Trágica Expedición de La Perouse’ ['The Tragic Expedition of La Perouse']
(no.72, 1 January 1969, Editorial Novaro: Mexico)

Of the thirty-two pages in this comic, Easter Island fills just five frames and less than one page of images in total. As a rather improbable crew of three land a small boat on Easter Island, they stand on the shore in awe of a moai and pause to reflect on the ancient Rapanui civilisation that “must have been admirable”. Roggeveen’s 1722 voyage to the island is mentioned as is Captain Cook’s visit twelve years earlier. The text states that La Pérouse’s task was to conduct a more thorough study of the island than Cook’s. So, La Perouse’s small team take measurements of the statues, employing a ladder to reach the top of a moai head, whilst another crew member states, that if he had more time he would make a dictionary of the Rapanui language as it shares similarities with Polynesian. The ship then departs for the Gulf of Alaska.

As a forerunner to Grandes Viajes’s focus on Easter Island and Thor Heyerdahl, which began in the August 1969 issue (reviewed below) and continued in the December 1971 issue (reviewed below), this comic detailed the voyages of the French explorer Jean Galoup de la Pérouse, borrowing the same title for the story as a 1966 issue of Spirou (reviewed above). La Pérouse’s expedition was designed by the French to follow and expand upon the voyage of Captain Cook, but interestingly of the moai culture comics it is the former that features more often – La Pérouse has been the focus of five comics compared to just the one for Cook. Whilst Cook was tragically killed on a Hawaiian beach and his great voyages would make an excellent comic, La Pérouse’s disappearance for many years and his almost mythical lost expedition appears to make a more sensational story. As with so many comics that claim to be historical, the original ship logs are barely respected and this comic (like others) presents the island as initially abandoned, with the Rapanui only appearing in the last frame.

Ian Conrich

Grandes Viajes [Great Journeys]
‘El misterio de la Isla de Pascua’ ['The Mystery of Easter Island']
(no.79, 1 August 1969, Editorial Novaro: Mexico)

On the evening of Easter Day 1722, the ships of Dutch sailor Jacob Roggeveen suddenly spot smoke coming from an island that was not recorded on any maps. The next day, an islander with long ears and a European appearance – fair skin and ginger-blonde hair – rows up to Roggeveen’s ship. When asked with sign language about the name of the island, he replies “Te pito o te henua”, but Roggeveen decides to call it ‘Easter Island’, because of the day on which it was ‘discovered’.

A group of ten Dutch men subsequently visit the island and are received warmly by the indigenous people. The visitors are first shocked by the lack of women present (they might be hiding in the hills) and then by the colossal moai, which they call “devils” and “monsters” and wonder how these weird statues had been carved and moved into position. Back in the village, the islanders are more relaxed and curious about the Dutch, but tragedy soon follows with several Rapanui killed. A Dutch sailor shoots a Rapanui man, which results in the islanders’ violent reaction and further shots fired. Roggeveen is on board his ship at the time when he hears the gunshots and returns to the island with a group of 50 men, but it is too late. Many innocent natives have been killed leaving Roggeveen feeling guilty.

48 years later, in 1770, the viceroy of Peru sent two frigates (the San Lorenzo and the Rosalía) led by captain Felipe González, to navigate the western side of the Pacific. The Rosalía arrives at Easter Island, a place they recognise as the one discovered by Roggeveen. Accompanied by two priests, the crew plant a cross on a hill and call the island ‘San Carlos’, which they declare to be part of the Spanish crown under the reign of King Charles III.

The visitors are curious about the scarce presence of women and children on the island. One of the islanders indicates that the women and children are under the earth. The visitors inspect the islanders (who are tall and well-built and with extremely long ears) and try to make them learn some Spanish. Before the crew departs they leave the islanders some nice clothes for the women, who subsequently appear from their places of hiding and say farewell.

In 1774 another expedition appears led by Captain James Cook. The islanders deliberate and decide to again hide their women and children in their caves, before gauging the visitors’ real intentions. Cook lands with his crew and an interpreter who can speak Polynesian. With the interpreter, Cook exchanges clothing for fresh fruit and food. They ask also for a moai, and an islander explains that their ariki (chiefs) or ancestors are buried there, as well as mentioning the aku aku (or protective spirits). Twelve years later, Captain La Pérousse’s expedition visits Easter Island and brings many presents for the natives in the name of King Louis XVI. This visit is very short.

Until the first years of the nineteenth century, the island does not receive many other foreigners until one day an American schooner arrives. The islanders still have the memory of the French expedition and its presents, but this crew has the aim of recruiting islanders to repopulate Juan Fernández Islands (which includes Robinson Crusoe’s), where a company from the United States has established a base for seal hunting. The visitors capture ten men and twelve women, but after three days of navigation, the islanders jump ship. Unfortunately, they do not survive, being so far away from land. Two years later, an English brigantine that had survived a storm and was without water for six days visits the island and the islanders. No longer trusting strangers, the Rapanui take revenge, attacking the visitors. In the mid nineteenth century, a Russian boat tries to stop at the island, but they are rejected by the natives. After a long and dramatic fight, the Russians leave.

In 1862, a Peruvian whale fleet approaches the island. Although the islanders are eager to attack, they are surprised when they hear their language spoken with just a request for an exchange of clothing for sweet potatoes. But this is a trick of the Peruvians, for they are actually slave traders, who capture 1000 islanders to be sold to work on guano islands, off the Peruvian coast. The remaining islanders cry that shameful night of 24 December 1862. The news spreads to Lima, and the government there orders the repatriation of the islanders. Only 15 out of the 1000 natives returns home, but they are ill with smallpox, which causes an outbreak on the island. Only 111 islanders survive.

Later a friar arrives on the island and starts preaching to the Rapanui, who tell him stories about the land, which he collects in a book. One of the stories involves a confrontation between the long and the short ears, with the latter subjugated by the former. The short ears revolted and defeated the long ears, who had devised the moai and had come from the East.

After a number of other missionaries and anthropologists, Thor Heyerdahl’s expedition arrives. Heyerdhal knows how to gain the natives’ trust and they reveal many details, which he collects in his studies. Together with the close friendship of the Rapanui mayor, he researches the moai and even replicates a construction of one of them. He visits the mysterious caves and gets to know about the Rapanui ship-building techniques, similar to those found around Lake Titicaca. He also discovers the origin of the red-haired, long ears on Rapanui, who are apparently the descendants of the Incas, although their arrival on Easter Island using ships made of bulrush is still to be proven.

This was the first of five Mexican comics that were published over the next eleven years – those that followed are Grandes Viajes (1971, reviewed below), Duda (1972, reviewed below), Duda (1978, reviewed below), and Aunque usted lo dude (1980, reviewed below) – and it functions as a template for the themes and motifs that occur throughout the group. Grandes Viajes displayed an interest in Rapanui in two comics – 1969 and 1971 – but in the later issue the island was a small element in a wider story about Heyerdahl’s attempts to sail the Pacific on a raft made of bulrushes. It both adds to the stories found in this 1969 comic and repeats ideas.

Whereas the 1971 issue of Grandes Viajes is about voyaging, this 1969 issue is more about visitation. Each of the accounts that this 1969 comic illustrates are about foreign ships – from Europe and the Americas, and significantly not Polynesia – encountering the Rapanui and the connections or, more often, the tragic events that occur. Alas, such a comic is pseudo-educational, appearing to provide facts and information on world histories and cultures, but with a spread of fiction. Some of this fiction could be the result of the writers wishing to sensationalise – the stretched ears of the Rapanui are a particular obsession of the comic and are hyper-extended beyond how they were in reality. In other places, it is presumably due to laziness, with a surface scratched for a history, and then the rest of the details made-up. For instance, Cook did not venture far on Easter Island as he was ill at the time, and in his notes he observed that some of the islanders appeared malnourished, and a number of the moai had been toppled, but none of this is reflected in the comic. When González arrived, prior, he placed three crosses on the island, not the single one that is shown here. And there are many more errors.

A third cause for the inaccuracies is the contested work of archaeologist Heyerdahl, who promoted the view that South Americans settled Easter Island and were the originators of much of its culture of carving. That has since been proven incorrect, with the island widely believed to have been settled from the west, but the comic takes Heyerdahl’s scientific work and allows it to enhance and advance its own approach to the island’s history. This is most visible in the depiction of the Rapanui, who are never shown to be Polynesian. Instead, they appear as the Adonis-like bodies of a race of tall and muscular men alongside slim and youthful women, with modern hairstyles. The Europeanising of the Rapanui continues in their attire with the women wearing twentieth-century bikinis. It is a particular re-imagining of the islanders that is not unique, with similar figures seen, for instance, in Weird War Tales no.95 (reviewed below) and the Polish comic The Secrets of Easter Island (reviewed below), with the latter also inspired by Heyerdahl’s work.

Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas and Ian Conrich

Where Creatures Roam
‘Here Comes Thorg the Unbelievable’
(no.3, November 1970, Marvel Comics Group)

An archaeologist, Linus, and his wife Helen fly to a newly discovered South Pacific island, which has been “reported to contain strange stone statues”. Linus and Helen meet the friendly natives who inform them that they have no idea who created the giant stone heads, which have been there “before our ancestors first came to this island!”. Linus is given permission to dig around the statues and soon he discovers a door made of metal that is superior to steel. Behind the door is a room of electronic equipment but when Linus explores inside he accidentally sets off a trigger which awakens one of the giant stone creatures called Thorg. Initially angry at having been awakened, Thorg reveals through flashback that he has waited for a million years, and since he was sent out by his leaders as part of an advance expedition force. These warriors were instructed to lie dormant across many planets waiting for the moment to be awakened whereupon they would conquer the universe.

Thorg plans to awaken the other stone giants, but fearing the annihilation of the world, Linus convinces Thorg that planet Earth is simply the extent of the Pacific island and that he could destroy it alone and take the glory for himself. The stone giant duly crushes the huts and homes of the natives who flee in terror. Having conquered the island, Thorg sends a message to his leaders in the far reaches of the universe. They arrive the next day but, whilst they are distracted, the heroic Linus throws dynamite into a volcano which causes it to erupt and send a sea of molten lava across the island. The heavy stone giants, who cannot swim, sink into the sea. Linus has saved the Universe and he is rescued by canoe by Helen and the native chief.

The story does not mention the name of the Pacific island, but there are enough references present to read Easter Island as the inspiration for another Marvel story that has been drawn to the moai. This is a reprint of the story that appeared in Tales to Astonish no.16 (1961) and it is quite similar to the one that originally appeared in Tales to Astonish no.5 (1959), which was reprinted in Where Monsters Dwell no.24 (1973), as well as the story in Tales of Darkness no.28 (April 1962), which was reprinted in Chamber of Chills no.11 (1974) and Tomb of Darkness no.16 (1975). These all fantasised that the stone creatures are slumbering aliens from long ago, awaiting the moment upon which they will be awakened by their space-travelling leaders in order to conquer or depart Earth.

Thorg is actually a robot with a secret doorway leading inside this slumbering giant – concepts which often appear in other moai fiction. Unlike many other comics that tend to depict a vacant island, a community of natives is present but whilst it is encouraging to see them depicted, and as friendly people, they are shown to be primitive (despite the contemporary setting of the story) and they function largely as a culture that is crushed by the giant with ease in images that evoke the film King Kong (1933). Thorg and his warriors are threatening figures, even when asleep. They are described as “grotesque” and giving Helen “the creeps”. Yet, rather strangely, when the spaceship of the leaders arrives they are drawn as harmless-looking characters filing off their craft with a friendly little wave of a hand. As Thorg rises from the ground the story emphasizes that there was so much of this giant beneath the surface. It is possibly a reference to the work of Thor Heyerdahl who whilst excavating around moai on Easter Island had revealed that they had bodies that extended far down into the ground.

Ian Conrich

Les Aventures de Néron et Cie [The Adventures of Neron and Co.]
‘Le mystère de l’île de Pâques’ [‘The Mystery of Easter Island’]
(no.24; by Marc Sleen; Antwerp-Brussels: Editions Erasme; October 1971)

Néron, his son Adhémar and Captain Patfolle are resting on the idyllic tropical island of Paprica. They are enjoying a life of ease but Néron is bored; he believes he is a man of action. Adhémar arrives and urges his father to follow him to the water’s edge. There he shows him a raft, with ‘Neron Tiki’ written on its sail and a flag flying from the mast bearing the name ‘Magellan’. Adhémar thinks the raft could get them home, with the tradewinds blowing them towards Europe and through the Straits of Magellan. Patfolle advises Néron that Adhémar may be a genius at most subjects, but not in Navigation. Néron responds that he has faith in his son. Adhémar swaps hats with Patfolle, so he is now a proper sea captain. Néron and Adhémar wave goodbye to Patfolle and the native islanders and set sail.

Early into their journey, Adhémar fishes for their dinner, but finds himself dragged into the ocean by a hammerhead shark which he hooks. Néron jumps in to save his son and punches the shark on its nose. Next, as Néron sleeps, Adhémar tries again to fish but finds a sawshark has cut their raft into two. Thankfully, Adhémar manages to unite the two separated halves of the raft. As Néron again rests at the back of the raft he now finds himself being kissed by two beautiful sea sirens and then greeted by Neptune, who takes him down into his undersea kingdom, where Néron is pierced through the stomach by a swordfish. He wakes up back on the raft with everything apparently a bad nightmare, but still wearing the ring he was given by Neptune. There is no respite as Néron is now attacked by an octopus, that drags him to the ocean floor and engages him in a boxing fight. As Néron punches the Octopus in the face, the creature blows out a jet of thick black ink. Néron returns to the raft covered in enough ink to allow Adhémar to write a journal of their sea adventures thus far. Next, the two voyagers find themselves riding on the back of a great whale, with Néron taking the opportunity to have a shower from the water spouting from the cetacean’s blowhole. Finally, Néron finds himself helpless astride a dangerous blue shark. Adhémar dives into the ocean armed only with his fountain pen to rescue his father, but Néron is saved just in time with the shark killed by Neptune’s trident.

Suddenly they spy land and find themselves on Easter Island. Adhémar demonstrates his knowledge of all things by advising his father that the moai wear red hats, not much is known about the figures and the Rapanui completely disappeared several centuries ago. On the side of a moai, Adhémar finds a panel which he touches and the mouth of the stone figure opens. Adhémar crawls inside and the mouth firmly shuts. Néron punches and kicks the moai to make the moai reopen its mouth but to no avail. Meanwhile, Adhémar is inside descending a very long series of steps. At the bottom, he finds a large petroglyph of the birdman, with its finger pointing in a specific direction, which Adhémar follows. There he finds another world, the Kingdom of the Longears, which has existed for a millennium, and which is populated by strange people with very big and long ears, wearing pseudo-medieval clothing. The Chancellor of this kingdom tells Adhémar that a law states he will have to remain in this underground world for “eternity plus three years”. First, however, they must stretch Adhémar’s ears which are far too small.

Adhémar tries to leave but is stopped. The Chancellor says he will take Adhémar to the king and the royal palace. Showing Adhémar their subterranean city made of gold, he advises that they have been able to survive underground as a result of radium providing them with light and heat. Taken to the throne room, Adhémar, who is the first visiting stranger for 500 years, meets the “young” king, aged 90, who has the air of a child. The king explains that his people have discovered the secret of longevity. The king introduces Adhémar to his ministers, one of whom is 700 years old. The subject of Adhémar’s small ears returns and the king says that in their current form they will be ridiculed. As the ministers laugh, Adhémar asks for everyone to stop and he advises that where he comes from what is most important is what is in the heart or the head. The king and the ministers are taken by Adhémar’s knowledge and theories of the wider world, so the ruler decides to appoint Adhémar as his Minister for Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, this upsets the man who had been the incumbent minister, who decides to kill Adhémar, by trapping him in a box and throwing him off a bridge.

Above ground, Néron manages to reopen the mouth of the moai. Inside is a Longear who is in the process of cementing the mouth shut forever. Néron punches the man in the face and descends down the long staircase inside. As Néron encounters different Longear officials he overpowers each one, in his commitment and desire to find his son. Whilst defeating soldiers on a bridge, he hears Adhémar crying out from the box which had miraculously managed to snag on a pole under an arch. At this point, however, Néron is overpowered and taken to a cell where he is chained to a wall. Adhémar is rescued and asks the king for clemency for his father, but a minister is more persuasive in relaying an account of the aggression and thuggery of Néron as he journeyed through the underground kingdom. Néron is therefore sentenced to a death in which he is downed in a large fishbowl. An hour later he is still alive – having managed to survive the ordeal with ease as he is still wearing Neptune’s ring – an accomplishment that astonishes the king.

Néron is released and made a new minister, yet at that point the volcano of Orongo erupts. A minister falls to his knees and asks for Saint Longears to protect them, whilst Néron and Adhémar make a dash to safety, employing a bicycle to quicken through the latter stages. Along with the bicycle, they are spat out of a moai’s mouth and find themselves back on the surface. Using the bicycle and their raft, Adhémar creates a pedalo which takes them far out to sea. But the sky turns black and the raft is hit by a sea storm, throwing Néron overboard.

Back home, friends and family have been worried, with no news from Néron or Adhémar. Their friends turn to a giant computer to give them answers. Feeding in the question “where are Néron and Adhémar”, they receive the reply “they have been shipwrecked off Easter Island”. The friends telephone Valparaiso, Chile, and arrange for a boat to sail out and rescue Néron and Adhémar. There, the captain of the ship finds that Néron’s life has been saved by Neptune. Back home, over a family feast, Néron raises a glass to Neptune, whilst Adhémar proudly displays his fountain pen containing octopus ink.

Originally published in Dutch, Néron’s adventures have extended to many publications with, for instance, 101 titles in the French language series which was published in colour by Editions Erasme, between 1967 and 1987. The creator, Marc Sleen, was fond of referencing news events and adding figures from popular culture. In this bande dessinée the adventure across the Pacific Ocean, on a ‘Neron Tiki’ raft, which dominates the first half of the story, is clearly inspired by the voyage of Thor Heyerdahl, made in 1947, aboard his raft ‘Kon-Tiki’. On Heyerdahl’s crossing he and his fellow sailors had numerous encounters with sea creatures, including sharks, which in Néron’s adventure are exaggerated to the level of being ridiculous.

Other comics have had the idea of a moai concealing an entrance to a secret underground passage – see, for instance, Basil and Moebius (reviewed below) and WWE Superstars (reviewed below). Elsewhere, in the comic Hewligan’s Haircut (reviewed below), an entrance to another world was also through a moai’s mouth. More common in moai fiction is the fantasy that the Rapanui have built a subterranean civilisation, which helps to explain in these worlds the absence of a society on the surface. The moai depicted in Les Aventures de Néron et Cie are good copies of the originals, but the Rapanui (here referred to as the Longears and every one of them male) are distinctly caricatures, with their features exaggerated. In particular, there is an obsession with ears – theirs and those of Adhémar. Unfortunately, Rapanui simply serves as the basis for a fantasy of the absurd, which began before Néron and Adhémar even reached the island. There is little reference to Rapanui culture, except for a volcano called Orongo (there is no such volcano in reality) and one wall of a cavern displaying birdman petroglyphs introduced in order to establish a brief moment of humour.

Ian Conrich

Grandes Viajes [Great Journeys]
‘Las fantásticas travesías del “Ra”’ [‘The Fantastic Voyages of “Ra”’]
(no.108, 13 December 1971, Editorial Novaro: Mexico)

The comic begins with the presentation of the ancient Egyptians’ tradition of papyrus ship-building as an agrarian craftwork that allowed them to travel along the Nile, but which was then used by Faraoh Sahure to explore distant lands, such as the coast of Somalia, Mozambique, South Rhodesia, and other places around the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Currently, this technique is used in Lake Chad, 2000 kilometres away from Egypt, and in Lake Titicaca (Peru) and in Easter Island, where instead of papyrus they use an equivalent plant – bulrush (totora). The narration clarifies that part of the culture of Rapanui, such as the moai carving, comes from the coast of Peru, and can be traced to a pre-Incan civilisation, 8 kilometres away from Lake Titicaca. This therefore connects the bulrush shipbuilding technique on Rapanui to practices in Peru.

What if ancient Egyptians had reached the American coast in their papyrus ships? With this hypothesis in mind, the Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl (who led the Kon-Tiki expeditions between Peru and Polynesia, Easter Island and the Galapagos islands) meets in Mexico the anthropologist Dr Genovés, who agrees to the idea of sending a papyrus boat from Africa to America in similar circumstances and with inexperienced sailors, that is, themselves and a few others: the Russian Seinkewich and the Italian Masi. In Cairo, they start to organise the expedition and, in an institute for papyrus research, they are advised to find shipbuilders from Lake Chad, but they are warned that papyrus boats sink after a maximum of twelve days. Far from discouraged, Heyerdahl travels to Lake Chad, where an indigenous man, Oma, and a group of men are persuaded to go to Cairo to build a papyrus boat, which, according to Oma, would float on water for several months.

The boat (5 metres wide by 15 metres long) is given the name of ‘Ra’ in honour of the sun God and is taken to Safi, the Western coast of Morocco since, a few miles from this coast, the northern Ecuadorian current would take them directly to the Antilles. On 25 May 1969, the Ra sets sail. The crew experiences a variety of obstacles during the voyage: sharks, whales, storms, and dermatitis as a result of the ocean salt. They also discover how polluted the water is in the middle of the ocean. After 50 days, the sailors are rescued by a boat that takes them to Barbados, but they do not give up their mission. A second papyrus boat, Ra II, is built by Titicaca ship builders with less and thicker papyrus stems, and with the help of a local man, Demetrio, and his team. They all fly to Africa, and to Safi, where the boat is built (4.5 metres wide by 12 metres long). After six weeks, the boat is ready to set sail on 17 May 1970. This crew experiences perils similar to the first Ra boat, but after 57 days they manage to reach American soil.

Mexican comics had a phase where they were fascinated by Pacific voyaging and Easter Island, as can be observed in five comics published between 1969 and 1980 and that include Grandes Viajes (1969, reviewed above), Duda (1972, reviewed below), Duda (1978, reviewed below), and Aunque usted lo dude (1980, reviewed below). Significantly, all five are interested in presenting pseudo-educational stories that relate a mixture of facts, fantasy and unproven/ contested theories, and which unhesitatingly position South America as the source of first discovery and settlement of Easter Island. In doing so, they often feature or foreground Heyerdahl, who was a prominent promoter of the South American theory as well as the idea of a possible Egyptian connection. As this comic, Grandes Viajes, demonstrates most emphatically, Egyptian sailors are perceived to be a part of the history of the Pacific. Easter Island appears on just one page, with the others dominated by acts of voyaging as would be expected by a publication titled Great Journeys. The comic is a cousin to others that have illustrated the Pacific voyaging of great explorers – La Pérouse (True Comics, reviewed above), Jacob Roggeveen (Spirou, reviewed above), and Captain Cook (The Conquest of the World, reviewed below). But the closest publication to the narrative interest of this particular comic is probably Walt Disney’s Donald Duck and Friends (reviewed below).

Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas

Duda: Lo Increible es la Verdad [Disbelief: Incredible but True]
‘A quién esperan los gigantes de la Isla de Pascua?’ [‘Who are the Giants of Easter Island Waiting for?’]
(no.38, March 1972, Editorial Posada: Mexico)

When Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro conquered Mexico and Peru for the Spanish crown they were told that long before them there was an extraordinary god with a white beard, white skin and long ears. He was called Viracocha, and he had founded the Inca civilisation beside Lake Titicaca, before his descendant, Cápac, founded the city of Cuzco, the capital city of the Inca Empire. However, some of Viracocha’s nobles did not believe in Cuzco as the central city and a group of 400 of them sailed on a boat towards what would later be called Easter Island. Were they the artists who carved the moai? How could they carve those sculptures – 10-metres high and weighing 50 tons?

On Easter Sunday in 1722, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen arrived on Easter Island with two ships, after watching smoke signals from afar, and was received by indigenous people swimming to the boats. He was surprised to see that one of them was white. They visited the island the next day and were drawn to the moai (which at that time had pukao, or topknots, on their heads) and the huts where the Rapanui lived which took the form of inverted boats. The indigenous people stole a Dutch sailor’s three-cornered hat unfortunately leading to thirteen of the Rapanui being killed.

In 1770, the Spanish captain, Don Felipe González y Ahedo, arrived with his crew and planted three crosses on a hill, calling the island San Carlos in the name of their Spanish king. When he asked the natives to sign the contract ceding sovereignty, one of them, with fair skin and red hair, drew hieroglyphs. They also discovered that the moai were made of stone, not of clay, as concluded by Roggeveen. Like Roggeveen’s crew, the Spanish visitors had their hats stolen by the islanders, an action which they found funny.

Next, Captain Cook visited the island, in 1774, and he wrote in his book his impressions. Before leaving the island, Cook and his crew were given a good supply of sweet potatoes, but, when they reached their ships, they realised that below the vegetables the baskets were full of stones. Cook was surprised that the island had changed so much since Roggeveen’s visit, so poor now, with thieves as inhabitants.

When in 1786 the French navigator Jean-Galoup de la Pérouse visited the island, the moai no longer displayed the pukao and the inverted-ship huts mentioned by other visitors had vanished. In 1808, the North American ship, ‘Nancy’, fought the natives and upon departing took with them 12 indigenous men and 10 women to be sold as slaves. Far out to sea, all of them jumped into the ocean, but they probably died, as they were very far from home. Seven Peruvian ships visited the island in 1862 and took a thousand islanders as slaves to work on guano mines back in Peru. They killed those who resisted and many of the slaves died in the mines. The English government pressed Peru to cease the slavery, but it was too late. Only fifteen Rapanui had survived, but they returned home diseased with smallpox. The illness spread through the island and three quarters of the remaining population died, including the elders and, with them, the secret to the hieroglyphs of rongorongo.

Two years later, the first missionary, Father Eyraud, arrived on the island, but the Rapanui no longer believed in western people, and he died alone. In 1864 some other missionaries tried to catechise the Rapanui, and in 1914 the English anthropologist, Katherine Routledge, drew a map of the island and made an inventory of the moai. Later, in 1934, a Franco-Belgian expedition stopped at Rapanui and the French ethnologist Alfred Métraux wrote the first book on Easter Island, but it contributed little to an understanding of Rapanui’s origins.

Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific Ocean, in 1947, on board a raft, voyaging from Puerto de Callao (Peru) to the Tuamotu Islands to prove that men from the Americas might have reached the islands of Oceania many centuries before. When he arrived, he noticed that the Rapanui were highly civilised thanks to their connection with Chile as a colony. The Norwegian became a friend of the mayor, Pedro Atan, a redhead who was said to be a descendant of Viracocha. He explained that originally the population was divided into the long-ears and the short-ears. The latter worked as slaves for the former carving the moai. These statues were taken to the ahu (or family mausoleums) in doing so giving the family an aku-aku (or protecting spirit). During the civil war, the long-eared Rapanui created a ditch across a section of the island, separating it into two. But a woman warned the short-eared, who attacked the long-eared that night and killed all of them bar one, by throwing them into the ditch. The one that survived is the ancestor of Atan, the mayor. Heyerdahl started a series of excavations, with the mayor’s permission, to corroborate the story, and in doing so he found human bones which, after carbon-dating back in Chile, were shown to be from 1680.

Heyerdahl also dug around the moai and discovered on the chest of one a drawing of a ship that might have been a vessel used by the Incas to arrive on the island. This excavation leads to a debate as to whether Rapanui culture comes from the Americas or from Polynesia. Heyerdahl defends the former; the latter is favoured by William Mulloy, who is an American archaeologist on the island at the same time. Heyerdahl asserts that the use of big monoliths with human form are only to be found south of Mexico and in South America. In addition, the rafts made of bulrushes found in Lake Titicaca are similar to the ones found in the lake located in the crater of the Rapanui volcano Rano Raraku. And the name the Incas gave to this rush was totora, which is the same as the name it has been given by the Rapanui. The stones of the ahu resemble those of the Incan empire, and there are many other similarities, such as the obsidian knives, the sweet potatoes that Incas called ‘camotes’, the manu tara (birdman) myth, and the particular way of cooking, involving an earth oven.

They also speculate about cannibalism. After the slaves’ rebellion against their masters, anarchy became the norm and islanders started to live in caves and, out of despair, they ate their enemies’ bodies. Part of the revenge consisted in toppling the moai. When Roggeveen arrived on the island, this civil war had begun, but there were still some moai standing. Heyerdahl tries to explain what the pukao represent – they are not hats, but are intended to be hair. Made from a distinct type of lava, the red colour of the pukao was supposed to represent the redheads that were the original descendants of Viracocha.

