Monday Mars Madness TWILIGHT ZONE "Mars: Dead or Alive"

55 years ago, when I saw this painted George Wilson cover on the comics rack of my local candy store...

...I just had to read it!

(BTW, the model posing as the astronaut is Steve (Doc Savage) Holland!)

Written by Dick Wood and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara, the cover-feature (though not lead story) from Gold Key's Twilight Zone #17 (1966) offered a somewhat-plausable explanation (in those pre-Mars Rover days) as to why we hadn't seen signs of life on Mars.
Wood and Zaccara also collaborated on the never-reprinted Explorers in the Unknown strip that ran in Gold Key's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic.

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Twilight Man

Rod Serling and the Birth of Television

Steve Holland IS Steve Zodiac in STEVE ZODIAC & FIREBALL XL5

Art by George Wilson

Due to the passing of sci-fi movie/tv creator Gerry Anderson, we've been running tributes to his shows on our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, including the never-reprinted one-shot Steve Zodiac and Fireball from Gold Key Comics (HERE and HERE).

When we posted the painted cover for SZ&F, the face of Steve Zodiac looked very familar to us.

It's Steve Holland, the manliest actor/model who ever lived!

Best known as the model for the iconic Doc Savage #1 paperback cover that redefined the "look" of the character from 1964 onward, Holland was also The Avenger, The Spider (both the masked Berkley Books and turtlenecked Pocket Books versions), James Bond (on Bantam Books' early 1970s reprints)

and as various characters (who aren't even in the movie) on movie posters including Danger: Diabolik and Wild, Wild Planet!

Plus. he was TV's Flash Gordon in the 1950s!

Now we can add the distinction of being the first person to appear as a live-action version of a Supermationation character to Holland's extensive resume!