The spacecraft departs from Mercury.
THE UNPRETENTIOUS PHILOSOPHER (1775) – By Louis-Guillaume de La Follie. The original French title of this work of proto-science fiction was Le Philosophe sans Pretention ou l’Homme Rare, but in the 21st Century it’s more generally known by the slightly shorter title.
One of the central characters of this story is an Earth scholar named Nadir, and I have no idea if it’s a coincidence or if the people behind the 1960’s film Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster were paying sly homage to de La Follie by naming one of the characters Nadir. At any rate Nadir is visited by Ormisais, a space traveler from the planet Mercury.
Ormisais regales Nadir with details about life on Mercury and also informs him that he has crash-landed on Earth and needs rare elements to repair his electrically-powered craft so that he can return to his home planet. The Mercurians had a planetary version of the British Royal Society and the French Academy, but it had a much more limited membership. Continue reading
AVENGERS Vol 1 #72 (January 1970) 
This leads to the Avengers learning that Scorpio is not alone – he is a member of 
JACK LONG or The Shot in the Eye (1844) – With the Frontierado Holiday coming up in early August, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at this Charles Wilkins Webber short story from 1844. 
In 1853, the author added his original, official version of the story to his collection Tales of the Southern Border. It may be impossible to overstate the legacy of Jack Long. This Texas-set story presented virtually Biblical levels of violence during the Shelby County War (1839-1844) and set the standard for tales of gunslinging revenge quests down to the present day. 
AMPHIBIAN MAN (1962) – This “mad scientist creates a man capable of living underwater” movie was made in the Soviet Union but frequently appeared in dubbed English on American television decades ago. 
Many online reviewers accuse the makers of The Shape of Water of ripping off this 1962 movie that is based on a 1928 novel. Arguments can be made for that, but it’s important to remember that all sci-fi stories draw from the same general inheritance of tropes. 
ICHTYANDR SALVATOR (Vladimir Korenev) – A young Argentinean man whose scientist father prevented him from dying of a lung disease in childhood by grafting shark gills on to his body. Ichtyandr has been raised and educated in isolation and his father even designed a comical looking underwater suit for our hero to wear, complete with a shark fin. 
Balladeer's Blog 