Here's a Taste of What's Coming This Summer from the RetroBlogs' Summer Blogathons...

...starting with an over-half century old, never-reprinted novel...

...that introduced the Marvel Universe into prose!
Note: neither Quicksilver or the Scarlet Witch appear in the book, though they're referenced, along with Thor, as past members.

The Wasp and Iron Man are the other featured members of the team in this story!

The cover art is by James Bond movie poster artist Robert McGinnis!

Written by long-time pulp/comic book writer Otto Binder (whose credits include Superman and the original Captain Marvel, this never-reprinted tale is a rolicking, fast-paced adventure that would have made a kool flick back in the Swinging 60s!

Trivia: Binder co-created both Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes!

Though there had been numerous paperback reprints of Marvel comics by Lancer Books, this was the first prose novel...and an original story, not an adaptation of any of the comics tales!
There were three previous comic book prose novels before this...all based on DC characters!
George Lowther's Adventures of Superman (which, technically, was based on the radio show), and Winston Lyons' (William Woolfolk's) Batman vs the Three Villains of Doom (based as much on the tv show as the comic) and Batman vs the Fearsome Foursome (a novelization of the 1966 theatrical movie).

Let's have a look at what the book is about!

Karzz is more an alien Kang the Conquerer than Thanos the Mad Titan, but there are a number of parallels between this and Infinity Wars.

Now, read the intro and first chapter of this lost classic, directly from the printed pages...

The inside cover teaser!

Yes, (Stan the Man) Lee intros the story!

Iron Man does show up at the studio in Chapter Two...after running into Karzz!

Avengers vs the Earth-Wrecker is one of two time-lost novels based on comic books that we'll be running after July 4th!

As for the other book, plus the subjects of the other blogathons we're running, come back next Sunday and we'll fill you in!

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Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker

by Otto Binder
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Reading Room SPACE WARS "Strange World"

A never-reprinted short story that could've been produced as an episode of the original Twilight Zone...

...from Charlton's Space War #22 (1963).

Was this a longer tale edited down to only three pages?

It certainly feels like it, since there are many unanswered questions like...

If these people are Tibetan, why are they dressed like the Flintstones...and why do they speak English?
How would they know anything about the Earth-Uranus War?
And why is it we have no idea how only Heffner survived?
Pencils by Dick Giordano, inks by Vince Colletta.
The writer is unknown, but the Grand Comics Database postulates Joe Gill as the most likely candidate.

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Taylor History of Comics: Volume 3
Science Fiction
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Reading Room BLAST-OFF "Little Earth"

This is a classic example of an unheralded gem by two graphic-story masters...

...that has been reprinted only twice...in now OOP limited-run books, so most of you have never seen it!

Oddly, the GCD lists it as penciled by Reed Crandall and inked by Al Williamson, but Teddy I at pencilink.blogspot.com reverses the credits!
Personally, I think both artists, in typical Fleagle Gang-style worked at both tasks in various panels.

The writer is Larry Ivie, who scripted several dozen stories for Marvel, DC, Tower, King, and Warren in the 1960s, and also published Monsters and Heroes, a competitor to Famous Monsters of Filmland!

According to the Kirby Museum, this story was intended for Harvey's never-published Race for the Moon #5 in 1958, but remained unused until 1965, when it ran in the Harvey one-shot anthology Blast-Off!

Monday Mecha Madness STAR TREK "Planet of the Robots"

WhenYou Think of Artificial Intelligence in Star Trek....

...you think of androids or non-humanoid sentient computers, not robots!

Captain Kurt?

The Enterprise lands on a planet?

Spock shouting?

Lt Bailey, who was left on the Fesarius with Balok in the episode "Corbomite Maneuver" is still aboard the Enterprise?
And...robots??

It was 1969.

Star Trek had not yet aired in England.

The publisher of the wildly-successful weekly comic magazine TV Century 21, which featured strips based on the various Gerry Anderson-produced series (Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, etc.), decided to launch a new weekly magazine showcasing the currently-running Anderson series, Joe 90.

Entitled Joe 90: Top Secret, it also featured a couple of two-page strips about imported American TV series, Star Trek and Land of the Giants.

Since those shows hadn't yet aired in England, the writers and artist Harry Lindfield were working off whatever print material and photo reference was sent from America.

(Apparently nobody gave them a copy of Stephen Whitfield's Making of Star Trek, which explains things like the Enterprise being unable to land on a planet's surface.)

The storylines usually ran six weeks, but could go longer if required.

Because the Trek strip had the centerfold slot, it allowed for panels running thru what would be the interior gutters on any other page, giving them a wide Sunday newspaper-strip feel and layout.

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Star Trek: the Newspaper Comics
1979-1981
And/Or

Star Trek: the Newspaper Comics
1981-1983
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Friday Fun YAK YAK "How to Win Friends"

Sometimes, we need to get away from current events...

...and just enjoy a good laugh, courtesy of legendary writer/artist Jack Davis!

From Dell's Four-Color Comics #1186 (1961)

Dell gave MAD mainstay Jack Davis his own title in the Four Color Comics series, to do with as he pleased.

The series, Yak Yak (subtitled "A Pathology of Humor") only ran two issues, but they were pure Davis, who wrote, penciled, inked, and colored the whole project as well as providing painted covers for both issues!
It's never been reprinted, except for excerpts here and there.
Hopefully, somebody will do so in the near future...

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Art of Jack Davis
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Reading Room OUT OF THIS WORLD "The World Awaits"

We know Steve Ditko as the co-creator of The Amazing Spider-Man...

...but he was equally-adept at visualizing insects as well as arachnids!
(Yes, there is a difference!)

This lovely Ditko-rendered story from Charlton's Out of This World #12 (1959) would really have benefited from some Stan Lee-esque scripting rather than Joe Gill's stilted prose, which renders the ending rather...dull.

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Creativity of Ditko
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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?