Reading Room: CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Science vs Sorcery"

Comic book space adventurers were a dime-a-dozen in the 1950s...

...but none had better art than Captain Science!

Wow, a story where Arabs are actually good guys!

Wally Wood and Joe Orlando did the art for this tale from Youthful's Captain Science #5 (1951), and you can tell they were having the time of their lives, as they cut loose with some of the wildest stuff ever to grace sci-fi comic books.

Unlike the earlier Captain Science stories, which have never been reprinted, these Orlando/Wood stories have been re-published all over the place, but they're still well-worth seeing again!

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Reading Room BLACK CAT MYSTIC "MysteryVision"

Here's a tale that could've inspired the movie They Live! as well as several Twilight Zone eps...

...plus it has a rather unique aspect we'll explain at the conclusion...

"We take our leave of Herman Scudder, who discovered that "reading" people can be as easy as reading an eye-chart...in the Twilight Zone..."

(Sorry, instinctively channeled Rod Serling for a moment...)

Pencils and inks for this never-reprinted story from Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #57 (1956) are by Jack Kirby, who rarely inked his own work since editors felt his time was better-spent penciling at a rate of up to four pages per day!

(Yes, I said per day!)

Probably written by either Kirby himself ,or partner Joe Simon.

Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "Turmoil in the Heavens"

Here's a weird one-page tale...

...produced by an unknown writer and artist for Harvey's Race for the Moon #2 (1958).

Beyond the obvious questions of...

How do we know what life-forms lived on Polis?

How do we know it was called "Polis"?

...we are compelled to ask...

Why doesn't the chart in Panel 2 make any sense?

Why, in Panel 5, does Jupiter look like a comet hurtling towards Polis, when Polis was hurtling towards Jupiter?

We will never know the answers to those mysteries...

Reading Room JET POWERS "Metal Monsters"

After two tales with aliens, mad scientists, and no sign of Jet's arch-enemy...

...we come to the final tale in the issue, and...well, I think you can guess who...

Oddly, the previously green-skinned Mr Sinn now has the standard lemon-yellow coloring used in the 1940s and '50s for most Asian comic characters.

Illustrated by Bob Powell, these three tales from Magazine Enterprises' Jet Powers #2 (1951) cover almost every cliche of sci-fi including time travel, alien invasion, mad scientists, and robots.

The only thing they left out of this issue was space opera!

They'd get to that next issue...

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Reading Room JET POWERS "House of Horror"

We Have Already Seen...

Now that the unseen narrator and Su Shan have explained the plot with expositional captions and dialogue, let's continue...

Proofreader's note: I think it was supposed to be a thermite, not termite, bomb...unless the device was supposed to devour Jet!

Lovingly-illustrated by Bob Powell, the second Jet tale from Magazine Enterprises' Jet Powers #2 (1951) goes with a classic mad scientist (with killer gorillas and a disintegration ray) as the protaganist.
Be here tomorrow when an old enemy (and his new friends) drop in for dinner...

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Reading Room JET POWERS "Three-Million-Year-Old Men"

What's a typical day in the life of Jet Powers like?

After breakfast there's a scientist with a time machine...

...which ends up in the hands of alien invaders from the future!

But, Jet Powers cleans the whole matter up...before lunch!

That's just the opening Jet tale, lovingly-illustrated by Bob Powell, from Magazine Enterprises' Jet Powers #2 (1951).
Be here tomorrow to see how Jet spends the rest of his day...

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Tomorrow: JET POWERS!

This scene does not actually occur in the comic...

Art by Bob Powell

...but it's a really kool cover and these characters (and the dinosaur) do get involved in overlapping stories involving time travel, aliens, a returning arch-villain, robots, and another mad scientist!

Be here tomorrow...