Ep 6--The Raiders

The bad guy in this episode is named Sta-Lak. He's not named this time, but will make a return appearance (so he apparently survives when his ship crashes at the episode's end) in which he is named.

It is this episode when the bad guy specifically gives Amzot's "riches" as the reason for attacking it. This statement can easily support my theory that the energy rocks are the most valuable resource on the planet.

Also, Zandor specifically calls them energy rocks. In a previous post, I did not consciously remember this and dubbed them energy rocks as if I were thinking up the name myself. Sorry about that.

We learn a little bit more about the Herculoids. Gloop (and presumably Gleep) has super-strength comparable to Igoo and is very heat-resistant. This is demonstrated when Gloop stands RIGHT IN THE EXHAUST OF A SPACE SHIP while temporarily holding the ship down as it attempts to blast off.

Also, it's obvious from this episode that the chattering of Gloop and Gleep is an actual language. I still think all the Herculoids share a low-level telepathic link and that all have reasonably high intelligence, but when Zandor (during his career as a geneticist) created Gloop and Gleep, he was in effect creating a new sentient race.

We don't learn a lot about Amzot. Most of the action takes place in the arid, desert-like area near the Herculoids' home. There is a reference to the White Cliffs and this includes a tar pit that Igoo unceremoniously falls in after dropping from Sta-Lak's ship. I'm placing this specific region on the north end of the desert.

A--Desert (mesas, cliffs, occasional tar pits, occasional flora including Iron Trees) The north end of the desert area contains the White Cliffs.

B-Jungle (various flora, including Rubber Vines & Kona-nuts. Also, ants, grubs & snails)

C-Canopy Trees

1. Dark River--flows south from jungle, with a 300-foot high waterfall known as The Bottomless Waterfall located not far out of the jungle.

2. Monkey-People--strong but shy & unaggressive flying monkeys. They are semi-sentient, with a very primitive language and loose tribal structure. They eat plants, insects and small mollusks.

3. Hill area that is home to the Parrot People. They are avian humanoids with a warlike, aggressive culture that once enslaved the Monkey People. They are omnivorous & have a sophicticated language and some technology, allowing them to make clothes and fashion wooden clubs. They are largely contained to the hill area due to their fear of the Herculoids.

Iron Trees--Large (50 foot or higher) trees that sparsely populate the desert area. These trees have very deep roots to access underground water sources. Their name derives from their extremely tough outer bark, which can withstand violent impacts without showing any damage. Zandor's shield is made from Iron Tree bark.

Rubber Vines--Thick, pliable vines that grow down from the limbs of certain tall trees. They anchor themselves in the ground to search for additional water. Zandor has learned to use the vines as personal catapults to vacillitate rapid travel through the jungle.

Canopy Trees—Large trees whose thick, tough foliage form a sort-of ledge half-way up the trunk, with more foliage forming a roof. Zandor and his family make a home in one of these trees.

Kona Nuts--a tasty fruit found in the jungles of Amzot. In size, shape and taste, it is nearly identical to Earth's coconut.

Ep. 5--The Beaked People

Well, this episode adds quite a bit of knowledge to Amzot's fauna. We learn that there are at least two sentient (or in the case of the Monkey People) semi-sentient beings on the planet.

First, I think this lets us expand on the history of Zandor and his family. We've been theorizing he's a geneticist who brought the creatures he created to Amzot to give them purpose in defending the planet. We already know they have to defend it against frequent off-planet raiders who want to mine the energy rocks.

But now I think we can theorize that this wasn't the only problem plaguing Amzot. I think the Parrot people have a very war-like culture that was enslaving a large part of the planet. When the Herculoids arrived, they freed the slaves and contained the Parrot People to a very small area. This episode is the Parrot People's attempt to kill Zandor and regain their past glory.

The Parrot People are obviously sentient with a language and some technology--they depend on large clubs for weapons, but do have some understanding of textiles, since they wear clothes. They probably want slaves to work in their factories and free up more warriors for use in conquering other areas. I'm placing their home in a hilly area just because that feels right to me.