Mulloy takes over and makes his arguments, establishing a different position. According to another legend, the king Hotu Motua, from a race of people that had come from Asia, landed first on Easter Island by canoe. According to Frenchman Guillaume de Hevesy, writing in 1932, the hieroglyphs found on the rongorongo tablets are reminiscent of a type of writing found in India, and in a culture that had disappeared 5000 years ago. These tablets could have been preserved by the Polynesians since the day they left their original land, but then progressively lost or destroyed. Heyerdahl argues back that this writing is similar to that of the Cuna Indians, in Panama. After an intense argument, each concludes that the influence might come from both sides. But they conclude there is a mystery that they cannot fathom: how were the statues sculptured and moved? The mayor and some men try to move a small moai, but it is impossible. Atan tells Heyerdahl and Mulloy in secret that the statues were first carved and, before given their eyes, they were instructed to move and were guided by the sculptor.

Later in 1969, the German writer Erich Von Däniken advanced another theory that the moai were made by beings of high intelligence from another world. Due to a technical problem, the aliens had landed on the island where they began a programme of moai carving. The islanders killed all the aliens and subsequently ceased the building of the statues. The comic ends with a number of questions concerning the mysteries of the moai – reflected in the names for Easter Island, such as ‘the navel of the world’, ‘the eyes that look to the sky’, or ‘the sky frontier’ – which will never be solved.

Unlike the earlier Grandes Viajes Mexican comic (reviewed above), with which this publication shares many similarities in terms of form, there is more attention here given to following historical facts. This pseudo-educational comic, with considerable accompanying text for each frame, correctly illustrates González erecting three crosses on a hill. The stealing of a sailor’s hat did occur during Roggeveen’s visit and during Cook’s in 1774, but also when La Pérouse was on the island. Cook is correctly presented recording some of the Rapanui as impoverished and clearly there has been research conducted employing source material as a print from La Pérouse’s visit, in which he inspects a moai, is reproduced as an inner title page, although the image has been altered with curiously the hat thief removed. Elsewhere, the comic is wrong to present the British (with a supporting image of the Houses of Parliament) as the power that had the Rapanui slave trade dismantled. In reality, it was the French bishop of Tahiti, Florentin-Étienne Jaussen, who intervened. The civil war was not prior to Roggeveen’s visit and the toppling of the statues was first recorded by Cook. It is also wrong to say Metraux was the first to publish a book on Easter Island, when others such as Routledge and Walter Knoche had done so earlier. Moreover, it is unfair to describe Metraux’s book as superficial.

Few instances of moai culture include the moai excavated by Heyerdahl that was found to bear a carving on its chest of a ship, so it is pleasing to see it featured. But, this comic adjusts the vessel’s structure from a multi-sailed European ship with an ‘anchor’, to a more primitive looking craft. In doing so, it allows the comic to exploit this great discovery as further evidence that the island was settled from the Americas. Such a distortion undermines the value of the comic, one which unusually includes (and illustrates) Routledge, Eyraud and Mulloy. The latter is particularly interesting as he is included as an alternative to the theories of Heyerdahl. Yet, it is clear that this comic and the others that were published in Mexico in this period are committed to promoting Heyerdahl and his theories, which favour Mexicans as great voyagers. The comic begins with the Incas, and despite suggesting at the publication’s end that mysteries remain, the importance of the pre-colonial Americas is elevated within the narrative.

Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas and Ian Conrich

tintin
'Mr Magellan – Le réveil des géants' ['Mr Magellan – The Awakening of the Giants']
(no.1231, 1 June 1972, Dargaud Editeur)

Part 3 of a 4-part French-language story, which was originally published in 1972 as the French market version of the original tintin Belgian comic. This was the only issue to feature the Mr Magellan story on the cover. It significantly foregrounds the moai in an image that is both a composite and an adjustment of the actual story. The cool Mr Magellan, the hero who seems to forever be smoking a cigar and wearing sunglasses, does drive a motorbike off a cliff edge, but the cover supplies added skill with Magellan performing more of a dramatic stunt bike manoeuvre. The villain that he appears to be leaping afterwards is an imagined scene for the sake of the cover and curiously the villain here appears older than the character depicted within the comic. In the story it is Magellan’s companion, the intrepid Capella, who displays greater heroism by following Magellan off the cliff on her own motorbike and then hurling it and herself at the villains. Unfortunately, Capella’s heroism is removed from the cover in favour of Magellan acting solo. His individualism is further promoted on the cover of Mr Magellan – L’Île des Colosses (reviewed below), the 1986 bande dessinée that collected the four stories into one volume.

Ian Conrich

Mickey Rat
'The Rot Expedition'
(vol.1, no.2, October 1972, Kitchen Sink Enterprises/ Krupp Comic Works)

Mickey Rat wishes to escape the routine and stresses of life so he distances himself from everyone on a barge tied up near a warehouse. Whilst asleep, the shoring for his boat snaps; when Mickey awakes he finds himself drifting out at sea. An octopus attacks the boat and snaps it in two. Now floating at sea on just a piece of wood Mickey Rat begins to hallucinate and imagines he is in hell. There, pitchfork carrying imps force him off a cliff and into the mouths of hungry crocodiles that bite him in half. The two halves become two rolling balls that tumble skittle-like into a row of moai. These moai bring the two Mickey halves to their leader, a giant seated moai, who orders them to fix the rat. Now whole again, Mickey is tied to a string and like a necklace is dangled from the giant moai's neck. The moai think the necklace looks "rotten" and that it smells. The moai leader orders for the rat to be destroyed and he is fed down a conveyer belt, into a deep chute and straight into a meat grinder, where he becomes a dollop of meat in a frying pan cooked over a fire.

Cut to a shipwrecked Mickey exhausted, lying on a beach, where he has been cooking and hallucinating in the sun. As he stumbles up a hill he finds he is on Easter Island. The Rapanui nurse him back to health, but he is desperate for sex and he forces himself on a local woman. He is consequently chased by a group of Rapanui men carrying spears and falls into a pit. Calling for help, he is heard by a large-built local woman who rescues him and carries him back to her isolated hut. There he enjoys his idea of a perfect life, relaxing in a hammock, whilst the woman cooks, laughs at his jokes and tends the land.

Mickey Rat was conceived by the artist Robert Armstrong, a friend and contemporary of the more famous cartoonist Robert Crumb. It is drawn in the same crude style as Crumb's more celebrated work, which includes Mr Natural and Fritz the Cat. Like Crumb, Armstrong's alternative comic is for an adult readership and is obsessed with drugs, the sexualised body and the experience of the surreal. Both artists also exhibit problematic depictions of race and women.

The anti-hero Mickey Rat is a counter-cultural expression against the corporate power of Disney's Mickey Mouse and is everything the latter is not: sleazy, hedonistic, perverted, vulgar, exploitative, self-centred, abusive and extremely lazy. In fact, it was Armstrong in his comics who is credited with having popularised the term 'couch potato'. Most challenging is Armstrong's treatment of the Rapanui, which is deliberately offensive. These are primitive, grass-skirted, bare breasted islanders who are viewed as sex objects, and who speak gibberish. The comic should be placed in its context of the early 1970s and the underground scene in America from which such cultural expressions emerged. The richest part of the story is the surrealism in the hallucinations of the Rat and these are a rudimentary mixture of Salvador Dalí and Hieronymous Bosch.

Ian Conrich

Lion and Thunder
‘Adam Eterno: The Weird Menace Under the Waves!’ (Part 1)
(27 January 1973, IPC Magazines)

Adam Eterno, an Alchemist’s apprentice from 1580 who is cursed to live forever, wanders through time and history after having drunk an Elixir of Life. Practically immortal, he can only be destroyed by a weapon of solid gold. In the first part of this new 4-part adventure, he finds himself on Easter Island, which has been abandoned by the terrified islanders. There, Adam helps rescue a seaman, Martin, whose drifting ship has been attacked by a strange power from beneath the seas around Easter Island. From a glowing whirlpool emerges a giant plant. Its petals open out emitting a strong light, which strikes the moai and makes them come alive. The moai turn towards Adam and Martin, who start to flee.

Long before the immortal Highlander and Ivar the Timewalker (see the review below) there was Adam Eterno, a wanderer through time who talks in an old-English style of speech not dissimilar to Marvel’s character Thor. Appearing in British comics between 1970 and 1976, this apprentice from the medieval times is a near-immortal hero with rock-star long blond hair and a cloak, which at times appears like a cape as he dashes to the rescue. Moai controlled by extraordinary forces is a recurring theme in Easter Island fiction, though the idea of powerful marine vegetation being the transmitter of the energy is original.

Ian Conrich

Lion and Thunder
‘Adam Eterno: The Weird Menace Under the Waves!’ (Part 2)
(3 February 1973, IPC Magazines)

Adam and Martin flee the moai, which have been brought alive by a light projected from “weird marine vegetation”. The moai monoliths are unstoppable, as they crunch through trees and wooden buildings, but the “fiendish brutes” stop once they think they have killed Adam and Martin. Unscathed, the companions row back to Martin’s abandoned ship, which had been conducting oceanographic tests. One of their depth charges has awakened an undersea power. Martin relays that some say “Easter Island was the cemetery of a bigger island – Davis Land – which long ago sank beneath the sea…!”. Adam and Martin ride a sea-scooter to the seabed where they discover a large glowing dome surrounded by the glowing vegetation.

This action story that functions as a serial with cliff-hanger endings has a look and feel that is both of its time in the early 1970s and of its culture of British produced weekly comics. Adam Eterno is a combination of an immortal action superhero with super-human powers and a movie-styled hero from the weekly kids’ serials. Unusually for such fiction, the moai that come alive have no feet but move at some speed on a neck stump. The “weird marine vegetation” are a fascinating addition to the moai myths, especially as this alien plant-life is not too distant from John Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids.

Most interesting, is the comic's mention of Davis Land, which is a reference to a forgotten aspect of early European engagement with Easter Island, and one that does not appear anywhere else in moai popular culture. Edward Davis was an English buccaneer, who attacked mainly Spanish ships and settlements around the Caribbean, Central and South America. He encountered a new land mass on December 1687, which was subsequently called Davis Island. It inspired Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on a voyage that led him in 1722 to a land mass that he called Easter Island. It is possible that Easter Island was Davis Island, and in this comic the fantasy joins the two and mythologises the age of discovery with a sunken civilisation.

Ian Conrich

Lion and Thunder
'Adam Eterno - Monsters in the Weird City on the Sea-Bed!' (Part 3)
(10 February 1973, IPC Magazines)

'Adam Eterno – 'Zaal the Destroyer versus the Golden Colossus!' (Part 4)
(17 February 1973, IPC Magazines)

In part 3 of this story, Adam Eterno and his companion, Martin, are enveloped by an undersea bubble, which sweeps them through a metal hatch. Inside, they discover a kingdom beneath the sea, of which Easter Island was once a part. They are chased by robots and a giant man made of gold and take refuge in a building from which erupts a giant snake from beneath the sand. The snake, called Zaal the Destroyer, thwarts the robots but Adam and Martin cannot escape the giant man of gold.

In the final instalment, the escaped snake coils around the colossus and brings it crashing down. Adam and Martin dash back to their sea-scooter, but are held back by the glowing vegetation, one of which forms into a shark and attacks Adam. By now the giant has defeated the snake but Adam and Martin flee through the metal hatch just in time leaving the colossus locked within the undersea kingdom. A rockslide buries the hatch and, back on the surface, where the threat has now been removed, the native population begins to return.

Much of parts 3 and 4 of this rather undeveloped story take place in an undersea kingdom, which like the myth of the lost continent of Mu (itself inspired by Atlantis), is said to have been joined once to Easter Island. There is just a brief mention of what exactly this undersea kingdom is in part 2, where Adam refers to a "bigger island" called Davis Island. Who or what is Davis the story never explains. It operates simply to provide an underwater adventure for the heroes with further ominous figures for them to defeat or escape.

The robots have moai-like features, but there is no link explained between them and the moai above ground. The un-original colossus, meanwhile, is perhaps too close in design to the Amazing Colossal Man (1957), even down to the trunks that he wears. He and the robots are made of gold, with the reason being that the sole thing that can destroy Eterno is this precious metal. This fact, which is part of Eterno's stated character within the comics, is unfortunately repeated often throughout this adventure. The story is a boy's own fantasy of heroism, camaraderie, voyaging, foreign lands and 'history', that was typical of many British children's comics.

Ian Conrich

Where Monsters Dwell
'I Was Trapped By the Things on Easter Island'
(no.24, October 1973, Marvel Comics Group)

While flying over the South Pacific, a plane develops engine problems forcing its pilot to crash-land on Easter Island. In his quest to find some means of communication, the pilot stumbles upon a few moai heads. To his surprise, the moai begin to move and rise, pushing themselves out of the ground. The pilot hides near the statues so that he can learn more. He discovers that they are from outer space, and they are lying in wait for their orders to begin an invasion of Earth. Eventually discovered by the “things”, the pilot hides in a cave where he finds a native boat which he boards in order to escape. Back in the civilised world, he tells his story to the authorities, but he is met with disbelief and derision. Defeated, he returns to his home on a remote island in the Pacific. There, whilst falling asleep in his bed, he tries to convince himself that he imagined everything. Outside, the moai are gathered at his bedroom window, and now assured that the earthling believes this was all part of his imagination, the statues return to Easter Island to continue their wait for the signal to invade.

This story is an exact reprint of the publication that appeared in the Marvel comic, Tales to Astonish (September 1959). Clearly promoting the myths of movement and creation, the story imagines the moai statues as alien invaders who have been waiting for centuries to hear from their home planet. Their intention is to enslave earthlings and turn Earth into a colony of their mother-planet Lithodia Rex (which can be roughly translated into Kingdom of Stones). The myth of movement reveals the ability of the statues to walk, talk, see and hear. Apart from the obvious movement of the statues when they rise from the ground and chase the pilot, there is also the question of communication between these monoliths. The pilot is amazed at their ability to talk to each other and hides “within earshot” of the statues. Supporting the myth of creation, the pilot initially remarks that Easter Island has giant statues of unknown origins. Furthermore, the comic extends the popular notion that the island is devoid of people. However, the pilot does manage to find a native boat, which interestingly for the context in this story suggests the island once supported an indigenous culture.

To contain the broad fantasy, the narrative explores basic ideas of hallucination and delusion. The pilot’s entire experience takes place after a forced landing on the island. It is made clear from the beginning that he has hurt himself and that he suffers from a severe headache. This is re-enforced later on in the comic when he tries to relate his story to the authorities, who advise "you must've hurt your head real bad! It's given you hallucinations!". His story is considered so "fantastic" that in a self-reflexive approach, someone even suggests to the pilot that he sells his story to a science fiction magazine.

Patricia Porumbel

Supergirl
'The Super-Amazon!'
(vol.2, no.9, December 1973, DC Comics)

Supergirl removes herself from the world and all men, after bad experiences with her boyfriend, a pilot and a rock star. "Men – they're nothing but trouble!", she declares. Flying over the Pacific she saves a boat from attack by half-human half-shark creatures. The grateful passengers are Nubia and Queen Hippolyta, Wonder Woman's sister and mother. They travel together to Paradise Island, the home of Wonder Woman and the Amazonians in urgent need of a medical support for the injured Nubia. Queen Hippolyta tries to convince Supergirl to join their ranks and be her "adopted daughter". Supergirl accepts the invitation as it will mean she will not have to see another man again, with men forbidden on Paradise Island. A more than capable warrior she passes the Amazonian's tests and is crowned Kara, The Amazon Princess.

Nubia's injuries have left her in a coma and the serum is found in the root of the wild cologi, a rare plant that grows only an a "small unchartered island two thousand miles away in the South Pacific!". Despite the dangers, Supergirl offers to help and flies there at speed. She finds and collects the plant but just as she is about to leave she is attacked with magical beams blasted from the mouths of three stone heads. It is revealed that the heads are hollow and out of each one clambers a "trio of menacing witch-doctor types". Helpless, as a result of their magic, Supergirl is saved by Sugua, a giant white gorilla, which scares away the witch-doctors. The gorilla is revealed to be a costume, worn by Fong, a Chinese man whose ancestors were stranded on the island. He is their sole survivor.

The witch-doctors have stolen Supergirl's powers leaving her unable to fly away. Without her female powers, she discovers that Fong is another aggressive and dominating male. He desires her submission as his "golden-haired captive". Supergirl escapes and attacks the witch-doctors whilst dressed in the white gorilla costume. In their panic, the witch-doctors leave behind their magical instruments, which allow Supergirl to regain her powers. She hurriedly flies back to Paradise Island with the cologi plant and saves Nubia's life. Despite Fong's aggression, Supergirl believes he meant no harm and his isolation has shown that she should not exile herself from mankind and the rest of the world. She departs Paradise Island happy again.

The muddled politics of this comic are a symptom of the time in which it was produced. On one hand the comic is progressive, presenting a sisterhood of super-women (Supergirl is described as becoming a "sister Amazon"), with men absent from the harmonious middle third of the story. Where men are shown, they are depicted as bullies, lotharios, rude, aggressive, ungrateful and villainous – and in almost all instances in behaviour that is directed towards women. Women easily understand each other, whilst the encounters with men are full of misunderstandings and dangerous surprises. On the other hand, the comic is unable to allow Supergirl complete freedom and the final frame has her stating with delight that it is great to be herself again and "guess I'll give men another chance after all!". Ultimately, Supergirl rejects a collective of women, where she would be embraced, for a society in which she is forgiving of men's abuse of power. She is shown here to be a mighty and independent woman whose weakness appears to be a need for ordinary (and flawed) men.

The story is further problematic in its racism, with the Chinese man, Fong, both a saviour and an aggressor: "Oww! Fong's grip is hurting my arm!", Supergirl says, "without my super-powers, I'm no match for his strength". Arriving first within a white gorilla costume, Fong is introduced initially as a primitive creature, creating the fascinating scenario of an Asian, dressed within the costume of a great African mammal, rescuing a newly-crowned Amazonian, from witch-doctors who are dressed in Mayan/Aztec-like clothing and headdresses, on a South Pacific island. Moreover, the story borrows here from the jungle narratives of popular fiction and films such as White Pongo (1945) and The White Gorilla (1947), in which an albino gorilla captures a helpless woman. In these stories of race and skin colour there are questions of inter-racial relationships and this Supergirl story moves between a fear of miscegenation – where Fong and his desires are a threat – to acceptance, with Supergirl saying "I think Fong means well".

Easter Island is never mentioned in the story but it is clear that it is represented by the isolated South Pacific island with its moai-like heads. These are actually quite small, compact enough to contain just a single man inside who can hop around and sneak up on the unsuspecting Supergirl. The island is yet again a fantasy far removed from the world (and reality) described here as "unchartered", "deserted" and "overrun with nightmarish dangers!".

Ian Conrich

Chamber of Chills
‘The Man Who Melted’
(no.10, May 1974, Marvel Comics Group)

A moai features on the cover of this issue but does not appear inside. The cover image sensationalises the featured story that it promotes, making the thawing caveman a more fearsome figure. In adding a moai to the gallery space depicted on the cover, the museum appears as an exceptional institution with artefacts both esteemed and arcane. The moai also presages the following issue of Chamber of Chills (no.11), and its featured story ‘Back from the Dead!’, in which the moai rise up and ‘Live Again!’.

Ian Conrich

Chamber of Chills
‘Back From the Dead!’
(no.11, July 1974, Marvel Comics Group)

Harry Dawes escapes South American police by jumping into a small, motorised boat and heading to Easter Island. After one day at sea he runs out of fuel but is near enough to Easter Island to swim the remaining distance. There he finds the moai and declares “the famous stone heads […] no one knows who built them – or how they got here!”. But he is not alone on this island. He soon encounters a strange-looking old man with an enlarged head who tells him the moai are “not statues! They are slumbering creatures from another world!”. This strange man insists that what he says is “true” and that he has long been searching on the island for a “hidden parchment” that will awaken the moai. He adds that they will forever serve the one who has freed them from their slumber.

The old man promises Dawes a handsome reward if he helps him find the parchment. Dawes dreams of buried gold and begins scouring the island – including digging in the sand, swimming underwater and climbing up trees. The parchment is eventually found by Dawes in a remote cave. To a disbelieving Dawes, the old man reads from the parchment, commanding the moai “to awake from your centuries old sleep”. The moai duly rise up out of the ground. “We…have…been…summoned”, they announce as they lurch forward. Dawes tries to take control seeing great power in commanding the moai: “I’ll be able to commit the greatest crimes of all time”, he says.

The moai call Dawes a “fool”. They say they are from outer space and will not be commanded by a “puny earthling”. They recount how they arrived on Easter Island, a story which is told in a series of flashbacks. They were flying past Earth when their spaceship developed engine trouble. They bailed out and landed on Easter Island where they placed themselves in suspended animation to conserve energy and await their captain who had planned to return and rescue them. When the captain arrived he had unfortunately forgotten the words to revive them and the back-up parchment had been hidden too well by the moai.

Dawes is told he will be taken with the moai to their planet as he “will make an interesting specimen” for their “intergalactic zoo”. Terrified, he runs towards the old man for protection and use of his nearby canoe. But Dawes is rejected by the old man for having turned on him in his desire for power. In the final twist, the old man peels the skin from his face to reveal that he is the alien captain of the spaceship.

One of the most striking comics to imagine the moai as slumbering giants and visitors from outer space, this Chamber of Chills story written by Jack Kirby follows the formula of many other related stories that appeared in sister comics of the period. It was originally published in Tales of Suspense no.28 (April 1962). Typically, these stories of horror and mystery established a moral, with crimes punished and the tale ending in retribution, even if it was particularly cruel. Dawes will spend the rest of his life in an intergalactic zoo, but the moai tell him “don’t worry! You will be given a clean cage and be well taken care of!”. The sensational front cover of his comic is deceiving, as there is no woman on the island; employing stereotypes, this prone woman is established as vulnerable and in need of help from a shirtless man.

As certain questions about the moai and Rapanui culture remained unanswered and unknown, the mysterious moai were fantasised from afar and most often in American comics. Alternative theories were put forward for the existence and creation of the moai and in an age of rocket-fuelled fiction and a desire to be the first to land a man on the moon there was an obsession with science fiction and intergalactic visitors that saw a popular reimagining of the moai as slumbering giant aliens. Interestingly, the treasured parchment, buried on the island, and with its words to be incanted, is not too dissimilar to the rongorongo tablets, with their hieroglyphics that were chanted aloud.

Ian Conrich

Perry: Unser Mann im All [Perry: Our Man in the Universe]
Atlan: Der Einsame in der Zeit. Das Geheimnis der Osterinsel [‘Atlan: The Lonely one in Time. The Secret of Easter Island’]
(no. 116, Moewig Verlag, November 1974)

Atlan is descended from the Arkonids, who travelled the Universe long ago in their spaceships. Stranded on earth, Atlan was given a Cell Activator by the Immortal Wanderer. Thus, Atlan himself became immortal, whereupon he observes the evolution of the human race through the cosmic bloom and up to the epoch of American astronaut Perry Rhodan, and his space landing in 1971, which was to change the Universe. The humans and human-like beings depicted here all originate from the planet Santayaar.

This is the prelude to a story that takes place on Easter Island and which has significance for the whole world and beyond. A strange energy awakens Atlan from a deep sleep in his undersea dome. He discusses the situation with his servant, the robot Rico, and decides to voyage in his rocketship to the source of this power. He notices that the energy comes from a remote island, Easter Island, which is attracting ancient tribes and people from across the world - here called Larsaf III. Rico thinks the people could be on a recurring pilgrimage to a religious site.

Against Rico’s advice, Atlan decides to land on Easter Island. Soon he witnesses a colossal moai falling, the ropes around it snapping, as it buries beneath it many “primitive” people who were trying to erect the carving. On a hill-side he observes an old wizard-like man, wearing a cloak, and radiating power from his eyes and hands. He was overseeing the construction of the moai and he now raises the fallen statue through the use of his immense mental powers. The locals revere such a god-like man, but Atlan suspects that the wizard is a mutant. He decides to follow the man, who enters a cave, where strange symbols are written on the walls and which correspond to those on the wizard’s cloak. Now exposed, Atlan is suddenly paralysed by the strange man’s powers, but he is mentally able to resist the force and begins to communicate.

The old man says that he is descended from Santayaar and that he is the reason for the migrations to Easter Island. He decides that Atlan must die, but just in time Rico comes to the rescue and with his gun immobilises the old man. Rico takes Atlan outside to show him a strange phenomenon, with six vertical cosmic rings now appearing above the heads of moai positioned on an ahu (or ceremonial platform). These rings begin to communicate with Atlan by sending thought impulses to his brain. Atlan learns that the old man was actually meant to be the guardian of the people as they emerged into the world, ages ago, observing and guiding this race as it developed. The old man, however, was no longer able to cope with the loneliness of his task and he consequently endangered all mankind by persuading them to come to him. The powers of the original planet Santayaar, which are manifested in the rings, determine Atlan as the new guardian of the so-called “Children of the Star Wanderers”, as the humans are called. As the rings begin to disappear, Atlan, who stands on a cliff surrounded by moai, concludes that the inhabitants of Larsaf III and the Arkonids all have a common origin.

Whilst an Atlan adventure, this twelve-page story is part of the extensive science fiction universe of Perry Rhodan books and comics, which since the first publication in 1961 has continued to be extremely popular in German-speaking countries, in particular. The story and its design are a striking amalgamation of contemporary forms of moai fiction and artwork that was popular in the early 1970s. In its depiction of an ethereal beauty of a distant time before man, the opening pages draw on the neo-bohemian art of psychedelia, which incorporated the abstraction, patterns and forms of art nouveau. The wizard-like old man could easily be a Merlin figure borrowed from Arthurian legend, the symbols on his cloak possibly bearing a loose connection to rongorongo, but also runic inscriptions. This continues into the realisation of Atlan, a science fiction immortal with an exaggerated masculinity and thick flowing hair, who appears part inspired by the depictions of 1970s rock music ‘gods’ (see also Lion and Thunder, reviewed above).

The imagined technology is quaint, with Rico the robot, the rocketship and the television monitor devices little evolved from 1930s fiction, but Atlan is also a product of a time when space operas of epic narratives, melodrama, exotic interplanetary settings and grand adventures and battles were being re-established and just a few years later were reinvented in the blockbuster film Star Wars (1977). By then, music (most often prog rock) and graphic artists had combined to create entire new worlds and imagined empires, imagescapes and soundscapes in which warriors and outer space castles created a new mythology, borrowed from the relocated mysteries and medievalism of an ancient Earth (see the review below for Evidence). The effect was to position Earth within a greater lineage of life within the galaxy and where the seeds of mankind could be traced to a distant civilisation, one in which the moai have repeatedly been foregrounded. In other stories in the Perry Rhodan series, it is revealed that the Arkonids long ago lived on the Pacific’s lost continent of Lemuria, which has often appeared in moai fiction as the destroyed civilisation for which Easter Island is all that remains.

Besides the moai – many of which are either copied from those found on the slope of Rano Raraku or the row of seven moai at ahu Akivi – there are unfortunately very few references to Easter Island culture. The Rapanui appear in just four frames and always as people that are in the distance, tiny, faceless and controlled. Wizards and shaman figures, able to levitate or erect the moai through extra-ordinary powers, are part of Rapanui local legends and they have appeared elsewhere in moai fiction (see The Adventures of Ogu, Mampato and Rena, reviewed below). In fact, the comic appears influenced by the writings of Erich von Däniken, and his best-selling book Chariots of the Gods?, which was subsequently filmed in 1970 (reviewed above). Significantly, Däniken’s work promotes the story of priests who through their immense powers were able to make moai fly. Moreover, this comic copies the 1972 French film, Les Soleils de l'île de Pâques (reviewed above), with its image of a celestial encounter above a row of moai. Whereas the film depicted six yellow glowing discs, one above the head of each moai, which communicate telepathically with selected humans, the comic has six bright rings, one above the head of each moai, directing intense thought-waves to the immortal Atlan.

Hermann Mückler and Ian Conrich

Weird War Tales
'The Common Enemy'
(no.34, February 1975, DC Comics)

Spring 1942. Chief Petty Officer Phil Randel is washed onto a deserted island when the Japanese destroy his U.S. Navy boat. He finds a giant moai and assumes it represents a god and that he is on a “ceremonial island” that is seldom visited. Over the next two years, he builds a hut and survives by foraging. One day, he hears shots and sees that a Japanese soldier has also been washed ashore. They immediately engage in a gun battle. Neither is wounded and the Japanese soldier runs away. For the next few months, they continue to shoot at each other with neither man gaining the upper hand.

On one occasion Phil uses the top of the large moai as a lookout point, but when a grenade is then tossed by the Japanese soldier it causes a chain reaction to be unleashed in the statue. It rises up from the ground revealing hands, a torso, legs, and feet. Both men abandon their battle and turn their guns on this perceived new threat. Suddenly, a spaceship arrives and lands just out to sea. The moai walks out to meet it, climbs aboard, and departs. The two soldiers celebrate their survival together but suddenly the Japanese soldier resumes his attack on Phil. The comic ends with the two continuing their endless battle. A final caption states: “The war between the United States and Japan has been over for 29 years – except here, on this far-off battleground of – The Weird War!”.

