Atomic Kommie Comics: Man from S.R.A.M.

Monday, June 21, 2021

Monday Mars Madness MAN FROM S.R.A.M. "vs the Devil Man from S.U.N.E.V.!"

A couple of weeks ago we presented the Man from S.R.A.M. in his only published adventure!

...but there's one more tale to be told...that wasn't told!

Written by Otto Binder (with re-write by Editor Joe Simon?) and illustrated by George Tuska, this story produced for Harvey's never-published Jigsaw #3 features a different Martian form for the protaganist, as well as a different vehicle from the previous chapter!
At the same time, Tuska also drew all three issues of Harvey's SpyMan, another cross-genre (super hero/spy/sci-fi) series just before moving on to a long run as Marvel's primary Silver Age Iron Man artist after Gene Colan!

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Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixties

Monday, June 7, 2021

Monday Mars Madness MAN FROM S.R.A.M. "Madhouse in Hollywood!"

In the Silver Age, comics mixed genres with wild abandon...

...as this tale, which combines no less than three of them demonstrates, albeit a bit ham-handedly!

When the protaganist has to spend half the story explaining his name, you know the writer's really desperate.

Which is surprising since the guy who penned this tale is Otto Binder, a prolific sci-fi writer who not only scripted classic Superman and Golden Age Captain Marvel stories (including The Monster Society of Evil serial!), but also wrote the first Marvel Comics novel, The Avengers Versus the Earth-Wrecker!

But this never-reprinted, Carl Pfeufer-illustrated tale from Harvey's Jigsaw #2 (1966) is so incredibly-silly that it's surprising Binder was so over-the-top!

Personally, I suspect editor Joe Simon rewrote the story, inserting the SRAM = MARS explanation on practically every page.

Note: Though identified as "Jigsaw" in the indicia, the book's working title was apparently "Big Hero Adventures", which appears as a sub-title on both issues' covers and title pages as well as on the original art for the first issue.