Space Force Saturdays SPACE SQUADRON "Star Smasher"

Do you remember how, in 1952, we sent men into space in flying saucers?

What?

You don't?

But, it's ancient history, as this tale from the year 2000 reveals in flashback...

Ah, the days when we actually believed in "American Exceptionalism"...

This story from Atlas' Space Squadron #1 (1951) was illustrated by George Tuska who later became the final artist on the original Buck Rogers comic strip (1959-67) and then assumed the art duties for almost a decade on Marvel's Invincible Iron Man!

The writer is unknown, but the scripting is clearly more simplistic and juvenile-oriented than the relatively more-sophisticated Speed Carter series written by Hank Chapman two years later.

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Brain Destroyer!"

This title reminded me of Donald Trump...

...even though the story itself has nothing to connect it to the Republicans' hilarious President but the title!

No matter whether you agree for my reason for running the story, it's still a long-lost, never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #19 (1959) you probably would never have seen otherwise.
Plotted by Stan Lee, written by Larry Lieber, and illustrated by Carl Burgos, it's typical of the sort of stuff Atlas was running as it transitioned into what we would know as Marvel only a couple of years later.

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Ten-Cent Plague

Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

Friday Fun SNAFU "Emilie Toast's Etiquette Page

For those who claim we've become a rude, crude society...

.......... a never-reprinted spoof of classic etiquette expert Emily Post's ever-eloquent diatribes about politeness from Atlas' SNAFU b/w mag, courtesy of an unknown writer (possibly editor Stan Lee) and artist John Severin, who could draw literally anything in any genre!

Note: though the issue is V2N1 (1956) it's actually only #2 because Volume 1 had only one issue!

In the old days, "Volumes" were date-related, so if you began publication at the end of the year, as this did, the next issue, which would be published in the following year, was a new Volume!

(Hey, don't blame me, colectors! I didn't make the rules!)

Emily Post was considered the foremost expert on etiquette and gracious living for decades.

Her family is continuing the tradition with a website currently offering advice for dealing with complications created in the age of Covid-19

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Friday Fun / CoronaVirus Comics PATSY WALKER "Great Idea!"

There used to be lots more to teen humor comics than just Archie and his friends...

...with every comics publisher from the late 1940s through the early 1970s doing them! 

Created by writer Stuart Little and artist Ruth Atkinson, Patsy Walker first appeared in Timely's Miss America Magazine #2 (1944).

Redheaded Patsy Walker, parents Stanley and Betty, boyfriend Robert "Buzz" Baxter, and rich, raven-haired friendly rival Hedy Wolfe appeared from the 1944 through 1967 in various teen humor anthologies as well as several self-titled comics.

Trivia: Patsy Walker (along with Millie the Model and Kid Colt: Outlaw) were the only titles published continuously by Marvel from Timely in the Golden Age, through Atlas in the 1950s, to Marvel in the  Silver Age!

Patsy, Buzz and Hedy are all part of the Marvel Universe from Marvel's Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965) when Patsy and Hedy attended the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm!

Patsy later became the superheroine HellCat, and Buzz was revealed to be the supervillain Mad-Dog!

Patsy (and HellCat) appeared on the NetFlix series Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Defenders, making her part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

Written and illustrated by the versatile Al Jaffee (before he moved over to MAD Magazine) , this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Patsy Walker #36 (1951) promoted contributing to the charity created in 1946 by newsman Walter Winchell (best known today as the narrator of the 1960s TV show Untouchables) to honor his friend, writer Damon Runyon, who died of cancer!

The charity, now called Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, still exists!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder / CoronaVirus Comics PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Blood Plague" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Fellow Normal Humans..

This scene...sorta...appears in this issue

Astronauts Chris and Craig invade the virus-infected vampires' stronghold only to discover Craig's wife (and fellow astronaut) Brenda drained dry, as shown on the cover above.
(Except for the fact that Craig has a moustache and both Craig and Brenda are African-American, as shown HERE.)
Leaving Craig to mourn, Chris blasts his way into the Proctor's office...

What was "the Secret Project"?

We never found out, since the book was cancelled!

But it was already going though the transition that almost all the Atlas books that lasted more than two issues went through.

Radical changes in creative staffs, plotlines, even characters themselves were the norm as mercurial publisher Martin Goodman began shaking things up.

It's a sordid tale best told by one who was there, so click HERE for the details!

As for Planet of Vampires, the word was to make it more like Planet of the Apes and/or Kamandi.

This two-page spread in the back of the book by Larry Lieber and Al Milgrom gives an idea of what was to come...

Perhaps it's just as well there was no #4...
Next Wednesday:
Another Disease-Laden World of Wonder!
(There are a lot of them in sci-fi/fantasy!)

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I Am Legend

the Graphic Novel Adaptation of the Original Book Which Inspired Generations of Creatives, including the Creators of Planet of Vampires!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder / CoronaVirus Comics PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Blood Plague" Part 1

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

...keep reading and the characters will explain what's going on right after the big explosion.
"What big explosion?" you may ask...

The battle concludes...Next Wednesday!

(and when we say "concludes", we mean concludes!)

Written by John Albano and illustrated by Russ Heath, Atlas' Planet of Vampires #3 winds up some plotlines and, unfortunately, kills off several major characters in the process.

Be here next week, when we'll show how far afield the book was about to go as it suffered the "Third Issue Curse" that befell most of the Atlas Comics books.

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I Am Legend

the Graphic Novel Adaptation of the Original Book Which Inspired Generations of Creatives, including the Creators of Planet of Vampires!

CoronaVirus Comics STRANGE TALES "I Saved Mankind!"

I love stories with ironic "switch" endings...

...even if the switch produces a tragic result, like this one!

Illustrator John Forte's aliens in this tale from Atlas's Strange Tales #43 (1956) just aren't very...well...alien!
Other than that, it's a clever story (with slightly-stilted dialogue) by a scripter whose identity has been lost to the mists of time!
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Marvel Masterworks
Atlas-Era Strange Tales #5
(which is the only time this story has been reprinted)

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder / CoronaVirus Comics PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Quest for Blood" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...(actually we haven't seen this, since there's no scene like it in the book.

Nor is there a cloaked, sinisterly-snarling vampire!

But it's a great Neal Adams/Dick Giordano cover, eh?)

Escaping the virus-created scientifically-advanced blood-suckers who inhabit the Dome in the center of a devastated Manhattan, our four surviving astronauts team up with the primitive, but human Street People.

Rigging a stolen aircraft as a booby-trap, they destroy two pursuing ships sent to recapture them.

There's a price to be paid...and one of the astronauts will pay it...

...NEXT WEDNESDAY!

With the departure of writer/co-creator Larry Hama (GI Joe), John Albano (Jonah Hex) stepped in to the scripting slot, working off Hama's basic plot for the issue as well as several pages already laid out by penciler/co-creator Pat Broderick.

It'a a well-done job, making the transition pretty seamless between the two writers.

Be here next week, as the astronauts and street people take the fight back to the virus-infected "domies"!

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I Am Legend/Omega Man

Which features both the recent Will Smith version and the 1970s Charlton Heston version (which heavily-influenced Planet of Vampires)!

But not the 1960s Vincent Price adaptation.

That one, you can get here...)

Last Man on Earth