Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Reading Room: SPEED CARTER: SPACEMAN "Jet-Men of Zurko"

Last time, Speed battled beings from the center of the Earth...
...now he battles self-propelled aliens from an unnamed star in this tale from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #4 (1954).
According to Marvel's writers, aliens are idiots who can be tricked by everything from photos of ancient ruins to comic book panels showing monsters or high-tech weaponry that doesn't really exist!
Remember the end of Fantastic Four #2 (1961) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby?
Reed Richards showed cut-out comic book panels from Journey into Mystery and Strange Tales to the Skrull fleet commander stating the creatures and super-science weapons shown were real and ready to use against alien invaders!
(Of course, the idea that Jack Kirby could draw stuff that could scare the pants off hostile aliens does have a real appeal...)
And, I remember at least a couple of other pre-Silver Age Marvel stories with a similar concept, including one where movie special effects techs frightened aliens with fake robots from a sci-fi film they were shooting on location...

Written (as are all the Speed Carter stories) by Hank Chapman and illustrated by Mike Sekowsky, Don Heck, and Jack Abel.

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Thanx for posting!