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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Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN KEN BRADY: ROCKET PILOT "Boy Who Wasn't There!"

We met Captain Ken Brady and his co-pilot-sidekick Buzzy HERE...

...in his premiere appearance, conceived and produced by the co-creator of Superman and the definitive Bronze Age artist of Dracula!

This tale from Ziff-Davis' Lars of Mars #11 (1951) was written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Gene Colan.
It's both the character's second (and last) appearance and the second (and last issue) of the comic!
While the series isn't anything particularly innovative, it's a classic example of 1950s-style sci-fi.
And Gene, who was doing a little of everything from horror to romance to Westerns, showed his versatility with this too-brief strip's run.

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Secrets in the Shadows
Art and Life of Gene Colan
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Reading Room WEIRD MEN'S ADVENTURES "I Walked on the Moon"

In the early 1950s, EC Comics set the pace for other companies...

...as this hybrid sci-fi/horror tale from Atlas' Men's Adventures #26 (1954) clearly demonstrates!

You'll note the post's header reads Weird Men's Adventures, but I mentioned earlier the book was  just Men's Adventures.

It's not a typo.

The indicia title was Men's Adventures, and from 1-20 it featured war and high adventure tales.

But, with #21, it became a horror title and "Weird" was added in a graphic burst to the logo (but not the indicia).

Six issues later, the brief revival of the Golden Age Human Torch and Toro took over the book for two issues before it was cancelled.

Though the writer for this tale from is unknown, the artist (doing a credible Wally Wood imitation) is Gene Colan!

Trivia: When the story was reprinted in Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #17 (1976), it was retitled and the splash panel was rewritten (including removing the "Weird Men's Adventure" blurb)...

Considering that, in 1976, it was over five years since the first Moon landing, I'm not certain why the editor made the change...

BTW, note the "originally-presented" caption references the wrong issue!

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Taylor Illustrated History

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Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN KEN BRADY: ROCKET PILOT "Pirates of the Airways!"

If you look carefully, you can find a Space Hero almost anywhere...

...even someone who's a spacegoing FedEx driver, as shown in this story from the co-creator of Superman and the definitive artist of Dracula!

This back-up tale about a cargo-ship pilot and his buddy just doin' their jobs from Ziff-Davis' Lars of Mars #10* (1951) was written by Jerry (Superman) Siegel and illustrated by Gene (Tomb of Dracula) Colan.

*Though it's number "10", this was actually the first issue of Lars of Mars.

We're not sure which other Ziff-Davis title's numbering this run continues from.

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Art and Life of Gene Colan
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Monday Madness RIOT "The Shadower"

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

Not this guy...

...as demonstrated in this never-reprinted tale from Atlas Comics' MAD clone, Riot #1 (1954)!

Though the writer of this satire of The Shadow radio show is unknown, odds are it was Stan Lee, who was writing almost everything at this point.

The illustrator is extremely well-known...Gene Colan!

This was not the first time The Shadow had been spoofed, since EC's MAD ran their own take on the character in #4 (1953) as shown HERE.

(It was even the cover feature!)

You'll note in this tale "The Shadower" doesn't have the usual cloak, slouch hat, and aquiline nose we associate with the character...

Art by Frank Robbins

In fact, he looks a lot like the Archie Comics version from a decade later...1964...

Art by John Rosenberger

...who, at least initially, was primarily-based on the radio show, but updated to the spy-oriented Sixties!

BTW, if you want more The Shadow stuff, have a look at our current Summer RetroBlog Blogathon participants...

CRIME & PUNISHMENT

...where we're re-presenting the Dark Avenger's never-reprinted 1970s-created, but 1940s-set adventures featuring art by Frank Robbins and E R Cruz.

AND

HERO HISTORIES

...where we began the re-presentation of the never-reprinted, final "Maxwell Grant" Shadow novel from the Swinging Sixties!

Celebrate the New Year with the Psychedelic Master of the Mystic Arts!

The Doctor Strange story we ran for the past two days...

...produced not one...

...but two...

...classic blacklite posters in the early 1970s!

Third Eye Studios produced, using Marvel artwork, a line of fluorescent-ink posters, greeting cards, and puzzles that glowed under ultra-violet ("black") light...

 

(Click to enlarge)

...all of which are now hard-to-find and expensive!

Ironically, the most collectible of the posters are the montage shown above and this one with new art by John Romita Sr...

(Click to enlarge)
...which were not for sale, just display!
There were three Doctor Strange posters, the two Colan/Palmer ones and a Dan Adkins piece.
Note: while all the puzzles repeated art from the posters, some of the greeting cards used art not seen on the posters, so while there are repeats, there are also unique cards that make the set worth collecting!
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Order This BlackLite-style Reproduction Poster!

Digitally-Restored and Remastered DIRECTLY From an Original Poster!

Best of Holiday Reading Room DOCTOR STRANGE "Eternity, Eternity" Conclusion

(A New Year's Eve repost you readers demanded...)
When Last We Left the Sorcerer Supreme...

...it was the end of 1968, New Year's Eve, to be exact.

After seeing a vision of the etherial Eternity changing into his old enemy, Nightmare, Dr Strange takes his alien love, Clea, to Times Square to experience New Year's Eve: New York City Style...where a pterodactyl crashes into the clock as it strikes midnight!

Yep, True Believer, it's another of Marvel's patented "continued stories"!

But our intent here is to present only the New Year's Eve part of the tale, since both parts have been reprinted recently.

So we're going to show you how Marvel itself got out of re-running the entire two-parter when it ran this tale from Doctor Strange #180 (1969) in Marvel Treasury Edition #8: Giant SuperHero Holiday Grab-Bag (1975)!

The editors took the Gene Colan penciled and inked presentation piece showing the finalized design for Doc's "superhero-style" costume that appeared as a pin-up in Doctor Strange #180...

...took out the final panel of the story and used the Doc figure with a new word balloon!

Sneaky, huh?

Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Gene Colan, and inked by Tom Palmer, this tale is one of the koolest of the era's Dr Strange stories with pop culture references galore and accurate NYC locales!

The cover, btw is a combination of a Steve Ditko Eternity figure, a new Doctor Strange by Colan and Palmer and a New York City photo background (Marvel did several photo background covers during this period)

Tomorrow:

The Splash Pages that Became BlackLite Posters!

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Marvel Masterworks

Doctor Strange

Volume 4

...featuring this tale and it's continuation!