Best of Reading Room: COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB "Giants from the Depths"

Having successfully defeated one world-threatening menace...

...and completed their shake-down cruise, the aptly-named Commander Battle and his Atomic Sub are ready for action!

Tomorrow:

Giant Squid!

Giant Humanoids!

Giant Thrills!

The pseudo 3-D created by Craft-Tint tones used in the first issue was eliminated for #2 of ACG's Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub (1954), although it looks like the pages were initially-conceived to utilize the Craft-Tint effects to create depth.
Without it, the giants aren't quite as imposing as they would have been, and panels like the last one on Page 7 (Battle bailing out of the airplane) just look silly.
Script by Richard Hughes, the Stan Lee of ACG who wrote practically everything at the company during his tenure as editor/writer!

Pencils by Sheldon Moldoff, inks by Al Camy, Odgen Whitney and others.

Arena by Fredric Brown

"Arena" by Fredric Brown was adapted (sort of) twice for TV...

...first, in 1964, on the Outer Limits as "Fun and Games", starring Nick Adams.

You'll note a number of differences between the story and the episode, including a pair of new characters, a mate for the alien, and a woman with a hidden past who works with the hero!

A year later the story was reused, on Classic Star Trek as "Arena"...

...except it wasn't...exactly.

Gene Roddenberry's right hand man, producer Gene Coon, had submitted a story about Capt. Kirk fighting an alien starship commander to see whose ship would survive.

When the story was fact-checked, it was discovered that Coon had inadvertantly used numerous elements from Brown's story, which Gene had probably read years earlier!

Reading Room WORLDS UNKNOWN "Arena" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Hero...

Carson, a space fighter pilot on station at the edge of the solar system intercepts an alien ship, but before he or the intruder can fire, they are both teleported from their ships to a planetoid, where unarmed, they face each other.
A voice explains to the two combatants that they must fight to the death to decide the conflict, thus avoiding the mass destruction to both sides that a full-scale war would cause.
A force field separates the combatants, but they are told they can utilize the materials at hand to create weapons.
The opponents discover they can't pentrate the force field, but inanimate objects can!
They throw rocks at each other, but rocks alone won't provide a victory for either side...or will they?

This extremely-faithful adaptation of Fredric Brown's short story was created by writer Gerry Conway, penciler John Buscema, and inker Dick Giordano.
Be here tomorrow when we take a look (and listen) at some less-accurate, but far more famous adaptations!

Reading Room WORLDS UNKNOWN "Arena" Part 1

It's the sci-fi tale so nice, they adapted it twice...

...first on Outer Limits, then, two years later, on Classic Star Trek!

Will human ingenuity, cunning, and strength triumph?

Or will the alien win?

Be here TOMORROW for the answer!

This extremely-faithful adaptation was created by writer Gerry Conway, penciler John Buscema, and inker Dick Giordano.

The short story it's based on, by Fredric Brown, first appeared in Street & Smith's Astounding Science Fiction (June, 1944).

It was voted one of the Top 20 Science Fiction Stories before 1965 by the Science Fiction Writers Association and included in the must-have (if you're a serious sci-fi fan) anthology Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol 1: 1929-1964...which is still in print.

You can read the taut tale of terror HERE.

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