Space Hero Saturdays LOST WORLDS "First Man to Reach the Moon"

In this 1952 tale, Mankind doesn't reach the Moon until 2021!

For the record, most sci-fi stories of the era show a manned Moon landing occurring by 2000!

While we don't know who wrote this story from Standard's sci-fi anthology Lost Worlds #6 (1952), the illustrations are by Art Saaf, a steady contributor to comic books from the beginning of the Golden Age to the end of the Bronze Age (1940-1980).

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Taylor History of Comics

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Lunar Reading Room RACE FOR THE MOON "Saucer Man"

From the era when actual space travel was brand new...

 ...and flying saucers were probably real, here's a tale from Harvey's Race for the Moon #3 (1958).

Pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Al Williamson, an absolutely magnificent combo, rivaling Kirby's pairings with Wally Wood and Joe Sinnott!

Science fiction was in a state of flux as real-world science began catching up with our imaginations.

Instead of far-future sagas with warp-drive ships, tales of "the day after tomorrow", when we would make our first landings on the Moon and Mars came into vogue.

That didn't mean that visitors from beyond our Solar System were left out, but the technology we used to respond to them (friendly or not) was much closer to "present-day" (1950s) tech than ray-guns and photon drives.

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Space Hero Saturdays/Valentine's Day AMAZING ADVENTURES "Asteroid Witch"

In Space, No One Can Hear You Smooch!

Art by Clinton Spooner

Comic book romance stories are geared towards tween/teen/young adult womwn which make you wonder what the 'tween/teen/young adult male attitude on romance is.

This never-reprinted story from Ziff-Davis' Amazing Adventures #1 (1950) offers that viewpoint.

And what have we learned today?

Women, alien or not, are scheming little trollops, plotting to control helpless men, usually by tricking them into marriage.
No wonder there's so much misogyny in America...

While the writer for this story is unknown (but believed to be editor Jerry [Superman] Siegel), the art is by Murphy Anderson, who did a lot of work for Ziff-Davis Comics before moving on to illustrate the Buck Rogers newspaper strip!

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Weird Romance
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Football + SuperHeroes = SuperPro!

35 years ago, Marvel and the NFL teamed up to produce...

...a football-themed superhero!

...who, despite meeting a couple of Marvel's best-known heroes...

...lasted only 13 issues, then disappeared into obscurity!

Due to licensing restrictions, NFL SuperPro will never be reprinted or offered as an e-book!

However, when you can find copies, they're usually pretty cheap, like the one below...

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NFL SuperPro

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Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Tracking the Flying Saucers"

A dying alien gives a human without fear the ability to defend Earth...

...nope, it ain't the Silver Age Green Lantern!

It's Captain Science!

Appearing full-blown in the first issue of his own title in 1950, Captain Science was a bold attempt at a Captain Video-type comics hero, one more dependent on brains and technology than brawn.

Unlike Captain Video, who created advanced technology simply because he was really smart,  Gordon Dane was shown to be smart and had the advantage of possessing alien knowledge he could use in adapting and improving present-day tech to serve new uses as the situation required.

Visually, the art on his never-reprinted premiere appearance by Gustav Schrotter is adequate, but hardly distinctive.

Captain Science Will Return!

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Friday Femme Fun MODELING WITH MILLIE "Mille the Marvel"

If you think Marvel and DC are rebooting their characters more frequently than ever...

...you've never followed the many incarnations of Millie the Model from 1945 to the present!

This particular story is from the early Silver Age "romance comic" phase of her career.

This never-reprinted story from Marvel's Modeling with Millie #54 (1967); written by Gary Friedrich, penciled by Odgen Whitney, and inked (uncredited) by Frank Giacoia; was Millie the Marvel's only appearance.

It was also the final issue of this particular title.

Over at her ongoing "sister" title, Millie the Model, the character returned to her previous Archie Comics-influenced format, once more becoming a teen-humor title without ongoing storylines.

Trivia: From 1945 to 1973, there was always at least one Millie title from Atlas/Marvel, for a total of five different series, plus annuals, a couple of one-shots, an ongoing series in Comedy Comics, and a spin-off series for her rival, Chili!
Her main title ran for 207 issues, and was, until Fantastic Four #207 came out in 1979, Marvel's longest-running character-named book!
(Books with longer runs like Mighty Thor, Incredible Hulk, and Captain America had different names [Journey into Mystery, Tales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense, respectively] before becoming "character" titles.
Millie's flagship title was always Millie the Model!)
Millie was rebooted several times going from a romance/humor hybrid to Archie-style humor to romance/soap opera and finally back to Archie-style humor with changes to the characters' ages, professions, and relationships at each stage.
Millie Collins, despite being shown as outside the Marvel Multiverse in this tale, has appeared as part of the mainstream Marvel Universe in several titles, including the "Wedding of Reed and Sue" in Fantastic Four Annual #3 (along with Marvels #2), Dazzler #34, Sensational She-Hulk #60, and the Models, Inc mini-series.
In the 1980s, a middle-aged Millie appeared in the Star Comics mini-series Misty, about the teen-age daughter of Millie's brother!
(The best thing about this Trina Robbins-produced mini-series was the retro look and use of readers' designs for the characters' clothes.)
Millie was scheduled to be rebooted in 2003 as a teen-age tennis player in a manga-style mini-series called 15-Love.
When the project was finally published in 2011 (yeah, eight years later), the lead character was Millie's teen-age niece (though Millie herself did appear briefly)!
In 2009, Millie and her Silver Age supporting cast were the 20-something title characters in the mini-series Models, Inc.
The series also features Johnny (Human Torch) Storm, Spider-Man, Dr Strange, Patsy (HellCat) Walker, Tigra, Night Nurse, Mary Jane Watson, and real-life fashion expert Tim Gunn, re-establishing the Mille characters in the Marvel Multiverse...but nothing's been done with them since!

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Reading Room OPERATION: PERIL "Time Travelers in 'Date with Danger' "

Sci-fi of the 1950s wasn't limited to space opera...

...as this series from the AGC adventure anthology comic Operation: Peril demonstrates!

Operation: Peril was an interesting multi-genre anthology featuring on-going strips about time travel (as seen above), a hard-boiled private eye (Danny Danger), and high adventure in the Pacific (Typhoon Tyler), as well as a historicalshort story.

While the other series featured stand-alone stories, Time Travelers presented a couple of on-going plotlines, as you'll see in future posts.

Though Time Travelers didn't appear on the first few covers, by issue #4, they took over the cover spot until their final appearance in #12, after which the book changed focus and became a war comic.

This premiere tale from Operation: Peril #1 (1950) was written by the book's Editor, Richard Hughes and illustrated by Ken Bald.

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Operation: Peril
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