Good Friday KING OF KINGS "Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday"

You may be wondering "Where's Parts 1 & 2?"...

Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus Christ

...and the answer is; we haven't run them yet!

Since it's Good Friday, we're presenting the Dell Comics adaptation of the final part of the 1961 movie, covering the period from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection.

We'll run the first part around Christmas, and the second shortly after that.

While the writer for this movie adaptation from Dell's Four Color Comics King of Kings #1236 (1961) is unknown, the artist is Gerald McCann, a pulp artist who moved to comics in the early 1950s and did numerous Classics Illustrated covers and stories including "Abraham Lincoln" and "Ben-Hur".

Who says comics ain't educational?

It's Palm Sunday! Did You Know the Very First Captain of the USS Enterprise...

...was Jesus Christ?

Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus Christ in King of Kings (1961)

 Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike with Leonard Nimoy as Mr Spock in Star Trek "The Cage" (1964)

Here's"six degrees of separation" trivia in only five degrees:

• John Huston, who later did a prequel movie, The Bible: In the Beginning, directed Moby Dick, using a screenplay adapted by Ray Bradbury from the Herman Melville novel.
• Ray Bradbury wrote the voiceovers in King of Kings spoken by Orson Welles.
• Welles' The Shadow and Mercury Theatre radio series co-star Agnes Moorehead served as dialogue coach to  Jeffrey Hunter (Jesus Christ) in King of Kings.
• Jeffrey Hunter later played Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Starship Enterprise in the pilot episode of Star Trek, "The Cage".
• Star Trek did an episode, "Bread and Circuses", about a planet where parallel evolution produced a society that resembled a 20th Century version of the Roman Empire, complete with it's own "Christians" and Jesus Christ (who doesn't appear on-camera, but is mentioned in dialogue)!

Monday Mecha Madness (Continued) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Saga of a Star World" Conclusion

Art by Bob Larkin

There are those who believe...that life here began out there, far across the Universe...with tribes of humans...who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians...or the Toltecs...or the Mayans...that they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids...or the lost civilizations of Lemuria...or Atlantis.
Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man...who even now fight to survive--far, far away amongst the stars...

When Last We Left the Human Race...

Betrayed by one of their own to the robotic alien Cylons*, the Twelve Colonies of Man are wiped out in a sneak attack.

The survivors hastily assemble a fleet of ships under the protection of the only remaining Battlestar, and head away from their now-devastated worlds....

This second half of the movie version of Battlestar Galactica was presented by writer Roger McKenzie and artist/colorist/painter Ernie Colon.
Because it was based on an early draft of the script, names (Serina is called Lyra) are different, and some characters who live in both the movie and tv series (including Cassiopeia) die!
(Baltar dies in the feature film, but survives in the TV series.)

This first version of Marvel Super Special #8 (1978) was a full-process color, slick-stock magazine.

However, because the editor didn't get approval from Universal Studios on the final art before it went to press, the vast majority of the copies were ordered pulped!
(This story has been confirmed by both then-Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and the book's artist Ernie Colon.)
Changes in both script and art were made, and the book was reissued as a tabloid-sized Treasury edition, with standard comic book "flat" coloring and a new pen-and-ink cover by Rick Bryant based on the Bob Larkin cover painting!

The story was modified again when it was expanded to fill the first three issues of the ongoing Battlestar Galactica comic book...including keeping both Baltar and Cassiopeia alive!
(Cassie would later die in the comic adaptation of the two-part episode "Lost Planet of the Gods", where she's killed by Cylons.)

*Though the Cylons' Imperious Leader appears reptilian, it is as much a robot as the others, though based on the image of the humanoid lizards who created the robots!

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Monday Mecha Madness BATTLESTAR GALACTICA "Saga of a Star World" Part 1

Besides Robots and Androids Created by Humans...

...we also present ones created by aliens, such as the Cylons...as seen in the extremely-limited/never-reprinted version of the feature film-length pilot, from the magazine-sized Marvel Super-Special #8 (1978).

...and thus we pause to catch our breath...until tomorrow...and the cataclysmic conclusion.

The Cylons were conceived and built by a long-dead alien race..also called Cylons.
It's unknown whether the robots killed their masters or the aliens went extinct due to a plague or other natural disaster.
The Imperious Leader, a robot itself, was built in the image of those reptilian aliens.
It's implied that Count Iblis and some of his near-godlike fellow aliens manipulated the Cylons and human Colonials into the Thousand-Year War.
(Actor Patrick Macnee played Iblis and provided the voice of the Imperious Leader robot, leading human traitor Baltar, the only human who ever met the Imperious Leader and lived, to piece the puzzle together!)
Note: the juvenile spin-off series Galactica: 1980, introduced Cylons indistinguishable from human beings in the episode "Night the Cylons Landed".

This first half of the movie version of Battlestar Galactica was presented by writer Roger McKenzie and artist/colorist/painter Ernie Colon.

We'll have the story behind the change from magazine to tabloid format next time...

Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...

Battlestar Galactica: the Definitive Collection
The Original Series
Galactica: 1980
Original Feature Film
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