Reading Room TALES TO ASTONISH "I Found the Abominable Snowman!" Part 1

Baby, it's COLD outside!

So, here's one of the coolest (literally) giant monster tales from the final days of Atlas Comics' pre-Marvel Universe Tales to Astonish! told by the King himself, Jack Kirby, assisted by inker Dick Ayers!

Be Here Thursday...

...when things get even hairier for Victor Cartwright!

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Unfortunately, there's no available record (or even consensus among experts) as to who wrote this snow-bound story from Tales to Astonish #24 (1961).

But, if you haven't read this tale previously, the conclusion does have a couple of surprising developments!

BTW, when we said this was from the "final days" of the pre-Marvel Universe Atlas Comics, we weren't kidding!

The very next month saw the debut of Fantastic Four #1, launching the Marvel Age of Comics!

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August 1961 Omnibus
(Featuring EVERY comic published by Atlas/Marvel the month Fantastic Four #1 hit the newsstands!)

Monday Madness JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Midnight in the Wax Museum"

Continuing our "writers/illustrators encountering madness" theme we began last week...

..we offer a tale of a comic book artist and some of the koolest Kirby Kreatures you've ever laid eyes on...

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers, this fun little tale was one of two featured on the cover by Kirby and Ayers on Atlas' Journey into Mystery #74 (1961)!

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August 1961 Omnibus
(Featuring EVERY comic published by Atlas/Marvel the month Fantastic Four #1 hit the newsstands, including this one!)

Friday Fun / Humor in a Jugular Vein CRAZY "Wolf Man"

 It isn't Halloween...yet...but it's gonna be "trick-or-treat" for...

...in this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Crazy #5 (1954)

Dick Ayers rendered this tale in a style quite dissimilar from his usual Western or horror material.
The writer, though, is unknown, but may be Stan Lee, who was the editor of the line, and wrote quite a lot of the stories...

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Sincerest Form of Parody

Trump Reading Room STRANGE TALES "When a Planet Dies!"

Our current President has pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords...

...and has stated he doesn't believe in man-made climate change!

Perhaps he thinks omnipotent aliens, like these guys frim Atlas' Strange Tales #97 (196x) cause climate change...

While the art is credited to Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, who wrote the tale is not entirely clear.

A number of people, myself included, think it's scripted by Kirby himself.
(BTW, if you think I was looking for an excuse to re-run one of my favorite Kirby Klassics...you'd be right!)
When the story was reprinted in Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #22 (1973), the splash page was reworked...

...combining the cover from a previous issue of Weird Wonder Tales that supplied the Dr Druid figure...

Art by Jack Kirby, John Romita (Dr Druid's face) and Joe Sinnott

 ...and the original splash page!

The production artist "flipped" a stat of the Dr Druid figure and fit it where the bearded aliens are on the original.
To paraphrase "the World's Most Interesting Man", stay cool, my friends!

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Atlas Era

Tales to Astonish

Featuring stories by Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Heck, Sinnott, and others...

Reading Room BLACK MAGIC "Way Out!"

From the final issue (#50 from 1961) of Prize's Black Magic...

..is a never-reprinted tale that might seem familiar to EC Comics fans!

Compare the last page to the last page below...

Did Black Magic editor Joe Simon swipe the Bill Gaines/Al Feldstein script for this tale, "Round Trip" from EC's Weird Science-Fantasy #28 (1955)?

Or was he given the script by a lazy writer who hoped he didn't recognize it?

We'll never know...

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Zero Hour and Other Stories

(which reprints the complete "Round Trip" from Weird Science-Fantasy #28)

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Return of the Martian!"

Yesterday we brought you "The Martian Who Stole My Body"...

...and now, we continue his saga with a never-reprinted adventure!

Hmmm.

A seemingly-invincible Martian invader who had no resistance to our Earthly diseases.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, those Martians.

And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians--_dead_!--slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds.

These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things--taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here.

But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many--those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance--our living frames are altogether immune.

But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and

fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow.

Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro.

It was inevitable.

--War of the Worlds by HG Wells

So, plotter Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, penciler Jack Kirby, and inker Dick Ayers, took a concept that had been done to death by the time this story appeared in Atlas' Journey into Mystery #58 (1960).

By all rights, it shouldn't work.

And it almost doesn't.

But Kirby's artwork saves it, gives it enoough OOOMPH to allow you to overlook the cliched ending.

Oddly, though Zetora's previous tale had been reprinted in the 1970s, this sequel has never been reprinted!

(Which might be just as well, since it'd be hard to explain him coming back from the dead...)

Perhaps to make up for that oversight, Marvel's Monsters Unleashed #3 does, give him a beautiful Francesco Francavilla cover...

Monsters Unleashed looks like a lot of fun, so get it at your local comic shop...NOW!

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Monsters Unleashed: Prelude
(which doesn't include either of Zetora the Martian's stories!)

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Martian Who Stole My Body!"

The new Monsters Unleashed miniseries continues this week...

...with a Klassic Kirby Kreature who appeared twice!

Poor Zetora.

Not only did this tale from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #57 (1960), reprinted in Marvel's Fear #7 (1972), not get a cover appearance either time, neither did the sequel story, which we'll present tomorrow!

However, Marvel's Monsters Unleashed #3 does, finally, give him a beautiful Francesco Francavilla cover...

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers, it's an average story greatly-enhanced by Kirby's superb visuals.

Monsters Unleashed looks like a lot of fun, so get it at your local comic shop...NOW!

FindAComicShop.com

Comic Shop Locator!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Monsters Unleashed: Prelude
(which doesn't include either of Zetora the Martian's stories!)