Reading Room CAPTAIN SCIENCE COMICS "Robots of Ra"

For sheer weirdness (not to mention incomprehensibility), few stories can top this tale...

...from the back of Youthful's Captain Science #2 (1951)

You'll note the art style for this never-reprinted story varies wildly from page to page.

The credited artist, Walter Johnson, depended heavily on assistants to produce a high volume of pages for the various comics companies (including Avon, St John, Fiction House, and Youthful Publications) he supplied art to!

The work of several different illustrators with varying levels of draftsmanship is apparent on this one story, including one or more who swipe from both Flash Gordon's Alex Raymond and Phantom Lady's Matt Baker!

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder LOST WORLD "Volta's Vichy Vassal"

We finally discover what far-distant future era Lost World takes place in...

...1982???

Well, when this tale from Fiction House's Planet Comics #59 (1949) was published, it was the "far future"...

The title reference is to the puppet government Nazi Germany installed in southern France to attempt to convince the French they weren't really conquered and occupied.
The implication was that if the Resistance stopped operations, northern France could be given (illusory) self-governance again!
It didn't work.

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Planet Comics

Volume 12

(contains issues 54 to 59)

Reading Room MYSTERIES OF UNEXPLORED WORLDS "Forbidden Formula"

Before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #13 (1963)...

...there was 

...The Watcher!

We're talking big bald alien in a cloak, part of a legion of cosmic observers keeping an eye on the doings of other races throughout the universe (and, presumably, the multiverse)!

Here's his first (and only, AFAIK) non-Marvel appearance from Charlton's Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #18 (1960)

Unlike Marvel's Watchers, Codin and his fellows deliberately interfere directly with others, albeit surreptitiously.

But, I'm compelled to ask...did this story influence either Stan or Jack several years later when they introduced their Watcher?

Guess we'll never know...

Both the writer and artist of this never-reprinted tale are, ironically, unknown.

(Too bad the Watcher can't tell us...)

The Grand Comics Database speculates the illustrator is Bill Fraccio, a long-time Charlton mainstay who did everything from romance to Westerns to war to sci-fi!

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MarvelMasterworks

Fantastic Four

Volume 2

(featuring the first appearance of Marvel's Watcher)

Monday Mars Madness ATTACK ON PLANET MARS "Chapter 2: Princess of the Electronized Tower"

When Last We Left Our Tyrant...

Art by Gene Fawcette

In the year 2430, Tarrano, an Earthman, has seized control of both the planet Venus and its outpost on Earth, Venia.

At that outpost, the tyrant has kidnapped Elza and Georg, children of the recently-murdered scientist, Dr Brende, along with reporter Jac Hallen.

Tarrano's agents have assassinated all the national leaders of Earth, leaving the various governments in a state of confusion.

Meanwhile, back in Venia...

"Here goes"...what?

Can the trio defeat an entire city?

Be Here Next Monday to Find Out!

Based on the novel Tarrano the Conqueror by Ray Cummings, this chapter of the 1951 comic adaptation was penciled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Vince Alascia.

The writer of the adaptation is unknown.

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Tarrano the Conquerer

by Ray Cummings

The Annual RetroBlog Summer Blogathon is Under Way...

...with this long-lost, never-reprinted, Silver-Age Captain America novel!

If you haven't had a chance to read it, start HERE at the beginning!

If you've been a True Believer (as Stan the Man Lee would say) and already devoured the first six pulse-pounding chapters, click HERE on Monday and continue with Chapter 7!