Thursday, January 14, 2016

Reading Room PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Blood Plague" Conclusion

This scene...sorta...appears in this issue
Astronauts Chris and Craig invade the vampires' stronghold only to discover Craig's wife (and fellow astronaut) Brenda drained dry, as shown on the cover above.
(Except for the fact that Craig has a moustache and both Craig and Brenda are African-American, as shown HERE.)
Leaving Craig to mourn, Chris blasts his way into the Proctor's office...
What was "the Secret Project"?
We never found out, since the book was cancelled!
But it was already going though the transition that almost all the Atlas books that lasted more than two issues went through.
Radical changes in creative staffs, plotlines, even characters themselves were the norm as mercurial publisher Martin Goodman began shaking things up.
It's a sordid tale best told by one who was there, so click HERE for the details!
As for Planet of Vampires, the word was to make it more like Planet of the Apes and/or Kamandi.
This two-page spread by Larry Lieber and Al Milgrom gives an idea of what was to come...
Perhaps it's just as well there was no #4...

1 comment:

  1. Oh I don't know. I'd have bought it. Planet of Vampires was pretty good each issue, but each issue was pretty different from the one before. That happened a lot at Atlas.

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Thanx for posting!