The Monkey People, on the other hand, are herbivores/insectivores who are semi-sentient, with a very primitive language and no technology. They are very strong--one of them carries Zandor even though the human is bigger than he is. But they are (unlike their cousins in Oz) shy and unaggressive, making them easy prey for the Parrot People before the Herculoids showed up. I think the Monkey People had been reduced to largely a slave race before Zandor freed them.

A small detail we get is that one of the food sources for humans is a coconut-like fruit that Dorno (if I understood him) calls a Kona nut. Also, we know from Zandor's description of the Monkey People diet that Amzot's jungle includes snails, grubs and ants. I assume these are normal size ants--not the big ones we'll meet in a future episode.

We have to totally guess at directions in this episode. I'm placing the Monkey people in the jungle to the south of the Herculoid's home, with the Dark River flowing out of the south side of that jungle. Since Dorno didn't initially expect to find the Parrot People there when he arrived, I think their home is farther south still.

A--Desert (mesas, cliffs, occasional flora including Iron Trees)

B-Jungle (various flora, including Rubber Vines & Kona-nuts. Also, ants, grubs & snails)

C-Canopy Trees

1. Dark River--flows south from jungle, with a 300-foot high waterfall known as The Bottomless Waterfall located not far out of the jungle. 

2. Monkey-People--strong but shy & unaggressive flying monkeys. They are semi-sentient, with a very primitive language and loose tribal structure. They eat plants, insects and small mollusks.

3. Hill area that is home to the Parrot People. They are avian humanoids with a warlike, aggressive culture that once enslaved the Monkey People. They are omnivorous & have a sophicticated language and some technology, allowing them to make clothes and fashion wooden clubs. They are largely contained to the hill area due to their fear of the Herculoids. 

Iron Trees--Large (50 foot or higher) trees that sparsely populate the desert area. These trees have very deep roots to access underground water sources. Their name derives from their extremely tough outer bark, which can withstand violent impacts without showing any damage. Zandor's shield is made from Iron Tree bark.

Rubber Vines--Thick, pliable vines that grow down from the limbs of certain tall trees. They anchor themselves in the ground to search for additional water. Zandor has learned to use the vines as personal catapults to vacillitate rapid travel through the jungle.

Canopy Trees—Large trees whose thick, tough foliage form a sort-of ledge half-way up the trunk, with more foliage forming a roof. Zandor and his family make a home in one of these trees.

Kona Nuts--a tasty fruit found in the jungles of Amzot. In size, shape and taste, it is nearly identical to Earth's coconut. 

Ep. 4--Mekkor

So not only do alien creatures and alien robots constantly try to invade Amzot, they always land right near the Herculoids' home. I'm going to add to my theory that Amzot is valuable because it is a source of the rare energy rocks. I think the thickest deposit of those rocks is located somewhere near the Herculoids' home.  That would be the reason Zandor choose this area as a home when he, his family and his creatures came to Amzot. It's both the most likely spot for invaders/raiders to arrive and it gives him access to the rocks himself to use for sling-shot ammunition.

Anyway, this episode doesn't add a lot to our knowledge of Amzot's ecology. The action takes place in a jungle area similar to the one we saw in the previous episode. But, based purely on the orientation of the Herculoids as they travel too and from this jungle, I think this is a different jungle area--located south of the Canopy Tree Home. Or perhaps its one big jungle that stretches from west to south of the home.

We also get further proof that Zandor is tech-savvy, since he deduces from watching the robots that they run off a central power source. I still maintain that Zandor is a geneticist, but he is knowledgably in other areas as well. Hey--Hanna Barbara was producing a Fantastic Four series about the same time. If we allow that to put the FF in the Hanna Barbara universe, then perhaps Zandor is a descendant of Reed Richards and as the same genius.

A--Desert (mesas, cliffs, occasional flora including Iron Trees)

B-Jungle (various flora, including Rubber Vines)

C-Canopy Trees

Iron Trees--Large (50 foot or higher) trees that sparsely populate the desert area. These trees have very deep roots to access underground water sources. Their name derives from their extremely tough outer bark, which can withstand violent impacts without showing any damage. Zandor's shield is made from Iron Tree bark.

