Reading Room: SPACE SQUADRON "Destination: Oblivion"

The Psychedelic '60s are either a little early or a little late...

...for this never-reprinted 1951 story that took place in the then far-flung future of 2000!

Letting Edgar go unpunished despite risking numerous lives was, unfortunately, a typical plot point both in this series, and in later juvenile space-based comics and tv shows like Lost in Space, where, if anyone had any sense, they would've tossed Dr Smith out an airlock without a space suit after his first attempt to kill them...

This "trip through the mind's eye" from Atlas' Space Squadron #5 (1952) was illustrated by Allen Bellman, one of Timely/Atlas' in-house staff for over a decade.
He's still around, and will be at San Diego this weekend, so stop by his table!

The writer is unknown.

Reading Room WEIRD ADVENTURES "Amazing Prophecies"

Can you guess how many of these predictions from 1951 have come true?

Answer: NONE!

The unknown writer and artist of this never-reprinted one-pager from Ziff-Davis' Weird Adventures #10 (1951) were hoping for a Jetson-esque future that still hasn't occured over 50 years later!

BTW, despite the numbering, this was the one-and-only issue of the title!

Apes vs Aliens

Apes vs humans is so 1970s!

Why did no one think of doing this sooner?

And why did no one think of putting it on t-shirts, mugs, and other goodies until now?

Reading Room: WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE "Flight into the Future"

"Jobs were scarce after the Great Atom Bomb War..."

They wrote that in 1952!
We haven't had an atomic war...yet.
But good jobs are still scarce in 2014!

The inimitable illustration style of Basil Wolverton just oozes from every panel of this tawdry tale from Key Publications' anthology Weird Tales of the Future #2 (1952).

And, the odds are he wrote the story as well.

Wotta guy!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

"Theatre THREE is Transformers? Not Theatre TWO? Damn dirty multiplexes!"

As you may have guessed, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opens today.
There's been a goodly amount of 'Net chat about how this variation of the concept works (and doesn't work), and if this reboot will do for Apes what the "soft reboot" (which deliberately made the new version an "alternate timeline" from the original) of Star Trek did for that equally-long running property.
(Actually, Trek is a couple of years older! "The Cage" was shot in 1964 as opposed to 1967 for the first Apes film. Oh, let my geek flag fly!)
Personally, I'm willing to see where it goes.