Monday Mars Madness GULLIVAR JONES: WARRIOR OF MARS

In the early 1970s, due to the success of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian...

...comics went pulp-mad, looking for other properties that were doing well in paperback reprints to adapt into the four-color format.

DC latched onto The Shadow, The Avenger, and Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser well as the entire Edgar Rice Burroughs library including Tarzan, Carson of Venus, and John Carter of Mars.

Marvel grabbed Doc Savage, added Kull the Conqueror (also a Robert E Howard character), and looked for another barbarian/swashbuckling hero.

They ended up adding two, Gullivar Jones and Lin Carter's new character, Thongor, neither of whom ran more than eight issues.

Gullivar Jones had the advantage of only one novel to adapt, then the door would be open to totally-new adventures.

Art by Frank Frazetta

Interestingly, Gullivar Jones predated John Carter by over a decade, but the novel featuring him, Lieutenant Gulliver Jones: His Vacation (Brown, Langham & Company, 1905) by Edwin L Arnold was never reprinted until 1964 when Ace Books (which was also publishing ERB's and JRR Tolkien's books) added it to their lineup under a superb Frank Frazetta cover.
Ironic note: Edwin Arnold was so disgusted by the book's lack of sales, he gave up fiction writing!
Personally, I suspect the less-than-exciting title might have had something to do with it!
Readers had no idea the book was a "scientific romance"...what we now call "science fiction!
You can read the entire Gullivar Jones series (including both the color Creatures on the Loose stories and the b/w Monsters Unleashed tales starting HERE!
And HERE's a follow-up featuring more (ahem) marvelous Mars art!

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Reading Room WORLD WAR III "Unleashed" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...in the Summer of 1960, the Soviet Union launched a devastating nuclear sneak attack on the United States...

Oddly, this series presented a similar series of events to the first issue of Atomic War, but in a slightly-different time-frame, and a different order!
There were no cross-overs and technology and certain events were very different in the two titles.
BTW, Atomic War! came first, in November, 1952, following in December, then going bi-monthly in February and April, 1953.
World War III ran in March and May of 1953, the months Atomic War! wasn't published, giving kids of the era a monthly fix of fissionable future fun!
In mid-1953 most of the Ace Publishing comic line, except for romance and war books (WWII & Korea, not future), and one horror title, were cancelled.
The remainder died when the publisher dropped comics altogether in 1956, concentrating on paperbacks (including the legendary Ace Doubles) until the company was purchased by Grosset & Dunlap in 1972, and is now a highly-successful division of Penguin Publishing Group.
Story by pulp and paperback novel author Robert Turner, who wrote all the tales in both issues of World War III.
Illustrated by Ken Rice.

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Reading Room WORLD WAR III "Unleashed" Part 1

We travel to another potential near future (the 1960s as seen in 1952)...

 ...as we see a different version of how World War III could start...from the same publisher as Atomic War!

We pause to catch our breaths and take in the sheer devastation.
Be here tomorrow for the conclusion of "Unleashed" along with background about how this series differs from it's "brother" title from the same publisher, Atomic War!

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 ...for all your radiation-proof 
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The Dart & Ace: Time Lost Hero and Present-Day Partner

2200 years ago, Caius Martius was an ancient Roman superhero known as The Dart, using his cape as a glider to swoop down, or "dart", at his opponents.
Unfortunately, one of them, Marius, was a sorcerer who managed to entomb the hero in a boulder for over 2,000 years.
Managing to finally extricate himself from the boulder, which had been transported to an American museum, Caius entered the then-present day world of 1940, where the first thing he saw upon leaving the museum was a drive-by shooting of a teen boy's parents!
"Darting" down, Caius transported the traumatized boy to safety, then struck a bargain with him.
The kid, Ace Barlow, would teach him of the amazing world of the "future", and Caius would train the kid in use of ancient weapons, martial arts, and how to "dart", in order to track down the killers of the lad's parents!
Three months of training (and one page) later, the newly-outfitted team of The Dart and Ace, the Amazing Boy found and captured the gang who had done the heinous deed!
Caius, now much more familiar with the "future" of 1940, took the name Caius Wheeler, and became an antiques dealer to make money for the duo's living and operating expenses as they battled present-day evil with ancient weapons.

All this in one eight-page story in Weird Comics #5!
From that appearance to #20 (the final issue of the title in 1942), The Dart was the book's lead feature, usually taking the cover slot as well.


But since then, nothing...until 2008, when Alex Ross included the duo among the plethora of Golden Age superheroes revived in Project SuperPowers! (In fact, Ace is now one of the teen-hero group known as The Inheritors!)

We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ also revived the Daring Duo in a line of kool kollectibles including t-shirts, messenger bags, mugs, and other goodies featuring the cover from Weird Comics #10!

"Dart" on over to The Dart and Ace, the Amazing Boy now, before they "dart" away!