Reading Room TALOS OF THE WILDERNESS SEA "...to the Wilderness Sea!" Part 3

When Last We Left Our Post-Nuclear Armageddon Barbarian Prince...

(Bet you thought George RR Martin invented "warging" for Game of Thrones...)

Next Friday: Reunion!

Riding high on the success of the Sword of the Atom mini-series and follow-up annuals which re-imagined the hard sci-fi superhero in a barbarian adventure setting, Gil Kane (along with collaborator Jan Strnad) was given the go-ahead for another high-adventure series, this time based on a new character.

Planned as a 12-issue mini-series, cutbacks at DC dictated that the already-penciled and scripted first two issues be combined into a one-shot whose sales would determine if the project would continue.

Unfortunately, the unfamiliar character didn't attract a large enough audience (as The Atom had), and only the single, open-ended issue came about.
It's never been reprinted since its' publication in 1987.

Reading Room WORLD OF FANTASY "Brain Destroyer"

This title reminded me of Donald Trump...

...even though the story itself has nothing to connect it to the Republicans' hilarious "candidate" for President!

No matter whether you agree for my reason for running the story, it's still a long-lost, never-reprinted tale from Atlas' World of Fantasy #19 (1959) you probably would never have seen otherwise.
Plotted by Stan Lee, written by Larry Lieber, and illustrated by Carl Burgos, it's typical of the sort of stuff Atlas was running as it transitioned into what we would know as Marvel only a couple of years later.

Reading Room: SPACE CLUSTERS Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

...don't you love it when the book does the synopsizing for you?

To be continued...

NEXT WEEK!

Written by sci-fi novelist Arthur Byron Cover and illustrated by Alex Nino, this never-reprinted tome from 1986 was the seventh and final magazine-size graphic novel DC published before abandoning the concept due to low sales.

Reading Room BUZZY BEAN AND HIS FLYING SAUCER "Mystery of the Meteor"

Though it's been almost a year since we looked in on Buzzy Bean...

 ..it's been mere minutes for him and his sister...

This never-reprinted second tale in the all-too-brief series appeared in Good Comics' Johnny Law, Sky Marshal #2 (1955).

Written by publisher Edmond Good and illustrated by Robert Martinott, the story completes the "set-up" for further adventures, which we'll present in the next month or so.

Reading Room CAPTAIN JOHNER AND THE ALIENS "Space Derelict"

When Last We Left Our Space-Going Adventurers...

...writers Robert Schaefer & Eric Freiwald and artist Russ Manning brings us up to speed and drop us right into the action!

With only 4-5 pages per issue to work with, the new writer/artist still did an amazing job of putting together short, yet satisfying, tales.

(Manning, who had written and illustrated the premiere tale had to drop the writing duties due to time constraints.)

BTW, this short from Gold Key's Magnus: Robot Fighter #2 (1963) was not reprinted in the 1967 Captain Johner and the Aliens one-shot, but was included in the 1995 two-issue mini-series from Valiant/Acclaim.