Wednesday Worlds of Wonder NIOURK Chapter 13: Alpha

When Last We Saw the Black Child (as he calls himself)...

(Note: This comic is a relic the character finds in the ruins.
Weird how it's in VF to NM shape, eh?)

...he reaches the ruins of New York City (Niourk) and encounters robots who examine him, finding anomalies from normal human readings.

But, there are scientifically-advanced humans (from Earth's colony on Mars which survived the catastrophe), in the city!

They find the Black Child, unconscious, and bring him back to their improvised base in the city to be treated...

Want to see the rest...because this isn't the end of the story!

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Niourk

the Graphic Novel

Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "I Couldn't Stop the Runaway Comet!"

With most of America still in a deep freeze, let's see if we can warm you up...

...with this scientifically-inaccurate, never-reprinted tale about death by extreme heat from Atlas' Strange Worlds #5 (1959)!

There's also a really kool Easter Egg within the story!

See if you can find it!

No, we're not going to explore whether God exists or not.

Though popularized as fireballs in bad science fiction, the fact that comets were really composed primarily of rock and ice which vaporized as they approached the Sun, creating the "tail", was known as far back as Issac Newton's time.

So the whole idea of the comet generating heat like a star was ludicrous...even in the 1950s!

Though the writer is unknown, the artist was Steve (Spider-Man) Ditko.

That fact is crucial for understanding the Easter Egg...

The name "Victor Sage", used here for the extremely-fallible protagonist, later became "Vic Sage",  the secret identity of one of Ditko's more durable creations...Charlton's The Question!

Besides becoming a DC mainstay with his own title and spotlighted appearances in the Justice League animated series, the character was the basis for Rorschach in Alan Moore's "reimagining" of classic comic character archetypes in Watchmen!

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Marvel Masters of Suspense Omnibus

Volume 1

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Monday Madness "Supreme Penalty" 1.0 & 2.0

Here's two radically-different versions of the same sci-fi comic tale...

...with changes in the reprint forced upon the publisher by the Comics Code Authority!

This version appeared in Harvey's Black Cat Mystery #47 (1953) during the height of the horror comics boom.

It was re-presented in Harvey's Race for the Moon #1 (1959) after the Comics Code went into effect.

Let's see how things have changed...

Almost every panel has a change from the original, either in art or balloons!

Panel 4 has an interesting change in dialogue indicating the condemned survive in space...

Only change is dialogue in the first panel, which indicates the exiled criminals are still alive, but in orbit.

The figure of Judge Krenk being murdered in Panel 6, and his corpse in Panel 7 have been removed!

Panel One: Judge Krenk is said to be wounded, not dead!

Panel Six: Frances' face redrawn to look less maniacal and his sentence altered to confine him to his lab!

Interesting to note the alterations inflicted by the Comics Code!

Art (and probably story) by Bob Powell.

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Bob Powell's
Terror
(Anthology of the best of his 1950s horror and sci-fi tales)

"President's Day" is Tomorrow...

...but before they combined Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays into a "floating" holiday...

...Washington's Birthday was celebrated each year on Feb 22nd...

...and Lincoln's Birthday was on February 12th!

These two features appeared in a 1956 comic called "Every Day's a Holly Day"

(No, it's not a typo...as you can see!)

Why was it called that instead of "Every Day's a Holiday"?

Because it was given away to kids by grocers who sold Holly Sugar!

Illustrated by John Rosenberger, it's a unique pamphlet covering a number of American holidays, including Mothers' Day (though not Fathers' Day), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and a couple of holidays we've largely abandoned...Pan-American Day and American Indian Day!

We'll be presenting the other chapters on the dates they fall upon.

Watch for them!

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Cartoon History of the United States

Space Hero Saturdays BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY "...on the Moon of Madness!"

Buck's BACK!

Due to the launch of the Buck Rogers TV series in 1979, the newspaper strip (cancelled in 1967) was revived.

You'll note that it didn't follow the TV show's concepts, characters, designs, or plots, choosing to reboot/update with a more traditional "space opera" style with occasional nods to the original strip!

Written by Jim Lawrence and illustrated by Gray Morrow, this never-reprinted tale from Heavy Metal V3N5 (1979) appeared just before the strip debuted in newspapers in September '79.

It's believed to be a "proof of concept/pilot" tale, since there were differences (mostly in costume and ship designs) in the newspaper strip itself.
The strip continued until 1983, with Cary Bates replacing Lawrence and several artists including Gil Kane and Neal Adams doing brief fill-ins until Jack Sparling took over the art for the remainder of the run.

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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

the Gray Morrow Years