Monday Mecha Madness: Before ULTRON...there was MAKINO!

Who created Ultron, the Ultimate Evil AI?

If you go with the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron...Tony Stark aka Iron Man. and Bruce Banner aka The Hulk!

If you go with Marvel Comics history...Henry Pym aka Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket/Wasp/etc (Don't ask. It's too long a story...).

In reality, it was writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema in Marvel's Avengers V1 #54 (1967).

But where did Roy come up with the idea?

Well, he "borrowed" it from Captain Video!

Yep!

In #3 of Captain Video's short-lived 1950s Fawcett Comics title, he faced a robot named Makino who killed his scientist creator and then threatened all mankind!

The story left such an impression on the young Roy Thomas that, almost two decades later, he adapted elements of that story into the long-running saga of Ultron!

Roy explained how it came about in TwoMorrows' Alter Ego #114.

You can read the actual comic story on our "brother" RetroBlog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video HERE and HERE!

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The Past is Present at SECRET SANCTUM OF CAPTAIN VIDEO with Masters of the Universe & Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Currently, at Our 'Brother" RetroBlog...

...we celebrate the new Masters of the Universe movie with a re-presentation of the never-reprinted comic adaptation of the 40-year old first live-action movie based on the animated series and toy line!
Click HERE to read the first three parts, and catch the final chapter tomorrow!
(Note: they're in reverse order, most recent post first!)
And, starting Tuesday, in tribute to Stephen Spielberg's new movie about alien visitation, Disclosure Day,,,

...the Secret Sanctum re-presents the comic adaptation of the director's first film about alien visitation from almost a half-century ago...

...by Archie Goodwin, Walt Simonson and Klaus Janson!
And to think I saw the flick in the movie theatres when it opened!
Lord, I feel old!

Bonus:

Here's the original version of Bob Larkin's painted cover, showing Roy Neary and Jillian Guller running away from the alien ship!

(I've never seen it anywhere in color...)
And here's Simonson & Janson's cover for the tabloid-sized Treasury Edition reprint...

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Secret Sanctum of Captain Video

the only blog devoted to comics based on or adapted into radio/tv/movie/video games!

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ORBIT "Marooned Off Vesta"

 We All Know Isaac Asimov!

Amazing Stories March 1939 Art by Robert Fuqa

The Three Laws of Robotics!

Several seminal series including Foundation, Galactic Empire, and Robots...all of which have been unified into one massive universe!

Literally hundreds of novels, novellas and short stories!

Amazing Stories, March 1959 Art by Virgil Finlay

But did you ever read his very first story?

(The pages above are from the tale's first publication in 1939 and it's (1959) 20th Anniversary appearance in the same magazine!

Now here's the never-reprinted 50th Anniversary adaptation of that tale, scripted by JD Scott and illustrated by Michael Davis.

It appeared in #2 of Eclipse's sci-fi anthology Orbit, which featured adaptations of stories from Davis Publications' Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine! and several of Asimov's own stories!

When the prose version of this story was reprinted in 1959 for its' 20th Anniversary appearance in Amazing Stories, Asimov penned a sequel, "Anniversary", featuring the characters gathering to celebrate their survival and then having a new, related, adventure!

The two tales have usually been reprinted together since.

But there's been no graphic adaptation of "Anniversary"...yet!

Next Week: A New World of Wonder!

Wednesday World of Wonder FLASH GORDON "and the Mole Machine" Starring BUSTER CRABBE!

Think of This as a Podcast with Pictures!

In the 1960s, due to the popularity of old radio adventure shows like The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, and I Love a Mystery being re-released on LP records, MGM/Leo the Lion Records created a series of new audio adventures of classic characters in the same style, but with hi-fi audio, such as this album starring Buster Crabbe, who played Flash Gordon in three movie serials from 1930 to 1940 reprising the role.
Trivia: Oddly, there weren't any albums of Flash Gordon's radio adventures until the 1970s!

Though ostensibly-written by cast member Ronald Liss, one of the two tales...

...was based on a story in King Comics' just-revived Flash Gordon comic book, written and illustrated by noted creative Al Williamson, who had succeeded Alex Raymond on his Secret Agent X-9/Secret Agent Corrigan newspaper strip and had ghosted some of Dan Barry's 1950s run on Flash!

We've combined the two versions together in a Power Records-style presentation!
(The original album didn't include the comic book!)

Click on the link HERE to open the audio file and read along 

Note that the audio version is not a word-for-word transcription of the comic, but it's close enough that it's easy to follow the story...

Bonus: the art for the cover, uncropped and without text/trade dress.

Plus, a study done by Al Williamson for the album cover, inked and colored by Gray Morrow and used as the cover of the Flash Gordon-themed prozine Heritage (1972)...

BTW, we normally would've included a Flash Gordon story in our ongoing Space Hero Saturdays feature...except it takes place on (and under) Earth, not in space!

Next Week, a different World of Wonder!

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A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic

(which reprints the story and the album cover, but in black-and-white!)

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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?