Goom

History: A criminal outcast on his home planet, Goom was unwittingly contacted by a scientist using radio waves. Travelling to Earth via spaceship (and secretly bringing his infant son, Googam, with him (as revealed in Tales of Suspense # 17)), Goom wreaked havoc before the scientist contacted other peaceful inhabitants of Planet X who came to Earth to arrest Goom and return him home.

In modern times, the goddess Venus foiled Goom's scheme to mate with human females to produce “Goom-spawns” for world domination.

Goom (or else another monster that resembled him) was later seen among a group of monsters being held in the Collector's subterranean museum beneath the surface of Canada. The monsters escaped captivity during the Collector's battle with the Mole Man, and some of the monsters attacked New York City, but were fought off by an alliance of the Thing, the Hulk, Giant-Man, and the Beast. The defeated monsters were later dispatched into the Negative Zone.

Xemnu The Living Titan/Hulk once created five duplicates of monsters to battle The Incredible Hulk; one of these duplicates was billed as “Goom”, but the duplicate had more of a resemblence to Googam (both physically and power-wise); one can only assume that Xemnu had faulty information regarding the identities of Goom and son. The Incredible Hulk destroyed the Goom duplicate.

Height: 30 ft.
Demonstrated Powers: Goom possessed telekinesis which allowed him to fly. This power was strong enough that Goom could levitate an entire city. The telekinesis could also be used to create impenatrable force fields.

Weapons:

Spaceship
Neutron ray disintegrator pistol which could turn a mountain into dust
Time machine cabinet which could de-age a person put inside into infancy

Comment: Speculation - The Handbook to the Marvel Universe gave the name “Xanth” to the Planet X introduced in Fantastic Four # 7 (see Kurrgo). Xanth may have been populated by multiple alien races. Although there is no conclusive proof that this was the same “Planet X” of the FF story, it is a fact that after that Planet X was destroyed by an asteroid, the giant monster invasions of Earth dropped off.

Comment: Goom should not be confused with Dragoom, Kraggoom or Grogoom (seen in Marvel: Heroes & Legends # 1).

For another entry on Goom, click HERE.

Goom is my favorite Kirby monster and Tales of Suspense #15 is my favorite early Marvel monster comic (except for maybe Amadzing Adult Fantasy #9). It is more than a little … disturbing to see how Goom was misused in the Marvel Valentine Special (which looks really ugly based on the art available in the links.)

It never occurred to me that Kurrgo and Goom might be from the same Planet X, but it is certainly worth pondering.

By the way, great blog! I love these comics so much that I have written about Marvel monsters for The Jack Kirby Collector and Comic Effect, but unfortunately, I sold most of my vintage comics (including a complete Tales of Suspense collection!) to help pay for my master's degree. So it's nice to have this site to browse and even find stories I never read before! Thanks.

In Spider-Man Adventures #4, Spidey and Johny Storm battled a hip-hop talking Goom who had learned english from watching TV signals that Johnny Storm inadvertantly sent to his world. You can read about it here:

Thanks. To refer to Goom's infant son Goom: I will always remember from 1961, “I am Googam, son of Goom!” It struck me so forefully that scarcely a day has goes by when I don't think of it. I've even used the names (in a distorted version) in a novel (to be published by Jonathan Cape [Random House group] May 2006).

Goom shouldn't be confused with Robert Goom [Sub-Mariner comics#4(win/41-42)]a foe of the golden age Angel.

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