Taking clear inspiration from the 1968 John Boorman film Hell in the Pacific, this comic book tale moves the basic narrative set-up of that film into the realm of science fiction with the addition of the moving moai. The island in this comic book is far from being the actual Easter Island as it is uninhabited and contains only one moai. Therefore, it is apparent that the moai is being used here as a marker of exoticism and mystery. Despite being published thirty years after the end of World War II the comic book employs very negative stereotyping in its depiction of the Japanese soldier. He is drawn with clichéd slanted eyes, is shown as the aggressor when he and the American soldier first meet, and he is the one to initiate conflict again at the story’s conclusion. This negative attitude towards the Japanese is reflected in the speech of the American soldier (and reader point of identification). He refers to the Japanese soldier as a “jap” and a “glory-hungry son of the Emperor” and the comic's depiction of the Japanese soldier suggests that it is not inappropriate for him to do so.

In contrast to the depiction of the human characters, the moai is presented as a peaceful being, beyond earthly concerns and generally uninterested in the way that it is attacked. Its only goal is to reach the spacecraft and return to its home in the stars. This contrasts with many depictions of the moai that engage with the myth of movement where the moai’s animation is shown in order to convey either threat or humour. The soldiers’ immediate response upon the revelation that the moai can move is to turn their weapons on it, which is followed by their quick return to fighting each other once it has departed. Within the story this indicates a negative view of the human race as a predominantly aggressive species.

Peter Munford

Look and Learn
‘What Really Happened? The Stone Secrets of Easter Island’
(no.682, 8 February 1975, IPC Magazines)

A British educational magazine, that contained well-illustrated stories from history and contemporary life and industry, as well as comic strips, Look and Learn lasted between 1962 and 1982, absorbing other similar publications into its identity as it became the most known UK weekly of its kind. The publication had a reputation for solid education, but its content, viewed now, is extremely suspect.

In the first of three separate issues in which Easter Island was given prominence, a two-page feature presents text supported by three very wrong illustrations. The first image, which dominates the opening page, has a group of European sailors (who are presumably meant to be Jacob Roggeveen and his crew) examining moai around the slopes of Rano Raraku, but with each of these carvings bearing pukao, when in reality none of these particular statues have the topknot. On the second page a pith helmet wearing explorer ponders a large stone tablet bearing hieroglyphs. The accompanying text says there remain “67 stone tablets covered with writing” and that “the natives have hidden them all. And so well that years of digging has failed to find them”. Which means the image contradicts the accompanying text. More importantly, there are in fact just twenty-six rongorongo tablets and they are made of wood, are much smaller and only found now in foreign museums. As the explorer contemplates the finding, a Rapanui man looks on, but the depiction of this islander seems more inspired by African natives. This is more explicit in the final image which shows a battle in which the workers fought the long-eared rulers, but everything in this drawing from the physiognomy of the warriors to the weapons is plain wrong. It is as if the image has been taken from another story and from another continent, with the long ear warriors carrying long shields and wearing helmets and even one of them employing a metal sword.

The accompanying text is shoddy. Buccaneer Edward Davis is reported in this magazine to have spied a large land area near Easter Island in 1856, when it was December 1687. It says there are 387 moai on the island, when the number is just short of 900, and that many of them adorn “either side of a five-mile long avenue”, which is completely untrue. Even more absurd, it states that the moai “point to the conclusion that Easter Island must at one time have been near to a much larger island, or a series of islands. Some scientists believe that Easter Island was the holy island and cemetery for its bigger neighbour”. Such imaginative narratives masquerading as fact appeared in sensationalist magazines such as Sir! (reviewed below), but its readers would presumably have been aware of the fiction of those stories. What is worrying is the arena in which Look and Learn operated, and from which generations took the ‘knowledge’ within as true.

Ian Conrich

Tomb of Darkness
‘Back from the Dead!’
(no.16, September 1975, Marvel Comics Group)

This is the second and last of Marvel’s reprints of a story that had first appeared in Tales of Suspense no.28, (April 1962). The fiction was first reprinted in Chamber of Chills no.11 (July 1974; see the review above). Of the three versions, this cover is the most distant from the actual story. Not only does it a feature a woman, when there is no woman in the story, but the man on the cover declares they had come to “study” the moai, when in the comic he is a man who has fled to the island having escaped South American police. The cover presents a manmade jetty when the island is actually deserted but for an old man and there is no evidence within the story of island civilisation. Furthermore, the protagonist is depicted on the cover aboard a motorised boat seemingly ready to depart in a hurry, yet in the story his boat had run out of fuel before reaching the shore and he had to swim the remaining distance. Once on the island, the story certainly does not present him with any manmade craft for mounting an escape. The changes made to the story within this cover image are significant and they fundamentally alter the actions of the protagonist. Echoing the man on the Chamber of Chills cover the protagonist declares the stone figures “are alive” but whilst they had been referred to on the cover of the former as “statues”, they are now elevated on the cover of Tomb of Darkness to “gods”.

Ian Conrich

Imagine
(no.1, December 1975, Editions Procodif)

Easter Island appears on the cover only for this French magazine which combines science fiction, contemporary art and counter culture, across comic strips, erotic sketches and interviews (including one in this issue with director Alejandro Jodorowsky on his plans for his forthcoming film, Dune). The front cover features the artwork of celebrated British illustrator Chris Foss, and his painting for ‘Visitors from Outer Space’, which extends around to the back of the magazine. In 1975, Foss was working with Jodorowsky, helping to design a vision for Dune, but primarily his commissioned work has been found in/on magazines and the covers of science fiction paperbacks.

Great spaceships, marvellous machinery and futuristic cities are common to Foss’s science fiction illustrations, with scale emphasised through planets or occasionally people appearing alongside. The image for Imagine is no exception, with not only the spaceship but the moai establishing the monumental nature of the fantasised scenario. The small figures (possibly humans) that surround the site in which the central moai is being positioned, wear ceremonial robes displaying a red symbol, which appears birdlike, but certainly reflects Foss’s interest for including esoteric symbols in his art. Moai culture has repeatedly resorted to aliens as an explanation for how the moai were transported and erected, and this image is the most sophisticated example of them all. A second related image (now vertical), titled ‘Easter Island’, and painted by Foss around the same time also features a spaceship positioning a moai with the use of cables, with another statue in the foreground bearing alien symbols/coding on its back. In addition, a companion painting subtitled ‘Atlantis Before the Fall’, that appears to share the same main title, ‘Visitors from Outer Space’, was painted in this same period of Foss’s creativity and shows a continued focus on mythologised and lost civilisations.

Ian Conrich

Sub-Mariner
‘Death is the Symbionic Man’
(no.27, April 1976, Marvel Comics Group)

Sub-Mariner is Namor, prince of Atlantis. He stands on the shores of Easter Island and declares vengeance for the way his people have been treated over time, from the submarines of World War II and their depth charges to his unhealthy alliances with other superheroes and characters of the Marvel universe, who ultimately betrayed his trust. Sub-Mariner says that the moai have forever been looking out to sea, but the story says they have actually been staring skywards. Unbeknown to Sub-Mariner a spaceship emerges, piloted by Captain Simon Ryker, with a cyborg super-solider on board designed to destroy the aquatic prince. This cyborg is the Symbionic Man, who draws great power from the ocean world in which he now swims. Symbionic Man latches his tendrils on to Sub-Mariner and begins to extract from him the power that is needed to control the planet. As the fight continues, Symbionic Man takes control of a giant squid to attack the weakened Sub-Mariner. Finding his inner strength Sub-Mariner fights back and after a long struggle defeats both the Symbionic Man and the squid, which is hurled out of the ocean. The giant squid slams into the spacecraft, which crashes into the sea below.

Easter Island appears on four of the first six pages and serves as both an initial establishing shot and the only land in a story that is predominantly set underwater. Easter Island was established in the fiction of James Churchward as the remnants of Mu, a great continent of the Pacific that like Atlantis had disappeared into the seas. This comic establishes a connection between the moai and Atlantis, with Sub-Mariner saying that the ancestors of the moai came from the sea and it was the sea to which his ancestors departed.

Many fictions of Easter Island wrongfully depict the moai looking out to sea. This comic takes that misunderstanding further and weaves it into Sub-Mariner’s rhetoric about heritage. Moreover, to emphasise the connection with the sea, many of the moai are wrongfully depicted dotted around the coastline right up against the incoming waves. Such is Sub-Mariner’s anger that he punches out against a moai smashing it into pieces. The moai here are both silent statues watching outwards and beyond the island, and icons that can be destroyed as quick demonstrations of immense strength.

Ian Conrich

Atom Robot Adventurer
'Secret of Easter island'
(no.1, July 1976, Pulp Mania)

A federal agent diver comes ashore on an isolated beach and is immediately shot and killed by a sniper, who then attempts to dispose of the body with a chemical more lethal than acid. Bionic special agents Nova Hendrix and Atom intervene and destroy the sniper with his own chemical that dissolves his body. In the federal agent's reserve airtank they find a pouch containing slides of undeciphered rongorongo hieroglyphs. The agent had been missing for months and had relayed to his superiors information "about an alien spaceship buried on Easter Island". Nova and Atom are sent to Easter Island to investigate.

As Nova and Atom fly over Easter Island, they observe that it is abandoned. Upon landing and seeing the moai, Atom says "if only they could talk!". They then notice a guard on a beach who is suddenly attacked by the branches of a tree that has come alive. Atom attacks the tree and saves the man, who is killed by Zarina before he can talk. She is accompanied by hooded men with space guns. Nova is shot by a ray that knocks her out leaving Atom to fight a giant alien – Zarina says if Atom can defeat this alien, she will let him and Nova go free; if not they will both be vaporised.

Part one of a story for an independent comic that seems to have lasted for just one issue, this barely begun adventure was therefore left unfinished. Drawn in black and white and with a poorly written story it is interesting for its inclusion of rongorongo, which would appear to play an important later plot function. Beyond this there is just one frame featuring the moai, on an island that curiously has a tree that comes alive. The comic is inspired by manga, and by characters such as Astro Boy, as well as American super hero comics and the television series The Six Million Dollar Man, which had begun three years earlier.

Ian Conrich

Sparky Book 1977
'The Stone Men!'
(1976, D.C. Thomson)

A tribe of weary outcasts arrive by canoe at Easter Island. Their persecutors, the ‘Savage Tribe’, follow them in their war canoes. The outcasts flee uphill and come across the giant stone men. These moai attack the Savage Tribe, hurling boulders at them that make them flee, never to return. The stone men, who live on the mountain, protect the outcasts and help them build homes. Then one day there is a huge volcanic eruption, which results in a flood of lava spreading over the island. The outcasts manage to get to their canoes and safety but the lumbering moai become stuck in the flow of molten lava. The story explains that this is why today the moai remain embedded in the mountainside.

Featuring in a British comic annual that would have been produced for the Christmas season in 1976, this is a rather poorly drawn but quaint six-page fantasy imagining how the moai came to be the stone figures that are known today. The introductory page foregrounds a photo of the moai as if to fix the story in some reality. That first page says, “[n]o man knows how the giant stone heads came to stand on Easter Island in the Pacific. If only they could speak… would they tell this story?”. What follows goes beyond speculation and is best described as a highly fanciful, almost childlike narrative that is innocent but riddled with mistakes.

Moai fiction often presents the stone figures as having the power of movement. In this fantasy they walk, albeit with poorly conceived legs, hurl rocks, and chop down trees with their rigid arms. The moai in this story are depicted as active protectors, which occurs rarely in moai fiction, but uniquely they are shown in this story helping to construct a community by collecting wood for building material and raising homes. The Savage Tribe are unlike any in Polynesian culture and appear as a possible amalgamation of foreign imaginings of Western Pacific and African tribes. In reality, Easter Island has more than one volcano and their eruption was long before the moai existed.

Ian Conrich

1977 Super DC Calendar
(1976)

Deadman and Spectre were placed in the clutches of a rising moai monolith for the October page of comic art for a 1977 calendar. This all-powerful moai, more fearsome than the static moai that surrounds him, has a bright green glow around its body. This is from an unearthly ray that an alien vessel has fired to bring the moai alive. The calendar also advises that only these two superheroes fighting side-by-side can stop the moai and the alien invasion. The calendar refers to the moai as “bizarre heads” in an outline for a story that was never advanced into an actual comic.

Ian Conrich

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes
'A World Born Anew!'
(vol.30, no.236, February 1978, DC Comics)

On the planet Braal, in the thirtieth century, the geography is changing suddenly and dramatically with new seas forming, mountains becoming plains and mountains now in city centres. The Legion of Super-Heroes arrives to help and they discover an evil planetary architect, Worldsmith, remodelling the planet from his spacecraft for an unseen client. The superheroes try repeatedly to halt the destruction and finally Worldsmith leaves in a space warp, defeated. He leaves behind a world part altered that features a landscape of moai which Superboy recognises as similar to those on Earth.

Moai appear in just the final frame of this comic and are a strange and abstract conclusion to a story that employs the myth of creation. Worldsmith is an obsese alien who smokes fat cigars and wears a pin-stripe suit. He also has devil horns, snorts and resembles a wild boar. Undoubtedly, in this simple allegory he is intended to be an intergalactic version of a property developer, who alters landscapes on an industrial scale with no concern for community or local authority. Yet, the story implies that the unique landscapes of Earth are related to his powers of creation, which permits another reading of this despicable figure from beyond as a god, and the moai as ancient carvings from the beginning of time.

Ian Conrich

Duda: Lo Increible es las Verdad [Disbelief: Incredible but True]
‘“Ellos” Colonizaron la Isla de Pascua?’ [‘Did “They” Colonise Easter Island?’]
(no.352, March 1978, Editorial Posada: Mexico)

Two men on board a large ship point towards an island on the horizon. The man on the right, presumably the ship’s captain, declares that this island was once home to extra-terrestrials; the man on his left firmly rejects the idea, “that’s absurd,” he replies, “the Polynesians colonised it”. For the archaeologist, anthropologist and historian, the origins of Rapanui’s inhabitants and the island’s giant statue carvings remain an enigma – one that has sparked numerous sensational theories. Few such theories have been the result of serious study. Among those studies that are taken seriously is the work of the Norwegian ethnographer, Thor Heyerdahl. In his book Aku-Aku, which was first published in 1955, Heyerdahl remarked on the similarities between the cultures of Easter Island and South America pre- European colonization. Precisely twenty years after Heyerdahl published his work, another researcher, Antonio Ribera, set out once again to explore the mysteries of Easter Island.

Ribera is introduced as a man courageous enough to dispense with prejudice. He is willing to remain open to all possible explanations as to the origins of Easter Island’s remarkable culture. Indeed, compelled to tell the truth, he is even willing to consider the involvement of extra-terrestials, flying saucers and other “disconcerting ideas”. Ribera began by studying the history of Easter Island, of which not much is known. However, official sources trace its origins back to sometime in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries of the Christian era, during the month of August, when a Polynesian king, called Hotu Matua, from the island of Hiva arrived on its only beach. He had risked this lengthy and dangerous voyage because his previous homeland was due to be swallowed up by the ocean. Hotu Matua and his family travelled to Easter Island in two giant canoes made of “vesi” (strong, redwood), crafted with “toki” (stone tools). Hotu Matua had learned the location of the island through one of his subjects, Hau Maka, to whom it had appeared in a vision. During their long voyage, Hotu Matua and his crew survived by eating nuts and fish. A large supply of roots and seeds were also brought along, but left untouched. Hotu Matua and his people planted these roots and seeds in their new home. They brought yams, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, and bananas to Easter Island.

Details pertaining to the original boats and cuisine of the first Easter Islanders were of great importance to Ribera. He doubted whether all such produce was native to Polynesia. He was, in particular, interested in the origins of the sweet potato. This vegetable, he was sure, came from Latin America and not from Polynesia. Ribera also picked up on a point made previously by Heyerdahl: in Rapanui, the name for sweet potato is “kumara” it could be no coincidence, Ribera reasoned, that in the Quechua dialect of the Peruvian people sweet potatoes also carry the same name. In addition to the sweet potato, Ribera also discovered the American origins of the soapberry, or sapindus saponaria, a small tree growing in Florida (North America) which was found on Easter Island by the first Europeans.

Not all evidence suggested an American origin for the first islanders, however. Rather, Ribera learned about the “naunau” (sandalwood) and “niu” (coconut palm). These had arrived on the island from Indian-Malaysian or possibly, in the former’s case, Australian territories. How, Ribera wondered, can the cuisine of Easter Island have originated as far East as Indo-Malaysia and Australia and as far West as America? How could the earliest inhabitants have travelled such enormous distances using basic tools? The matter grew more complex still when Ribera noticed the existence of two remarkable plants. The first is spaghnum, a moss which flourishes in sweet water; the second is cattail, a reed growing in the island’s volcanic craters. As Stéphen Chauvet had observed many years before, the islanders used spaghnum as a sealant to plug up the holes in their canoes. Yet, Ribera remembered that, according to the islanders’ own stories, they had originally arrived in canoes made of a single piece of hard, redwood. Such boats, Ribera reasoned, would never require a sealant. Could spaghnum have been used by people living on the island – who did not sail in hardwood canoes – before the arrival of Hotu Matua and his people? And what about the cattail? This reed grows only in the Himalayas and in Lake Titicaca. How did it arrive on Easter Island if not in the boats used by the island’s original colonisers? These first canoes must have been built using cattail reeds and sealed using spaghnum. On the basis of this evidence, Ribera tilts once again in the direction of Heyerdahl’s thesis: the most likely origin of the first inhabitants of Easter Island were South America, not Polynesia.

Yet Ribera was ready for another possibility, one far more outlandish than that proposed by Heverdahl. He noticed that, in the pre-modern world, the technology to construct these boats had existed in one other place – ancient Egypt. Could it be that Easter Island had been colonised by Egyptians? Of course, as Ribera realised, such a claim was likely to aggravate his critics, but this did not deter him, and as he explored further he began to notice similarities between the languages of Easter Island and ancient Egypt. The particle ‘Ra’, for instance, which signifies ‘days’ in Egyptian frequently appeared in the Rapanui language. Similarly, in the Easter Island dialect, ‘Aku Aku’ refers to spirits while, in ancient Egyptian, spirits were called ‘Akhu’. The brother of King Hotu Matua was called Oroi, which reminded Ribera of the ancient Egyptian deity, Horus. It was also said, Ribera noted, that Hotu Matua had been educated in a land ruled by a king whose first name was Kokiri. Did that name not echo Osiris? And the second name of Hotu Matua was Hotu Araae – a term that means, in the language of Easter Island, ‘Son of Ra’. Moreover, Ribera was drawn to the ways in which the Rapanui carvers worked with stone to construct a wall for which there are parallels with the techniques of the builders of many South American cultures – the Wanaku (of Bolivia), Saqsaywaman (Peru), Cusco (Peru), and Macchu Picchu – but, Ribera argued, the strongest parallel was with the building techniques of Egypt.

Ribero’s bold thesis situates the original colonisation of Easter Island in the third century BC. It happened, Ribera argued, as the result of the boundless curiosity of Ptolemy III Euergetes, an extraordinary individual whose reign marked the height of the Ptolemaic era. This ruler ordered a Greek adventurer, Aristo, to sail the Egyptian coast to the Indian ocean during the years 278-277 BC. The Pharoah’s desire for naval adventure was so great that, to please him, another sailor, called Pythagoras, travelled to each of the islands of this ocean. Ptolemy’s sailors arrived, without doubt, at Sri Lanka, the coasts of Tasmania, and the islands of New Zealand. Having travelled thus far, Ribera began to ponder, was it not possible that the same men crossed the ocean to the western coasts of South America?

For those who consider such ideas absurd, one scholarly publication should set the reader straight: The Week of Science and Technology, no. 131 (13 March 1975). The authors introduce the reader to a study carried out by the Chilean Government’s National Commission of Science and Technology. According to this study, presented on 13 November 1974, in a seminar conducted at Harvard University, there is ample proof that in the year 232 AD, a fleet of Polynesian boats under the command of two men, Ratas and Mawi, travelled the Pacific and Indian oceans. They had been sent by Ptolemy III on a fact-finding mission to test the theories of the polymath Eratosthenes regarding the world’s circumference. (As is now well known, Eratosthenes’ eventual findings shatter the myth that, pre Columbus, no one had known that the world was spherical.) Their intentions, then, had been to circumnavigate the world. In the Harvard seminar (reported in The Week of Science and Technology), mention had been made of recent discoveries of inscriptions in Western New Guinea. These inscriptions were carved in a Libyan language. The ancient Libyan and Egyptian languages are related. And, for Ribera, this was only logical: Ptolemy II was married to Berenic II, Queen of Libya. Whoever left these inscriptions must have been sent by the Pharoah.

Sensing the possibility of a remarkable breakthrough, the organisers of the Harvard seminar alerted their North American colleagues of the need to locate corroborating evidence of a trip by the ancient Egyptians. They were interested in clues – writing, inscriptions – proving that ancient Egyptian (or Libyan) science had been transferred to the shores of South America. One scholar, Professor Fell, found a vital piece of information. He came across a record by Carl Stolp, in 1885, of extraordinary inscriptions in a cave in central Chile. According to Fell, these inscriptions were left by Mawi, one of Ptolemy’s captains: “this is the southernmost point of the coast reached by Mawi. It is the southernmost point of the mountainous land which the commander claims by this declaration”.

For Ribera, matters were clear: having travelled as far south as they could go, Ptolemy’s men must ultimately have sent off westwards towards Easter Island. The ancient Egyptians colonised Easter Island before King Hotu Matua. To Ribera’s mind, this is the only way to interpret the manifold linguistic links between the two cultures. Again, it is the only possible way to explain the resemblance between a giant, bearded Moai, twenty-two metres in height, that had been captured on film by Thor Heyerdahl, to the figure of Akhenaton.

Of course, there is space to include only a fraction of Ribera’s overall argument. Shining new light on the workings of history, Ribera and others have yet to receive the attention they deserve. Perhaps this is because the past he imagines is richer and more replete with wisdom than the past described in our authorised texts. After all, in the latter, primitive peoples could never cross the ocean in such fragile vessels, yet the proof uncovered by Ribera shows otherwise.

Ribera’s book Operacion Rapa Nui (Barcelona: Editorial Pomaire, 1975) provides more on this highly contentious subject, to which subsequent researchers have given little to no oxygen. The ancient Egyptians did not, in fact, settle or visit Rapanui and the links between Rapanui and South America remain hotly debated. This, however, has not stopped moai fiction – see Sky Pirates (reviewed above), Action Comics (reviewed above), and Sakkara (reviewed below) – fantasising links between Rapanui and the Egyptians, especially as the two offer some of the most striking myths of civilisation. The bearded moai on Easter Island, called Tukuturi, exists and is unique amongst the carvings, but connecting it to Egyptian culture by hair alone is absurd. Like many other of the Mexican comics of this period – such as Grandes Viajes (reviewed above) and Aunque usted lo Dude (reviewed below) – which took the ideas of Heyerdahl and others to reconsider the Pacific and the origins of its settlement, their ‘facts’ belong more to a pseudo-science fueled by wild imaginations.

Richard Gauvain

Mortadelo y Filemón – Mundial 78 [Mortadelo and Filemón – World Cup 78]
(text and drawings: Francisco Ibanez; Barcelona: Editorial Bruguera, 1978)

The President of the African republic of Mondongo is angry that FIFA has not granted him the opportunity to host the 1978 football World Cup. He plans to sabotage the World Cup, so special agents Mortadelo and Filemón are sent to intervene, disguising themselves as players within the Spanish football squad. Whilst at the World Cup, Mortadelo and Filemón foolishly light a match in a truck packed with explosives. It sends Filemón, in the burnt remnants of the truck's driver's seat, all the way across the North Pole. Mortadelo is catapulted to Galicia in the north-west of Spain, from where he returns with one of its famous octopuses on his head. To his surprise, Filemón's journey has continued further still to Easter Island. Seeing Filemón returning with a moai stuck on his head, Mortadelo does not need to be informed as to where his colleague has come from; "Don't tell me anything! I can guess!", he declares.

Mortadelo and Filemón is a much read Spanish comic, which creator Francisco Ibáñez populated at times with cartoon images of Easter Island. Other issues will be reviewed here over time; see below for a review of an issue where Easter Island features on the cover. As with that cover, the humour in this issue is centred around Easter Island's remoteness (and uniqueness), with the distance travelled by the exploding truck sufficient to send one of the spies beyond the North Pole and all the way to distant Rapanui. Furthermore, there is humour in the myth of presence, in which a monolithic moai carving, which would be so difficult to transport, has somehow been brought all the way to the World Cup as a remnant of an unexpected visit. The comedy in fetching an actual moai and bringing it 'home' was repeated in an issue of Futurama (see the review above).

Ian Conrich

Mortadelo
(summer special, 1978, Editorial Bruguera)

Easter Island appears on the cover only of this summer special bumper edition comic. It connects with a football World Cup special of Mortadelo for 1978 (see review above), in which the cover characters, Mort (aka Mortadelo) and Phil (aka Filemón), experience a brief visit to Easter Island. Mort and Phil first appeared in 1958 and are hugely popular characters in Spain (who have also been translated into numerous other languages). They are secret agents (originally private detectives) and for many of their adventures they travel the globe; in this issue they are in Egypt.

Many of the summer specials of Mortadelo have a water theme and, on this cover, Mort the master of disguise has gone ashore on Easter Island, holding in his hand a dodgy compass. Phil, his boss, shouts at him from their yacht, irate that they had bought a cheap compass that should have guided them to Mallorca, part of Spain's Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. The compass is so poor that they have veered widely off course and rather unlikely (considering also the small size of their boat) ended up on a remote island in the Pacific. Mort and Phil are a bumbling duo who repeatedly make mistakes.

The artist Francisco Ibáñez often inserted 'whimsies' into his cover art – bits of detail which add another level of visual humour. Here, that detail is focused on the moai, which are humanised, with one given a sticking plaster on his chin, another given warts on his nose and a tear in his eye. A third moai has a gecko crawling up the side of his face, which he appears to be observing. The large Italian pork sausage, mortadela, from which Mortadelo's name derives, lies on the ground at the foot of a moai.

Ian Conrich

Kid Acero, Brazo-Bala y el "Escuadrón Lobo" [Kid Acero, Bullet Arm, and the "Wolf Squadron"]
'Un Extraño Visitante' ['A Strange Visitor']
(no.62, 16 August 1978, Editorial Novaro)

Evil scientist, Doctor Drago, finds himself in a top-secret prison. He reaches out telepathically to Yu Yan's Eastern Monks, the Black Sect. Drago closes his eyes and begins to intone the monks' mantra: "Kali Bau Shiva… Kali Bau Shiva…". A circle of monks in Tibet hear Drago's telepathic pleas. A Lama answers: "I hear you, little dragon… how can I be of assistance?". Drago explains his situation. Rebuked for his laziness, Drago agrees to make a sacrificial offering to Kali, goddess of death and destruction. In return, the monk tells Drago to expect his rescuer in three days.

Lying on the floor of his prison cell, Drago enters a trance and waits. Three days pass whereupon a sinister robot emerges from the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Walking ponderously, its footprints sinking deeply into the sands, the robot makes its way towards the top-secret prison. High on the walls, the guards fire on the approaching robot. Bullets bounce off its metal body and its force-field deflects a bazooka strike. But the outer walls are protected by a 10,000 volt electric charge, which momentarily staggers the attacker. The robot soon rises to its feet. It scoops up an enormous granite rock and throws it with extraordinary power at the walls. Within seconds, the robot is inside the prison, trampling the guards' bodies under its feet. The robot swipes through the metal bars of Doctor Drago's prison cell and carries Drago – cackling in glee to himself – away. The director of the prison decides to call the Wolf Squadron.

At their base, the three members of the Wolf Squadron - Kid Acero, the Invisible Man and the Bionic Man – are preparing themselves for the fight when news arrives that the robot has been located on Easter Island. Leaving for the island in the Wolf-Plane, the heroes reflect on Drago's new choice of home: "He must want Darwin to study him", "Isn't Easter Island home to the mysterious stone colossi?", "Nobody can explain where those giant heads came from", "Maybe Doctor Drago knows something and plans to use it against mankind […] Anything is possible".

On Easter Island, Drago confides to his robot companion that Doctor Darwin carried out many interesting studies on the great lizards of this island. Positioning his robot in front of one of the moai, Drago next instructs it to focus its beams on the medulla oblongata, at the base of the moai's head. As the robot does so, and electricity courses through the moai, Drago excitedly remarks that the giant head seems about to move its eyes and mouth. At this moment, the Wolf-Plane arrives. Furious, Drago swears that nothing will interrupt his grand experiment. On the edge of a cliff face, the Wolf Squadron attacks Drago's robot. The fight does not go well and the Bionic Man is soon thrown off the cliff. Just as the robot is about to destroy the Bionic Man with his laser beam, Kid Acero knocks it off balance. To Kid Acero's dismay, the robot rights itself immediately – "I don't think I even tickled it". They fight until the robot activates its plutonium cathodes and forms a neutral field around Kid Acero, who crumples to the ground.

