Reading Room ASTONISHING "The Scientists"

When we presented this tale...

...by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, we had no idea it was a reworking of an earlier tale in Atlas' Astonishing #9 (1952) by Stan Lee and Harry Lazarus!

The original is a page longer and has some rather witty touches which put the lie to the concept "If our meddling with time changed anything, we'd notice!"

This never-reprinted story (like the reworked version, "Those Who Change") is based on one of the basic rules of time-travel; "don't change anything in the past, or you'll alter the future"...which is in direct contradiction to another of the basic rules of time-travel; "no matter what you do, you can't change the future".
Hey, I'm just telling you the rules.
I never said they made sense...

Reading Room TALES OF SUSPENSE "Voice of Doom"

Remember when we presented this kool tale a couple of weeks ago?

We discovered it was a reworking of an earlier story, plotted b Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, and illustrated by Carl Burgos, that appeared in Atlas' Tales of Suspense #4 (1959)!

The primary difference is that the original tale used a ham radio rather than the blurry tv screen of the later story, so the visualizations of the war were only in Fred's mind, the same way classic dramatic radio dramas of the 1930s-50s used dialogue, music, and sound effects to make the listeners' imaginations create the scenario!
Writer/artist Carl Burgos was one of the seminal creators of the Marvel Universe.
His creation, the Golden Age Human Torch was the cover-featured character on the first Timely (later Marvel) comic called (appropriately) Marvel Comics!
(Burgos showed a marked preference for android heroes, creating not only the original Human Torch, but the White Streak, and the first Silver Age Captain Marvel!)
This particular tale remained lost to history until the first (and only) reprinting in Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Tales of Suspense Vol 1 (2006), over half a century later!
Which version do you prefer?

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Design of the Week Redux "United We Stand"

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another...unless they sell really well, like this one!

A vintage painting showing the WWII-era 48-star flag with a sunrise in the background.
A tad kitschy, but stirring, and a reminder of an America that once stood for Truth and Justice.
The perfect gift for Flag Day (June 14th)!

Reading Room: CAPTAIN AERO "Moon That was Motionless"

Yesterday, we asked: "What do you do with a wartime aviator character after a war?"

 In the case of fighting aviator Captain Aero, you make him into a shirtless extraterrestrial fighter!

Art by Rudy Palais, writer unknown.

Captain Aero was one of numerous costumed aviators who fought the Axis in comic books during World War II.

His distinctive traits included a mustache that came and went depending on the artist and an aircraft that could use its' propeller like a buzz-saw.

In his early days he was assisted by the Sky Scouts, a gang of kids who wanted to be aviators, and who were popular enough to have their own backup strip.

By the time of this never-reprinted story's publication in Captain Aero Comics #26 in 1946, WW II was over, and sales on military-themed comics were dropping.

A number of them, like Blackhawk, shifted to battling criminals and/or Communist spies.

But not Captain Aero!
He was destined for bigger things...like battling Nazis on the Moon, a concept which survives to this day in the recently-released movie Iron Sky!

BTW, this was Captain Aero's final issue, and his last appearance in comics.

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Thrilling Science Fiction Tales

featuring the cover art from this issue of Captain Aero Comics by LB Cole!