Best of Reading Room ASTONISHING "The Scientists"

We re-presented a later version (by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, no less) of this tale on Tuesday!

This original version is a page longer and has a couple of rather witty touches which put the lie to the concept "If our meddling with time changed anything, we'd notice!"

This never-reprinted story, penciled by Harry Lazarus and inked by George Klein, from Atlas' Astonishing #9 (1952) is based on one of the basic rules of time-travel; "don't change anything in the past, or you'll alter the future"...which is in direct contradiction to another of the basic rules of time-travel; "no matter what you do, you can't change the future".

Hey, I'm just telling you the rules.

I never said they made sense...

Monday Madness: FLYING SAUCERS x FOUR #2 "I Discovered the Secret of the Flying Saucers!"

Last Monday, we looked at the first of four stories involving sentient flying saucers...

Art by Jack Kirby and either Christopher Rule or George Klein

...all written by Stan (the Man) Lee.

Today, we'll look at the second one, with art by the most famous collaborator of all...Jack (the King) Kirby!

At this point, Lee was editing the entire Atlas (soon to be Marvel) comics line...as well as scripting most of it!

But, this story shows indications of being done using the "Marvel Method" of having the writer and artist discuss the story, the artist then co-plotting and drawing it, then the scripter writing dialogue and captions to fit.

With distinctive art by Jack Kirby and Christopher Rule, the cover-featured tale from the first issue of Atlas' short-lived 1958-59 anthology Strange Worlds, feels more like something from Kirby's previous anthology series, Race for the Moon, rather than Lee's previous horror-oriented take on the concept of "alien IS flying saucer"!

The "epic space adventure" feel was something a lot of Kirby's previous work had, while most of Atlas' sci-fi stories (edited or written by Lee) favored a more "personal"approach with a minimum of spectacle, and certainly no half-page or full-page shots of alien cities or space battles!

Stan Lee has acknowledged that he was using the "Marvel Method" in 1961 when the first appearances of Amazing Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were created, so it's obvious the time-saving technique, that gave more creative input to the illustrator, was already in use.

So I'm going with:

Plot by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Layout/Pencils by Kirby

Script by Lee 

Inks by Christopher Rule

Trivia: This was Kirby's first sci-fi story on his return to Atlas/Marvel!

Next Monday, see how Atlas/Marvel's most idiosyncratic artist handled the same plot two years later!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

Haunted House Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "I Don't Believe in...Ghosts!"

Behind this never-reprinted Jack Kirby/Dick Ayers cover...

...lurks a rarely-reprinted haunted house tale that's so darn good, I couldn't resist re-presenting it!

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by George Klein, this cover-featured story from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #77 (1962) has only been reprinted once, in Marvel's Fantasy Masterpieces #9 (1967)...

...which is where I first read it as a kid!

Since it hasn't seen publication in over 50 years, I thought it was time to dig it up and dust it off for a new generation of Kirbyphiles and other comics readers!

The lead character's name, Mr Jordan, is an in-joke and a clue as to what he is!

L-R Evelyn Keyes, Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains (Mr Jordan), Edward Everett Horton

"Mr Jordan" was the title character of Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941), an angel (Claude Rains) sent to guide a recently-deceased boxer who died before his time and was returned to Earth in a different body since his own was creamated!

The movie was running on tv pretty regularly at the time, so either Lee or Leiber was inspired to give the protagonist the "Jordan" name in tribute.

Note the little banner at the bottom of the final page promoting The Fantastic Four?

#2 of that series had just come out!

In addition, Hank Pym (who would later become Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Goliath/YellowJacket/Wasp) had just been introed in "Man in the Ant Hill" in Tales to Astonish #27!

Within a couple of months both Spider-Man and The Hulk would debut!

And Mighty Thor would premiere in Journey into Mystery itself six issues later!

Bonus: the original art for the splash page....

Kool, ain't it?

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Order...

Marvel Masterworks

Journey into Mystery

Vol 4

Space Force Saturdays SPACE SQUADRON & SPEED CARTER: SPACEMAN "Famous Explorers of Space" Part 4

Both Atlas' Space Squadron and Speed Carter: SpaceMan had "future history" features...

...set in the "past", like this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Space Squadron #4 (1951), which took place in the then-future of 1965!

So the scientist let a guy with no depth perception fly his experimental ship?
He's lucky they didn't crash into anything!a
Let's look at how such "Future History" was told in Speed Carter...

Ah, the good ol' days of 2006, when a spaceport sat outside New York City...

...funny, I don't remember the skyline looking like that in 2007!

I guess I developed amnesia after I hit my head falling out of my flying car...

I'm wondering what Joe's gonna do when he runs out of cigarettes!

Nicotine withdrawal is rough enough on Earth.

But on Jupiter...without even nicotine gum...

This story from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #4 (1953) references previous Famous Explorers tales in its' first paragraph, mentioning the explorations of Venus, Mercury, and Mars.
Written by Hank Chapman, and illustrated by Joe Maneely, in his final Speed Carter interior art job.
Joe would later do the cover for #6, the final issue of the series.

Note: the astronauts in this story, which takes place three generations in the "past" of Speed Carter, have different uniforms and lower-end technology than what's shown in the Maneely-rendered Speed Carter tales.
But since Mike Sekowsky, who illustrated the rest of this issue, redesigned both the uniforms and tech in the "present-day" stories, that whole aspect now falls by the wayside for the remainder of the series' run.

Besides "Famous Explorers", Space Squadron also presented "future history tales" about the guy who was young hotshot Jet Dixon's crusty Commander-in-Chief when he was a young hotshot pilot...

While the writer for this never-reprinted tale (also from Atlas' Space Squadron #4 [1951]) is unknown, the artist is George Klein, who's best known as an amazingly-versatile inker, but could pencil (albeit slowly) as well!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Order...

Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr

by Isaac Asimov

(under the pen-name "Paul French") Omnibus of ALL Six Space-Opera Sagas!David Starr: Space Ranger, Pirates of the Asteroids, Oceans of Venus, Big Sun of Mercury, Moons of Jupiter, Rings of Saturn

Reading Room FORBIDDEN WORLDS "Madman--or Psychic?'

Our final (we swear) Abraham Lincoln-themed story...

...is this never-reprinted piece from ACG's Forbidden Worlds #90 (1960), probably written by editor Richard Hughes and definitely illustrated by George Klein.
OK, I got a bit carried away with this theme, but I didn't even touch the stories where superheroes (Kal-El tried it twice, both as Superman and Superboy) try to go back in time to avert the assassination...