Rubber Vines--Thick, pliable vines that grow down from the limbs of certain tall trees. They anchor themselves in the ground to search for additional water. Zandor has learned to use the vines as personal catapults to vacillitate rapid travel through the jungle.

Canopy Trees—Large trees whose thick, tough foliage form a sort-of ledge half-way up the trunk, with more foliage forming a roof. Zandor and his family make a home in one of these trees.

ep 3--The Pod Creatures

There's no indication of why the pod robots try to capture the Herculoids. If we go with the theory that the energy rocks used by Zandor and his family as sling-shot ammo is a valuable resource found on Amzot, then they could very well have been trying to eliminate the threat of the Herculoids before strip-mining the planet.

We see the tree-home of the Herculoids in this episode. Judging from the directions of travel used by the characters during the cartoon, I place it at the Western end of the desert area, with Zandor patroling the jungle farther west (the same area where the action in the last episode took place), while Dorno and Igoo are ambushed in the desert area east of the tree-home. I've dubbed the trees "Canopy Trees."

We see Zandor using energy rocks as a weapon for the first time. Tundro fires off quite a lot of ammo from his horn. Still going with the theory that the Herculoids are genetically created creatures, I assume Zandor uses the energy rocks found on Amzot to periodically "reload" Tundro.

UPDATED MAP:

A--Desert (mesas, cliffs, occasional flora including Iron Trees)

B-Jungle (various flora, including Rubber Vines)

C-Canopy Trees

Iron Trees--Large (50 foot or higher) trees that sparsely populate the desert area. These trees have very deep roots to access underground water sources. Their name derives from their extremely tough outer bark, which can withstand violent impacts without showing any damage. Zandor's shield is made from Iron Tree bark.

Rubber Vines--Thick, pliable vines that grow down from the limbs of certain tall trees. They anchor themselves in the ground to search for additional water. Zandor has learned to use the vines as personal catapults to vacillitate rapid travel through the jungle.

Canopy Trees—Large trees whose thick, tough foliage form a sort-of ledge half-way up the trunk, with more foliage forming a roof. Zandor and his family make a home in one of these trees.

Episode 2--Sarko the Arkman

This episode gives lets us know that the Herculoids have quite a history protecting Amzot even before the cartoon episodes begin, since they've chased Sarko off Amzot before. (There will be further indications of past adventures in future episodes.)

We also learn that there is a jungle area near the desert we saw last episode, because it doesn't take that long for Gleep to get help. I'm also placing the jungle west of the desert, because Gleep ran from left to right to get help after Igoo, Tundro and Dorno are captured, while Zok is flying right to left to bring help.

The jungle is also one location for the rubber vines that Zandor uses to catapult himself and travel quickly.

This episode is where we learn that Zok is capable of interplanetary flight. In fact, he must travel very fast. We will place the planet Zodan in the same solar system so we don't have to give faster-than-light capability, but even getting from one planet to another in a relatively short time is quite impressive. Also, Zok can apparently generate a life-support field around himself and any passengers he;'s carrying. All this is further evidence that Zok and the other Herculoids are genetically created life forms.

Here's an updated map. I'm looking for a better online map-maker so that future maps will look a little less lame, but I haven't found anything good yet.

A--Desert (mesas, cliffs, occasional Iron Trees)
B-Jungle (various flora, including Rubber Vines)

Iron Trees--Large (50 foot or higher) trees that sparsely populate the desert area. These trees have very deep roots to access underground water sources. Their name derives from their extremely tough outer bark, which can withstand violent impacts without showing any damage. Zandor's shield is made from Iron Tree bark.

Rubber Vines--Thick, pliable vines that grow down from the limbs of certain tall trees. They anchor themselves in the ground to search for additional water. Zandor has learned to use the vines as personal catapults to vacillitate rapid travel through the jungle.