Saturday, May 25, 2024

Space Force Saturdays ATOM-AGE COMBAT "Puzzle"

Since it's Memorial Day weekend...
...we thought we'd run a tale of interplanetary conflict between Earth and Mars!
Note: the last page was the inside back cover of the comic, so it's black-and-white, a standard cost-saving technique back then by printing the front and back inside covers one, or sometimes, two-color.
Illustrated by Dick Ayers, this tale from Fago's Atom-Age Combat #3 (1959) touches on an interesting idea.
Someone's keeping us from leaving Earth...but they're also keeping others from approaching Earth!
Were they protecting us from them...or them from us?
Since this was the final tale in the final issue of the series, we'll never know the answer...
BTW, this was the second series called "Atom-Age Combat"!
The first was published by St John Comics with five issues in 1952-53 and a one-shot in 1958.
Fago Publications bought the title when St John dropped it's comic line, continuing the numbering from the one-shot and producing two issues.
Fago itself only lasted from 1958-59.
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Friday, May 24, 2024

Friday Fun GET LOST! "Dr Jerkyll Became Mr Hide"

It's more "inspired" by the Robert Louis Stevenson tale than an adaptation...

...since it's set "present day" (1950s) and the dear doctor is a psychiatrist!
MikeRoss' Get Lost was one of numerous MAD comic clones that popped up in the mid-1950s when that humor comic became one of the hottest titles on the market...literally flying off newsstands!
The company, created by writer/artists Mike Esposito and Ross Andru (the "MikeRoss" of the company name) was meant to be a showcase for their talents.
They edited, wrote, and illustrated almost all the material, including this tale from #1 (1954).
Unfortunately, they debuted just as the legendary "Seduction of the Innocent" scandal (where comics were blamed for juvenile delinquency) hit the public consciousness!
All MikeRoss published were Get LostHeart and Soul (a romance comic) and a couple of 3-D books using modified Heart and Soul artwork.
Sadly, the company never really got off the ground as distributors became leery of handling any comics, much less titles from a brand-new, unproven company!
MikeRoss folded within a year, and the creators returned to working for others, enjoying long careers in the comics business both as a team and individually until they passed away!

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Thursday, May 23, 2024

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Filbert's Frightful Future!"

After Mighty Thor began his run in Journey into Mystery as of #83......
...and before Norse mythology-related backup series like Tales of Asgard began, the one-shot shorts like this never-reprinted tale continued to fill the back of the book until the inventory was used up!
Don Heck penciled and inked this story from Marvel's Journey into Mystery #85 (1962).
Stan Lee plotted it, but experts are not sure if he scripted it.
Lee usually co-signed the later shorts he scripted, but only Heck's signature is here.
Just about everything Lee didn't script at this point was handled by his brother Larry Lieber.
(Stan's birth name is Stanley Leiber. He used "Stan Lee" on his comics work because he wanted his real name on the Great American Novel he planned to write.
When he finally realized he would be forever known for his comics and not any prose novel he might write, he legally changed his name to "Stan Lee".)
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featuring the Thor stories that appeared in front of the never-reprinted tales we present!
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Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder PSYCHO "Swordsman of Sarn in 'City of Living Light!' "

Created in 1971 for Skywald's b/w magazine Science Fiction Odyssey...

...this cover by Jeffrey Catherine Jones and the following story by writer Gardner Fox, penciler Jack Katz, and inker Vince Colletta were left homeless when the book was cancelled before publication.
However, both were presented in Skywald's Psycho #12 (1973!)!
Enjoy!
This was obviously-meant to be an ongoing high-adventure series in the John Carter/Gullivar Jones mold.
Sadly, there was no follow-up!
Note: Though the cover for Psycho #12 didn't really display Jeff Jones' art to best advantage...

 ...when the cover was reprinted in Toutain Editor's 1984 #36 (1982) in Spain...
...it got the treatment it deserved!
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Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Reading Room / Tales Thrice Told TALES OF SUSPENSE "Last Rocket!"

Marvel's Tales of Suspense #39 (1963) is famous for it's cover story...
...but that oft-retold tale is not what we're looking at today!
Instead, we're presenting one of the backup stories...the third and final version of the "Adam & Eve on past/future Earth" trope plotted and/or scripted by Stan Lee.
You can read the previous two tales HERE and HERE.
Ok, I'm willing to believe that, with 1960s-level technology, all of Mankind could pull off a When Worlds Collide-style evacuation of the planet...though how they'd survive to reach another solar system several light-years distant is questionable.
I'm even willing to accept a couple of ecology-oriented sorts being stubborn (and let's face it, suicidal) enough to remain on their home world to the bitter end.
But an "exploding star" close enough to warm and light the planet, yet totally-unknown to anyone before that?
C'mon!
And one more thing...couldn't the space fleet just turn around and return when they noticed the "exploding star" behind them?
In this "Adam and Eve" retelling, it's believed that Lee plotted the story and his brother, Larry Lieber, scripted it.
But it's a fact that the legendary Gene Colan penciled and inked the absolutely beautiful art!
It makes the rather silly story bearable.
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Monday, May 20, 2024

Monday Madness GHOSTLY TALES "Anywhere Machine!"

This starts out as a hard sci-fi adventure...

...but it ends as an entirely different genre!
The title of the comic should tip you off as to what genre!
At this point, Charlton had cancelled their sci-fi anthologies, so this story by writer Nick Cuti, layout artist Wally Wood, and penciler-inker Tom Sutton ended up in Ghostly Tales #107 (1973)!
You'll note the addition of the book's host, Mr L Dead, to the splash and a couple of captions.
When the tale was reprinted in Charlton's revived Space War #30 (1978)...

...Deth was gone!
Note: the cover by Wayne Howard, who started his career working for Wally Wood, has never been reprinted!
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