Laughing over Kid Acero's body, Drago tells his robot to throw the unconscious hero into the sea. High up on a mound directly above his enemies, the Invisible Man picks his moment to push a large rock down onto them. The rock barrels into the robot's chest and knocks it to the ground. Now immobilised, the wires in one of the robot's arm are exposed. Drago desperately tries to mend the robot, but fails. The Invisible Man takes Drago captive and prepares to transport him onto the Wolf-Plane, deciding to leave the bodies of his fallen comrades behind for others to recover – "killed in combat, fighting an evil criminal. They will be declared global heroes". Drago plays for time by pleading for the Invisible Man to recover the other members of the Wolf Squadron.

At that moment, the island begins to tremble. On the Hill of the Great Lizard, the moai that Drago's robot had energised slowly starts to rise from its place. There for thousands of years, it now searches for its new master. Drago calls out to the moai for help. It begins to move towards him and the Invisible Man. Its giant stone hand snatches Drago away from the Invisible Man, who is thrown headlong down the cliff. Still at the bottom of the cliff, the Bionic Man helps to drag his winded team-mate from the sea. The Invisible Man explains his plan to immobilise the moai: "the robot activated it by energising the medulla oblongata…by striking it in the same place, the robot could also paralyse it". The Bionic Man points his magnetic arm in the direction of the fallen robot. Within seconds, the magnetic field he generates pulls the robot's giant body down the cliff face towards the two members of the Wolf Squadron.

The Bionic Man realises that the robot's wiring can be repaired. He points the partially repaired robot's arm at the giant moai which remains standing in protection of Drago at the top of the cliffs. The laser beam strikes the stone head in the same place, at the base of the skull, neutralising its medulla oblongata. The big head flops down, lifeless; the moai's body once more sinks back into the soil; it closes its eyes, never to open them again. Drago holds his head in his hands, but swears that nothing will stop him from ultimately conquering mankind. To his surprise, he finds Kid Acero leaning nonchalantly against one of the other moai: "Great, doctor, so, you're speaking to stones". As he is led off, Drago snarls, "I hate you all now more than ever. I will destroy you".

A cheaply produced Mexican pocket-sized adventure for children, this comic was designed as a tie-in for a range of toys that were popular in the 1970s. Mattel had produced a toy called Big Jim, a hero with a mighty steel fist. He was accompanied by the Invisible Man, and former astronaut the Bionic Man – the latter an even greater admission of the source of inspiration for these hyper-masculine figures that were designed to compete with the Steve Austin (in Mexico called El Hombre Nuclear) line of tie-in toys. The Big Jim trio were known as P.A.C.K. and had a series of vehicles that they used to fight a range of villains, all of which were immortalised in toy-form. CIPSA, a Mexican toy company, bought the rights to market the toys south of the border, and consequently renamed Big Jim as Kid Acero (Kid Steel) and P.A.C.K. as the Escuadrón Lobo (Wolf Squadron).

Much of this comic's fantasy of Easter Island is derivative. The island is devoid of a population with its remnant culture represented solely by the moai. One of the stone heads rises up and becomes an active threat, though the robot dominates the story and appears a more challenging foe (as the cover to the comic emphasises). The myth of movement is common in moai fiction with the colossi able to walk, talk and fight. Interestingly, this Mexican comic gives a moai a medulla oblongata, which can be activated to bring the giant alive. It subsequently functions like a Golem, protecting its master, Drago.

The Darwin reference is odd and the naturalist/biologist has only appeared on two other occasions in moai fiction (see The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!, reviewed above, and The Adventures of Piratess Tilly, reviewed below). As an adventurer exploring his theory of evolution, Darwin (who was not a doctor) did voyage within the Pacific, but never as far as Easter Island. In narratives drawn to the endeavours of an apparent lost race of islanders, Darwin references can become a convenient shorthand for societal advances and collapse. The other distinct anomaly in the comic is the giant lizard which is observed on the island and resembles the komodo dragon. Such a creature is found only around the islands of Indonesia; it is also distinct from the iguanas that Darwin observed on the Galapagos Islands. As in many other examples of moai fiction, island identities can be easily exchanged.

Richard Gauvain

Duda: lo Increible es la Verdad [Disbelief: Incredible but True]
‘Nan Modal: La Otra Isla de Pascua’ [‘Nan Modal: The Other Easter Island’]
(no. 396, January 1979, Editorial Posada: Mexico)

In this story the moai appear sporadically on just five pages, where they are mentioned in the context of other ancient monuments. First they are mentioned alongside the ‘Bihimi pavements’ of the Bahamas and the antiquities of Ba‘lbik, in Lebanon and Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia. All locations are described as containing marvellous and mysterious architectural clues to “lost civilizations”.

A few pages later, on the story’s title page, a colossal moai dominates with the view that the archaeological site of Nan Madol, on the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia, is the “other Easter Island”, despite there being no such carvings in that region. Later in the comic, the authors ask the reader to imagine the possibility that Pohnpei, Easter Island and all Pacific archipelagos once belonged to Mu, a vast land mass known as Lemuria, which is said to have sunk beneath the ocean. This hypothetical land has been studied in India and Tibet, and was proposed by an English colonel, James Churchward, who said that there were around 64 million inhabitants living on Mu, before it was destroyed. The authors, however, acknowledge that it is unlikely that the island of Pohnpei ever belonged to Mu. Yet they do conclude that there is nothing to suggest that the cultures of Mu and Pohnpei did not co-exist.

In the final pages, the script of rongorongo is mentioned with the authors remarking that there are similarities between the Indus Valley script and rongorongo; they also note the overlap between both these ancient scripts and the scripts used in Greece and Crete during the same era. A reasonably accurate image of a rongorongo tablet is presented, with an extract then positioned next to Cretan and Indus Valley scripts, which are juxtaposed for the reader to observe connections.

This is a descriptive and wildly speculative Mexican comic, with a gung-ho approach driven by the sensationalism of connecting disparate cultures into one. The focus of the comic is Pohnpei, with the links to Easter Island important but infrequent and far from smooth. Duda is in fact one of a number of Mexican comics that were published post the late 1960s that are pseudo-educational, mixing fact and fiction to different degrees. Aunque Usted lo Dude (reviewed below) shares some similarities in that it also foregrounds Lemuria and the belief that rongorongo is connected to the ancient hieroglyphs of the Indus Valley. A previous issue of Duda (reviewed above) was more accurate in its facts, albeit promoting the since contested ideas of Thor Heyerdahl. This issue of Duda is more problematic in that Churchward, a faux-historian-scientist is taken seriously. Here he is referred to as “an army man” (Churchward did serve in the British army) and even depicted in a military uniform, which gives him an appearance of authority.

Richard Gauvain

Look and Learn
‘Their Changing World: Battle of the Ears’
(no.923, 29 September 1979, IPC Magazines)

A little more than four years after its first attempt (reviewed above) at relaying the wonders of Easter Island, British educational magazine Look and Learn devoted another two-page spread to educating its readers. This time half of the feature is in colour and it presents a rather fanciful large image that imagines the culture of the Rapanui, in a form of ceremony, at the foot of three moai. The image continues on to the page opposite, which shows three European voyagers observing the performance. It would appear to be an illustration for the accompanying text that says when Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen “went ashore, he saw a sight which must have appeared very strange to his Christian eyes. A crowd of natives were performing a sun-worshipping ritual in front of a number of outlandish, giant stone statues”. Unfortunately, this is one of many Look and Learn fabrications as no such ritual was recorded by Roggeveen.

Fifty-five months earlier, Look and Learn had informed its readers that there were precisely 387 moai on Easter Island; now the number was revised and almost doubled to the less exact “something like 600 altogether”. Still it was far short of the 887 moai on the island. It is also wrong to say that all of the moai are of the upper half of the body. Most problematic is the manner in which it ends, conveying a narrative of great Chilean welfare and the good lives that the contemporary islanders apparently now experience: “The Chilean government has greatly developed sheep-farming there, and has introduced a forestry scheme. In a further big investment programme, they have already built a commercial airport, a school, a hospital and a leper station”. This presented such a false account of the reality for the Rapanui who, in 1979, had endured many years of hardship under the Chilean administration. Not least, the dreadful sheep farm, that ceased in 1953, essentially imprisoned the islanders in a small part of their island, whilst the grazing animals were prioritised in terms of land use.

Ian Conrich

The Mystery of Easter Island
(1980)

Review forthcoming

Mister No
'Isola di Pasqua' ['Easter Island']
(no.60; Milan: Editoriale Cepim, May 1980)

Mister No is learning to surf in Rio de Janeiro while his Piper aircraft is being repaired. In Ipanema he comes across an old friend and sweetheart, Patricia, an archaeologist who is on her way to Easter Island, where she hopes to decipher the mysterious 'kohau rongo rongo', with the help of Professor Pakomio and the local Rapanui, the custodians of the island's oral traditions and legends.

The following day Mister No is about to fly back to Manaus when his Piper is damaged by the careless landing of another aircraft piloted by the shady Mr Davis. Mister No decides to confront him but he is attacked by Davis's henchmen, who threaten him with knives. Mister No manages to escape and boards a plane which, he soon finds out, is the one taking Patricia to Easter Island.

On Easter Island, Patricia and Mr No are met by Pakomio, who accompanies them to their bungalow in Hanga Roa. Later that evening, as Mister No and Patricia are about to eat dinner, their bungalow is hit by gunshots. The attacker fires through a window striking in the head a large carving of moai kavakava, which Mister No is holding and which the gunman mistakes for a human. Pakomio, who lives next door, rushes to their help but the unknown gunman is nowhere to be found. The professor tries to downplay the incident, but then is forced to admit that the two Americans may be in danger. Yet, he refuses to reveal the reasons why.

The following morning, Pakomio, Mister No, and Patricia drive all the way to Rano Raraku, where the moai were created. Pakomio leaves the two Americans to observe the statues and goes to retrieve one of the mysterious rongorongo tablets, which are secretly kept in a cave. In the last panel of this comic, a mysterious attacker is about to roll a boulder onto the unaware American explorers who are admiring the statues.

Created in 1975 by Guido Nolitta, the pen name of Sergio Bonelli, the popular Italian series Mister No (which has been translated into other languages) tells the adventures of Jerome Drake Junior (nicknamed Mister No), formerly a US Army military pilot during World War II. At the end of the War he moves to Manaus, in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, where he works as an airplane pilot and tour guide, flying his Piper. Although most of his stories are set in the Amazon rainforest, his foolhardy and reckless character also results in global adventures.

In the first part of this story – which takes place over three comics/ instalments (reviewed below) – Easter Island only appears in the last third. Maps of the island are shown twice, so as to provide an outline of the place and a visualisation of its geography. Within the frames, Hanga Roa appears as a colonial village surrounded by palms, with both wooden two-storey buildings and bungalows and unpaved roads. It is a place whose economy revolves mostly around fishing.

Rongorongo is the cue for this adventure. In the story, the tablets are presented as the instruments of a group of ancient chanters and priests, repositories of the island's oral culture, who used the tablets to recall legends and tales. The descendants of these chanters are believed to hold the key to interpreting the glyphs but, according to Patricia, they have so far refused to reveal the secret to deciphering the tablets. The comic book correctly refers to kohau rongo rongo, which is translated as 'recitation wood' or 'narrator staffs'. The tablets, which in reality are scattered throughout the world, are here hidden in a secret cave that is only known by Pakomio.

While the tablets are not shown in this episode, the moai – which have largely been copied from photographs for the illustrations – figure prominently. They are the first thing we see of the Island and they are the main spectacle as Pakomio, Mister No and Patricia ride on horses towards Rano Raraku. In the words of Pakomio the statues are mostly three to five metres tall and date back to six or seven hundred years ago built using volcanic stone by the original settlers of Rapanui, who came from the Marquesas Islands.

Interestingly, the story also features a moai kavakava (wrongly referred to as moai kama kama), a wooden sculpture representing a human-like figure with prominent ribs, a bald head and a chin beard. The sculpture, which had ritual functions, is depicted as an ornamental object in the house where Mister No and Patricia are staying and it is employed for a moment of drama that spans several pages. The figure is much larger than those in existence but it is given a life-size appearance to aid a specific narrative moment.

To further contextualise the information provided in the comic, the closing section is dedicated to famous travellers and adventurers and focuses on Thor Heyerdahl's life and his famous Kon Tiki expedition. Here, it offers readers information about the supposed links (later largely dismissed) between South American civilisations and Easter Island.

Alessandra De Marco

Mister No
'Il Segno del Potere' ['The Symbol of Power']
(no.61; Milan: Editoriale Cepim, June 1980)

Mister No manages to escape another attempt on his life and rushes after a man in the distance. He manages to catch up with him at the entrance of a cave full of human skeletons and bones, whereupon he attacks him only to discover that it is Pakomio, who apparently had also been chasing after the mysterious attacker. Outside the cave, the professor explains that the failed attacks on Mister No's life may be the result of a mistaken identity. Pakomio thinks that behind the attempts is the local Sunset Company, which has mistaken the American pilot for a US government representative sent to the island to investigate the company's exploitation of local labour, which Pakomio has been fighting for years.

Later that night, a spontaneous rally takes place in Hanga Roa between the supporters of Pakomio's cause (those who are against the Sunset Company) and the followers of Matua who instead operates in favour of Sunset. While Pakomio seeks to liberate the islanders from the Company's capitalist yoke of underpaid labour in the sheep farming and shearing industry, Matua tries to dissuade the same workers from taking action against the company by evoking the spectre of retaliation and unemployment. A brawl between the two factions ensues, which is barely contained by the two policemen on the island.

At this point, Matua suggests that the course of action should be decided by the island's ancient tradition of electing a tangata manu or birdman, in which a leader is elected following the birdman race under the auspices of the ancient god Make-Make. All the workers agree. As the pretenders to the title of Birdman, Matua and (a reluctant) Pakomio will have to choose three representatives who will have to swim to the island of Motu-Nui from the cliffs of Orongo, find a manutara (sooty tern) egg and bring it back to Orongo. The first challenger to receive the egg, "The Symbol of Power", will become the new Birdman.

The challenge takes place the following day with Mister No offering to compete for Pakomio. Competitors must brave the currents that can bash them against the rocks, whilst avoiding the sharks that infest the waters. One contestant is eaten by a shark, another killed as he is smashed against the rocks. As he is about to reach Motu-Nui, Mister No decides to help one of his opponents from drowning. Finally, on Motu-Nui, Mister No finds an egg but he is attacked by Matua's machete-wielding men. Mister No manages to defeat them but breaks the egg. Luckily for him, the man he has just saved hands him another so that Mister No can swim back with the egg to proclaim Pakomio as the Birdman.

Unfortunately, the new leader's authority is immediately subverted as the Pascuans riot, setting fire to the Sunset Company's warehouses, and killing one of the policemen guarding the area. Mister No, who had collapsed on the Orongo shores and had awakened in the evening to a deserted beach, learns from the second policeman that the people of Rapanui, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, will be honouring Make-Make with a human sacrifice. Mister No heads back to Hanga Roa to save Patricia.

The second episode of Mister No's Easter Island trilogy contains many cultural and historical references that further serve to characterise the depiction of Easter Island and its people. Visually, the moai remain a dominant image for the island for the early part of this instalment, but they are not woven into the story and there is no mention of the rongorongo tablets that had appeared in the previous instalment. The action takes in the cliffs of Orongo, the ceremonial site of the birdman race, with its stone houses on the rim of Rano Kau and its petroglyphs representing the birdman.

The episode also mentions the Kaitangata, or Man Eaters, explaining that the practice of eating human flesh mostly occurred during the intestine wars; the victors eating the flesh of the defeated in a gesture of total annihilation. The comic conveys that cannibalism occurred on the island during a number of religious ceremonies and as an extreme act in case of food scarcity. While the birdman of yore controlled the food stocks, in this episode he is modernised as a political figure that has the power to lead the locals against the foreign capitalist invader and to reaffirm the rights of the Rapanui.

The Sunset Company is in fact a fictional rendition of the Williamson-Balfour Company, a Scottish-owned Chilean company which leased much of Rapanui as a sheep farm, confining the inhabitants to Hanga Roa and preventing their movement across the island. Through the return of the birdman cult the episode appears to endorse the reaffirmation of Rapanui culture and the rights of its people. Pakomio's fight for workers' rights reflects the widespread political protests of the late 1970s and very early 1980s, when the episode was written. However, Pakomio is shown to believe that these practices and attendant traditions are backward and should be confined to the past. Moreover, the lawlessness of the Rapanui at the comic's end depicts a frenzy that takes the population into a dark realm of murder and human sacrifice that counter's any cultural reaffirmation.

Alessandra De Marco

Mister No
'Make-Make'
(no.62; Milan: Editoriale Cepim, July 1980)

Destructive violence and primitive rage have taken hold of the inhabitants of Hanga Roa, who have been hailing Make-Make while leaving behind a trail of death and devastation. Mister No reaches a deserted Hanga Roa under the driving rain and heads for Patricia's house only to find an injured Matua waiting for him. The man wishes to kill Mister No believing him to be a US government agent. He also reveals that the people of Easter Island in a fit of collective rage have rebelled against their own birdman (Pakomio) and have brutally killed all those who opposed them. They are now heading to Ana Kai Tangata, the Cave of Cannibalism, where they will sacrifice Patricia to honour Make-Make. Mister No disarms the dying man and rushes to save Patricia.

He runs beyond Hanga Roa and across the hills until he reaches the plain of Mataveri, at the end of which, in the distance, he hears the roll of the drums and sees plumes of smoke coming from a bonfire. Surreptitiously he moves closer to the spot where the men are camped, and sees many dancing around the fire or lying unconscious on the ground. He also notices Pakomio, tied up and held captive by his supporters. Mister No attacks the camp shooting at the man who is guarding Pakomio and frees the professor, while the rest of the party runs away. Pakomio and Mister No head off to Ana Kai Tangata, where they will try to surprise Make-Make's followers by entering via an adjacent tunnel known only by Pakomio.

In the cave, the ceremony has just begun. Led by the costumed elder, the men of Easter Island dance frantically around a sacrificial altar, brandishing their machetes and hailing a giant statue of Make-Make, a feline or bear-looking human hybrid, seated and holding an enormous flaming torch. Patricia is held captive in another grotto, the so-called Cave of Fish, because its walls have been completely decorated with paintings of fish in different shapes and colours. As they are about to climb down to save Patricia, a man enters the cave but he is immediately knocked out by Mister No. However, the fugitives are discovered and a fight between the machete-armed men and the gun-toting Mister No ensues. Mister No is forced to shoot and kills several men. Patricia, Pakomio and Mister No manage to return to the surface where they separate: the two Americans head to the shore where in the distance a large ship is visible, while Pakomio runs to the airport to launch an SOS to the ship and ask for backup.

Pakomio manages to alert the ship, but he is reached by the men who kill him with their machetes. The rest of the men have managed to find Mister No and Patricia hiding among the rocks and attack them. Mister No fires back and the two manage to board a lifeboat that takes them to the ship. There they look forlornly towards the shore of Rapanui where the men, in a fit of bloodthirsty rage, have hoisted up Pakomio's head on a spear and continue to hail Make-Make. As the ship with Mister No and Patricia sails away towards Valparaiso, Miro, the son of Pakomio, who was returning home on that same ship, lands on the island and faces the men who now seem to realise the gravity of their actions.

Unlike the previous episodes in the trilogy, where a return to the Rapanui culture seemed to foresee a rebirth of Easter Island's people against the exploitation of the foreign company, here, the cult of Make-Make is presented as a fall back into primitiveness, and primordial impulses that take hold of the men of the Island (no women or children are ever mentioned or depicted in the entire story). The adventure unfortunately turns into a clichéd cowboys and Indians narrative where the hero must save the damsel in danger from the fury of the primitive locals. Make-Make rarely appears in moai fiction, so to have a story where he is so central held much promise. Yet this is a bloodthirsty god and a fantasised full-bodied figure that usually appears in Rapanui culture as just a face. Its appearance does, however, create a suitable fictional cult idol with its characteristics echoed in the animal-like behaviour of its followers. The inclusion of the Cave of Fish in the story's dramatic last stages is an interesting addition but, in reality, the rock paintings of the cave that is its inspiration, Ana Kai Tangata, depicts manutara, the sacred bird, and not fish.

Alessandra De Marco

Big Boss
(no.48, July 1980, Arédit)

Featuring only on the front cover of this French comic, the artwork of an extra-terrestrial spaceship hovering above the moai is one that has been echoed by other publications both before and since. The common message is Rapanui as a land associated with the strange, mysterious and the unearthly.

The artwork has a fascinating history. It was originally a sketch drawn by the French explorer Alphonse Pinart, who visited Easter Island in 1877. The sketch was developed as an illustration by A. de Bar, and titled Campement sur le Ronororaka [Camp on Rano Raraku] for the 1878 publication Le Tour de Monde – nouveau journal des voyages - livraison n°927 - Voyage à L'île de Pâques (Océan Pacifique) par Alphonse Pinart (1877). It was later used for a French trade card of the 1960s (reviewed below), before appearing on the cover of Big Boss and inspiring Jean-Louis Morelle, who has illustrated many of the book covers for prolific French science-fiction writer Jimmy Guieu.

The 1990 edition of Guieu's novel Les sphères de Rapa-Nui (reviewed below), features a front cover illustration that is very similar to the one used for Big Boss. The moai that is lying prone on the cover of Big Boss was removed for the cover of Les sphères de Rapa-Nui, but the other four moai are identical. The cliff behind the moai was reduced in size for the later publication; the nighttime sky became a red sky; and an exploding spaceship and floating giant spheres replaced the flying saucer. The cover of Big Boss suggests alien visitation to Easter Island, whilst the later image appears to move the location to another planet.

Crucially, both Big Boss and Les sphères de Rapa-Nui remove from the original image the six European men from Pinart's expedition and the fire within the cave entrance. Consequently, the image's original narrative of a human camp is erased. The visitation has now gone from an actual record, albeit one that was augmented and heightened, to an imagined encounter of the extra-terrestrial kind, all the while retaining much of the depiction and positioning of the moai.

Ian Conrich

Aunque Usted lo Dude [You May Doubt It]
‘El Gran Misterio de los Colossos de la Isla de Pascua’ [‘The Mystery of the Colossi of Easter Island’]
(no.1, August 1980, Ediciones Latinoamericanas: Mexico City)

The story’s narrator begins by stating that the world has the separate legends of both Egypt and Rapanui, two cultures for which it is unlikely that one influenced the other. In 1722, a ship captained by the Dutch sailor, Jacob Roggeveen, sighted Easter Island, inhabited by just its giant stone heads. Confused by the sunset, the Dutch thought the moai were living giants. Fearful that these colossi would attack, the Dutch sailed away without landing on the island. Back in the Netherlands, Roggeveen told others of the wondrous place in the middle of the Pacific, and that if they had not swiftly turned around they would have been devoured by the giants; thousands of them “all hungry roaring like beasts”. Sailors subsequently asked the natives of other islands about Rapanui and they expressed terror, speaking of a cursed and dangerous island of giants, who devour men.

Courageous Europeans carrying guns eventually landed on the island, with the intention of killing the giants. Only then did they discover that these giants were actually carved stone statues, leaving the sailors to ponder who put them there and how. Back then the island was “totally uninhabited”. Most of the 593 moai had been carved at the crater of Rano Rarakoa [sic], with others left unfinished in situ. A pith-helmet wearing German explorer examines the evidence and says that the tools that have been left abandoned around the unfinished moai are like workers who have stopped “to go for lunch”. He also wonders how the Rapanui moved such gigantic statues, especially as this is a land of no trees.

In 1868, 300 sailors from the British ship Topaze, with help from 300 natives, hauled for several days a colossal moai off the island to be placed in the British Museum, where it could be “admired”. Four years later, in 1872, a French ship captained by Pierre Loti took the head of another moai, as the full statue was too heavy to haul. This moai was decapitated with the use of a saw, to be displayed in France in the Museum of Mankind, where it can be seen today. It was not, however, until the arrival of archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl that some of the mysteries of the island were resolved. With the help of islanders, Heyerdahl re-erected moai, but he was unable to solve the mysteries as to how they could have been transported.

Under the sandy soil there are signs of at least three previous civilisations. Holding small moai statues, Heyerdahl and his colleague reflect and conclude that whoever built the giant statues were from a civilisation that was more advanced. Therefore, Rapanui civilisation has “evolved backwards”. One construction on the island, a particularly well-built wall, leads Heyerdahl to propose it must have been erected by another society. The story’s narrator asks how could the people survive on an island without agriculture and domestic animals. At one point, there were barely two hundred people on the island, though when the statues were erected there were probably 3000-5000 inhabitants. The narrator argues that the feat of creating the moai should be viewed as greater than the building of the pyramids.

Then there was an act of vandalism that has made generations of archaeologists weep. A group of missionaries had ordered the excavation of the foundations of a moai. In the process, many wooden rongorongo tablets were discovered, but the missionaries ordered them to be destroyed, and burnt to cinders in a large fire, declaring the artefacts to be part of a pagan cult. Nineteen of the tablets managed to be saved and these are now on display in a glass museum cabinet, though they lay there “forgotten”.

Later, in 1922, whilst a trench was being dug for a railroad in the old city of Mohenjo Daro, Pakistan, a wall was uncovered bearing hieroglyphics identical to those on the rongorongo tablets. But some archaeologists refused to accept these findings, especially as there is a vast difference in age between the two sites. The narrator advises that when Europeans first landed on Rapanui they found amongst the natives, men who were different – tall, blond and bearded. Subsequently, slave traders from Peru took the islanders to work in mines, and then the king, Kaismoki, was killed as the long-ears and the short-ears fought each other in a civil war, which culminated in cannibalism. Going further back, when the Rapanui first arrived on the island, under the leadership of Hotu Matua, it was said that he was a blond-haired king. So where had they come from? The narrator says this points towards the Rapanui being the last of the people of the mythical Lemuria, a sunken land that is an Atlantis of the Pacific. Cook and Bouganville have seen other such blond-haired bearded men across the Pacific, with other colossal constructions found in Guam, Hawai’i, the Marquesas and in Tahiti.

Whilst this Spanish-language comic devotes several pages to rongorongo, which very few other examples of moai culture have considered at length, this remains a deeply problematic publication. It is the last in a batch of pseudo-historical Mexican comics that were published between 1969 and 1980, which began with Grandes Viajes (reviewed above) and includes Grandes Viajes (1971, reviewed above), Duda (1972, reviewed below), and Duda (1978, reviewed above). As with those comics, Aunque Usted lo Dude purports to be an educational account, but many liberties are taken – none more so than in this particular comic – with facts distorted by a belief that the theories of Heyerdahl permit a great departure into ideas of alternative colonisation of Rapanui.

When rongorongo does appear in moai culture it is most often an undeciphered system of writing, that when suddenly decoded reveals a fantastic warning, a sub-narrative of alien visitation or the activation of superior technology. Aunque Usted lo Dude is to be congratulated for including the tragic moment in history when the ‘pagan’ tablets were suddenly lost. But the comic cannot resist an embellishment, having the tablets dug up from the base of a moai, destroyed by missionaries and then ludicrously establishing a connection with an archaeological site in Pakistan, to plant the idea that rongorongo is not a unique part of Rapanui culture, but transported from afar from a mother culture. Such an absurdity essentially denies Rapanui culture its relevance, identity and authority. And worryingly, this is a theme that runs throughout the comic.

Other falsehoods include the presentation of Rapanui as completely uninhabited at the point of Roggeveen’s arrival; Roggeeveen never setting foot on Rapanui (he did and shot/ killed ten or twelve islanders and he certainly never sailed away scared of moai that he feared were giants that devour men); and other islanders informing explorers of such myths. There are many more than 593 moai on Rapanui; they were not carved from isolated upright stones as the primitive drawings in this comic would have the reader believe; and the uniquely precise wall found on Rapanui at ahu Vinapu is nothing like the extended structure depicted in this story. Elsewhere it did not take 600 men to move the moai Hoa Hakananai’a from the island to HMS Topaze, and it is nowhere near as huge as the colossus depicted in this comic. And there are more than nineteen surviving rongorongo tablets and they are not held in one museum – in fact there are twenty-six tablets scattered across many institutions/ countries from St Petersburg to the Vatican.

Most worrying is the constant racial denigration of the Rapanui from being a society that has evolved backwards, to absent islanders or primitive inhabitants – the comic re-emphasises “primitive” – who are always depicted wearing simple loin cloths, even in a contemporary setting. Hotu Matua was not a blond-haired king, but this comic’s desire to relocate the source of Rapanui culture and attribute the wonders of the moai to a society that is not Polynesian, sees a promotion of others – from Europeans and Asians and ultimately the mythical Lemurians as the island’s cultural origins and creators. Anything it seems but the chance to recognise Rapanui culture within its rightful context, which the final frame extends further into the Pacific, potentially attributing the sources of cultures of other islands to foreign societies.

