Let's Play Ball! MYSTICAL TALES "On a Lonely Planet"

Can playing a sport unite alien cultures?

This never-reprinted story from Atlas' Mystical Tales #1 (1956) suggests an answer...

OK, it's an ethnocentric (species-centric?) conceit that the aliens were playing something even remotely like baseball, but illustrator Bill Everett and the unknown writer still manage to "sell" it for four pages.

BTW, despite the title, Mystical Tales was an almost-totally "hard sci-fi" anthology!

Only a handful of stories from the anthology's 8-issue run have been reprinted...all in the 1970s...which makes even the reprints almost a half-century old!

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Atlas Era Tales of Suspense

Volume 1

Reading Room TALES TO ASTONISH "I Fell to the Center of the Earth!"

Here's a kool 1950s sci-fi story penciled by Matt Baker, whose speciality was "good girl" art!

Yet, there's not a single beautiful woman (not even a cavewoman), in this story, one of his few assignments for Atlas (later Marvel) Comics!

When this story appeared in Atlas' Tales to Astonish #2 (1959), Baker was near the end of his career, working through Vince Colletta's studio, doing only penciling to increase his productivity.

Vince Colletta inked the pages, and it's possible that, seeing how much detail Colletta tended to leave out during inking, Baker did less-detailed pencils than normal.

The writer is unknown, but it's believed to be the book's editor Stan Lee.
Penciler Matt Baker was one of the few Black comic book artists of the Golden and Silver Ages, and was easily the most prolific of them!
Though known for his "good girl" art, including the famous (and infamous) Phantom Girl stories, he handled every genre with ease, including horror, war, sci-fi, and romance!
Sadly, though, few of his stories featured Black characters...who were rare in comics until the mid-1960s!
You can read a short, but complete bio HERE!

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour
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Reading Room / Tales Thrice Told STRANGE WORLDS "I Am the Last Man on Earth!"

One thing Stan Lee was really good at was recycling plots (with minor variations)...

...as demonstrated in this first of three tales based on the same premise!

Plotted (and probably scripted) by Stan Lee, this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Strange Worlds #1 (1958) was illustrated by Silver Age mainstay Don Heck.

Yes, it's the "Adam & Eve begin a new Earth in the future/past" tale, which has become something of a cliche in sci-fi/fantasy.

But, it's some of the details that carry-over from one story to another that make this particular variation's multiple versions interesting.

Be here Thursday to see what I mean...

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EXCELSIOR!
Amazing Life of Stan Lee
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Monday Madness MYSTICAL TALES "Man Who Saw Too Much!"

Here's one of those stories that make you scratch your head and ask...

..."what were they smoking/drinking/ingesting whan they created this?"

What's the "speed of time"?

How would it alter the composition of a piece of metal never designed to be played as a musical instrument by a human to allow it to be played. much less to transport the player through time?

Perhaps it's just as well we don't know who scripted this weird story!

The Grand Comics Database attributes Ed Winiarski as the sole artist for this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Mystical Tales #1 (1956), but there are clear aspects of long-time Atlas-Marvel artist Werner Roth's style in there as well.

Did he re-draw panels or did he pencil the entire story with Winarski just inking it?

So many questions, so few answers...

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Marvel Masterworks

Atlas-Era Journey into Mystery

Volume 1

Friday Fun RIOT the Complete "Why Izzit?"

Appearing in Atlas' Riot #5 and #6 (1956)...

...these never-reprinted features by writer Stan Lee, penciler Dan DeCarlo, and inker Rudy Lapick...

...were designed as fillers for use at any point the book's page count came up short!

Were more created...but never used?

Or are these four pages all that exist?

I suspect we'll never know the answer...

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Reading Room STRANGE STORIES OF SUSPENSE "Man of Mystery"

Here's a never-reprinted tiny tale about a tiny man...

...specifically, a miniature man of metal, from Atlas' Strange Stories of Suspense #5 (1955)!

The illustrator of this tale of a bionic blabbermouth was highly-unappreciated Golden Age/Silver Age workhorse Sud Shores, though the teller of the tin terror's tale is, regrettably, unknown!
Trivia: Though this was #5, it was actually the first issue of Strange Stories of Suspense, since the first four issues were called Rugged Action...

...featuring manly men performing manly feats of derring-do in various venues...which apparently didn't sell well enough to keep the book going in that format!
OTOH, Strange Stories of Suspense continued though #16 until a change in newsstand distributors in 1956 reduced the amount of titles Atlas Comics could distribute per month!

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Atlas Comics Library No 1

Adventures into Terror
Volume 1

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Reading Room VENUS COMICS "Little Man Who Wasn't There!"

What is "real" and what is "fiction"?

That's the basis for this story which would have qualified as "metafictional"...if the word had existed in 1951!

The writer for this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Venus Comics #14 (1951) is unknown.

Pity, since it's a clever little tale...though it would've benefited from being given a couple of additional pages to flesh out why the "creator" decided to suddenly alter the character's personality and actions so radically.

Perhaps the "creator"  in the last panel (artist John Tartaglione) was, himself, being manipulated by a creator who was going insane...

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 
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Monday Madness STRANGE TALES OF THE UNUSUAL "Five Sinister Statues"

Does "madness" lie within a tale...

...where the kool Bill Everett-rendered cover illustration doesn't match the interior art by Richard Doxsee?

The statues in this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Strange Tales of the Unusual #11 (1957) resemble Indo-Chinese (Siamese or Laotian) sculptures, unlike the ones on the cover, which look decidedly-Chinese!

Makes you wonder which came first, and how long it was between the cover and the story actually being drawn!

Sadly, we'll never know the answer, since none of the creatives involved are still alive!

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Monday Moon Madness ASTONISHING "Menace from the Moon!"

We're planning to send humans back to the moon in the next few years.

Is that really such a good idea???

OK, this tale from Atlas' Astonishing #5 (1951), written by Hank Chapman and illustrated by Cal Massey is a tad silly.

They claim the ship was lost five years earlier, yet speculate the crew was still alive and coming home?
C'mon, even a kid in the 1950s would find that concept...well...DUMB!!!
(And that's being polite!)

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

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