Captain Science leads us through time and space into high adventure...
...this time at the edge of the Solar System (as it was defined then)!
Wait...wha?
That last line makes no sense, but I suppose it's good for a laugh if you don't really think about it...
On another note, I hated when Pluto was downgraded to a "dwarf planet".
The idea of a dark planet on the edge of the solar system was incredibly kool,, and one of my favorite 1950s sci-fi juveniles,
Secret of the 9th Planet by Donald A Wollheim, used the idea that Plutonians set up "relay stations" on the inner planets to transmit solar energy to warm their icy world.
(Of course, due to slightly-silly science, the power the Plutonians were transmitting wasn't reaching those other planets, resulting in those worlds slowly freezing and forcing Earth to send an expedition to destroy the alien technology.)
Wally Wood and Joe Orlando did the art for this lead tale from
Youthful's Captain Science #5 (1951), and you can tell these guys were having the time of their
lives, as they cut loose with some of the wildest stuff ever to grace
sci-fi comic books.
Unlike
the earlier Captain Science stories,
which have never been reprinted, these Orlando/Wood stories have been
re-published all over the place, but they're still well-worth seeing
again!