Ian Conrich

Weird War Tales
'The 600 Heads of Death!'
(no.95, January 1981, DC Comics)

The Rapanui are introduced as "peaceful inhabitants" who worship giant stone statues, that "only stared skywards" and whose lips "were sealed in a terrible silence". Offerings of jewels and pearls are made to the monoliths, with festivities and marriage ceremonies performed at their feet. Then one day a war party of "Polynesians" arrives on the island and they viciously attack and murder many of the peaceful islanders. The Rapanui plead to the stone giants to "avenge us".

The survivors flee to the "caves in the hills". Meanwhile, the warriors celebrate their easy victory. Ultimately, they have come to the island in search of its legendary treasures. They believe the treasures are hidden within the statues and use their weapons in an attempt to break open the stone legs. The monoliths awake in anger and step on the invaders "crushing them as if they were mere insects". With the enemy defeated, the surviving islanders come out of hiding and thank the giants: "We will ask no more questions of you, o' strange ones. We know now that when the time comes, you will answer in your own terrible swift way!".

Yet another Steve Ditko drawn story that features the moai, and this was the second time that Weird War Tales was focused on fictionalising Easter Island (see the review above). The story is rather simple and is stretched out over seven pages, with little to visually connect the fiction directly to Easter Island, though the text makes it clear that this is Rapanui. The moai are not named as such and bizarrely their entire full-length bodies are above ground and include legs, feet and toes, unlike most moai fiction which views the monoliths as buried in the ground. In fact, the appearance of these moai is very different to those that exist, with these giants exhibiting bullet shaped heads, sticking-out ears and muscular torsos.

The war party are simply called "Polynesians", which opens the possibility that the story regards the Rapanui (who in reality are Polynesian) as belonging to an unnamed foreign race. Both the invaders and the inhabitants are drawn with an artistic licence similar to the depiction of the moai. These Pacific people wear toga-like clothes and all the men have big muscular chests. Facially, they seem European with their general appearance placing them somewhere more like Sparta as opposed to the middle of the Pacific. The spiked club weapons that they wield are also out of place; perhaps the 'closest' comparable examples are found in Tonga or Fiji.

Ian Conrich

Look and Learn
‘What Really Happened? Idols of Easter Island’
(no.988, 14 February 1981, IPC Magazines)

With little more than a year left until it ceased publication, the long-running British weekly educational, Look and Learn, turned to Easter Island for its third and final feature (previously it had appeared in issues in 1975, reviewed above, and 1979, reviewed above). Appearing on the reverse of the front cover, where it was given prominence, this one page text is dominated by a large colour rendition of a sketch, originally by M. Gaspard Duché de Vancy, taken following the voyage of French explorer La Pérouse, who visited Easter Island in 1786. The original sketch which became a popular lithograph has reappeared in other examples of moai culture, such as The Conquest of the World (reviewed above) and Disbelief: Incredible but True (reviewed above).

Historically, copies of prints have often been altered or embellished and the one in Look and Learn, is no exception. The new artist, Pat (Patrick) Nicolle has made the moai look more like those on the island, but he has also added eight European sailors, three in the extreme foreground (with one carrying a gun) and five more in the background. The original had ten islanders (men and women) to the left of the image, but these have all been cut out, presumably as they were too fanciful and imagined, drawn to satisfy a French interpretation of an Arcadian Rapanui befitting European tastes of the time. Interestingly, the most famous part of the image, which depicted a Rapanui man towards the far right of the frame, about to steal a three-cornered or tricorne hat, was changed by Nicolle. Instead, the Rapanui man (now shown completely naked) in this new image has successfully completed the theft and is departing exit right, leaving behind a second tricorne that is closer to the original. The liberties that Look and Learn took in its claims to educate, means that this sketch is used to accompany a story about Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen, who had visited Rapanui 64 years earlier than de Vancy’s original.

As with the other Look and Learn issues the text is surprisingly spurious, mixing fact and fiction. Apparently, the first moai was carved by a sculptor called Rapu, in remembrance and likeness of the first chief Hotu Matua. The moai that had numbered 387 in the 1975 issue, and then risen up to 600 in 1979, are now back to 387. In fact, parts of the text simply self-plagiarise the 1975 issue, so the untruth about 67 stone tablets covered in hieroglyphs and hidden on the island is repeated.

Ian Conrich

Jerom
'De Stenen God' ['The Stone God']
(no.90; text and images: Willy Vandersteen; Antwerp & Amsterdam: Standard Uitgeverij, June 1981)

Whilst on a beach holiday, Odilon finds in the ocean waves close to shore a bottle containing a message inside. He writes another message on a piece of paper, puts it into the bottle and tosses it back into the sea. Some time later, Professor Barabas organises an expedition to Easter Island for his friends: the extremely strong Jerom, Aunt Sidonia and Odilon. The three of them have already experienced many adventures together.

Upon arrival, Jerom is immediately recognised and revered as a god by the Easter Island locals. Jerom and Odilon study the stone moai, one of which they decide to carry away on a raft. They are watched by the long-haired Rapan, the sorcerer of Easter Island, and his followers. Rapan takes Odilon hostage and demands that all three leave the island within 24 hours so that the true God can be worshiped again, instead of Jerom.

Meanwhile, Aunt Sidonia has been able to talk to other locals using Professor Barabas's language translation device, and she learns of a stone portrait of a white man that resembles Jerom. The captive Odilon speaks to this statue and unfortunately learns that he has to be sacrificed on an altar. The sacrifice is prevented by a ball of lightning, which interrupts the ceremony, and allows Odilon to escape and alert his two friends.

The friends load their plane with coconuts, which they fly over the locals and drop on them like bombs as they attempt to help Odilon flee his captors by boat. But they find themselves stranded on the nearby island of Teopi, which they now begin to defend from the angry natives, by building giant coconut-filled catapults. Jerom has an idea to secretly steal the statue that looks like him from the sorcerer and position it in the place where the three friends are making their defense. As the attackers approach they cease fighting and pay homage to the statue.

The statue speaks and informs the Easter Islanders that the sorcerer Rapan is a fraud. He escapes in a canoe leaving the Easter Islanders to celebrate with the three visitors, before they depart for home. They wonder why Jerom was worshipped as a god and why the stone statue looked like him, with the mystery solved by Odilon. He advises that the message which he had placed in the bottle had been written on a photograph of Jerom, which must have then reached Easter Island.

Most of the main characters also appear in the Suske en Wiske [Suske and Wiske] comic strip, by Willy Vandersteen, who had already been inspired by Rapanui for a story originally published in 1980 (see the review below). Unfortunately, the images of the native population in this Belgian produced fiction are very problematic. They are shown to be black-skinned primitive islanders with the front cover of the comic exaggerating their image further giving them large bottoms and adding thick lips and afro hair to their features. This renders them as racist figures that are seen more often in the old stereotypes of Africans and African-Americans. Less problematic, but also wrong, is the appearance of the locals using spears and machetes made with metal parts, when such raw material was not traditionally found on Easter Island.

There are images of the South Sea, but these are also clichés, as seen at the farewell party where there are scenes more commonly associated with the festive culture of Hawai'i. The natives in this story are portrayed as extremes – either violent (with karate skills) or simple-minded. The liberties taken in the story continue in the geography of Easter Island with it split into two neighboring islands called Wahoe and Teopi. The story is essentially one of cargo cults. Such stories and accounts have circulated around the Pacific (Melanesia, in particular) in which islanders removed from the wider world worship foreign objects that are washed ashore or have fallen from passing airplanes.

Hermann Mückler

The Incredible Hulk
‘Encounter on Easter Island!’
(no.261, July 1981, Marvel Comics Group)

The mighty hulk swims from Japan to Easter Island. He arrives exhausted and as he sleeps he turns back into Dr Bruce Banner. Hiding amidst the moai is the Absorbing Man, an ex-boxer with the power to transform into the property of anything he touches, having been given a drink conjured by the Asgardian god, Loki. The Absorbing Man had tried to escape the powerful Avengers by turning himself into the waters of the ocean, but he too ended up on the beaches of Easter Island exhausted from his journey. Meanwhile, a Teen Brigade has been formed to locate and help Dr Banner/ The Hulk.

The Absorbing Man carries the unconscious Banner to a moai quarry. Inside, Banner awakens and he and the Absorbing man tumble to the quarry floor. The Absorbing man is insane with fear of the Avengers finding him and now an angry man of stone he forces Banner into a tiny cave opening. With the Absorbing Man pushing Banner from behind further through the small passage, Banner starts to panic as the tight space that is also flooded at the bottom becomes almost too much. Swimming up from the pool of water, Banner finds himself alone with the Absorbing Man in a deep cave. Banner tries to think of a way out and realises that the moai he saw in the quarry means he must be on Easter island, which he had read about in Thor Heyerdahl’s “classic book”, Aku Aku.

Banner tries to remember what he had read in Heyerdahl’s book and the story recounts apparent ‘extracts’, such as Heyerdahl’s belief that the original islanders had come from South America. Added to this narrative in flashback is the construction of the moai being halted by an attack from an invading war-party; the islanders thrown screaming into a fiery pit; a few women and children surviving in the underground volcanic tunnels; but then they succumb to diseases brought by Spanish missionaries.

Banner realises there is a small community on the other side of the island, but he first has to escape his captor whilst he is sleeping and even then “Easter Island is only visited by ship once a year”. With the Absorbing man fast asleep Banner climbs back through a narrow lava tube, but near the top he becomes stuck, with the Absorbing Man now behind him grabbing onto his ankles. Banner can no longer control himself and he erupts through the earth’s surface as an angry Hulk.

The two giants fight each other in a battlefield surrounded by silent stone moai, with the Absorbing Man seemingly unstoppable. But then the Hulk jumps on the forehead of a toppled moai, which is lying across the fulcrum of another rock. The moai acts as a huge see-saw with the opposite end smacking into the face of the Absorbing Man who is sent hurtling out to sea. Comatosed by the knockout the defeated Absorbing Man comes to rest as a giant man-island that has absorbed parts of Easter Island’s qualities. A victorious Hulk is left alone on the island with the time to think and not be bothered.

The Absorbing Man lies dormant for 13 months before he re-emerges in the August 1982 issue of The Dazzler (reviewed below). There, this man-island awakens before lording over the terrified islanders, and then heading back to the USA. In this Hulk story, the islanders are either absent or present as skeletons, remnants of tribal warfare. Of the many Marvel comics to fictionalise Easter Island and the moai this is the only one to reference Heyerdahl. True, Heyerdahl had argued that Easter Island had been settled from South America (a theory that has now been proven wrong), but the comic takes the opportunity to embellish Heyerdahl’s work with tales of fiery pits and helpless Rapanui.

Often when superheroes and super-villains treat Easter Island as an extended fighting arena, the moai are silent onlookers that are brought into action as weapons for smashing an opponent (see, for instance, the reviews for Justice League and WWE Superstars). Yet this Hulk comic is alone in trying to incorporate into the fighting some of the actual archaeological studies of Easter Island. At one point, the Hulk employs a large tree trunk to clobber the Absorbing Man, with the accompanying text informing the reader that the log had “once been used to lever the Easter Island statues into an upright position”. The island’s features of lava tubes and volcanic cave systems are also incorporated into the moments of action and tension.

The story is contemporaneous to the year of the comic’s publication, yet the isolation of Easter Island, which was actually experiencing commercial airplane flights, is over-emphasised, with incorrect information that it is reached by just one ship a year. Moreover, when the Rapanui are finally presented in the sequel in The Dazzler, they too are of a distant imagined culture that does not permit the existence of a modern Easter Island.

Ian Conrich

Die Eroberung der Welt [The Conquest of the World]
'James Cook. Tod in der Südsee' ['James Cook. Death in the South Seas']/ 'La Pérouse. Schiffbruch vor Samoa' ['La Pérouse. Shipwrecked off Samoa']
(no.2; text: Jean Ollivier & Pierre Castex; drawings: Maurillo Manara and Carlo Marcello; Bergisch-Gladbach: Gustav H. Lübbe/Bastei Verlag, 1981)

Two stories are united in this volume: the voyages of the British explorer Captain James Cook to the Pacific up to and including his violent death in Hawai'i, and the expedition of the French navigator Jean-Galoup de La Pérouse, who also had an unhappy demise as his expedition vanished. Both explorers had visited Easter Island – Cook in 1774, La Pérouse in 1786 – and reported their findings, with La Pérouse's voyage designed in part to verify and extend the reports of Cook.

In the first story, there is only one picture showing Cook in front of the erect moai, about which he talks with respect. The story of La Pérouse is more elaborate, with the moai shown being measured by the French crew. One of the most famous early contact moments between the Europeans and the Rapanui is featured: the theft by an islander of a three-cornered hat belonging to one of the officers on La Pérouse's expedition. The original depiction of the theft was in a 1786 drawing from nature by Duché de Vancy (who joined the French voyage), that became a lithograph which accompanied the 1797 publication of La Pérouse's voyage, Atlas du Voyage de La Pérouse. The comic also depicts the actual events of the French leaving pigs and sheep on the island and sowing grain.

Originally published in France in November 1979 as issue number 14 in the series La Découverte du Monde en bandes desinées [The Discovery of the World in comics], the series was interestingly retitled with the more colonial sounding The Conquest of the World for the German market, for which this was issue number 2 of 24. Easter Island is only mentioned on a total of three pages in the comic, but it represents key images/moments of the famous expeditions and enough for a moai to appear in the centre of the front cover. Both James Cook's and La Pérouse's visits to Easter Island show the moai standing upright. This was not the case, as both Cook and La Perouse report that many had fallen.

The illustrators for the comic includes the South Tyrolean/Italian Maurillo 'Milo' Manara, who created more than twenty comic-albums and co-worked with several other artists, among them Federico Fellini. La Pérouse had already been the subject of a 1942 American comic (reviewed above) and would be illustrated again in a 2016 French comic (reviewed below). The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen's visit to Easter Island has been the subject of several comic books, most notably as the focus of a 1958 French publication (reviewed above). In comparison, this is the only comic book to address the voyage of Captain Cook to Easter Island. That is surprising, given Cook's importance as an explorer.

Hermann Mückler

The Mighty Thor
'A Kingdom Lost!'
(no.318, April 1982, Marvel Comics Group)

Thor’s evil brother Loki borrows "five norn stones" from the evil queen Karnilla. He then travels to Earth with the evil king Fafnir (a dragon) to gain vengeance on Thor. Loki deposits the norn stones on Easter Island and sets out to lure Thor there by creating a tidal wave. Thor flies to Easter Island and, upon his arrival, the evacuation of islanders is ongoing. An American rescue worker asks Thor to protect the island's town. He does this by throwing his hammer Mjolnir into the ground to create a huge earth and rock wall separating the town from the moai and the beach. The evacuation is completed by helicopter and Thor is left on the island alone. The tsunami arrives and uproots the moai but the wall created by Thor prevents it reaching the town.

When the wave recedes, Thor realises that the moai actually have bodies that were buried in the ground, leaving only the heads visible. Thor attempts to return the moai to their original positions, but the norn stones bring them to life. They try to attack Thor but they are slow and not particularly strong. Thor drives them further and further from the norn stones causing them to become even slower and weaker. This enables Thor to hammer them back into the ground with Mjolnir. Thor then confronts Loki in a cave on a neighbouring island. Fafnir appears and attacks Thor but Thor is able to defeat him. Thor and Loki's father Odin then appears and prevents Thor attacking Loki and Fafnir further. He banishes Fafnir back to his destroyed former kingdom of Nastrond, and returns Loki to Asgard to await punishment. The story ends with a group of men on the island puzzled by how the moai have been returned to their original positions. Thor, in his secret identity of Dr Donald Blake, overhears them and smiles.

This issue of The Mighty Thor was published twenty years after the character's first appearance and by this point the narrative of Loki attempting to defeat his brother Thor, through the use of trickery, was firmly established. This particular edition is a clear example of it and the use of Easter Island can be seen to be as an attempt to bring freshness to a somewhat familiar narrative through transposing it to an unfamiliar landscape. In contrast to many other comic stories that make use of an Easter Island setting, this particular issue does make a limited attempt to reflect the reality of the place. The acknowledgement that Easter Island is an inhabited island containing a modern day society is rare in Western popular culture. However, no interest is taken in the lives of this community, instead they are depicted as an anonymous group with no characteristics other than their need to be rescued. Moreover, the comic declares that the island has "91 permanent residents", a figure manageable to rescue quickly by helicopter within the fiction of the story, but one that was far short of the actual population in 1982, which was closer to 2000.

The story does not imbue the moai with any original mystical powers. It is only through the magical norn stones that they gain the ability to move and fire lasers from their eyes. This depiction does share with other comic books the tendency to have a moai as not just a "brooding" head, but actually a full stone body with the head the only part visible above ground. Unusually within popular fiction, there is a heritage message within this comic with the stated need to preserve the unique culture of the island and to protect it as much as possible from the tsunami. The moai are correctly regarded as highly significant carvings, whilst the island's town is protected by tidal destruction by Thor, as "the last vestige of an ancient kingdom".

Peter Munford

DC Comics Presents – Superman and the Global Guardians
‘The Wizard Who Wouldn’t Stay Dead’
(vol.5, no.46, June 1982, DC Comics)

Superman is urgently called to the East African retreat of Dr Mist. Planet Earth faces a grave threat from the 12,000-year-old Thaumar Dhai, “the mightiest of sorcerers in Atlantis”. He had six powerful talismans – a breastplate, buckle, armlet, necklace, scepter and crown – made of precious metals, minerals and matter, but he lost the first when he fled a sinking Atlantis. He lost another in a fight with Dr Mist and over time the other talismans were lost across the world: in Israel, Greece, Japan, Ireland and a “pre-Inca city”. Thaumar Dhai can be revived if all six talismans are brought back together and evil sorcerers are already working to achieve this resurrection.

Superman dashes first to Israel, where alongside the biblically-empowered superhero, Seraph, they fight evil Babylonians at an archaeological dig near the Red Sea, but unfortunately they lose the powerful breastplate. Next, Superman dashes to Greece where alongside superhero Olympian, they lose the armlet to a hydra. Denmark is Superman’s third country, where he teams up with superhero Little Mermaid (a mutant born in Atlantis), and they lose the belt to a sea-troll and an army of skeletons of long-dead Atlantis inhabitants. Not giving up, Superman flies to County Cork but loses the necklace to a wolf and imps despite having the help of Irish superhero, Jack O’Lantern. On another continent Superman connects with Green Fury, a Brazilian superhero, who helps him fight the villain El Dorado in Venezuela. But they lose the crown to one of El Dorado’s spirit jaguars. That leaves the scepter, which is buried under lava on Mt Fujiyama in Japan. Flying there with superhero Rising Sun, Superman loses to a snow sorcerer and her giant demons.

These villains now gather on Easter Island, each with their captured talismans. Standing in a circle of moai they combine the talismans to bring forth Thaumar Dhai. Superman and his international gang of superheroes emerge to fight the villains, but Thaumar Dhai brings the moai alive, “that they may crush our foes!”. Thaumar Dhai has some magic but not enough as his talismans are revealed by Superman to be fakes. With all the villains successfully defeated, Dr Mist congratulates the team and gives them the new name of the Global Guardians.

Despite featuring on the cover of this highly imaginative comic, Easter Island and the moai appear on just the last few pages of the story. The giant moai on the front cover is all-powerful, able to withstand an assault from seven superheroes. Yet inside the comic the awakened moai are a group of much smaller stone figures that appear easily punched into submission. “The harder they fall! And these stoneheads should fall very hard!”, declares Seraph.

The ring of moai that surrounds the resurrection has the appearance of an occult ceremony, with an ancient evil could forth with offerings. Easter Island is presumably employed as the last destination as it is viewed by the writers as the most isolated and foreign place. The moai connect with the other archaeological and ancient sites within the story, but also with mythical locations such as Atlantis. Each of the previous global locations had their own local superhero with culturally specific identities and powers. It is therefore a shame that no superhero emerges that is associated with Easter Island. Instead, the moai are once again aggressors and a dormant threat waiting to be awakened.

Ian Conrich

2000AD
‘Tharg’s Future-Shocks. No Picnic!’
(no.272, 10 July 1982, IPC Magazines)

A family of three – mother, father and son – travel by boat to Easter Island to relax and have a picnic. The mother, Raquel, is only concerned about the contents of the picnic and the fact that her husband, Oswald, forgot the potato salad and the mayonnaise. Oswald is the sole member of the family to be interested in the wondrous moai: “No-one knows what they are or how they got here! Doesn’t that sorta do something for you, Raquel? Don’t you have any poetry in your soul?”. Their son, Byron, is easily bored and he decides to bury his father up to his neck in sand whilst he is taking a nap. Oswald wakes to discover that he is literally stuck on the island with his wife and son having departed without him – “I keep thinking I forgot something…”, Raquel says as she leaves the island. Suddenly, Oswald discovers he is not alone as the moai come alive and begin a conversation.

A double-page story that fills the centre spread of this comic, it is the only part of the internal pages to be published in colour. A long-running feature of 2000AD, the Future Shock feature began in 1977 and often presented stories and artwork from new/emerging artists, one of whom was a young Alan Moore, the author of this Easter Island fantasy. This was one of more than fifty Future Shock stories that Moore wrote for 2000AD and it appears inspired both by the Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror EC comics of the 1950s and the popular British television series Tales of the Unexpected (1979-1988).

For this ‘No Picnic’ story is of a dysfunctional family, selfishness and abandonment and it includes a dramatic twist of horror and torment. The bored only child, Byron, is a demanding brat who appears spoilt. Rather cruelly, Oswald, the only family member to show any reverence for the island is the one that is punished. And whilst the story borrows from contemporary culture it is also a science-fiction narrative with both the private boat and the father’s clothes of the future. Within Easter Island fiction the myth of creation has offered a variety of inventive reasons for the existence of the moai. Of these fantasies, this is the only one to have connected the moai to a forgotten father buried in the sand.

Ian Conrich

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!
'Rabbits of the Last Ark' and 'The Yolks on Gnu York!'
(no. 5, July 1982, DC Comics)

In the Museum of Nature, a prairie dog tells a group of assembled super-hero animals, the 'Zoo Crew', about a journal, "which tells of my dad's last great adventure, which occurred just before the Second Weird War!" All of the animals appear to know of his father, who "became world-famous travelling around in search of things that other people have misplaced".

An adventure from the journal is recounted. The prairie dog's father – Oklahoma Bones – was a semi-retired university professor, when "two government guys found him". They tell Bones about "Easter Bunny Island" and persuade him to accept a mission involving "the evil Ratzis". He heads to the island together with his companion Whipley, a snake that acts as his whip. As they fly close by Easter Bunny Island, Bones notices bunny head stone figures with the Ratzis forcing the natives to dig them up until only one is left standing. Before he and Whipley have time to land, their plane is shot down by a Ratzi plane. The protagonists are forced to parachute into enemy territory whereupon they are attacked by the spear-carrying locals. Bones uses Whipley as a lasso to defeat the locals, but unfortunately the gun-carrying Ratzis arrive and capture the heroes.

The monocled leader of the Ratzis introduces himself as Baron Von Vermin. He tells Oklahoma Bones, "since you have doubtless come to spy on us and learn why we are on this island, I vill tell you – for you vill never tell anyone else". Von Vermin explains that Ratzis had suspected the presence of a strange secret on the island, so they started turning over the bunny heads to learn about the advanced race that had created them. In doing so, they discovered on the bottom of each figure a series of hieroglyphics.

It is revealed that an advanced race of space rabbits, who lived on a far-away planet, one day found giant eggs had fallen on their homeland from outer space. Children had already started hammering at the shells, and when the eggs were opened, they saw "the most horrifying, terrifying, scary thing in the entire universe!". The space rabbits could not destroy the eggs and instead decided to hide them on Earth. Their space ship crashed and only one rabbit survived the journey. He managed to complete the mission alone by taking over the minds of the natives, making them bury the eggs and carve stone heads to "put them on top of the eggs as a warning to everyone to keep avay." After this, the space rabbit "spun a cocoon around himself – und prepared to vait till somebody vood come to get him". Von Vermin did not know what the horrible thing inside the eggs was, but hoped to find out once the Ratzis turned over the last standing stone head.

As Von Vermin is finishing his story, Whipley slips out undetected and manages to tie up the Nazi leader, followed by Bones grabbing the Ratzi's guns. The villains run to their plane, taking with them the cocooned space rabbit and promising revenge on Bones. The now freed natives of Easter Bunny Island help Oklahoma Bones turn the last stone head over and he writes down the undeciphered hieroglyphics into his journal. In addition, he took the egg from underneath the head back home and promised to keep it from hatching. Back in the present and at the Museum of Nature, Bones' son reveals he still has the egg.

A few days later the egg starts to glow, but a hungry member of the Zoo Crew, Pig-Iron, foolishly cracks it open and starts to fry himself a meal. Suddenly the frying egg comes alive and attacks Pig-Iron, who now has egg on his face. Simultaneously, the Zoo Crew are managing to decipher the hieroglyphics in the journal and realise that they communicate a warning not to crack open the eggs. With the egg yolk having escaped out of a window and in search of water, the Zoo Crew, led by Captain Carrot, follow its trail of destruction to Gnu York harbour, where the creature, a "yolk monster" is now "a thousand times larger" and about to attack the metropolis. The team work together to destroy – fry and then scramble – the giant yolk; afterwards they wonder what happened to all the other eggs. As the instalment to the story ends, the President of the United Species is shown welcoming children and Von Vermin (now Ambassador to San Salamander) to his annual White House Easter Egg Hunt. The children find the large glowing eggs under bushes and declare "this'll be the greatest Easter ever!".

Adventurer and courageous archaeologist Indiana Jones has been the most frequent fictional visitor to Easter Island appearing in two novels (one English – reviewed below; one German – reviewed below). Moreover, on the back of the popularity of the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a number of imitations, such as the film Sky Pirates (reviewed above), homages such as Montana Jones (reviewed above) and The Adventures of Basil and Moebius (reviewed below), and parodies, like this comic and its character Oklahoma Bones, appeared. In this adventure, much of the humour is centred around a ridiculing of the Nazis who are stuck between the First Word War and the Third Reich in their depiction.

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! tries to please both children and adults, but would appear to never offer enough to satisfy both age groups. The result is an inane adventure with much crazy humour that is built on silly animal puns, such as Adolf Hitler now called Adolph Hippo. Like many other comics, in particular the Disney Easter specials, Easter Island is associated with the Easter bunny and eggs. The Rapanui are depicted as easily-controlled spear-wielding rabbits but unlike the 2017 Hungarian novel, The Treasure of the Long Ears (reviewed below), they are simple stereotyped primitives with no promotion of an indigenous culture. The yolk monster adds a bizarre kaiju eiga (colossal creature) element to the story, whilst the Zoo Crew function as a strange animal form of the Justice League drawn to defeating Earth's deadliest enemies.

The most interesting element of this comic are the hieroglyphics which are a reference to rongorongo and are found in excavations of the moai that echo the archeological work of Thor Heyerdahl who discovered buried facts about the nature of the stone carvings. Rongorongo remains undeciphered but in so much popular fiction the hieroglyphics are easily understood and reveal an unearthly message.

Kseniia Kalugina

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!
'The Bunny from Beyond!'
(no. 6, August 1982, DC Comics)

Continuing the story began in issue no.5 (reviewed above) a news report broadcasts that during a traditional Easter egg hunt at the White House in Waspington, yolk monsters erupted from the eggs. Moreover, yolk monsters are now "popping up" all over the world. The Zoo Crew teleports to Waspington to fight the monsters, and rescue the children that were on the egg hunt. Oklahoma Bones also rescues the so-called Ambassador for San Salamander, but recognises him to be Baron Von Vermin, leader of the Ratzis. The crew wants to know the whereabouts of the cocoon containing the space bunny, and Von Vermin reveals that he had actually hid it on Easter Island.

The Zoo Crew are teleported with Von Vermin to Easter Island, leaving Oklahoma Bones behind. On the island, the team discover the cocoon with "carrots growing out of it". With the cocoon now disturbed it opens itself, revealing a giant 'Bunny from Beyond'. The bunny realises the team need him to defeat the yolk monsters and he says he will help. He explains that on Earth his alien electrical powers, which crackle from his upturned ears, are heightened and this will enable him to defeat the monsters. The crew encourages the bunny to hurry up and apply his powers. He answers arrogantly but begins to concentrate and in doing so the monsters vanish. All seems well.

Von Vermin takes a chance to suggest an alliance with the alien bunny. But instead he turns Von Vermin into stone: "In truth, you deserve to become the newest addition to the great stone heads which have stood here for untold generations!". The bunny proclaims his name to be "Ralf-124C4U from the star Beetlejuice" and announces his intentions to conquer Earth. He transports everyone to Follywood, where the Zoo Crew under the leadership of Captain Carrot try to stop the bunny, but their powers are insufficient and they are imprisoned by Ralf-124C4U. The alien bunny desires Earth's glowing carrots as they provide him with a "new energy source".

