Thursday, January 12, 2012

Reading Room: GREEN PLANET Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...
Art by Dick Giordano
Exiled by the repressive government of Earth, Jason Tolliver and other dissenters are shipped to the planet Klorath in a far distant solar system where a colony of rebels led by Tolliver's father had been established.
Upon arrival at the so-called "Green Planet", they discover a partially-completed colony encampment, totally-deserted.
The new arrivals cautiously move into the camp, and utilize the supplies to finish the camp and grow food.
Within a couple of weeks, the camp is completed and the first crop ready to harvest, but an attack by a giant pterodactyl-like creature on the farmers provides a possible answer to the fate of the previous Earthmen.
Following the creature to its' nest on a nearby cliff, Jason encounters another human...but not one of the Earthmen!
Tolliver and the fur-garbed man fight off an attack by one of the pterodactyls, then go their separate ways, having conquered a common foe, but unable to communicate.
Jason returns to the camp, calls a meeting and informs the others that they are not alone on the Green Planet...
For those who say classic sci-fi was just Westerns with spaceships instead of horses, this story, with its' "pioneers and native inhabitants" concept seems to prove them correct. (Although with a much happier ending than most settler-Indian encounters in the real Old West.)
There was never a follow-up tale, although this one was finally reprinted thirty years later, still with no credit for the original book it was based on by J Hunter Holly (Joan Carol Holly)
The writer of the comic adaptation is unknown.
The story was penciled by Charles Nicholas, inked by Vince Alascia.
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Thanx for posting!