Of course it did! H.G. Well's War of the Worlds in the 1890s is only the most famous of the invasion and destruction by aliens stories--not the first or the last. It's true that world-wrecking as an SF cliche is post-WWII (when the general public realized that we now had the power to do ourselves in, we didn't need the Martians).
But Lovecraft was indeed doing something new--which Alexx has his finger on--he was transforming the tropes of traditional Gothic horror (necromancy and reanimation, cults, secret history, grimoires, "ancient sorceries," witches etc.) by merging them with Real Gosh-Wow SF (Big History, evolution-devolution, Polar exploration, space travel, FTL and Einsteinian physics, etc. And yes, he was self-taught so he got some of these wrong--but he was doing something new and original). So, why are the bad guys weak? Dunno, but the bad guys are traditionally pretty easy to conquer in the Gothic mode, so maybe that's part of it.
no subject
But Lovecraft was indeed doing something new--which Alexx has his finger on--he was transforming the tropes of traditional Gothic horror (necromancy and reanimation, cults, secret history, grimoires, "ancient sorceries," witches etc.) by merging them with Real Gosh-Wow SF (Big History, evolution-devolution, Polar exploration, space travel, FTL and Einsteinian physics, etc. And yes, he was self-taught so he got some of these wrong--but he was doing something new and original).
So, why are the bad guys weak?
Dunno, but the bad guys are traditionally pretty easy to conquer in the Gothic mode, so maybe that's part of it.