Reading Room MANHUNTER 2070 "D.O.A." Part 1

It begins as a carefree night out on the town 55 years from now...

...and then this never-reprinted tale from DC's Showcase V1 #92 (1970) takes a decidedly-downbeat turn.

Payback's a bitch, even in the future, as you'll see...

TOMORROW!

Sekowsky had quite a bit of latitude at DC as a writer/artist/editor during this period, revamping Wonder Woman, Metal Men and Supergirl (in Adventure Comics) while also presenting a couple of potential series in the final six issues of Showcase, Jason's Quest and Manhunter 2070.

Glory at Gallipoli!

Most Americans are unfamiliar with the WWI story of Gallipoli...

...which serves as the back story for the new Russell Crowe movie The Water Diviner.

Luckily, our "brother" RetroBlog, War: Past, Present & Future, is running a graphic story retelling of the sordid saga!

Part 1 is HERE.

Part 2 is HERE.

MANHUNTER 2070 Returns on Monday...

...with the Origin of Starker...

...as shown in this "teaser" from the back of DC's Showcase #91 (1970).

Written and penciled by Mike Sekowsky, inked by Vince Colletta.
But before that, catch up with the first part of the never-reprinted Manhunter 2070 saga HERE!

Reading Room VENUS COMICS "Little Man Who Wasn't There!"

Let's wind up our week of Venus Comics back-up tales with...

...a story that would have qualified as "metafictional"...if the word had existed in 1951!

Neither the writer nor artist for this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Venus Comics #14 (1951) are known to us (or any credible source like GCD).

Pity, since it's a clever little tale...though it would've benefited from being given a couple of additional pages to flesh out why the "creator" decided to suddenly alter the character's personality and actions so radically.

(Perhaps the "creator" in the last panel was, himself, being manipulated by a creator who was going insane...)

Reading Room VENUS COMICS "Invasion from Mars"

Orson Welles wasn't the only one to tell this tale...

...but this never-reprinted story takes a slightly different turn!

While the scripter for this story from Atlas' Venus #13 (1951) is unknown, the artist is Dave Berg, who would make a name for himself as one of the mainstays of MAD Magazine with his Lighter Side of... feature!

Berg started at the beginning of the Golden Age as one of the Eisner/Iger Studio artists providing material in various genres for Quality Comics and Fiction House.

He eventually went solo doing stories and covers for St John, Toby, Ziff-Davis, Dell, Fawcett, Archie, and, as you can see here, Timely/Atlas, before finally landing at EC doing one war story and then switching to MAD as of #34, becoming one of the steadiest of the "Usual Gang of Idiots" (as the contributors referrred to themselves).