Captain Carrot reverts to his non-superhero self, the skinny Roger Rabbit, in order to slip out of his shackles. Once free, he consumes several carrots and becomes once again Captain Carrot. He knocks out the space bunny and ties together his bunny ears – the source of his power. As the space bunny awakens he tries to zap Captain Carrot with his powers, but instead blasts himself and he disappears in a puff of smoke.

Most of this story's strongest ideas were contained in part one with this instalment reading like a drawn-out extension. It continues in the same inane manner as part one with few of the frames this time set on Easter Bunny Island. As the Zoo Crew are teleported to Rapanui, a map is provided of the location, which is shown to be an island in the shape of a rabbit's head.

Kseniia Kalugina

Dazzler
‘The Absorbing Man wants You!
(no.18, August 1982, Marvel Comics Group)

The Absorbing Man checks into a flophouse, a cheap hotel in New York’s Bowery, where he plans his revenge on The Avengers. The plan involves absorbing the power of The Dazzler, a superhero and rockstar who emits blinding white light that she has transduced from sonic energy. Whilst sitting on his hotel bed the Absorbing Man reflects on how he got there having been in an almighty fight with the Hulk on Easter Island. Despite absorbing the properties of the island and transforming into a giant stone man, the Absorbing Man is punched so hard by the Hulk that he falls into a coma. Left lying on his back just off the coast, the local Rapanui believe he is a newly formed island but when he wakes this giant is revered as a god. The Rapanui call him the ‘Island Spirit’ and give him all he desires. Those who refuse are broken into submission by this brute that can turn into a man of stone.

The Absorbing Man’s flashback to his time on Easter Island lasts for two pages of this comic and continues a story that had begun and ended with a typically epic fight on Easter Island in The Incredible Hulk no.261 (July 1981). The story left the Absorbing Man in a coma, slumbering as a giant-man-island. The idea is clearly inspired by the popular myths of the moai, who are often viewed as sleeping colossi, awaiting their moment to rise up.

The Absorbing Man is Carl ‘Crusher’ Creel, a large, bald and bullet-headed thug of a man. As a boxer, he was jailed for a crime, but then managed to escape after consuming a drink laced with a potion administered by the Asgardian god, Loki. Now, as the Absorbing man, he can transform into any property that he touches. On Easter Island, the property is stone and this rock-like strongman becomes moai-like. The encounter with the Rapanui is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels and the shipwrecked Gulliver’s experiences of meeting the inhabitants of the island of Lilliput. For they are tiny, compared to this giant who has suddenly appeared. Both the Absorbing man and Gulliver are found by the islanders whilst lying unconscious, and they both awaken from a supine position with the miniature islanders dotted on and around their torso, arms and legs. Like Gulliver, the Absorbing Man later tires of the natives and moves on.

The difference with the Marvel Comics fantasy is that the islanders are a basic part of a backstory, have no speaking role and in almost every frame are drawn ‘faceless’ their backs to the reader or their heads bowed down to the ground in servitude. It is suggested that the Rapanui are unintelligent (“dumb enough” and “stupid move” says the Absorbing Man). They are certainly depicted as insignificant and primitive – their dress strangely of a time pre-European contact despite the story being set in the early 1980s.

Ian Conrich

Orient Express
'Ivan Timbrovic nell'Isola di Pasqua' ['Ivan Timbrovic on Easter Island']
(no.6, December 1982, Gruppo Editoriale L'Isola Trovata)

Russian secret agent Ivan Timbrovic is summoned to the Kremlin where His Excellence Leonida Leonidievic orders him onto a new, dangerous mission: Timbrovic will have to pose as archaeologist Marcello Maccaroni and take part in an expedition to Easter Island in order to discover its many mysteries. Thanks to Timbrovic, the Kremlin will be the first to know the origin of the moai and the purpose of the many caves scattered throughout the island. Ivan reluctantly leaves for Easter Island together with three other real archaeologists, Dr Uriah Seller, Professor Kakalosino and Professor Martyn.

Once on the Island, Timbrovic and the three experts begin their exploration in search of answers. The four spend the first day walking around the island, but find nothing that can help. During this time, Seller is bitten by a mysterious insect, which was thought to have been extinct for 5000 years. At night, a sleepless and scared Timbrovic hears a noise coming from outside his tent. Peering out, Timbrovic sees Kakalosino leaving the camp and decides to follow him. While walking, the Professor starts to call out to the sky to an extra-terrestrial civilisation that he believes has inhabited Easter Island and built the moai. The aliens are bound to return to the island that night as they do every thousand years. Kakalosino jumps off a cliff believing that he will be drawn into the spaceship's anti-gravitational field but instead he falls to the bottom and dies.

Timbrovic goes back to the camp, where he finds Martyn staring at the decomposing body of Seller. Apparently the insect that had bitten Seller had injected the archaeologist with a larvae that has been eating his body from within. The two surviving expeditioners split up. Timbrovic goes east and roams endlessly for ten hours. Suddenly, he discovers a number of stone birds perched on a tree. As he rushes back to the camp to tell Martyn, he runs into a pool of blood next to which are the Professor's glasses. Believing Martyn dead, Timbrovic seeks refuge in a cave, where he finds a young blonde woman welcoming him to the Easter Island Holiday Resort. The woman tells Timbrovic that the mysterious phenomena, for years associated with the island, were in fact all staged for the sake of the tourists who stay in underground accommodation.

Dispirited by this discovery, Timbrovic runs away from the cave to escape the attentions of the woman, only to find Martyn, who had staged his death to force Maccaroni and Timbrovic underground in a search for the truth. While Timbrovic tries to explain that there is no mystery, a huge rock falls from the sky killing Martyn. Back at the Kremlin, Timbrovic tells Leonidievic a story about a mysterious population that had constructed the enormous moai in order to venerate their great chief Hotu-Matua. He also presents His Excellence with a fake statuette of this leader represented as a fertility god, which is supposed to have lain hidden for centuries in a cave. Unconvinced by his story, Leonidievic sends Timbrovic away with the statuette.

Published in Italian, Ivan Timbrovic's stories are a parody of the secret agents and Cold War stories best epitomised by James Bond. Easter Island seems to only serve as a setting for another improbable adventure of this unlikely Russian spy. For this reason, the mystery of Easter Island is only loosely constructed around the presence of the moai, which actually appear only once in the story. The comic exploits the most common myths surrounding Easter Island, such as the notion that aliens from outer space had erected the giant statues, and shows them to be false – manufactured, or the result of delusion.

What is relatively original is the fiction's extensive re-imagining of Easter Island as a giant tourist resort. Whilst there was a tourism industry on Easter Island in 1982, it was lacking development and the huge crowds of visitors that it attracts nowadays and which the authors of this story seem to anticipate. Certainly tourists do not live in underground accommodation and nor are the mysteries staged, but within the humour of this fiction there is possibly a critique of the island's commodification and its transformation as a result of tourism.

Alessandra De Marco

Agent 327
'Geheimakte Siebenschläfer' ['Secret File Dormouse']
(vol. 3; text and drawings: Martin Lodewijk; Stuttgart: Ehapa Verlag, November 1983)

Agent 327 (real name Otto Otto Eisenbrot; Hendrik IJzerbroot in the original Dutch version) works for the Dutch secret service. In this role, he experiences numerous strange adventures, in which despite his clumsiness he ultimately emerges successful. He is accompanied on his missions by his assistant Olga Lawina, originally from the Swiss Secret Service. The story begins with Agent 327 and Olga in a seaplane in the so-called Bermuda Triangle, where they have had to make an emergency landing. Pulled by an unknown force, the seaplane is drawn to a huge ship and aircraft graveyard in the middle of the sea. It is precisely the place where all the planes and ships have been disappearing over many decades. There, Agent 327 discovers an ape-like figure who – as it turns out later – has lived in this strange spot for ten million years and is the world's oldest human being.

The place is a so-called time hole, where time has stopped. When Agent 327 falls into the water, he discovers a pyramid at the bottom of the sea, which later turns out to be a spaceship, which could not be removed due to computer damage. Agent 327 is caught by this pyramid and falls into a deep sleep. He dreams, with some of his own history becoming clear, but he also suddenly arrives on Easter Island. There he is surrounded in the darkness of the night at the slopes of Rano Raraku by moai, one of which asks him to sing the song of the mother. Agent 327 is initially unsure of where the voice is coming from, but a moai rises up out of the ground and Agent 327 runs for cover: "Help! Help! Help!", he shouts. Finally, and rather nervously, he sings to the contented moai, whilst being cradled in its stone palm.

Meanwhile, things are also developing at the ship's graveyard. Two American agents have shown up there to solve the mystery of the place. With the help of the ape-like prehistoric man, the team manage to enter into the pyramid (the spaceship), through an abandoned ship's locker, where they meet fluffy gnome-like aliens. They wear pointed red hats and Agent 327 manages to catch one which he places on his head. This tells him the whole story of how and why the spaceship became stranded. The moai also appear in this narrative, and they are revealed as the overlords of the gnomes, who used them as unskilled workers in their search for resources on their way through the galaxies.

Apparently, the stranded aliens have been waiting for thousands of years for human civilisation to evolve enough to repair the spaceship. Agent 327 manages to repair the onboard computer with two simple kicks. In gratitude for the aliens being able to fly home again, the humans are released by the leader of the gnomes. With the departure of the spaceship, the moai on Easter Island abruptly disappear, as seen on the penultimate page of the story, where two locals wonder where the stone figures have gone. One islander suggests that maybe they flew, with his speech bubble depicting a moai with bird wings.

Originally published as a Dutch comic in 1977, as 'Dossier Zevenslaper' ('Dossier Sleeper'), Agent 327 is part of a series that has been published since 1966 and at the height of spy fiction and its many imitations. Agent 327 is a parody of James Bond, but he also acts and looks like the later British parody Johnny English (2003-). Many of the events dealt with in the series take place during the Cold War. More recent volumes deal with contemporary events making numerous cultural references to actual persons and situations.

The moai in this story are primarily depicted employing the myth of movement as they are shown talking, walking and actively holding Agent 327. Although on the island just one moai comes alive. In one flashback the moai carry a futuristic backpack as they stride across a landscape holding conducting orbs in their hands as they search for resources like uranium and radium. Moai fiction rarely connects Easter Island with the perceived mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, though Erich von Däniken had in his best-selling book Chariots of the Gods? (1968), in which he posited theories about contact between aliens and early humans. Däniken is parodied in this comic as Erik van Tischrücken, who praises his books on television.

Hermann Mückler

The Legion of Super-Heroes
'A Shared Destiny'
(no.311, May 1984, DC Comics)

Wildfire, a member of the Legion, arrives at Starhaven, a planet of lush vegetation and with a large stone figure – the site of a temple – rising from the land. On the surface, Wildfire encounters winged people dressed in the clothes and culture of Native American Indians, who say they have been on the planet undisturbed "in the seven hundred years since we settled here". One of their kind, Dawnstar, who is also a member of the Legion, is being sought by Wildfire, a super-hero with whom she had become close. Unfortunately, Wildfire is a superhero in a suit, without a body – and therefore someone Dawnstar cannot touch.

Dawnstar has been roaming the galaxy searching for meaning and the man with whom she will settle, in a rite of passage that is called a "grand tour". Wildfire catches up with dawnstar near the planet of Venus, but just at the moment of her sacred revelation which he unwittingly disturbs. Wildfire reveals his true feelings and he and Dawnstar embrace. She flies back to Starhaven, her home planet, with her quest fulfilled and destiny realised. There within the temple of the stone giant the silent vigil can now end.

The giant stone figure that appears within two frames of this story (including the title page) is a site of community worship connected to ancient spirits. The hard, angular features of this idol were perhaps inspired by the moai of Easter Island even though Rapanui is not directly referenced in the story. Found on a planet of winged Native American Indians places the stone carving within a fantasised and romanticisied Indigenous culture whose origins are not of Oceania but crucially of a remote civilisation, long left undisturbed, and that is strongly connected to the land.

Ian Conrich

Mad
'Special Rock Issue'
(no.254, April 1985, E.C. Publications)

Appearing on just the cover of this special issue, which is focused on rock music, a row of moai are presented wearing headphones which barely cover their long ears. The joke which recognises the human features of the moai and suggests they can hear, appeared to inspire the advertising campaign employed by Sony for its range of headphones that it promoted in 1989 (see below).

Ian Conrich

Martin Mystère. Detective dell'impossibile [Martin Mystère. Detective of the Impossible]
'Rapa Nui!'
(no.42; Milan: Daim Press, September 1985)

It is 1942, and on the 30th parallel a US navy warship finds a man floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The man, who appears to be a South American Indian is saved, but he cannot speak, has no documents and is apparently in a state of shock. Nicknamed Robinson, he is taken back to the USA where slowly he learns a few words of English and memories of him being imprisoned in a dark room resurface. Over time, the government discover that Robinson is a computer whiz, so they keep him in a military base to work on a top-secret war programme.

Fast forward to New York, 1985. Two CIA agents hire Martin Mystère, archaeologist and detective of the impossible, to help them solve the mystery of Robinson, who has tried to run away with the help of his collaborator, Dr Mara Marata, a physicist and former colleague of Mystère's at MIT. The agents take Mystère to Mara's house where the scientist reveals that Robinson can indeed speak very good English and has begun to open up. Unable to recall his past, he has spoken of his strong aversion for the war programme and affirms that he must reunite with "The Masters", hence the botched attempt to run away. Later Robinson gives Mara some drawings he has done, which are in fact glyphs resembling human figures. As soon as Martin is shown the glyphs he recognises them as the mysterious "rango rango" writing from Easter Island, and he believes they depict the moai.

Martin, his assistant Java (a Neanderthal), Mara and Robinson are transferred to Chile and from there on to Easter Island, where they are taken to an American military base. During the flight to the island, Robinson starts muttering something about The Masters and the drowned island of Rangitea, which he claims to have visited in a forgotten past. Once on Easter Island, Robinson begins to behave strangely: he looks as if he once knew the place and walks in a sort of trance. He enters a bar popular among the locals, and then leaves heading towards the beach where the moai are located.

A group of islanders follow him and in a fit of inexplicable anger attack him calling him "long-eared bastard". Mystère, who has been following Robinson, saves him by using his special paralysing laser gun, which was created 15,000 years before by the Nacaal, the inhabitants of the Lost Continent of Mu (which sunk in the middle of the Pacific). When the locals come around, they tell Mystère that they had felt a primordial hatred towards Robinson. They identify him with the Long Ears, the people who had created the moai, and in the process had enslaved the ancestors of the Rapanui, the Short Ears, who had eventually risen against their oppressors. Mystère begins to suspect that there may be a connection between Robinson, Easter Island, and Mu.

At night, Robinson escapes to the beach where he evokes the spirits of the moai to show him the way to re-join with "The Masters". The moai come alive and begin talking to each other; then they turn to Robinson and invest him with power with the lasers coming from their eyes. After a while, Robinson returns placidly to the base. The following day, Martin, Mara, Robinson and Java decide to explore one of the many hundreds of caves on the island and whose entrance is marked by a birdman petroglyph. Inside the cave, Robinson easily leads them to a place where more "rango rango" inscriptions are uncovered behind a cave wall. The episode ends abruptly with Mara approaching Robinson, telling him that she had been following him the night before (although to her eyes the moai had been still). The story continues in volume 43 (reviewed below).

Created in Italian by Alfredo Castelli in 1982 (post Raiders of the Lost Ark [1981]), Martin Jacques Mystère is rather similar to Indiana Jones. He is an American anthropologist, archaeologist and art collector who, following the mysterious death of his parents in 1965, begins to investigate the world phenomena that science refuses to acknowledge. Mystère is accompanied by Java, a Neanderthal – an idea also found in The Adventures of Ogu, Mampato and Rena (reviewed above) – who has survived through the eras hidden in a cave in Mongolia. At the heart of many adventures of Martin Mystère is the constant resurfacing of traces of the lost rival continents of Mu and Atlantis, who annihilated each other 12,000 years ago, using sophisticated nuclear weapons.

Given its mystique, Easter Island could not but provide an apt setting for an adventure of the Detective of the Impossible. In addition to an exploration of some of the most significant popular myths surrounding Rapanui, the story also connects with the history of the island. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of this episode is the account of Easter island's discovery in 1722 by Jacob Roggeveen, and more importantly of the arrival of the Peruvian slave traders (the story says this was in 1826; in fact it was 1862), who took the inhabitants of the island to work as slaves in the guano mines, thus destroying the repositories of Rapanui's ancient culture. Mystère also discusses the supposed origins of the original Rapanui people – who were apparently survivors of the destruction of Rangitea (this presumably is meant to be the Polynesian ancestral/spiritual realm of Rangiatea) – and of the contrast between two ethnic groups. In this fiction, the Long Ears were of South American Indian origin and they had enslaved the Short Ears of Polynesian origin, who eventually rebelled sometime between 1680 and 1774.

The Long Ears are also identified as the creators of the moai, and one of the panels shows them carving a prone statue directly from the foot of a rock. Mystère also hypothesises that it was the Short Ears who knocked them down as they were the symbols of their oppressors. As in many other instances of moai fiction, these monoliths convey the myths of movement and power, having the ability to speak and to project strong energy rays from their eyes.

The story, like much fiction before and since, also hints at the connection between Rapanui and the Lost Continent of Mu, with Robinson appearing as the link between the two. However, except for the man's highly advanced computer knowledge that may be traced back to the ancient but extremely advanced civilisation of Mu, the links between Mu and Rapanui are not fully developed at this stage in the story, nor is the true identity of "The Masters" and their link to Rangitea.

Rongorongo (here called rango rango, but corrected in the 1992 reprint) is another key element of this fantasy. The glyphs appear several times during the episode as stylised human figures and they are close to the originals. Although no attempt is made to interpret the signs, Mystère believes that these glyphs represent the moai. He also believes that some similarities may exist between these ancient writings and those found in Mohejo-daro in the Indo Valley. The episode reveals the author's interest for the lessons that may come from the history of Rapanui. Even as he seeks to answer many of the questions concerning the origins of the moai and of the Rapanui people, and the meaning of the rongorongo inscriptions, Mystère uses the history of the Rapanui to offer a brief meditation on the dreadful consequences of slavery, civil war and ethnic hatred.

Alessandra De Marco

Martin Mystère. Detective dell'impossibile [Martin Mystère. Detective of the Impossible]
'La guerra senza tempo' ['The Endless War')
(no.43; Milan: Daim Press, October 1985)

Having followed Robinson to the site of the moai, Mara pays him a night-time visit and decides to disclose the secret she has been keeping from him for a long time. Mara is the descendant of King Marata, Easter Island's king who had been enslaved by the Peruvians, and she is convinced that Robinson is one of the "Undying", an ancient race that populated Easter Island together with the settlers from Rangitea. The Undying are meant to fight the "Eternal War" and are the bearers of endless knowledge. Mara shows Robinson a card engraved with some ancient glyphs which the man is inexplicably able to read and which triggers his memory.

The next day Mystère decides to visit the island's museum where the rongorongo tablets are kept, but Mara has drugged his coffee and Mystère is forced to stay behind. Meanwhile, Mara and Robinson drive to the south-western corner of Rapanui to a volcano with its slopes dotted with moai. Robinson reveals that the engraved card is actually a key and that the moai have told him how it can be activated. The two climb the volcano and walk into its apparently sealed crater, with Robinson exhibiting superhuman powers – such as moving large boulders – the more they descend into the bowels of the mountain. By now, Java has found out about the spiked coffee and has alerted Martin; the two of them follow Mara and Robinson's tracks.

Inside the volcano, Mara and Robinson go down a staircase that should lead them to the headquarters of the Ancient whose door opens up the moment they insert the etched card/ key. A writing on the door suddenly appears identifying Robinson as the operational unit 221. Robinson finally remembers his past and walks into this cave where a number of supercomputers are kept. Robinson begins to activate the machines blabbing something about an extremely ancient war plan similar to the one he was working on for the CIA. The screens suddenly glow with glyphs alerting the man to the presence of Mystère and Java at the mouth of the volcano. Robinson knocks Mara unconscious so that she won't be able to warn them against the security systems that protect the cave.

Mystère and Java manage to reach the entrance of the cave but realise that they cannot go inside. Mara comes around, faces Robinson, and manages to deactivate the security system: Mystère can now enter the cave whereupon he knocks out Robinson. Mara tells Mystère about her origins and the legends about the Undying and the Masters but now the two must find out what was Robinson's mission and why he has activated the computers. At the same time, back at the US base, the military register the presence of a submarine which moves at extraordinary speed and depth towards the island. Jet fighters in the sky try to intercept it but they are destroyed by lasers fired from beneath the ocean. In the cave, the computers start to beep and flash and the cave begins to shake. Whilst in a trance, Robinson shouts "they are coming".

The cave reveals itself to be an underground base within which a sophisticated submarine emerges. A group of men speaking in rongorongo salute Robinson who replies in this unknown language. He then confesses to Martin that he has remembered being one of the Masters, and that Mara belongs to the same race. Robinson asks Mara to join him on his mission where she will have access to untold knowledge and technology. Outside, the military are surrounding the island, when the volcano begins to erupt spitting out the submarine which has now turned into a rocket.

The episode ends in New York where, a month later, Mystère is writing his diary. In it he records that Mara has joined Robinson to fight the Endless War against the mortal enemy of their race, while the soldiers from the ancient race had used guns (similar to the one Mystère possessed) to knock him and Java out. As long as the revenge of the Ancients remains unaccomplished there is no real end to the story of the Masters and their Endless War.

Although the story establishes a link between the lost continent of Mu and Rapanui by identifying Robinson as one of the Masters from which the Rapanui descended, and by characterising him as the keeper of an ancient but highly advanced civilisation, the story does not add much to the representation of Easter Island and its culture established in the previous issue. In fact, Rapanui and its subterranean network of caves are depicted mostly as the setting, and as the millennial hiding place of advanced technological equipment – an idea which reappears elsewhere, such as Area 51 (reviewed below).

The moai only briefly appear and mostly in a flashback as animated statues endowed with telepathic powers. Similarly, although numerous glyphs appear throughout this instalment, none of them recalls the detail of the rongorongo symbols, but instead they are more depictions of matchstick men. The sentences that Robinson reads on the key, which are meant to belong to a forgotten language – ""ho' okomo pili pono kii ma loko o puka ahi ai honua" "a ole maopopo ia u popule keelaa mai oolelo peelaa" "kulikuli lapuwale, huupoo looloo" – are made up of invented sounds based on actual Hawai'ian words.

The story fails to fully explain the reasons for the Endless War and to clearly identify Robinson and Mara's mortal enemies. The episode seems more bent on focusing on the theme of sophisticated warfare which reflects the arms race of the time and US preoccupations of the Reagan era.

Alessandra De Marco

Super Powers
'Seeds of Doom!'; 'When Past and Present Meet!'
(vol.2, no.1 and no.2, September and October 1985, DC Comics)

Darkseid escapes a revolt against his tyrannical rule on the evil distant planet of Akropolis. He is joined by the last of his loyal forces, and together they are transported to the moon through the inter-dimensional boom tube. Darkseid is now looking for a new world to rule and he targets nearby Earth.

Many of the superheroes from the DC Universe gather for an emergency meeting. Five UFOs have been spotted crash-landing around the world – at Stonehenge, the Colosseum in Rome, New York, Arizona and Easter Island. At each site, giant seeds are taking root and burrowing deep towards Earth's core. The superheroes decide to split into teams to tackle the threat.

Aquaman and J'onn J'onzz travel to Stonehenge where Darkseid's evil helper Desaad transports them back in time to the age of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Desaad manufactures a battle between King Arthur, his knights and the two superheroes, who are captured but then manage to show Desaad is the true villain. Desaad escapes and the superheroes arrive back at Stonehenge in the present day.

In New York, Red Tornado, Hawkman and Green Arrow arrive to tackle another seed of doom, but they are transported back to prehistoric times and an age of dinosaurs. Simultaneously, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Dr Fate travel to Easter Island, "to a place shrouded in mystery". Dr Fate advises that for some the moai are "grounded in dark magic".

Easter Island appears in just one image in issue no.1 and on one page in issue no.2 as part of the comic's basic exposition in this six-part story, that moves to a focus on Easter Island in issue no.3. Having a group of superheroes divide into teams to tackle a series of related threats in different global locations, that include Easter Island, had been presented as a narrative structure just a few years prior in DC Comics Presents (see the review above).

Ian Conrich

Super Powers
'Time Upon Time Upon Time'
(vol.2, no 3, November 1985, DC Comics)

On Easter Island a team of superheroes comment on the moai they find there, but assume they are inanimate statues. Yet the reader can see one of the moai thinking 'At last! They have arrived!'. Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Dr Fate move away from the moai in search of one of Darkseid's seeds of doom. When they locate the seed it begins to glow and, with a blast of energy, Darkseid's faithful minion Mantis appears. In turn each of the superheroes attempts to subdue Mantis but he is able to absorb their powers, reflect them back and make his escape. The superheroes then attempt to destroy the seed of doom, but Green Lantern is pulled inside. As Wonder Woman and Dr Fate try to rescue him, they are attacked from behind by Mantis, who pushes all three superheroes into the seed.

When the superheroes recover their faculties they find themselves still on Easter Island, but in the year 1087AD. They find the island is inhabited by natives "in primitive garb", and they also discover giant alien beings that look like the moai. These beings describe themselves as the M'mtnek, hailing "from a planet afar", and declare their intent to rule over Earth. The Rapanui have been enslaved and with Easter Island conquered the rest of the world will follow.

The superheroes battle the aliens but are initially defeated and held captive with the natives. The aliens trap the superheroes using a force field but, once rested, Dr Fate is able to break through this barrier and they escape to continue the battle. He is also able to gain entry to the alien's spacecraft where he finds Mantis is working with the aliens to further their plans to conquer the Earth. Green Lantern creates special sponges that soak up the energy Mantis directs at him and returns it in a manner similar to how Mantis had previously battled the superheroes. More aliens emerge from the spacecraft and Mantis believes they will defeat the superheroes so he returns to the future. Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are floored and seemingly about to be killed when Dr Fate uses his power to immobilise the aliens. He also destroys the alien spaceship, but salvages a time/ space warp device that enables the superheroes to return to the present.

In honour of the superheroes, who have freed the Rapanui, three moai-like giant heads are carved of the crime-fighting trio at the story's end, but they are immediately obliterated by Green Lantern, who wishes to keep their activities on the island secret. However, this was not the first comic to show Wonder Woman on Easter Island, and it was also not the first to depict her likeness in a moai – that was 30 years earlier in another DC comic (see the review above). Green lantern's freezing of the aliens apparently explains how the moai, fixed in time, came to exist. The story conveniently ignores, though, the issue that these alien moai wear uniforms and helmets – which somehow disappear when the creatures become the stone monoliths. In one frame set in the contemporary period, the island is bizarrely shown crammed with giant bulbous moai heads that are packed together.

So much of this comic is a series of fights, with the Rapanui innocent bystanders whose island has become a staging post for an invasion and now a battlefield involving superheroes. Easter Island may be remote, which could aid an assault on Earth that does not wish to be noticed, but so many similar stories position the island as the unlikely start of a successful invasion when the territory is relatively tiny compared to the world's continents and metropoles. The culture of the Rapanui is presented as simple, and the men are drawn with muscular bodies yet they still kowtow and cower in fear. "Hello. Don't be afraid. We're friends", says Green Lantern reassuringly.

Roy Smith and Ian Conrich

The New Teen Titans Annual
‘Revenge of the Rusting Reptiles From Outer Space (!)
(no.2, 1986, DC Comics)

Mechanised robot dinosaurs are rampaging through parts of North and South America. Buried for thousands of years in an underground chamber they have been reactivated and released following drilling along the San Andreas Fault in Northern California. Drawn to Easter Island the Teen Titans trace a light to inside the volcano of Rano Raraku (written here as Rand Rakaku), where a long-buried spaceship is found containing the dead and petrified bodies of aliens resembling moai. It is deduced that the indigenous population of Easter Island, which seems to have long disappeared, “sculpted the statues in their honor. They must have been thought of as gods!”. Wonder Girl destroys the still-active control panel, thereby halting the robo-dinosaurs in their tracks. At the story’s end the reader is informed that the aliens were dying when they crash-landed on earth. Images were relayed back to their planet of the dinosaurs that then roamed the land and these were used to construct the robots that were sent to earth as emissaries to connect with what was believed to be the dominant species. Both the spaceship with the moai-looking aliens and the robo-dinosaurs crash-landed and had been long-buried underground.

