With
Battle: LA opening this week, we thought we'd present some of the more memorable alien invasion-themed comic stories of the Golden Age.
First up...the lead story from a 1953 one-shot that combined
all the great cliches of space opera in one tight ten-page tale...
These days, this story would be a six-issue mini-series with tie-ins to several other titles.
The rest of the book was made up of unrelated reprints from earlier issues of
Planet Comics.
While the interior artist is unidentified in the Grand Comics Database, it looks, IMHO, like either the pencils or inks were by Mort Meskin.
The cover was done by Maurice Whitman, one of
Fiction House's more prolific artists.
When the book was reprinted in 1958, yet
another cover was done (see left), featuring totally different-looking characters and flying saucers that appeared
nowhere in the story!
We included the original cover as part of our
Martians! Martians! Martians! retro collectibles line including
mugs, t-shirts and other nifty stuff.
There's
lots of vintage alien invasion-themed stuff there, as well as at
SpaceMan Jet and the SpaceBusters (whom we'll also be presenting in the
Reading Room this week), and
Quatermass: the Man Who Inspired the X-Files!
Keep checking back for more alien fun!
