Reading Room STRANGE TALES "When a Planet Dies!"

The current "deep freeze" reminded me of the splash panel from this story...

...from Marvel's Weird Wonder Tales #22 (1973), which was actually a reworking of this (literally) cool story from Strange Tales #97 (1962)!

While the art is credited to Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, who wrote it is not entirely clear.

A number of people, myself included, think it's scripted by Kirby himself.

Bonus: Here's the cover from a previous issue of Weird Wonder Tales that supplied the Dr Druid figure on the reworked splash page above...

Art by Jack Kirby, John Romita (Dr Druid's face) and Joe Sinnott

 ...and here's the original art for the splash page!

The production artist "flipped" a stat of the Dr Druid figure and replaced the bearded aliens!

Monday Madness AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY in A Tale Twice-Told!

What do this comic...

...and this comic...

...have in common...besides both being published as a joint project by Marvel Comics and the American Cancer Society?

Here's the inside covers from both books...

1982

1998

Figure it out?

Here's one more comparison...the back covers from both books...

1982

1998

Isn't it odd Luke seems to have forgotten cigar-smoking Nick Fury and Ben (the Thing) Grimm?

The answer is...it's the exact same comic script (including word balloons and captions), just illustrated by two different art teams a decade apart!

(OK, to be fair, the text in the block Cage is lifting is different..but that's the only thing, and it's not story-related!)

You'll see both versions of this tale Tuesday through Friday at our "brother" RetroBlog

Hero Histories!

Football + SuperHeroes = SuperPro!

30 years ago, Marvel and the NFL teamed up to produce...

...a football-themed superhero!

...who, despite meeting a couple of Marvel's best-known heroes...

...lasted only 13 issues, then disappeared into obscurity!

Due to licensing restrictions, NFL SuperPro will never be reprinted or offered as an e-book!

However, when you can find copies, they're usually pretty cheap, like the one below...

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NFL SuperPro

Super Bowl Special

Space Force Saturdays SPACE SQUADRON "Terror from the Deep!"

Let's blast-off for excitement (if not scientific accuracy) in the year 2000...

...as the Space Squadron journeys to the "water world" of Neptune!

Until the Voyager 2 flight in 1989, little was known about Neptune except for it's size and color, so sci-fi went all over the place speculating about what lay under the bright blue atomosphere.

Because of the name, derived from the Roman god of the sea, most tales (like this one) portrayed the planet as an aquatic world with a breathable atmosphere and amphibian, reptilian, or fish-like inhabitants.

The artists for this tale from Atlas/Marvel's Space Squadron #3 (1951) are penciler Werner Roth and inker Sol Brodsky.

The scripter is unknown, though in his case, it might be best to remain anonymous.

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Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr

by Isaac Asimov

(under the pen-name "Paul French") Omnibus of ALL Six Space-Opera Sagas!David Starr: Space Ranger, Pirates of the Asteroids, Oceans of Venus, Big Sun of Mercury, Moons of Jupiter, Rings of Saturn

Friday Fun BLAST-OFF "Danger! Atoms!"

Some stories need little extrapolation...

...such as this never-reprinted short by writer/artist Howard Nostrand from Harvey's Blast-Off! #1 (1965)

Cute, eh?

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Chilling Archives of Horror Comics Volume 7

Howard Nostrand's Nightmares