Republished a year later in Tales of the Teen Titans (no.81, September 1987), the robot dinosaurs in this comic were following a popular trend that had begun in Japan and by the mid 1980s had produced the Dinotrons or Dinobots of the Transformers universe. Just a year before this annual, the Dinobots had been named one of the highest selling toys of 1985. Forcing such creatures into this Teen Titans story leads to a convoluted and hurried tale of aliens, moai and dinosaurs, with a repetition of the creation myth that the Rapanui had carved the moai as a likeness of the outerspace travellers whom they worshipped as gods. The remoteness of Easter Island, with its caverns and volcanoes and a population removed, provides a land of mystery and the unknown where ancient spaceships are waiting to be discovered.

Ian Conrich

Mad
(no.261, March 1986, E.C. Publications)

A year after its 'Special Rock issue' and the placement of moai humour on its front cover, Mad published the first of two cartoons (see below for the second) that imagined what lies beneath the moai heads. The work of archaeologists such as Thor Heyerdahl has revealed that the bodies of many of the moai extend far underground. Unlike the second Mad cartoon, where a team of archaeologists use industrial equipment to excavate, the two adventurers in this comic dig furiously with simple shovels. These colonial figures with their pith helmets, shorts and surnames such as Faversham, are presumably British, and their theory that the moai are ancient ice-age carvings is proved correct when they reveal that the heads are joined to the bodies of ice-hockey players, complete with skates and sticks.

Ian Conrich

Mr Magellan
'L'île des Colosses' ['The Island of the Giants']
(no.7; text: André-Paul Duchateau and Jean van Hamme; drawings: Henri Ghion; Brussels: Editions du Lombard, June 1986)

Mr Magellan and his super-strong female companion Capella travel by yacht to Easter Island in search of Professor Wolfgang. He has been kidnapped by the evil Myra von Mars, a sculptress who has stolen his discovery: a formula with the power to transform living things into stone and vice versa. At a Rapanui stall selling tourist souvenirs of miniature moai, Magellan and Capella find one in the shape of Wolfgang's head. It starts speaking to them and says it can guide them to where Wolfgang is being held captive. Magellan and Capella travel by moped to near Anakena beach where they find Wolfgang imprisoned, but before he can convey much he is shot in the chest with an arrow. Von Mars flees the scene and Magellan and Capella give chase.

Magellan follows von Mars up the side of a large moai. Von Mars sits on top of the moai's head and brings it alive as it rises out of the ground and starts walking. Magellan and Capella flee, diving off a cliff into the ocean and then swimming to their yacht. The moai, controlled by von Mars, also jumps into the water. It surges up beneath the yacht forcing Magellan and Capella to jump overboard, where they are caught in nets and become the prisoners of von Mars.

When Magellan and Capella awaken they find themselves tied up as marionettes – with shackles and rope around their neck, ankles and wrists – in a giant puppet theatre. Alongside them, as a third 'puppet', is Wolfgang. Von Mars controls these 'puppets' lifting and twisting their bodies around the stage. She reveals that she has plans the next day to awaken all the moai of Easter Island, who will become her slaves. She will also wreak world havoc bringing giant stone monuments, like the Statue of Liberty, alive to attack civilisation. Von Mars will only stop if she is given twenty million dollars. Magellan is freed in order to persuade his powerful employer, the International Testing Organisation (ITO), to release the funds. Meanwhile, Capella and Wolfgang will remain the hostages of von Mars.

A little airplane leaves Easter Island for a secret location, with von Mars, Magellan, Capella and Wolfgang on board. On route, it drops Magellan over the ITO headquarters in South America. He parachutes in and asks to be taken to the Director's office, where there is a room of many television screens linked to the worldwide members of ITO. Despite their horror at the demands, he manages to persuade them to agree to pay von Mars the twenty million dollars and he flies back to her location. There, at her hideaway, guarded by the giant moai, he hands over the document that she desired, which is signed by world leaders.

Magellan, however, has worked out her deception. He reveals that von Mars and Wolfgang have secretly been working together, and that the giant moai is actually a robot. Magellan and Capella escape just as von Mars discovers that the writing on the document has now vanished; the special ink with which it was written fading away upon being exposed to sunlight. Von Mars instructs Wolfgang to start up the moai robot. But Wolfgang, a respectable scientist before he met von Mars, has had enough and says he would rather go to prison. The device he controls can turn some things into stone and therefore he decides to petrify von Mars. In the final frame, von Mars is a statue adorning Magellan and Capella's home.

Originally published in 1972 as a 4-part story in the Belgian comic tintin (see the review above), Editions du Lombard collected the four parts into a hardback publication, adding two Magellan short stories at the end and a striking cover to the front. Like the 1972 publication, this cover is a composite image, combining elements of individual frames inside. The moai does indeed follow Magellan into the water, but the image employed for the cover is taken from when the robot is striding on land. Moreover, by the time the moai has entered the water, Magellan and Capella have ceased swimming underwater and are focused on climbing aboard their yacht.

This moai is the most appealing aspect of the story and whilst it is meant to be terrifying, due to its size and weight, its body gives it the appearance of a baby. Robot moai are surprisingly uncommon in moai fiction and can be seen elsewhere in Gaiking (reviewed above), Where Creatures Roam (reviewed above), Lion and Thunder (reviewed above), and Sonic the Comic (reviewed below). Despite the story being set in part on Rapanui (the location emerges in part three), there is little connection to the island, with the moai-robot the main feature. On just one page, there is a brief depiction of the island's culture, with several tourists taking photos of the moai, and an indigenous merchandise seller, offering replica moai for sale from a shack.

The story contains many narrative flaws, but instead has to be viewed as an adventure-fantasy in the mould of international crime-fighting heroes of the day, like Derek Flint (the films Our Man Flint and In Like Flint) and Modesty Blaise. Both of these fictions were spoof spy creations in the wake of James Bond, with Magellan most like Flint, and Modesty Blaise emerging from a British comic strip.

Ian Conrich

Le Retour de Tangata Manu [The Return of the Bird Man]
(Dominique Hè; Paris: Les Humanoïdes Associés, April 1987)

Review forthcoming

Walt Disney's Uncle $crooge Adventures
'The Mystery of Easter Island'
(no. 3, January 1988, Gemstone)

Scrooge McDuck, accompanied by Donald Duck and his nephews are on a boat, returning from the Pacific Island of Tsalal. Scrooge is concerned about being on time for a banker's conference, Donald is enjoying life away from Duckburg, and the nephews are busy inventing ideas for their costumes for Halloween. The celebration is only 10 days away, and costume options are very limited by the lack of supplies at hand. Suddenly, pirates riding dolphin-shaped vessels appear and board the boat. They remove the protagonists' cash and valuables, including a safe stashed full of money that Scrooge secured from a profitable mining deal on Tsalal. Eager to get his money back, Scrooge sends the nephews to call for help. They return with bad news that the ship's radio has been sabotaged, so Scrooge decides to change course and seek help from the closest island – Rapanui.

The nephews read about Rapanui in a guidebook and learn that it is "an isolated Pacific isle discovered by Jakob Roggeveen" with "all those giant stone heads", which "natives believe […] can walk". Approaching the island, they spot the volcano Rano Raraku, the "maternity ward" from which most of the moai were carved. As they come ashore, they find local kiosks, with signs announcing, "Easter eggs we no got" and "Shards & Cards". Scrooge aims to find the authorities, whilst the rest of the team head to see the moai.

Donald and the nephews are not alone as there are also tourists exploring and taking pictures of the statues. "They are a tad intimidating! I wouldn't want to meet one in a dark alley!", says Donald, with the nephews adding, "Living in the shadow of these bruisers could sure make me superstitious!". Scrooge joins the group, advising that the pirates might be on Rapanui, since he has found one of his stolen dollar bills. The local authorities, however, are not interested, since Aku Aku is said to be protecting the island from the pirates. The protagonists decide to investigate with the help of a local guide, Lazarus Mana, who welcomes them in Spanish. He tells them that moai were recently seen dancing and later at night escorts everyone to witness the event. Lazarus, however, is extremely superstitious (like the other islanders), and departs leaving the protagonists to unravel the mystery alone.

Soon after, the nephews see the gun-wielding statues walking with Donald and Scrooge captive. But the moai suddenly disappear, so the nephews decide to search the area thoroughly. They find one moai is a rotating closed-circuit surveillance camera and it has a secret door (accessed via a button in the moai's shoulder), which leads to a tunnel that takes the nephews into an underground harbour and what turns out to be the pirates' base. Here, they find full-length moai costumes hanging on hooks. The pirates, who would appear to be English, emerge and tie up the nephews. The pirate leader, Wyngard Slink, declares that he and his gang "terrorise the whole South Pacific" using an old volcanic cave for their operations. Apparently, the Rapanui of old had used these caves as their "treasure houses".

Lazarus comes to the rescue, soon followed by the authorities who arrive and arrest the pirates. The police praise Lazarus, saying "it took mucho machismo to enter taboo ground". Scrooge, Donald and their nephews sail back home safe where it is now Halloween in Duckburg. The nephews are wearing the "neat" moai costumes, and they promise to tell their friends where they got them later, "maybe 'round Easter".

Disney comics have had an enduring attraction to Easter Island, with quite a number of the issues published around Easter, in order to exploit puns that connect eggs and bunnies to this Pacific locale. This was the first of those publications and is by comparison out of season, published in January and referencing Halloween. The comic employs many of the popular myths of Easter Island, such as the ideas that the moai can walk, as well as secret doors, hidden treasure, hideaway caves and underground lairs for villains, all of which reoccur in the Disney comics. The idea of pirates using the island as a base is surprisingly uncommon and was central only to the earliest of moai fiction such as Whiz Comics (reviewed above) and World's Finest Comics (reviewed above) in the 1940s.

As with the other Disney comics there is little depiction of the Rapanui, although in this issue there are several frames in which the local community appears, albeit as Duck-related islanders, some of whom wear the Polynesian sarong and the hibiscus flower in their hair. Lazarus is another interesting addition, who speaks phrases in Spanish, an official, but not a native language of Rapanui. In fact, this Disney comic goes the furthest of the group into Rapanui culture adding local superstitions to the story, taboo areas of the island, and the spirit of Aku Aku.

Kseniia Kalugina

Fix und Foxi [Fix and Foxi]
‘Die Riesen der Osterinsel’ [‘The Giants of Easter Island’]
(vol. 36, no.16, 1988, Erich Pabel Verlag)

The protagonists of this comic are twin foxes, brothers Fix and Foxi, Lupo, a wolf, and Professor Knox, a raven who is a slightly whimsical genius, an inventor and an enthusiastic explorer who offers the most opportunities for the gang’s new adventures. In this story, they all journey to Easter Island, at Professor Knox's suggestion, so he can study the moai. The island is inhospitable, cold and windy. Lupo has consequently wrapped up warm, but he has still caught a cold and at one point he sneezes so hard that he blows himself off his feet.

The sneeze, however, is so dramatic that it awakens a nearby giant moai, which rumbles and rises out of the ground. Other moai rise up, all giant and muscular figures who stride forth, stomping on the landscape and smashing down with their fists. Professor Knox is, in part, excited by this development, but the team need to flee and they run to a nearby village where the moai crush buildings in their wake. All the local inhabitants manage to flee using whatever they can find – boats, surfboards and inflatable rings – leaving the four protagonists to try to save themselves by dashing to a nearby cave; the moai follow and try to reach inside but to no avail.

Since they can no longer leave the cave, the team penetrate its interior. There, at an underground lake, they meet an old bearded man with long white hair, a hermit who appears similar to Lupo but with a red nose instead of a big black one. The old man tries to help and knows that only the wise book can resolve the situation. But he has forgotten where he hid the secret map which tells the way to the wise book. All he knows is that at the time he drew the map, he hid it in a place where it could be overgrown. Meanwhile, two giant moai, called ‘Zeugels’ in the story, run against each other with full force in front of the cave. From the resulting collision, many new smaller moai emerge, which are now able to penetrate into the cave. The five fugitives in the cave now have to flee further inside, escaping across the lake, with the moai not far behind walking along the bed of the underground reservoir with ease.

Fix realises that there can only be one place in the cave that is overgrown, namely the head of the old man, because there is no vegetation in the cave. They cut his hair and find the map which gives them the directions they need. The team have been resting on a plateau, and with the moai all lined up in front, they jump from one head to another, to the other side of the lake. There they discover a secret opening to a passageway, through which they can only crawl. They all venture down with the door closing shut behind them just as a moai attempts to follow. At the end of the crawlspace they find a chamber covered in hieroglyphics and in the middle of the room, positioned on a pedestal, the treasured book opened at a particular page.

The book advises that on the island there were the so-called “red noses”, who lived peacefully and made regular offerings in the form of food to the stone statues. But one day an eccentric man with a black nose came and stole their offerings from the moai so the angry stone giants came to life and took revenge on the black nose. The villain, however, managed to escape and so the moai destroyed the village of the red noses, who all left the island, except for the hermit who escaped in to the cave. Now it is clear what had awakened the moai this time and caused their aggression. When Lupo had sneezed hard, he had blown away the scarf covering his face, in doing so revealing his large black nose. Foxi has an idea to hit Lupo firmly on the nose so that it turns red. Lupo is then despatched from the cave, whereupon the moai immediately calm down and sink back into the ground. With the resting moai once again looking out to sea, the team sail home.

The series Fix und Foxi, conceived and drawn by Rolf Kauka, first appeared in 1953 and was produced continuously until 1995. In German-speaking countries, the so-called ‘Fix und Foxi’ books were the strongest competition to Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, who coincidentally have repeatedly visited Easter Island. In fact, anthropomorphic animals unraveling the mysteries of Rapanui have been a common theme of moai fiction, understandably in stories aimed at children: from a collective of dogs (The Treasure of the Long-Ears, reviewed below) and mice (Geronimo Stilton, reviewed below) to the lions in the television animation Montana Jones (reviewed above) and the hamster in the German comic, Mike (reviewed below), which is possibly the closest cousin to Fix and Foxi.

The subject of the moai rising up and striding across the island can also be found in numerous other stories, such as Inspector Gadget (reviewed above), Where Monsters Dwell (reviewed above), and Chamber of Chills (reviewed above) and Spike. In these fantasies, the awakened moai largely flatten and smash their surroundings, but Spike shares an irregular plot similarity with Fix and Foxi, in terms of moai unity and multiplication. In the former comic, moai surge together to form a singular giant moai, whilst in the latter, two giant moai deliberately crash into each other to form smaller versions of themselves. Such fantasies bypass the islanders as the craftsmen of these statues and, in a myth of creation, these moai become self-generating.

Fix and Foxi combines both clichéd and original ideas and unfortunately it fails to give anything other than a few frames to the Rapanui, who are shown simply fleeing their island by any means possible and, most tellingly, not returning at the story’s end, despite the threat being contained. The red noses and the black noses is the story’s way of establishing two opposing groups of people, in a manner presumably inspired by Rapanui’s long ears and short ears, but in this fiction the individuals defined by their nasal features are removed from the villagers, who appear to be a different form of islander.

Beyond the moai, there is nothing else within this comic to connect it to Rapanui, which is a shame. The hieroglyphics found in the secret chamber, covering the walls and a pillar of the circular room, could be linked to rongorongo, but they are clearly more inspired by Egyptian illustrations. In fact, Professor Knox points out that these characters are Sumerian hieroglyphs, which sadly takes the culture of Rapanui far away from any local point of origin to a distant civilisation that is deemed to be the superior progenitor.

Hermann Mückler

Tajemnice Wyspy Welkanocnej [The Secrets of Easter Island]
(text: Wiesława Wierzchowska; images: Jerzy Wroblewski; Warsaw: Sport i Turystyka, 1989)

A tribe of sun-worshipping Incas with red hair and beards and distended ears, are forced to abandon the land of their ancestors. They are optimistic of a new future: "We believe that we will find new lands and build cities even more beautiful beyond the huge water. The masters of stones are among us who can sculpt everything. The intellectuals are among us as well who know history and can read the stars. The brave solders are, too...". The tribe's ancestors had been led to the land that they are now abandoning when their "marvellous island sank into the depths of the sea".

The voyagers journey on rafts for many days without seeing any land. Food supplies are supplemented by fish from the ocean but the fresh water is beginning to run out. Just as the situation is becoming desperate, they thankfully spy an apparently uninhabited land. They decide to moor to take on fresh water, repair their rafts and rest for a few nights in the caves. But the island (Rapanui) is inhabited and the newcomers are attacked by "wild" men with topknots. The South Americans fight back and defeat the islanders. They make the islanders, who had led "empty" lives, their slaves and teach them farming and crafts.

More than half a century has now passed since the conquest and the elderly King, who is soon to die, conveys to his granddaughter, Oana, the importance of the stone works and the building of the moai for honouring their ancestors. The leader wants Oana to quickly find a husband, so their people can be strong under a new king. She promises her grandfather that she will continue the moai building, but her friend Utupepe says the people's lives are affected for the worse due to the continuous hard work. Oana says she will reduce the speed at which they build and she will improve their working conditions. Utupepe has been Oana's friend since childhood when she alone protected him from the long-eared and red-haired boys who mocked his black hair (which he inherited from his Polynesian mother). There was much breeding on the island between the newcomers and the natives as the South Americans had voyaged with few females and there were many beautiful women amongst the original islanders.

As the King lies on his death bed he reminds the elders that his son had died defending the island against invaders. Therefore, his granddaughter will take over; he asks that they swear allegiance to her and help to continue the great work. After his funeral and a period of mourning, Oana speaks to the men of great knowledge and understanding: to Ururute, the master of stone, Ororoina, who is in charge of the soldiers, and Ataroa, the teacher of the children. She asks Ururute about building plans and he points to work starting at the quarry at Rano Raraku. Privately, Ororoina and Ataroa are concerned that Oana will select the crossbreed Utupepe as her husband, when he is viewed as an agitator, pushing for better working conditions for the ordinary citizens, and besides they would prefer their own sons, Iketepe and Arotepe, to be chosen to marry the new queen. They decide to try and kill Utupepe, by asking a witch, Mararana, to poison him with one of her snakes.

Meanwhile, Utupepe is with the workers who complain of their working conditions: "The stone statues are eating us alive. We have not enough to eat and we have too much work. The Queen should cease this useless work and strongly focus on improving our welfare". Utupepe tries to convince them that the situation will improve under the queen, as she wants to give them the same rights as the long-ears.

Iketepe and Arotepe are on guard duties, and they discuss their fear that Oana will marry Utupepe. Arotepe says he actually loves Elinene, Utupepe's sister, and he knows how much Iketepe wants Oana. As they stand looking out to sea, Arotepe informs that he wishes to escape the island: "I wish to see what is beyond the horizon! I know that somewhere, far, far away, there are huge lands, cities and people…". Iketepe agrees. He tells Arotepe, "I promise you when I become King, you will be the commander of a group which will start building ships. We have to finish with the isolation of the island!".

Oana is also friends with Elinene and she asks her advice as to whom she should marry. Elinene says Iketepe loves her very much; Oana responds that he is "too violent and impulsive" and asks whether Utupepe loves her. "We are cross-breeds. The Queen needs to choose someone from her race!", is Elinene's reply. Oana says she has loved and admired Utupepe for a long time and wants to also set an example for mixed couples: "I will rub out racial differences and give equal rights for all". Elinene warns her that her tribe, the long-ears, will not be happy and could rebel. Oana asks Elinene to find out if Utupepe loves her too. Soon after, Utupepe declares his love for Oana and they kiss with great passion.

Elsewhere, by moonlight, a strange man meets with the witch who gives him a basket containing a rock spider with a venomous bite that will lead to unavoidable death. At Rano Raraku, Ururute is advising Oana about the past. When the South Americans arrived they had found no trees on the island with which to build ships, so they stayed and turned to creating an island infrastructure. They experimented with building boats from bulrushes but those expeditions did not return so the king prohibited further attempts. They turned to building moai and the first, which was of the King of the Viracocha people, "the ruler of the great continent", became the pattern for the many others which now surround this original moai, and which is also the biggest.

Oana asks Ururute to show her the stages involved in creating the moai. Ururute goes into detail addressing the preparation, carving, polishing and transportation. It takes six to ten "well-educated sculptors" almost a year to create one statue, before it is moved into place and then eyes and hair added – the red pukao from the extinct volcano of Puna Pau matching the red hair of the long-ears. Ururute advises that to make the work easier they transport the pukao by boats made of bulrushes. Arotepe has now joined them and he tells Oana that he hopes she will abolish the king's ban on sea voyaging. As Oana watches the erection of a moai, Utupepe joins in and tells her how they learnt through skill to move the moai to an upright position, using its centre of gravity, stones, ropes and levers.

Another moai will be transported the next day and Oana says she will come to watch. She also says that she will announce her husband later that day in the evening. Many men are needed for the transportation of the moai, which the brutal Iketepe supervises; his men using whips to push the workers to their limits. Iketepe overhears Elinene telling Arotepe that Oana will declare she has chosen Utupepe as her husband. He is livid and with his sword drawn rushes at Utupepe. Oana steps between the two of them and is accidentally killed by Iketepe. Utupepe tries to defend himself but he too is killed by Iketepe, as the workers look on in horror. They saw Utupepe as their only hope. They respond by rebelling and taking up their axes. Following the long civil war, the building of the moai ceased forever.

The only known original example of Easter Island fiction in Polish, this rather curious comic appears dated and is regarded by followers of the artist as his weakest work. The comic begins with a lengthy historical contextualisation of Rapanui on the inside front cover, which is notably from a European perspective of voyaging and discovery. It promotes the work of Thor Heyerdahl and it is this which underpins the content of the comic. This can be seen in the descriptions and depictions of the moai being built and moved (which closely follows Heyerdahl's studies and fieldwork) and in the presentation of the long-ears as red-haired South Americans who became the dominant islanders (a theory of Heyerdahl's which has been much challenged since).

The comic embellishes the story with ideas and images that go far beyond Heyerdahl and reality. Rapanui is imagined as a treeless island before the arrival of the South Americans and therefore the construction of the moai. The Incas are imagined colonising the Polynesians, who are the original settlers. The former are shown to be an advanced civilisation in comparison to the primitive Polynesians, who apparently knew nothing of stone building, farming and craftwork until they were taught it by the newcomers. This is a racist view that positions the Polynesians as inferior, but they are also established as workers who demand better welfare and working conditions, who hold meetings to discuss improvements and who rebel at the end against the outsiders. As a Polish comic published in 1989 and as the Soviet Union was collapsing, precipitated by the Solidarity movement in Poland, it is fascinating to read this comic in a local context that promoted socialism, labour rights and a break from oppressive rulers.

Giving the long-ears red hair and beards distinguishes them from the dark-haired Polynesians, but they also have little resemblance to South Americans. In fact, they have a strong European appearance and these warrior people with muscular physiques are more inspired by Vikings. The hairstyles of the women in particular, with their flowing locks, are very 1980s and seem to have been created by a modern stylist. The Polynesians are shown with topknots of hair, whilst the South Americans are presented arriving at Rapanui with their ears already distended. Much of the culture of the latter is subsequently recreated on the island, with clothing and domestic interiors resembling Inca designs. The pukao, or any other part of the moai construction, was most likely not aided by boats. Moreover, the pukao are not red to honour the South Americans – although that it is a nice idea.

Ultimately, this is a clichéd and simple story of love and death between young people of different tribes. It is a European story transplanted on to a foreign culture and spun out over thirty-two pages, with a reasonably long section added to the last third that educates on the moai.

Arkadiusz Modrzejewski and Ian Conrich

The Doom Patrol
‘Imaginary Friends’
(no.25, August 1989, DC Comics)

A machine called a Materioptikon, a relic from the days of the Justice League, is found in a storage space called the Souvenir Room. It gives increased physical force to the image-making powers of the psychic Dorothy Spinner, who can bring imaginary and hallucinatory monsters and creations to life. It is left to Joshua Clay, aka Tempest, to destroy the machine, but not before he is dislocated into a realm of abstract space and time. To represent the surreal nature of this realm, Clay is depicted in a swamp surrounded by a grandfather clock, sand-timers and a moai.

Ian Conrich

Bob Morane: Les Tours de Cristal [Bob Morane: The Towers of Crystal]
(no.4; text: Henri Vernes; drawings: Dino Attanasio; Brussels: Claude Lefrancq, 1990)

Bob Morane is flying back from South America to France via the Pacific, along with his two friends Bill Ballantine and Professor Clairembart, when a storm forces the passenger plane to make an emergency landing on a remote Pacific island. Everyone survives, but the aircraft has lost a wing. The three friends set off to explore the island and discover, amongst the lush vegetation, ancient ruins including numerous moai, both with and without pukao, and stones carved with the figure of the birdman. This leads Clairembart to reflect on the lost Pacific continent of Mu, whilst he notes that the statues remind him of Easter Island.

During the first night on the island, comets are observed in the sky, one of which explodes directly above the three companions. Only later does it become clear that the three adventurers have travelled back in time as a result of this incident. For the ruins have now gone and when they want to return to the plane on the beach, both the aircraft and the other passengers have disappeared. Instead, they now observe numerous gigantic crystal columns protruding out of the sea. With a self-built raft, the three manage to reach one of the columns, whereupon they climb down inside and discover a room in which they find a huge seated bright golden moai, a god with its head crowned by a sun symbol.

Back outside, the three observe from the top of the crystal column a city on the ‘island’ they had left, and which is now part of a bigger continent. As they try to comprehend the situation, they are picked up by a sophisticated jet plane, piloted by strangers who speak rongorongo. Clairembart understands the language – as it resembles the language spoken by the old inhabitants of Easter Island – and he is able to communicate with the strangers. One of them, Ra-Mu, introduces himself as the master of the Muvian empire. The three are brought to his capital, where numerous moai are visible across the landscape. The so-called metal city is made of the material Oceamine, which comes from underwater deposits and is apparently earthquake-resistant. The same material is used for the helmets and suits that enable the three companions to walk with Ra-Mu to the bottom of the sea to find the cause of a series of tectonic movements. There they see the extent of the danger facing the Muvians. Following another underwater seismic quake the three are separated and Bob and Bill are washed away through caves and ancient underground passages and finally spat out of the ocean and deposited ashore on a beach. From there they cross a desert, the result of an atomic explosion, and discover a city of ruins and giant cybernetic animals and birds which attack them. Finally, they are rescued by an airplane and brought back to the city where they are joined by the professor.

Morane proposes that they should try to escape the expected cataclysmic event that the Muvians will soon face, by building rockets and trying to reach a new and safe planet. The three companions plus Ra-Mu and a few Muvians, first reach a planet in the galaxy Proxima Centauri, where they just about manage to escape a land of monsters and giant sea beasts. Finally, they land on a planet whose atmosphere seems suitable and find there another rocket, abandoned and overgrown with vegetation. Once inside the vessel they read the log book and discover that it had arrived from Earth and landed in the year 2537. This makes the team realise that they have journeyed far in time. They plan to take this discovered rocketship back to Earth, via hyperspace, in order to rescue the Muvians and bring them to this new planet. The team remove the vegetation from the sides of the vessel and awaken the onboard instruments.

When they arrive back on Earth and the continent of Mu, they find that the crystal towers have been destroyed. The moai remain but they again discover the architectural forms they first found as ruins on the Pacific island, including a grand series of steps, but this time with everything now intact. Climbing the stairs, they are met at the top by a warrior-like nation, an ancient civilisation, strongly reminiscent of the Aztecs/ Incas. The time-travelling friends are taken captive by these people, who want to sacrifice them to their gods. As prisoners underground awaiting their fate, the intrepid time-travellers discover on a wall a story written in rongorongo. This tells them of a great disaster in the ancient year 24500, in which the Muvian empire was destroyed by a huge underwater eruption. The survivors sought refuge on the small piece of land that remained and there they built their new civilisation. The Aztec/ Inca-like people are therefore the descendants of the third civilisation of Mu, and they now worship a sun god in honour of their survival.

Before Morane, his two friends, and the Muvians can be sacrificed, they manage to overpower a priest and take him hostage. They reach their rocketship and flee, but as they attempt to take off for a second time the rocketship crashes into the sea. Lying on the seabed, the vessel is retrieved by advanced technology and hauled into a series of underwater domes. There the group are received by another civilisation of descendants of the generation of Ra-Mu, who also escaped but by living in an undersea kingdom. Only the privileged and elite of Muravian society were allowed to escape and live in these domes. Now, finally, Morane’s plans to escape the final expected cataclysm can be implemented with a fleet of rocketships built enabling the undersea Muvians to voyage to safety. Meanwhile, Morane and his friends manage to return to earth in the present by again using hyperspace.

The first French language edition of this comic-book was published in black and white in serial form in 1961, in the magazine Femmes d'Aujourd'hui. It was republished in 1962 in a modified form as a comic-album by Les Editions Marabout, in colour, with re-drawn characters and scenery and a more modern appearance for the future sequences. Morane was invented by the Belgian writer Charles-Henri-Jean Dewisme, known under his Henri Vernes pseudonym for his novels – an oeuvre that comprises more than 200 books. The Morane collection also includes more than 80 bandes dessinées adaptions of the novels of Vernes, with the comics drawn by different artists – for this edition, by the Italian, Dino Attanasio, from Milan.

