Space Force Saturdays SPACE BUSTERS "Victory on Valda"

Editor Jerry Siegel wanted Space Busters to look more like...

... the recently-revamped and revitalized Buck Rogers strip!

But artist Marvin Stein ended up using the original Buck strip as reference in his tryout, and lost the gig!

With a looming deadline, Siegel contacted the Buck Rogers strip's artist, Murphy Anderson (who had recently left the series) to provide redesigns...

...as well as the cover-featured story!

(Note: the cover is by Allen Anderson...no relation to Murphy!)

Personally, I'm not crazy about the purple-red color scheme, but at least it matches the uniform on the cover.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Space Force Saturdays SPACE BUSTERS "Mission to Baldor!"

We're on to Ziff-Davis' Space Busters #2, and the first of the "redesigned" stories...

...as artist Marvin Stein takes a crack at making the "Marines in space" series look more like Buck Rogers!

This never-reprinted story appeared in the back of Ziff-Davis' Space Busters #2 (1952) because editor/writer Jerry Siegel had nothing else to fill the empty pages!
Unfortunately, Stein had gone "old school" 1930s-40s Buck Rogers, when Siegel had wanted "modern" 1950s Buck Rogers.
So Siegel got the guy who had been illustrating the modern Buck Rogers...Murphy Anderson!

You'll see his work in two weeks!
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Showcase Presents

Weird War Tales
Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy Military Tales

Monday Mars Madness: When the Co-Creator of Superman Helped Mars Invade Earth...TWICE!

The writer who co-created the most famous alien in pop culture...

...tried twice in the 1950s to introduce ongoing Martian superheroes to comics (and potentially other media)!
First up was Lars of Mars!

What if 1950s sci-fi shows like Captain Video or Space Patrol were real?

And the aliens were real aliens, including the TV show's hero who was a heroic Martian secret agent pretending to be an American actor playing a heroic Martian superhero?
That was the "meta-before there-was-meta" premise of the 1951 short-lived (two issue) series, Lars of Mars.
During his run, Lars battled other aliens, Commies, and crooks, while protecting his "secret identity" from his nosy producer (who bore a disturbing resemblance to Lois Lane).
That's not suprising since the writer was also the editor of the Ziff-Davis comics line...Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman!
Despite first-rate art by Murphy Anderson (who would later become a major Superman illustrator in the 1970s) the premise didn't sell.
So Siegel tried again the next year, adding a couple of twists to the concept!

Tarka, the Crusader from Mars, was the first Martian to commit murder in over half a century.
(It was actually manslaughter since it was an accidental killing while fighting with another man over a woman.)
Instead of being imprisoned, he was sent to Earth, where he (and the woman he was fighting for) were given cover identities as a businessman and his secretary.
The pair were given assignments by the Martian government with the caveat that if they failed, the Earth (with them still on it) would be obliterated rather than allow a threat they couldn't stop to spread to other worlds!

You can read the entire Lars of Mars series...including a never-reprinted conclusion (in 3-D, no less) by clicking HERE!
You can read the entire Crusader from Mars series by clicking HERE!

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MARTIANS! MARTIANS! MARTIANS!

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featuring the covers of both issues of Lars of Mars!

Before Trump's Space Force... PERIMETER PATROL SERVICE "Mission to Malooka"

For our final Perimeter Patrol Service tale...

...we present their first story!

This never-reprinted story from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #5 (1952) is a superb example of pulp/comic space opera of the era with all the classic elements:
Square-jawed heroes.
Rockets & ray-guns.
Literal bug-eyed monsters!

No scantly-clad women, but the other Perimneter Patrol Service sagas have them.

BTW, this premiere is illustrated by Murphy Anderson, who had just finished his first run on the Buck Rogers newspaper strip.

He would later specialize doing sci-fi/fantasy at DC Comics, including Hawkman, Adam Strange, and Superman!

Note: as of this week, we're re-making Saturdays into "Space Force Saturday", re-presenting tales of various military and law-enforcement organizations, most of them never-reprinted!
Don't miss them!

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Trump's Space Force

(either for yourself, or as a gift for a con friend/relative)

The Changing Face of Life on Venus...in Planet Comics!

 You'd think a sci-fi magazine featuring "shared universes" would be the first place you'd see...

...a consistent presentation of the Solar System!

And you would be wrong, as this one-pager by an unknown writer and artist from Fiction House's Planet Comics #51 (1947) will demonstrate!

A couple of years earlier, in Planet Comics #34 (1945)...

...a decidedly-different Venus with different inhabitants was shown by an unknown writer and future Buck Rogers/Superman artist Murphy Anderson!

But only a few issues before that, in Planet Comics #30 (1944)...

...a text feature by an unknown writer using the Fiction House pen-name "Montague Truex PhD" and artist Fran Hopper about Venus featured another race of aquatic aliens inhabiting the cloudy planet!

This doesn't even count the various versions of Venus that appeared in Planet's ongoing strips like Gale Allen and Her Girl Squadron and Lost World!

BTW, we've previously-presented two "scientific romance" versions of Venus...

Earth Man on Venus by Ralph Milne Farley...

and Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs!

They're kool retro fun!

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Pirates of Venus & Lost on Venus

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Reading Room WEIRD THRILLERS "Cycle of Time!"

Here's a sci-fi triple-treat: time travel, aliens, and dinosaurs!

This kool tale appeared in the HTF Ziff-Davis' anthology Weird Thrillers #2 (1951)!

Illustrated by Murphy Anderson, who was doing quite a bit of work for Z-D including the second issue of Space Busters and both issues of Lars of Mars as well as various one-shots like this.

We don't know who wrote this tale, but it might be series editor Jerry (Superman) Siegel.

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Give Your Loved One a Batman Christmas!

Want to give your Batman-obsessed loved one (and we all have at least one) a "Batty" Christmas?

Combine the blu ray (or dvd) set ...

...with a not-available-in-stores digitally-restored reproduction of a 1966 Carmine Infantino/Murphy Anderson promo piece...

...created in 1966 to hype the then-new tv show!

Ironically, the visual looks more like a huge flat-screen tv than the small cathode-ray tv tubes of the 1960s!

Available in a variety of formats to fit both decor and budget!