Reading Room PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Blood Plague" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

This scene...sorta...appears in this issue

Astronauts Chris and Craig invade the vampires' stronghold only to discover Craig's wife (and fellow astronaut) Brenda drained dry, as shown on the cover above.
(Except for the fact that Craig has a moustache and both Craig and Brenda are African-American, as shown HERE.)
Leaving Craig to mourn, Chris blasts his way into the Proctor's office...

What was "the Secret Project"?

We never found out, since the book was cancelled!

But it was already going though the transition that almost all the Atlas books that lasted more than two issues went through.

Radical changes in creative staffs, plotlines, even characters themselves were the norm as mercurial publisher Martin Goodman began shaking things up.

It's a sordid tale best told by one who was there, so click HERE for the details!

As for Planet of Vampires, the word was to make it more like Planet of the Apes and/or Kamandi.

This two-page spread by Larry Lieber and Al Milgrom gives an idea of what was to come...

Perhaps it's just as well there was no #4...

Reading Room PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Blood Plague" Part 1

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

...keep reading and the characters will explain what's going on right after the big explosion.
"What big explosion?" you may ask...

The battle continues...tomorrow!

Written by John Albano and illustrated by Russ Heath, Atlas' Planet of Vampires #3 winds up some plotlines and, unfortunately, kills off several major characters in the process.

Be here tomorrow, when we'll show how far afield the book was about to go as it suffered the "Third Issue Curse" that befell most of the Atlas books.

Reading Room PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Quest for Blood" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...(actually we haven't seen this, since there's no scene like it in the book.

Nor is there a cloaked, sinisterly-snarling vampire!

But it's a great Neal Adams/Dick Giordano cover, eh?)

Escaping the scientific blood-suckers who inhabit the Dome in the center of a devastated Manhattan, our four surviving astronauts team up with the primitive, but human Street People.

Rigging a stolen aircraft as a booby-trap, they destroy two pursuing ships sent to recapture them.

There's only one more, never-reprinted issue of this series from 40 years ago, and you'll see it in a couple of weeks.

But the sci-fi scares continue...tomorrow!

Reading Room PLANET OF VAMPIRES "Quest for Blood" Part 1

In the 1970s, science fiction writers thought the 21st century was going to be rather dystopic...

...as this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Planet of Vampires #2 (1975) demonstrates!

It's always fun to end a chapter with a BANG!

But LOTS more action awaits us...

...TOMORROW!

With the departure of writer/co-creator Larry Hama, John Albano (Jonah Hex) stepped in to the scripting slot, working off Hama's basic plot for the issue as well as several pages already laid out by penciler/co-creator Pat Broderick.

It'a a pretty good job, making the transition pretty seamless between the two writers.

Be here tomorrow, as the astronauts and street people take the fight back to the "domies"!