This is not Morane and Ballantine’s only moai adventure, as they revisit an undersea kingdom of Mu in an entirely unconnected comic in 1975, Bob Morane: The Giants of Mu, in which there is now a Queen of Mu and a deceased Prince Raah-Mu. Whereas that comic took place partly on Easter Island and predominantly in the undersea kingdom, the Towers of Crystal involves interplanetary voyaging, hyperspace rocketship flights, journeys back and forward in time, dinosaurs, and an Aztec/Inca-like civilisation, in addition to an undersea kingdom. The Towers of Crystal is an extraordinary adventure which seemingly feels the need to pack in a raft of ideas in one bande dessinée. Like the earlier Giants of Mu, the comic reflects the period in which it was produced. For The Giants of Mu, it is the mid 1970s; for The Towers of Crystal it is the early 1960s. In April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to be sent into space in an age defined by a space race. In that context, The Towers of Crystal’s fascination with space travel and rocketships, as part of an evolution of humankind, can be better understood. The early 1960s was also a period in which there was a real and acute fear of nuclear warfare, which can be seen to affect other comics of the time – see, for instance, Justice League of America (reviewed above). The abandoned city and desert landscape encountered by Morane and Ballantine, which is the result of an atomic bomb, is an early nuclear fantasy, especially within moai culture, which is then revisited over the subsequent years in countless other nuclear fiction.

A lost continent and kingdom of Mu, an Atlantis-like myth for the Pacific, has also become a recurring fantasy and is a popular moai culture narrative. Functioning undersea kingdoms of Mu can be found in comics such as Lion and Thunder (reviewed above) and Fathom (reviewed below), and the film Godzilla vs Megalon (reviewed above). When there is an outer space connection, the fiction imagines the inhabitants of Mu to have arrived on Earth from another planet; The Towers of Crystal is unique in viewing the people of Mu as needing to evacuate Earth for another world. The Towers of Crystal is interesting for it attempts to extend the Mu myth within a broad narrative that aims to connect Easter Island to both the lost continent of Mu and then to a second myth of South America. The latter was a theory (latter disproven) of noted explorer and archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, who saw Easter Island as settled from the East.

The Towers of Crystal is more about Mu than Easter Island, though the cover to this 1990 edition would suggest otherwise, with three large moai (mirroring the depiction of Morane, Ballantine and Clairembart) and petroglyphs of the birdman dominating the front artwork. Moai do appear inside but are mainly part of the scenery, with the exception of one glorious giant golden moai that is worshipped as a god and which bears a birdman carving on each arm of its throne. In this story, the moai becomes a sun god, with the worshipping of the sun presented later in the Aztec/Inca culture and found also in the name of the leader of the Muvians, Ra-Mu, with Ra, the sun god of the ancient Egyptians.

Few comics have presented spoken rongorongo in speech bubbles – see also Lais und Ben 1 (reviewed below) and Sgt Frog (reviewed below) – with the hieroglyphs present also on a wall inside the Mu city, presumably as a public instruction, and later as an extensive wall carving with the often-used function to fill a gap in the narrative. What The Towers of Crystal therefore attempts is a weaving of Rapanui culture into a fantasy that exoticises the foreign, for an adventure set in the past and future but with very little direct interest in the present and the people of Rapanui.

Hermann Mückler and Ian Conrich

Onkel Dagobert [Uncle Scrooge]
‘Micky Maus. Das Geheimnis der Osterinsel’ [‘Mickey Mouse. The Secret of Easter Island’]
(no.36, 1990, Egmont Ehapa Verlag)

Mickey Mouse and his friend Goofy attend a slide show presented by two scientists, Merlin and Zapotek, where they learn of the European discovery of Easter Island by Jacob Roggeveen, in 1722. They also learn that it is still not known why the stone statues called moai were erected. The two scientists suggest that Mickey and Goofy should go back in time for twelve hours, to 1200AD, with the help of a time machine, to try and solve some of the mysteries of the moai. Before they start their adventure, they learn that there are approximately 260 moai on the island and that it is about 3,700km off the coast of China (presumably, the comic meant Chile).

Mickey and Goofy arrive on Easter Island through a time hole, where they are warmly welcomed by an islander named Rano Ropo, who seems to have been expecting them. The two friends are immediately taken to a quarry at the slopes of Rano Raraku, where the moai are being carved from out of the rock. The supervisor and spiritual expert there, named Aku Aku, is much less euphoric about the arrival of Mickey and Goofy, because he was expecting people of a different appearance. Slowly it becomes clear that our two friends are being held responsible for the production of the moai, which are being produced by the Rapanui on the basis of a contract signed 50 years ago with foreigners.

Hundreds of moai are ready and waiting to be received and transported. While attending a dinner, the confusion regarding Mickey and Goofy is cleared up, but at the same time the actual clients arrive on the island. These foreigners look like Vikings, and their burly leader is clearly unhappy with the way the moai look. He makes use of his right of withdrawal, which is provided for in the contract, and refuses to take the moai with him or pay for them. With the Vikings gone, and with the moai abandoned, the islanders are left in despair. What are the locals supposed to do with all the moai? Goofy proposes selling them to others, whilst Aku Aku suggests all 320 moai should be sold to Mickey and Goofy.

When Mickey and Goofy refuse to accept Aku Aku’s proposal, they are chased and with the help of Rano Ropo’s daughter, Nora, they hide behind a pukao, on the top of a moai. Meanwhile, Nora convinces the islanders to distribute the moai around the island to alert ships to the attraction and encourage them to buy the carvings. Mickey and Goofy can now descend from their hiding place, and with the twelve hours about to expire, the time machine brings them back to the present, where they are able to report the real reasons behind the existence of the moai. Since only about 260 of the 320 moai mentioned are still available, it can be deduced that some of the statues had been successfully sold.

Originally published in Italian, in March 1986, as ‘Mickey Mouse and the Enigma of Easter Island’, this is one of many Disney comics to approach Easter Island, each with their own highly imaginative adventures. Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge are the most regular visitors, appearing for instance in Walt Disney’s Uncle $crooge Adventures (reviewed above) and Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Adventures (reviewed below). Goofy was to feature on Rapanui on the cover of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Friends (2005, reviewed below), but ‘Mickey Mouse. The Secret of Easter Island’, is the only story in which he appears.

Unusually, this adventure foregrounds the pukao, the red-coloured stone on top of many of the statues, which are clearly shown here as a separate step in the moai construction process. However, the pukao are depicted as square, when in fact they are round, and in this comic they imitate the square red hats worn by the Rapanui, when in reality they were made to represent topknots of hair. And whilst the moai are shown being moved on wooden log rollers (the most common theory for their transportation), the pukao are depicted being placed in position through a more unlikely design of scaffolding and a crane and pulley system. The clothes worn by the Rapanui, which resemble brightly-patterned nightgowns, are far from anything that was worn on the island, and the homes are stereotyped straw huts.

Essentially, this is a story of outsiders, with Mickey and Goofy intruders from another place and time, who act as investigators as well as catalysts. It emerges that the moai in this comic acquired their positions following the suggestion of the time-travellers, and they were not built for Rapanui culture, but through an order placed by another race. These people, who look like Vikings, and who would normally be depicted as aggressors, pillaging communities, are here more formal doing business with the support of a contract. Furthermore, whilst the Nordic countries were great voyagers, travelling far – the Vikings are believed to have been the first Europeans to land in North America, long before Christopher Columbus – they did not make it to Easter Island. Disney has colonised cultures, appropriating myths and legends, and in its obsession with Easter Island it has attempted from a range of perspectives to rewrite Rapanui history.

Hermann Mückler

Rock Animal
'A Profecia da Ilha de Páscoa' ['The Prophecy of Easter Island']
(vol.2, no.22, 1990, Abril)

A research team led by Dr Gemma arrive on Easter Island by hydroplane in search of more powerful and sacred rock animals – stones which can transform into creatures – "to prevent them falling into the wrong hands". On arrival, they are met by Mr Tiki, who has studied the culture of the island, and who takes the group to see the moai. They are observed from afar by a strange group of men, who see that the prophecy will now be fulfilled, for later in the day there will be an eclipse and one of the newly arrived researchers, a suspicious-looking academic, is wearing the 'Eye of Satan', a large red stone, around his neck.

The leader of the strange group, a "wizard", clasps his own red stone that he wears around his neck, which magically transforms into an evil clawed beast of immense strength called the 'Lava Guardian'. The wizard orders the beast to retrieve the 'Eye of Satan', which the creature does by strangling the academic and ripping the jewel from around his neck. With the academic's stone now in the hands of the wizard he places it on a pedestal near to the moai, declaring that the giants will be awakened once the eclipsed has ended and they will then be under his control. This will make him the most powerful man on the island.

As the eclipse begins, a ray of sun passes down to the red stone and out through it in all directions to the many moai, which subsequently come alive. The research team are surrounded by the angry moai that are about to crush them but for two of the children in the group who employ the stones around their necks which transform into a golden lion and a blue hawk. The bird dives into the centre of a volcano making it erupt and shoot a cloud of smoke into the sky blocking out the sun's rays. As a result, the moai return to their original positions. The lion attacks the Lava Guardian, meanwhile the wizard runs away but the powerful stone is found to be missing from the pedestal. Little do the team know that the stone is back around the academic's neck, who thinks to himself "the Evil Eye is mine again".

This is part of a series of small comic booklets in Portuguese, produced in Brazil and published to accompany and promote a range of Rock Animal toys that children were encouraged to collect. The Rock Animals appear inspired by the successful Transformers or M.A.S.K. toyline, for which an associated novel was produced for its own adventure on Easter Island (reviewed below). Instead of cars and machines that transform into robots, the Rock Animals are stones that can become creatures – either recognisable fauna, dinosaurs or monsters like the Lava Guardian, that appears in this story and which the comic shows at the end how it can be effectively transformed.

At the end and beginning of the comic are a total of eleven pages providing cultural-historical information about Rapanui, from the lava rock found on the island and how the pukao were positioned, to rongorongo and the birdman petroglyphs. Unfortunately, it includes a photo of an islander parading behind a giant mask, allegedly taken at the island's Tapati festival, but which looks suspiciously from Papua New Guinea. The story is basic but in its twelve pocket-sized pages still manages to pack in a wizard, transformations, an eclipse, an erupting volcano and moai that come alive.

For more on the Rock Animal comics see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8GO3QvG9q8.

Ian Conrich

Lais und Ben 1 [Lais and Ben 1]
'Anamarama' ['The Cave of Light']
(text: Joachim Friedmann; drawings: Henk Wyniger; Hamburg: Carlsen, Edition Comic Art, June 1990)

Lais and Ben are close friends and German students in Frankfurt am Main. While Ben is fervently pursuing his studies, Lais is unhappy with his life and is in search of new hedonistic pleasures. To this end he experiments with mind-expanding drugs and shamanic rituals. So when he comes across a book called ‘Anamarama’ (the cave of light), written by an English ship’s doctor who had landed on Easter Island on a slave traders’ ship in the nineteenth century, and reads about a secret Easter Island cult, he spontaneously decides to travel to Easter Island. In his report, the doctor mentions a mind-expanding drug called Anamarama, which Lais hopes to find and experience.

Ben finds some clues to Lais’s plans and follows him to Easter Island. There, Ben is warned by a native Rapanui of the caves, but he is determined to enter them whereupon he manages to find Lais. The two friends are now captives of the Rapanui who feed them the Anamarama drug during a secret ceremony. Consequently, they are to be prevented from ever leaving the island. In their drugged state the two protagonists have an intense mind-altering psychedelic experience, of which they remember little upon awakening. A native helps them to escape whilst the rest of the Rapanui are still under the effects of the drug. They just manage to leave Easter Island by airplane, and back in Germany they have only vague recollections of their adventure.

This 48-page comic is, surprisingly, one of the very few illustrated German attempts to deal with Easter Island and its culture. And it is drawn using the classical style of the ‘ligne claire’ (clear line) of the Franco-Belgian comics, that began with the illustrated adventures of Tintin by Hergé (Georges Remi). The comparatively simple plot depicts the topography of the island, the volcano Rano Raraku, the moai and the ceremonial village of Orongo in a relatively realistic manner, though the row of moai at Anakena are incorrectly depicted as looking out to sea. Unfortunately, the depiction of the Rapanui, who drink the drug during a ceremony inspired by the birdman cult, is very problematic, as they appear primitive, barely clothed, and almost entirely depicted as unwelcoming and hostile, whilst the atmosphere on the island is rather depressive.

Unusual for a comic, the depiction of the island’s petroglyphs, and the carvings of Makemake, Moai kavakava and a Rapa ceremonial paddle, appear often within the individual frames of the story. The German flat shared by Lais and Ben even contains several Moai kavakava figures with one maltreated with a bra flung over its body when Lais brings a woman home from a club on a one-night stand. The ceremonial interiors of the caves on the island are a distinct fantasy and are reminiscent of Inca architecture and it is a leap of imagination to depict giant moai within these cavernous underground spaces and to have an exit as leading out through a secret opening in the head of a hollow moai above ground. That said, it is remarkable that the moai are allotted only a minor role in the story.

Most interestingly in this comic, the language of the Rapanui within the cave ceremony is presented in speech bubbles as rongorongo hieroglyphs. And as rongorongo remains undeciphered the reader can only wonder what is being said at these points in the story. Appearing to be set sometime in the 1960s or early 1970s the colourful psychedelic drawings of the effect of taking drugs and their association with adventure suggests a lack of criticism of drugs in general. The renderings of the two main protagonists, Lais and Ben, have a likeness to the authors of this comic, Joachim Friedmann and the cartoonist Henk Wyniger, whose photos appear on the inside cover of this volume.

Hermann Mückler

Yan et Mirka: L'Expédition Perdue [Yan and Mirka: The Lost Expedition]
(no.1; text: Gregorio Muro Harriet; images: Daniel Redondo; Geneva: Alpen Publishers, October 1990)

Yan is a boy in an orphanage, where he is teased by the other children and falsely punished by the director. When he has to kneel outside the orphanage in the cold as punishment, he sees a spaceship land from which Mirka, an alien with blue skin, and her robot Zopix emerge. Mirka tells Yan that she comes from the planet Tarox, part of a brotherhood of three planets, more than a hundred light years away, and is making her first expedition into this solar system, to follow a weak signal, that points to lost members of Tarox on Earth. Mirka has made this unexpected landing as she needs a spare part for her spaceship, which is found in the form of the orphanage director's gold bell. Yan says he will help them retrieve the bell, but he is first caught in the act by the boys in his dormitory and then the director who comes to see the cause of the commotion. Zopix intervenes, trapping the director in a bubble. Yan flees and begins his fantastic adventure with his new companions.

On board the spaceship, Yan experiences a sunrise over Earth and then a voyage to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where they follow a signal that Mirka has been tracking. There, they find a sunken Spanish galleon laden with treasure, including a gold disc from the original spaceship, but also dangerous canisters of nuclear waste. Back on the spaceship, they examine a golden cup that Yan had found with the disc amongst the Spanish treasure. The characters on its surface identify it as belonging to a Peruvian Andean civilisation. They decide to fly to Peru and on their way they pass over the famous Nazca lines. In these, Zopix recognizes symbols of the Tarox Confederation. They land their spaceship in the South American jungle, and near to a huge step-temple. They enter deep into the building and reach a vault where they find a man in a hibernation capsule. The three want to take the capsule on board, but they first have to get it to a clearing so that the spaceship can land. Zopix and Yan are attacked by indigenous jungle dwellers, who carry spears and swing from vines. Zopix falls into a swamp and Yan is captured. Mirka who had separately gone to the spaceship arrives just in time, and as she beams down from the futuristic flying craft the scared natives bow down to her as a god.

With the companions safely back on board the spaceship, the capsule is thawed and the man inside, Xanot, who is also from Tarox, comes to life. He explains that he knows where the other members of Tarox are: Easter Island. Xanot says that once the Tarox spaceship had been damaged by a comet they had to make an emergency landing on Earth, where they were helped by the Inca people. Then the Spanish conquistadores arrived destroying the Inca culture in their search for gold. The Tarox hid with their spaceship in the forest step-temple after leaving clues regarding their whereabouts in the desert (of Nazca). As the conquistadores approached the hideout, the Tarox fled to Easter Island with the little energy that remained on their spaceship. Xanot had volunteered to hibernate in the temple in case their signs in the desert were found.

The team fly to Easter Island, where they set down in the crater Rano Kau. From there they find behind a large rock an entrance into a cave, where the Tarox are hibernating in their sleeping capsules. The "lost expedition" has been found. The reawakened Tarox convey that they lived well with the indigenous people of Easter Island for a long time and that with their carriage rays they contributed to transporting the moai. Mission accomplished, Yan flies with Mirka into a future of new adventures.

Originally published in France in 1986, this more widely available Swiss edition was the first story in an intended new series of adventures featuring Yan, Mirka, and her robot Zopix. But no other comics have been published since the first. The duo Yan and Mirka resemble the more famous French science fiction comic book pairing of Valerian and Laureline. Moreover, the graphics appear influenced by the artist Jean Giraud/ Moebius and they contain a number of political messages regarding the dumping of toxic waste and the brutal conquests of the Spanish in South America.

The moai are featured boldly on the front cover of this Swiss edition, but Easter Island is not mentioned or seen until page 46 of this 52-page comic. Even then the moai appear in just three frames. Clearly of all the fantastic elements in the story, it was felt that the moai carried a strong selling point for a tale of science fiction and adventure and were exploited to promote the comic. The connection of Easter Island with the Nazca lines had occurred previously in the French film Les Soleils de l'île de Pâques (reviewed above), with the aliens helping to transport the moai also not a completely new idea. Unfortunately, in 'resolving' the perceived mystery of how the moai were moved it displaces the labours of the Rapanui.

Hermann Mückler

Disney Duck Tales
‘A Húsvét-Szigeteken’ [‘On Easter Island’]
(no.3, 1991, Egmont Pannonia)

Scrooge McDuck boards a boat bound for Easter Island with his nephews, Huey, Dewie and Louie. Scrooge relays that the previous year scientists saw crazy things on the island, but he wants to see it now with his own eyes. On arriving, the team go ashore via a small boat and comment how the island is abandoned and that nobody knows who carved the moai. They decide to return to their ship for the evening, but upon awakening the next morning they discover to their surprise that another island has emerged adjacent to Rapanui, upon which moai recline and are posed in positions of contemplation and relaxation.

The young ducks consult a book which advises that there is a second Easter Island which undersea currents reveal every six months, and each time is visible for just two days. The ducks board their small boat again, this time for the second Easter Island, whereupon McDuck comments that these alternative moai show that the islanders did have a sense of humour. The moai that they encounter include one doing a handstand and another pulling a silly face. The ducks believe it would be shame if they were to disappear underwater again and so they begin a plan to remove them on to their ship, within the short time frame of two days.

The team bring their ship closer to the island and with its on board crane begin to lift the moai on to their vessel. One of the ducks comments just how “cool” the moai will look in a museum. They manage to hoist the moai on to their ship just in time as the island disappears again under the sea. The nephews consult their book and it says the moai must be maintained in a state of constant wet humidity or they will crumble away. This is a real challenge for the team who ponder how they can resolve the problem, including perhaps building an aquarium in which to place the moai. But McDuck has a moment of inspiration – they will display the moai in a room that is constantly raining. On opening day, the public gather at McDuck’s museum, paying $1 entrance and an additional 25 cents for an umbrella for one hour to view the unusual statues.

One of many Disney comics set on Easter Island, this was originally published in September 1989, in the US, as ‘Ducktales: Scrooge McDuck and the Boys on Easter Island’. Republished for the Hungarian market, it is the earliest known example of Hungarian moai culture (for a later example see The Treasure of the Long-Ears, reviewed below). Scrooge McDuck has visited Easter Island in other adventures – see Walt Disney’s Uncle $crooge Adventures (reviewed above), Walt Disney. Funny Paperbacks (reviewed below), and Walt Disney’s Donald Duck and Friends (reviewed below) – each with their imaginative or absurd stories. Perhaps inspired by Brigadoon, in which an obscured land becomes visible for just a short period in a calendar cycle, Easter Island-like islands that emerge suddenly from the ocean floor have also appeared in fiction as early as the 1943 Super Magician Comics (reviewed above).

In this Hungarian comic, it is unsurprising that Rapanui is once again presented as uninhabited but in what is essentially a basic story there is here a deeper (and unintended) message. Without any consideration for respecting a local culture/ phenomenon, the ducks take every single moai from the second island with the aim of profiteering from paying visitors in a foreign and faraway museum. It is a sad act of cultural theft and one that has unfortunately occurred repeatedly in the European history of Rapanui.

Ian Conrich

Corto Maltese
'Mū'
(vol. 9, no.7, July 1991, RCS)

Mū begins with Corto Maltese and his companions' initial quest for the lost continent of Atlantis and its ancient race. According to legend, the people of Atlantis came from the west and colonised Europe. Corto's quest eventually leads him to search for the lost race of Mū, an ancient continent in the Pacific destroyed by fire and water. The story begins in 1925 on a ship that is sailing across the Atlantic, where Corto seems to have located Atlantis off the coast of an island in the Caribbean.

When some Carib tribesmen, who inhabit the island, kidnap the woman Soledad believing her to be the incarnation of Kukulcan, the Sun Head God, Corto and his friends go ashore to find and liberate her. There, in the middle of the jungle they reach an ancient Mayan temple which leads to the Sacred Labyrinth. Once inside, Corto must go through a series of ordeals to reach the lost dimension and find the ancient sonic vibrations, sound reverberations of the long-gone centuries. In the Labyrinth, Corto encounters a Sardana warrior who has travelled across time and space from Atlantis in search of Mū, reaching the Americas long before the Phoenicians, the Celts and the Vikings. The Sardana warrior invites Corto to find Mū before reaching the Maya Elder, but as he crosses the Labyrinth, he and his companion Rasputin must fight against the Guardian Warriors.

This instalment of the story opens with Corto fleeing the Guardian Warriors by jumping into the water where, whilst swimming, he comes across a giant turtle that leads him ashore towards the end of the Sacred Labyrinth. Once there, Corto finds an ancient Mayan Stone Head that invites him to eat the magic mushrooms that he collected in the Valley of Butterflies. Only by eating the mushrooms will Corto be able to find the lost days of the ancient civilisation of Mū, the island continent that was once the Navel of the World.

As soon as Corto eats the mushrooms, he is transported to an island where he finds himself amongst giant moai who look up towards the sky. In their brief encounter, the moai reveal that they are all that remains of the realm of Mū, which was destroyed from the stars, and of the Chosen Race which was exterminated by fire and water. The survivors found refuge on Aztla, the island from which the Aztec civilisation is believed to have originated. For thousands of years the moai have been looking at the stars waiting for some mysterious entity to return from outer space.

Suddenly, the Moai disappear and Corto is back on the Caribbean island where he finally reaches Soledad, who is in the process of getting married to a man named Hugues. She consequently decides to remain with the Carib tribe. Corto returns to the labyrinth where he comes across a series of paintings representing the Sacred Dance: the figures on the wall invite him to follow them into the dream dimension where Mū still exists.

Corto decides to move forward and finally arrives before the Maya Elder, the descendant of Kukulcan, the Mayan God also known as Quetzalcoatl by the Aztec and as Cuchulain by the Irish. The Elder inhabits the subterranean realm of Tezcla uniting Aztla and Mū, hidden to the men living on the surface of the Earth. The Elder shows Corto the exit of the Labyrinth. Corto leaves, only to flee the Spider Men by jumping into an ocean of fire. He emerges from the fire to find the Amazons who have been holding his friends as prisoners. This episode of the story ends up with Corto following the women warriors inside their citadel.

Published in instalments in Italian between 1988 and 1991, Mū was the last Corto Maltese story written by Hugo Pratt before his death. Here, the author builds on the genre of the 'Lost World' utopia and, specifically, on the myth of the lost continent of Mū and its identification with Easter Island, which was popularised by James Churchward in his 1926 work, The Lost Continent of Mu.

In Corto Maltese: Mū, Easter Island is never directly mentioned, but only alluded to when Mū is referred to as 'the Navel of the World', which was another early name of Easter Island. However, the association is easily made by the presence of the moai, which appear only briefly. In the story, they are the vestiges of the very first civilisation to have inhabited the world, a race of chosen, superior people possessing almost magical skills at the very dawn of time, from whom all the other civilisations have descended. As a result, through the identification between Mū and Easter Island, Rapanui is presented as the birthplace of all civilisations.

The moai appear as melancholic figures, the last inhabitants of a forgotten land, and the custodians of the origins of the civilised world, forever caught in the act of looking up at the sky in search of a sign, extricated from both time and space. In reality, the moai are associated with the words mata ki te rangi (eyes to the sky) and this comic advances the idea. The story also employs a common trope used in the popular representation of the moai, that is, their association with outer space. However, unlike other representations whereby the moai are the product of an alien civilisation, outer space here appears as the source of destruction rather than creation.

Alessandra De Marco

Walt Disney's Donald Duck Adventures
'A Tuft Luck tale'
(no.15, August 1991, W.D. Publications)

Donald Duck and his nephews find a bargain book for sale with a curious note inside of "squiggles and wiggles". They are being watched by a suspicious looking man, wearing a long coat and tall hat, who desires the note for himself as it presents a formula. The villain pulls out a gun and Donald and his nephews flee. They bump into another stranger, the villain's associate, who manages to grab half of the formula. The ducks hide in a crate of oranges, which is then hauled onto a waiting ship that is heading for Easter Island.

Two weeks later the ducks arrive at Easter Island and as stowaways are found and charged by an islander who holds multiple roles: police officer, mayor, barber and customs agent. The two villains arrive and offer to pay the ducks' bail, but they also want the other half of the formula. The villains attack the policeman and the ducks "head for the hills". In the nighttime darkness, Donald falls into a hole that is discovered to be at the base of a moai.

The villains have now caught up with the ducks and with the document rejoined and after hours of mixing the formula, a special ointment is held aloft. It is revealed it is an ancient treatment for baldness and the villain not only wishes to cure his own ailment but he sees global power in controlling the cure. The captive Donald lashes out and the ointment is kicked into the air, landing on the heads of both villains. Some also lands on Donald's head and on the chin of a moai. All develop rapid hair growth including the moai who grows a beard. The villains are sent to prison for assaulting a police officer and the same officer as the local barber says he will give Donald a haircut.

Disney comics have turned to Easter Island on five occasions and whilst more than half of this story is set there, very little is seen of its culture with the moai appearing in the latter stages of the story. Moai have been excavated to assess the extent of their bodies beneath the ground, but unlike the hole into which Donald falls, these pits have been filled in afterwards. The hairless moai watch silently as the ancient potion is mixed, which is so effective that hair growth occurs immediately on stone. The tuft of hair that this moai now sports on its chin references Tukuturi, the only moai that has a beard.

The sole islander depicted multi-tasks with numerous professional jobs to fulfill. It emphasises the smallness of the island, which the comic states "is a lonely speck" far from mainland Chile.

Ian Conrich

Cracked
(no.264, August 1991, Major Magazines)

A successful imitator of the American humour magazine, Mad, Cracked ran from 1958 to 2007. Mad had already published cartoons that used the moai for gags – see the April 1985 issue (reviewed above) and the March 1986 issue (reviewed above) – and they would later publish an inspired third (April 1998; reviewed below). The celebrated cartoonist Don Martin, who drew this cartoon for Cracked, also drew the one for Mad in March 1986. One of the common gags for Easter Island cartoon humour is the question of what lies beneath the protruding moai heads. The archaeological work of Thor Heyerdahl had shown that many of the moai have extensive bodies that go far beneath the surface, and which have been buried over time. The March 1986 and April 1998 issues of Mad had imagined the results of an archaeological excavation, with the 'secrets' of the moai revealed. Cracked takes this a step further with the fantasy that the moai extend so far down that they can be observed underwater, their enormous bodies, arms, legs and feet found so far beneath the island that they are part of its geological foundations connecting it to the seabed. Jacques Cousteau and his crew are incorporated into the humour and given a comedy French accent. One crew member, Pierre, is depicted as childlike and he is confused to discover at a great depth "huge stone columns" in front of their submarine; Cousteau is much calmer and offers an explanation. A great explorer and oceanographer, Cousteau had visited Rapanui for his 1978 television documentary, The Blind Prophets of Easter Island (see below the cover for The Register). Cousteau's expedition was to also inspire a bande dessinées, Le Dernier Secret de l'île de Paques (reviewed below).

Ian Conrich

Jeanette Pointu
‘Le Secret Atlante’
(no.6; text and drawings: Wasterlain; colouring: Studio Cerise; Marcinelle: Éditions Dupuis, June 1992)

Review forthcoming

Mike
‘Verschollen auf der Osterinsel’ [‘Lost on Easter Island’]
(no.1, January 1994, BMC-GmbH)