Where It All Started

Startling Comics was published back between 1940 and 1948 and the image to the left is from Startling Comics #49. The picture shows a beautiful bound girl, a robot and a spaceman with ray-gun. I'm assuming that's the hero Lance Lewis, Space Detective, and that is the damsel in distress... but doesn't that robot strike you as someone we've all seen before. Silver body, those eyes, the antenna on the head ... IT'S BENDER!

Don't believe me? The image to the right is from the Futurama episode "Crimes of the Hot" (Season 4, Episode 8). The Professor is explaining to Mom that robots (which he invented) produce high-pollution emissions and are the cause of the polar ice caps melting. Bender is described as being a "primitive bending unit", which seems to be a acknowledgment of the Startling Comics robot's role in Bender's creation. This primitive bending unit has even more similarities to then the new bender. Look at the forehead rivets, perforated mouthpiece, insulated top antenna, and the ear cones. Could this be that this is the inspiration for Matt Groening's Bender?