Origin

Joe Golem was first molded by a priest named Goran in 15th century Slovonia as protection from witches for the priest’s village. These witches had already killed his mother, sister, and sister’s children, so the priest disobeyed his order’s century old rule of banning the creation of golems. Unfortunately, there came a time when he was overwhelmed by the witches and was unable to save his master. Without a master, he roamed the countryside, helping where he can, hoping to prove to God that he was worthy of humanity.

Centuries later, in the 1950s, the golem found himself in possession of an occult detective, named Simon Church, in a flooded New York City. In April 1955, a human Joe busted out of a golem. Simon started treating him with a memory wiping herbal tea to hide his golem past. Together, they would investigate the weird and occult.

Creation

Joe Golem first appeared in the illustrated novel, Joe Golem and the Drowning City by Mike Mignola. It was then spun off into a comic series.

Major Story Arcs

The Rat Catcher

September 3, 1965

That morning, Joe was given a new case by his mentor Simon Church. A number of children had gone missing, and Joe was sent down to the Hudson Street Home for Children to talk to Lori Noonan, an employee at the home who had talked to the newspapers. She introduced Joe to a couple of kids who saw their friend snatched the night before. They took a boat to the spot where it happened, and Joe witnessed one of these kids get snatched by a creature that jumped from the canal water. Without hesitation, Joe jumped in after him. He fought off the fish man and dragged the boy back into the boat. The boy was saved, but Joe passed out.

The kids managed to get him back to the children’s home, where Lori dressed his claw mark wounds and laundered his wet clothes. He quickly returned to Simon to report his findings. Despite it sounding like a monster, Simon did not think it was supernatural, just biological and unstudied. They concluded that if it was stabbed enough times, it would probably die. Armed with a speargun and Simon’s scuba gear, Joe went back into the canals. He fought the Rat Catcher as they called it and followed it into the flooded ruins of the old city. The trail led Joe into an old museum where he found the missing kids alive.

There was no other way to get the kids out but back through the water. Joe didn’t dare do it with the Rat Catcher still alive. He left the kids to keep hunting it, eventually finding it in a flooded living room with two child corpses. It attacked him from behind, but he managed to kill it with his speargun. With the creature dead, Joe managed to get all the living kids home. During his debriefing with Simon, Joe theorized that the Rat Catcher wasn’t always a fish man. That someone did this to him and it was trying to do it to the kids so it wouldn’t be alone.

The Sunken Dead

October 26, 1965

Joe had started to see Lori Noonan when his date was interrupted by Simon. His apparatus found a surge in occult energy in Greenwich Village. They were led to the home of Argus Bostwick, a famous collector of art and literature. Simon Church’s reputation got them in the door, but Argus didn’t like them snooping around once they were in and for good reason. Joe found a large aquarium full of Argus’ dead family and a dangerous grimoire.

Argus was determined to resurrect his family. He fought off Simon and set Joe on fire so he could finish the ritual. Joe nearly stopped him, but he was too late. The corpses of his family bust through the glass. Joe fights them off while Simon tries to convince Argus to give up the book so Simon could fix it. Simon didn’t get access to it until Argus was killed by his own wife.

Unfortunately, the ritual was not local to Argus’ family. The dead rose out of the canals and invaded Argus’ house. Joe did his best to fight them off while Simon worked on the book. He recited a counterspell which eventually de-animated the dead.

The Outer Dark

July 15, 1967

That morning, NYPD detectives came to Simon Church to ask for assistance with a weird case. Three Germans with ties to the Nazis attacked passengers on a water taxi coming from LaGuardia. Five people died, including one police officer and two of the Germans. One of the dead Germans was named Bodo Wegener and a passenger that understood German said he was talking about voices in his head before he started hurting people with superhuman strength. Witnesses also described his eyes as black and full of stars. Simon put Joe on the case.

