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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Monday Madness RACE FOR THE MOON "Asylum"

A Twilight Zone-style story from Race for the Moon #1, illustrated (and possibly written) by Bob Powell!

With the world the way it is now, perhaps we should rename our planet from "Earth" to "Asylum"!

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Monday Madness BLACK CAT MYSTERY "Colorama"...Before and After the Comics Code!

One of the most notorious stories in 1950s comics went thru some changes...

Art by Howard Nostrand

 ...when it was reprinted after the Comics Code Authority came into existence!

Actually, the theory that "Black" has all the colors together is true only in printing!

It's called "subtractive color", and when you combine all the inks in four-color printing (CYAN, MAGENTA, and YELLOW) as solid colors, they DO produce a BLACK effect on the printed page!

However, the effect that light produces when it's reflected from objects around you (or generated from a tv or computer screen) is called "additive color" and when all the colors are added together, they produce WHITE!
But, at the point where this story appeared in Black Cat Mystery #45 (1953), there were no computer screens and what little commercial tv existed was almost totally b/w!

When the story was reprinted in Black Cat Mystery #61 (1958), the Comics Code insisted on some alterations, beginning with the cover...

Art by Bob Powell from Page 1 with additional art by Howard Nostrand

...adapted from the first panel on Page 1, but featuring a character not seen in the story itself, and with the protagonist shown in the rear-view mirror wearing glasses he doesn't wear until the end of the story!
Quite frankly, there's nothing too gross or disgusting about the original cover, so why it wasn't used is unknown...

Page 1 in the reprint is unaltered.

Page 2 has only one minor change; the policeman's less-snarling expression in Panel 5...

There are no changes on Page 3

Page 4, on the other hand, has a major change...the optometrist survives!

 

And the final page is unchanged.

Script and art are by Golden Age great Bob Powell.

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Ten-Cent Plague

Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

Monday Mars Madness MARS ATTACKS "Saucers Blast Our Jets"

We Have Already Seen...

Art by Wally Wood, Bob Powell, and Norm Saunders

...the inhabitants of Mars decide to invade the Earth.
They send an armada of flying saucers who promptly destroy satellites (both manned and unmanned), then attack a military base!

but the fun's only starting...

Sadly, we never got to see our country's capitol immolated, since this was the final issue of the series!

This advertisement from the back cover is all the public ever saw of the next two issues!

The artist round-robin continued with this issue as John Hebert illustrates what turns out to be the series' swan-song!

With the similarity in art style, Hebert might have been the previous issue's "John Green", but there's no way to verify that theory!

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Mars Attacks

50th Anniversary Collection

Monday Mars Madness MARS ATTACKS "Attacking an Army Base"

When Last We Left the Martians...

Art by Wally Wood, Bob Powell, and Norm Saunders

...they were en-route to Earth, and had destroyed several satellites (manned and unmanned) in orbit.

Now, we're about experience...well...it's pretty obvious...

John Green takes over as penciler-inker for this chapter.

We're not certain if it's a pseudonym, since the only other credits we can find for "John Green" are for a younger artist who would've been in elementary school at the time of this series!

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Mars Attacks

50th Anniversary Collection