BARNEY BAILEY
Real Name: Barney Bailey
Identity/Class: Human
Occupation: Circus owner
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Matt Carson
Enemies: Vision (Aarkus)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: "A cold-blooded coot" (as called by Matt Carson)
Base of Operations: His office building in Seacoast City
First Appearance: Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4 (February, 1941)
Powers/Abilities: Bailey was a normal human being with no enhanced abilities. The wealthy Bailey was an unscrupulous businessman who valued money over human lives. A prominent showman and circus owner, he had two living dinosaurs on display.
Height: 5'10" (by approximation)
Weight: 190 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Brown
History:
(Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4 (fb) - BTS) - The past of Barney Bailey is unrevealed, but he eventually owned a circus and gained the reputation of being a prominent showman.
A man named Smith had dug two dinosaur eggs out of the Siberian ice (see comments) and Bailey bought the eggs from him for curios, but then Bailey got the idea to hatch the frozen ova. By unknown means, he successfully incubated the eggs and thus when they hatched, Bailey became the owner of a tyrannosaurus and a gigantosaurus.
(Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4) - On the outskirts of Seacoast City, Bailey had his circus set up and presented his dinosaurs (safely confined in transparent metal cages) to an astonished audience. In his office, Bailey held a press conference and told the reporters how he had acquired the prehistoric beasts; Bailey mentioned that while he realized it was a scientific miracle, he was primarily a showman and he was only interested in the money he'd make by displaying the creatures. When questioned about the concerns for public safety, Bailey assured the reporters that the transparent metal "dino cages" had been thoroughly tested.
But even as Bailey spoke, a sudden storm broke out over the city. The repeated lightning flashes and rolling thunder frightened the primeval monster lizards, who began to batter their mountainous bodies against the walls of their confinement, until the walls shattered and the Jurassic-era juggernauts broke free. From his office window, Bailey and the reporters heard the screams of the terror-stricken people; they looked out and saw the lumbering dinosaurs reducing the circus to a shambles and heading to the heart of the city.
But from the smoke rising from the ruins of a demolished building emerged the extradimensional Vision, who fearlessly hurled himself upon the head of the gigantosaurus, which was threatening a woman and her child. The giant lizard shook the Vision off like an annoying insect. Righting himself and halting his flight in mid-air with the aid of a clothes-line, the Vision saw a construction site below, where he found a box of dynamite, then he had an idea to end the two dinosaurs' rampage of carnage and destruction.
Meanwhile, Barney Bailey telephoned his press agent Matt Carson and told him to get every available man to stop the beasts, but even though Carson told him the dinosaurs were tearing the town apart, Bailey ordered him to take the creatures alive because they were worth millions of dollars to him.
Carrying the box of dynamite, the Vision hurled a bundle of the explosives at the gigantosauros, and the creature caught it in its gaping mouth just as it exploded and blew the monster's head to bits. As the body of the gigantosaurus fell down, it crushed the car that Matt Carson was riding in.
Hearing the explosion, Bailey rushed to the roof of his office building and saw the dead gigantosaurus. Oblivious to the death and destruction that his creatures had wrought in the city, the hysterically enraged Bailey was more concerned that he would be financially ruined; but as he stood and shouted across the rooftops, Bailey was unaware that the tyrannosaurus had approached him from behind. The monster closed its jaws on his struggling form, and it presumably swallowed Barney Bailey.
Just as army units arrived, hoping to bring the giant tyrannosaurus down with artillery, the Vision hurled the remaining boxful of dynamite into the beast's mouth. The resulting blast tore the creature to shreds, and the Vision faded away into the smoke.
Comments: Created Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.
This story was reprinted in Mystic Comics 70th Anniversary Special#1 (October, 2009), from which these scans came.
Barney Bailey's name was probably derived from real-life showmen Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, the founders of what would become the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
For more information on real versions of the dinosaurs in this story, here are some links for a tyrannosaurus and a gigantosaurus (which is actuallly a sauropod (Thanks to Gammatotem for pointing this out!)).
Bailey only mentioned that he got the dinosaur eggs from "a chap named Smith," and "Smith" was never actually seen in the story. My theory is that "Smith" was really the Deviant Warlord Kro (who was known for employing human aliases in his schemes (Rudolph Hendler in Red Raven Comics#1/3 and Paul Sayden in Captain America Comics#1/5), and maybe the eggs he sold to Bailey were specially created for a plan to spread chaos on the surface world. There was at least one confirmed instance of the Deviants creating a tyrannosaurus (...and possibly another--it seems unlikely that the greedy Bailey would wait until his dinosaurs were fully grown before displaying them to a paying audience (Just imagine how much it cost to feed 'em!), so maybe they grew to maturity extremely fast, much like this other tyrannosaurus ).
Profile by Ron Fredricks.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Barney Bailey has no known connections to
He was the press agent for Barney Bailey. When Bailey's dinosaurs--a tyrannosaurus and a gigantosaurus--escaped and began to run amok in Seacoast City, Bailey phoned Carson and ordered him to gather some men and stop the beasts, but Bailey stipulated that he wanted the dinosaurs captured alive. Carson agreed to his terms, but demanded a million dollars for doing the job. Bailey agreed to this deal because he knew the monsters were worth millions more.
Armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun loaded with drug shells to tranquilize the beasts, Carson was riding in a car with his men when they spotted the Vision throwing a bundle of dynamite into the gigantosaur's mouth. The explosive blew the dinosaur's head to bits, and its monstrous bulk came crashing down on Carson's automobile, crushing him and his men to a bloody smear.
--Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4
Two prehistoric lizards that Barney Bailey hatched from eggs, they were on display in Bailey's circus. The tyrannosaurus and gigantosaurus were confined in cages of transparent metal. During an electrical storm, the prehistoric beasts were frightened by the lightning and thunder and began to batter their bodies against their cages. The cages shattered and the monsters broke free, then began their rampage in Seacoast City. The beasts were finally stopped when the Vision appeared and killed the dinosaurs with dynamite.
--Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4
images: (without ads)
Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4, p7, pan1 (main image)
Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4, p5, pan5 (closeup)
Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4, p5, pan2 (Matt Carson)
Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4, p1, pan2 (tyrannosaurus and gigantosaurus)
Appearances:
Marvel Mystery Comics I#16/4 (February, 1941) - Joe Simon (writer), Jack Kirby (artist)
Last updated: 04/07/15
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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