Joe partnered with one of the detectives to investigate the apartment the Germans had given to US Customs. They found papers covered in weird sigils and TV parts. They also found a mumbling German who mentioned an apparatus and The Hotel Albert before committing suicide. While investigating the hotel, they found a group of Germans working with occult collector, Dr. Cocteau. They were using an apparatus to connect to a dark dimension. The man connected to the machine emitted a blue flash and then jumped out the window.

The detective was injured so Joe went by himself, doubling back to the apartment. He found the German, pulsing with psychic energy and surrounded by monster rats. The German starts to warn Joe of coming entities before he explodes with blue blood and little insects. Joe sets fire to a curtain and tosses it over the body and watches it take the whole apartment building.

Flesh and Blood

June 8, 1968

Simon’s pendulum found an occult hotspot in Greenwich Village., but Joe had no luck investigating it. The woman at the location was being cagey. He asked a favor from a priest friend, Father Ryan, thinking the woman was a victim of possession or haunting. With Ryan in tow, the woman lets them in but behaves erratically. She flips from begging them to leave to begging them to stay. Ryan attempts an exorcism, but it has no effect. He starts to believe it might be multiple personality disorder, only for the woman to reveal that she is possessed by the ghosts of her mother, grandmother, and many previous generations of witches in her bloodline. The ghosts leave the body and attack, but Joe pulls an amulet from the woman and destroys it, freeing her of her lineage.

The Drowning City

September 12, 1975

Joe was sent to the home of an old medium named Felix Orlov. Along the way, he pumped into a red-headed girl, Molly McHugh, being attacked by hulking men in gas masks, whom Joe named the Gas Men, who work for Cocteau. The girl was knocked out, so Joe brought her back to Simon’s to keep her safe. As he asks around about the Gas Men, someone mentioned they made their getaway in a submarine. While investigating the water’s edge, two Gas Men attacked Joe. While he wrestled with one of them under the water, he ripped off their gas mask and revealed another fish man like The Rat Catcher. He was left for dead but was rescued by a good samaritan.

While waiting for death, he has another nightmare of a golem in 15th century Europe. He drops everything to return to Simon and demand answers. Simon convinced him to take another drink of tea. When he was ready, he went to investigate a cemetery with Molly. She had said Felix was attacked over an artifact called the Pentajulum which was connected to Felix’s birth and his mother’s death. So, she and Joe went to check out Felix’s mother’s grave. Nearby, they also found the grave of Felix’s mother’s killer, Andrew Golnik. It has a big tree rotting in the middle of it. At the center was Golnik’s corpse, which animated the tree to defend itself. At the center of the corpse was the Pentajulum.

With the artifact now in Joe’s possession, they were swarmed by Gas Men. One of them pulled a gun and shot Joe multiple times. Then, they tried to take Molly and the artifact. Much to Joe’s surprise, he wasn’t killed. After shaking his head clear, he chases after the Gas Men who stuffed Molly in a submarine and were making their getaway. Joe grabbed on to the outside of the sub to stay with them. He finally lost his breath and passed out just as they entered their headquarters.

The Conjurors

September 12, 1975

Across the town, a desperate Simon is performing a blood ritual that will cost him his life to give Joe a second wind. With his human appearing exterior starting to crack, Joe awakens yet again underwater to move forward and stop Dr. Cocteau and save Molly. The closer he gets to the lab, the more golem-like he appears. By the time he exits the water, he is completely transformed. He also starts to struggle with his flashbacks, forgetting where he is.

He finds Molly trying to fight off Dr. Cocteau. Felix the medium is trapped in a water tank, transformed into a tentacled old god, while a body is strapped into the German apparatus that opens a door to the Outer Dark. Cocteau’s Gas Men keep Joe busy, while Cocteau combines the power of the pentajulum with the siren call of Felix’s new form to contact beings in the Outer Dark.

Molly was able to reach Felix and convince him to pass through to the Outer Dark and not let Cocteau manipulate him. It worked, but as long as the door was open and Cocteau had the pentajulum, he was tethered to it. Joe took the pentajulum and crushed it, and Felix grabbed Cocteau and let the portal to the Outer Dark close on him, cutting him in half. With his original memories and personality returned, Joe left Molly to hunt witches.