Space Heroine Saturdays GALE ALLEN OF THE WOMEN"S SPACE BATTALION/GIRL'S PATROL/GIRL PATROL

Ever see spaceships with...propellers???

Well, here they are, in the premiere appearance of one of the longest-running Space Heroine strips of the Golden Age!

Gale Allen's introductory tale (by currently-unknown creatives) from Fiction House's Planet Comics #4 (1940) sets the series in an unspecified future where interplanetary travel is accomplished by spaceships with wings and propellers!

My impression is that it was conceived as a "day after tomorrow" war strip, but was re-scripted as a futuristic sci-fi series...without modifying the art to match the script!
Oddly, Fiction House's Planet Comics #5 (1940), with art by Bob Powell, revamps the vehicles to look like spaceships, but turns the strip Earthbound, as an alien invasion force with a foothold in Europe and Africa attempts to conquer the rest of Terra...in the year 1990!

You'll also note an alteration in the second tale of the "balance of power" between the sexes, as a suddenly-competent Jeff Allen rescues Gale!
The next story, in Fiction House's Planet Comics #6 (1940), also illustrated by Bob Powell, ignores the fact the aliens still have the female pilots hostage...

With Blaga Daru (temporarily) imprisoned, the series will take yet another turn, as you'll see in a near-future post!

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Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen

(Including Gale Allen!)

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Friday Fun GET LOST! "Robin the Hood"

One of the better-quality MAD comic book clones of the 1950s...

...(and there were a lot of them) was Get Lost, edited and packaged by comic creatives Ross Andru and Mike Esposito!

In case you're wondering why this story from MikeRoss' Get Lost #2 (1954) was about Robin Hood, the answer is that the character was experiencing a revival in popularity due to several feature films, including a Walt Disney flick, The Story of Robin Hood starring Richard Todd, a re-release to theatres of the Errol Flynn swashbuckler classic Adventures of Robin Hood, several other new b-movies, and a new TV series starring Richard Greene as Robin!
Magazine Enterprises gave Robin his own comic book (based on the TV series), Quality Comics did Robin Hood Tales, while DC featured the character in an ongoing strip in Brave and the Bold.
Oddly, Atlas Comics (later to be known as Marvel), who were notorious for jumping on pop culture trends, didn't do anything Robin Hood-related!
As for this particular story, the writer is unknown (but is likely Andru or Esposito),and the artist is versatile illustrator Paul Hodge, who worked for a number of publishers, including Ziff-Davis, St John, Dell, and Atlas during the 1950s until the Seduction of the Innocent "comics cause juvenile delinquency" scandal almost wiped out the comics industry!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Trump Reading Room "Sinner"

If you wonder what sort of mindset would allow "God-fearing" evangelicals...

...to support a proven heathen like Don da Con, as The Chosen of the Lord, perhaps this over half-century old tale will offer some insight...

In case you have trouble reading the marker, here it is...enlarged...

Originally published in the wonderful Silver Age prozine, Witzend #1, in 1966, this Archie Goodwin-scripted and illustrated tale has also appeared in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Special #1 (1976) and Epic Illustrated #2 (1980), never losing it's impact!

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Best of Witzend

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WOLFF "Sorceress of the Red Mist"

Return to the barbaric, post-apocalyptic future Earth of Wolff...

...where technology and magic are both considered "dark arts" by the majority of inhabitants of this barbaric future!
Yeah, we know we said it before, but it bears repeating!

Esteban Maroto rendered this tale, co-written by Luis "Sadko" Gaska, from New England Library's Dracula #3 (1971) with his usual superb storytelling and masterful linework.

Not sure who colored it, though..

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Dracula Annual
The Incredibly-HTF British Hardcover with all 12 issues of the Comic!
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Reading Room MARVEL BOY COMICS "Planetary Error"

Combining an impulsive, know-it-all teen-ager...

...with the classic "If you time travel, don't change anything!" warning and you end up with this...

No matter what the time period, teen-agers can be real schmucks!

Though the creatives behind the story are unknown, we can tell you it appeared in Atlas' Marvel Boy #2 (1951).
We can also tell you (though you might have guessed it from the header on almost every page) that the comic changed its' name to Astonishing as of the next issue (#3).
Nobody seems to know why the book's name was changed, since the title feature, Marvel Boy, the first Atlas Comics super-hero of the 1950s (though the second Timely/Atlas character to use the name), appeared through issue #6!
You can read about him HERE!
BTW, the series ran for another 60 issues, until 1957.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Monday Madness DOC SAVAGE COMICS "Polar Treasure"

Our current arctic blast reminded me of the setting of an early Doc Savage novel...

...which was condensed into the shortest comics adaptation of any of the Man of Bronze's "supersagas" (as Phillip  Jose Farmer refers to them) we've ever seen!

Two notes:

1) the flying man on the cover is Ajax the Sun Man, who had his own strip in the book.

(Ajax is not in the Doc Savage tale.)

2) the story may be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to the 1940s.

The first few issues of the 1940s Doc Savage Comics condensed and adapted Doc pulp novels.

This issue (#3 from 1941) took the 1933 pulp tale "Polar Treasure" and fit it into only eight pages!

Both writer and artist of the adaptation and cover are unknown.

Lester Dent wrote the original novel under the "Kenneth Robeson" house pen-name.

Trivia: both the original and paperback editions of the novel are #4 in their respective series.

Cover by Walter M Baumhaufer

Cover by Lou Feck or James Avati or Frank McCarthy

(After the first novel, "Man of Bronze", Bantam Books reprinted the stories out of original publication order, going with what they felt were the most exciting tales first.)

Bookmark us (if you haven't already) since we have a lot of cool never-reprinted material coming up this year!