Monday Mars Madness WORLD OF FANTASY "What Went Wrong?"

You think you've prepared for every contingency...but is that truly possible?

Can anyone always account for the "human" factor?

Illustrated by Bob Forgione, whose credits at Timely/Atlas included a number of sci-fi stories including an issue of Speed Carter: SpaceMan, this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #1 (1956) is one of those "average guy inadvertently saves the world" tales that writers (in this case, unidentified) love to tell.

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Mars in the Movies

A History

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Inside the Tunnel"

Ever wonder where writers come up with their ideas?

Art by Joe Maneely

...well, here's a never-reprinted story from Atlas' World of Fantasy #2 (1956) that offers a clue!

Of course, if it was an original manuscript/draft by Verne (which I think was the writer's intent), it would be in French...

The writer is unknown, but could be Stan Lee or Larry Lieber.

The art is by Al Williamson who did quite a bit of work in the fantasy and Western genres during the late 1950s for Atlas before it became Marvel.

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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Completely Restored and Annotated Edition

(A new translation in contemporary English, heavily-illustrated, and with lots of info about the era when the book was written to put the tale in context!)

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "I Was Stranded in Space"

In 1959, one of the hot shows on TV was a new sci-fi/fantasy anthology series called Twilight Zone...

...which specialized in surprise endings, turning everything topsy-turvy at the climax, much like this never-reprinted short story from Atlas' World of Fantasy #19 (1959)

Probably written by either Stan Lee or his brother Larry Lieber and illustrated by Joe Sinnott, the tale's not bad, but the over-written explanations in the last few panels make the city's residents seem like a bunch of sadistic, smug SOBs...

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Xom! The Menace from Outer Space!"

Behind this kool, never-reprinted Jack Kirby/Christopher Rule cover...

...lurks an equally-cool (but visually-different) never-reprinted tale!

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, and penciled/inked by Joe Sinnott, this cover-featured tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #18 (1959) was a combination of the "giant monster with weird name" and Twilight Zone "switch ending" tropes Lee was so fond of.

You'll note the "monster" is rendered pretty much the same on both the cover and insides, while the Earthmen and aliens are vastly-different!

I'm not certain which was done first, but the difference between the Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers-style renderings by Sinnott and the...well...Kirbyesque versions on the cover are striking!

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Brush Strokes with Greatness

Life and Art of Joe Sinnott

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Guardian of the Stars!"

What's kooler than a Jack (King) Kirby cover?

How about the never-reprinted Steve Ditko story it leads into?

Did the cover or the story come first?

The total redesign of the robot indicates whichever was done first wasn't provided to the other artist as reference!

Also, shouldn't the title be "Guardian of the Earth"?

Of course, that would be a "spoiler", ruining the drama shown on the cover...

Illustrated by Steve Ditko, this tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #17 (1959) was probably plotted by Stan Lee, though the scripting doesn't read like his work.

Keep an eye on this blog as we re-present more never-reprinted Steve Ditko stories and covers!

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Ditko Unleashed

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "To Build a Robot!"

Does this tale take place in the present...or the future?

Or has it already happened, and we don't know it?

Considering the way industry has thwarted the introduction of the electric car, is it that far-fetched someone for their own ulterior motives is trying to supress mobile artificial intelligence?

Or have we just seen the Teminator and Matrix films too many times?

Plotter Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, penciler Jack Kirby, and inker Christopher Rule had their own take in Atlas' World of Fantasy #18 (1959), decades before James Cameron or the Wachowskis...and it didn't take multiple films to tell it, just four pages!

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Science Fiction

Simon & Kirby Library

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Brain Destroyer!"

This title reminded me of Donald Trump...

...even though the story itself has nothing to connect it to the Republicans' hilarious President but the title!

No matter whether you agree for my reason for running the story, it's still a long-lost, never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #19 (1959) you probably would never have seen otherwise.
Plotted by Stan Lee, written by Larry Lieber, and illustrated by Carl Burgos, it's typical of the sort of stuff Atlas was running as it transitioned into what we would know as Marvel only a couple of years later.

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Ten-Cent Plague

Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America

Reading Room WORLD OF SUSPENSE "Bright New World!"

How do you prove the "unprovable"?

This never-reprinted story from Atlas' World of Suspense #1 (1956) presents one way!

It's a cute story with a kool "gotcha" ending...if you don't think about it too much!

But writer Carl Wessler and artist Al Hartley ignored a number of simple (and obvious) facts...

1) Jet engines aren't rockets.

They require an atmosphere to function, otherwise they konk out!

2) Commercial aircraft, while somewhat airtight, are not designed for use in a total vacuum, where there's no external pressure!

The hull and windows would blow out within minutes!

3) Any phenomenon creating a "tunnel" between Earth and Uranus in our atmosphere would've been noticed by scientists, even with the relatively-unsophisticated instruments of the period!

(They wouldn't have understood it...but they would have noticed it!)

4) Nobody paid attention to the little green tourists (in magenta robes)wandering around?

5) Though I love the point that Earth (Most likely just America) was, even then, expensive to live in, I have to ask; what were the Uranians using for money?

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Marvel Masterworks

Atlas-Era Journey into Mystery

Volume 1

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Creatures Who Captured Earth!"

Do you know the two famous sci-fi stories' plots that were combined to create this tale?

Hint: one original involves robots/androids,, and the other is about cannibalism...

This never-reprinted story by Stan Lee/Larry Lieber and Don Heck from Atlas' World of Fantasy #18 (1959) was based on two classic sci-fi tales...

"With Folded Hands" by Jack Williamson, which premiered in Astounding Science Fiction...

...and was expanded into the novel The Humanoids, (and a sequel, The Humanoid Touch, over 30 years later)!

Though never done on film or tv, the story was adapted to radio on Dimension X (which you can hear HERE) and the basic plot was re-used in the classic Star Trek episode "I, Mudd".

The other plot point, involving decoding an alien text to discover a secret agenda, was probably taken from the 1950 Galaxy Magazine short story "To Serve Man" by Damon Knight.

(Note that the classic Twilight Zone episode adapting the tale wouldn't appear until three years later.)

Also note that, while the comic tale was never reprinted, it was redone only two years later by another of Atlas/Marvel's major artistic stars!

We'll have that story tomorrow...