Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC WORLDS "Ace of Space"

Not to be confused with Space Ace (who went through several different incarnations)...

...this guy is a Cold War fighter pilot-type transposed to a Star Wars setting!

Darn those aliens!

Sending robot "drones" to do their fighting instead of going man-against-lizard as God intended!

Though the scripter for this tale from Standard's Fantastic Worlds #7 (1952) is unknown, the artwork is by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, with a couple of panels redrawn by Mike Sekowsky!

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Reading Room: CAPTAIN SCIENCE COMICS "World War III with the Ants"

I'm Having Serious Problems with Ant Infestation...

...but never anything like this ant-ageddon (or ant-pocalypse) from Youthful's Captain Science #6 (1953)!

As for who was responsible for writing and illustrating this cult comic classic, theories run from Harry Harrison (who became a major sci-fi novelist and editor), to Dick Ayers to Lou Cameron, but nobody knows for certain.

BTW, this story came out over a year before the classic giant-ant film THEM!

Reading Room CAPTAIN SCIENCE COMICS "Spawn of Saturn"

Welcome to the Cover Featured Tale from Captain Science #1 (1950)...

...except it's not about Captain Science!

In fact, the story's title isn't mentioned on the cover at all!

(You can find the actual Captain Science stories from #1 HERE and HERE.)

It's interesting to see a sci-fi tale where a handsome starship captain doesn't go on a landing party to a potentially-dangerous locale!

The writer is unknown, but the art is by Walter Johnson, who not only penciled and inked his own work, but ran a studio that supplied material to a number of comics companies, so some of his "signed" jobs (like this one) show elements of several artists' styles.

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Reading Room WEIRD THRILLERS "Shadow on the Screen!"

For all those whose parents told them "TV is bad for you"...

...and "comics are bad for you", well, they were right, as this comic tale about TV proves!

This tale from Ziff-Davis' Weird Thrillers #3 (1952) was illustrated by Bob Powell.

Powell, besides being a gifted illustrator was also a pioneer in the use of "color holds" in comic books.

The same technique he used on the tv screen was also used in a tale of radio and pulp hero The Shadow HERE, taking artwork that normally would be black-line and making it one of the color plates.

It was a very tricky thing to do back in those days since the interior pages were almost never proofed due to time and cost restraints.

But, Powell does some amazing things with the holds, making them line up exactly almost all the time!

Sadly, the writer of the story is, as in so many cases, unknown...

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Lunar Reading Room: RACE FOR THE MOON "Thing on Sputnik 4"

Now That Aretmis II has Safely Returned...

...let's look at a tale created during early days of space travel, before Man had made it beyond the stratosphere, when we had NO idea of what awaited us "out there", but it was so kool to speculate...

From Harvey's Race for the Moon #2 (1958).
Beautifully-rendered by Jack Kirby and Marvin Stein.
It's both amazing and depressing to see what we hoped to achieve in the (then) near-future

Then to see what we actually did...

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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)!

Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Traitors to the Earth"

It's only his second story, and already Captain Science has his hands full...

...any way you look at it, it's a helluva way to begin your career!

Cap destroyed a threat by humans (including Adolf Hitler) using alien tech and picked up a hot babe in the process!
Not bad for the first day on the job.

Note, though it's only mentioned in a caption, it takes Gordon Dane months to prepare for his new career (though it's never explained how a guy on a teacher's salary can afford to cobble together the equipment he needs)...
The art on this never-reprinted story from Youthful's Captain Science #1 (1950)  is by Gustav Schrotter.
The writer is unknown.

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Reading Room WORLDS BEYOND "Twice Alive!"

Here's a horror story with a sci-fi slant...

Art by Sheldon Moldoff

...that the cover doesn't really convey, from the HTF anthology Fawcett's Worlds Beyond #1 (1951).

Did the writers of the movie Fantastic Voyage read this tale when they were younger?

The art is by comics legend Bob Powell, but the writer is unknown.

The cover, by Sheldon Moldoff, shows a cavern (with bats!) instead of the inside of a human being, and probably was meant for another story, but it conveys the mood of "Twice Alive", if not the plot points.

Worlds Beyond was retitled Worlds of Fear with #2 and ran for another nine issues.

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