Wednesday Worlds of Wonder ADVENTURERS' CLUB " 'Scortch' Jordan's Tommy Gun"

The first ongoing feature during Adventure Comics' short-lived 1970s return to an anthology format...

...was this strip with a Boris Karloff-lookalike host.

It's unclear whether writer John Albano (who had been scripting Supergirl until it left Adventure) or Adventure Comics editor Joe Orlando conceived the series.

This never-reprinted tale from DC's Adventure Comics #426 (1973) clearly shows the "ghost" to be of non-supernatural origin, but later stories lean towards supernatural elements.

When The Spectre was reintroduced in Adventure, for a memorable run by Michael Fleisher and Jim Aparo, the cover title (though not indicia) became Weird Adventure Comics.

I mentioned the visual of the host, Nelson Strong, was "Karloff-esque".

Here's Karloff from his one-season 1950s tv series Colonel March of Scotland Yard.

Does he look like the visual inspiration for Nelson Strong?
I'd be willing to bet on it...

Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "Octopus-Kings of the Lost Planet"

Sometimes the cover of a comic doesn't match the contents...

...until you look closer!

While there is no comic tale called "Octopus Kings of the Lost Planet" in Strange Worlds #2 (1951), there is a text story...

Written by "W Malcolm White", a name that only appears in three text stories in Avon Comics, so its safe to state that it's a pen-name.

The illustrators for the cover and interior spot illustrations are unknown.

Regrettably, the files and records of Avon Comics are long gone, so we'll probably never know.

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics 

Monday Madness STRANGE TALES OF THE UNUSUAL "Threat!"

Here's a fascinating tale that makes perfect sense...

...up to the last two panels, when it all falls apart!

Wait...

If Harlow disappeared after the machine merely slowed, why didn't the rest of them disappear after it was wrecked?

Wouldn't the logical thing to do be to insure the machine be kept running at that slightly-lower level?

I suspect writer Carl Wessler didn't think through the consequences of the machine's destruction in this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Strange Tales of the Unusual #10 (1957)!

What's your opinion, dear reader?

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

The Comic Book Trade Paperback You SHOULD have Bought...but DIDN'T!

Remember this spectacular wraparound cover?

This superb, never-reprinted Murphy Anderson illustration encapsulates what made DC's science fiction line in the 1950s and 60s so entertaining!

• Adam Strange and Alanna! (DC's premiere Silver Age space-going heroes!)
• Winged Apes! (DC was famous for using apes almost anywhere you could think of!)
• A ridiculous, physically-impossible image (giant arrow thrown by aforementioned winged [but normal-sized] ape through the Earth) that you just must know the story behind! (Though, sadly, in this case, there's no actual story behind this particular piece!)

Fireside's Mysteries in Space (1980), a $7.95 trade paperback reprint compiled from Strange Adventures, Mystery in Space, Tales of the Unexpected, and From Beyond the Unknown came and went quickly through bookstores.

Sadly, it didn't sell well, and many copies were returned to the publisher and pulped!

It's not available in e-book form, and a different 1999 trade paperback, Mystery in Space, doesn't reprint any of the stories featured in this compilation!

When you can find a copy now, it runs from $30 to $100, depending on condition!

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Space Hero Saturdays AMAZING ADVENTURES OF BUSTER CRABBE "Dark of the Moon"

He was Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Tarzan, and Thun'da!

(And he would've been a helluva Doc Savage, if they had done a feature or serial in the 1940s!)

He was Larry "Buster" Crabbe, the first (and many say, the greatest) cinema action hero.

A two-time Olympian (with a swimming gold medal to his credit), Buster didn't even have to audition for Flash Gordon. (He came to support a friend who was auditioning, and the director, who had seen Crabbe's earlier work as Tarzan offered him the role on the spot!)

Art by Alex Toth

Like many other action-movie actors of the 1930s-1950s, Crabbe had his own comic book where he's shown as Buster Crabbe, not "Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon" or somesuch in the tale, and it's assumed that he's actually able to do anything he's been shown doing in his films.

Unlike most of the other matinee idols, Crabbe's comic adventures covered a variety of genres from Western to sci-fi, and even some cross-genre mashups.

(The others, except for John Wayne, were purely Western-themed series.

Wayne, because of his extensive war film work also had Korean War and present-day adventure comic stories in his comic series.)

Though the writer for this wild, never-reprinted tale from Lev Gleason's Amazing Adventures of Buster Crabbe #2 (1954) is unknown, the artists are Alex Toth (pencils), Mike Peppe (inks) and John Celardo (retouching on Buster's face in several panels).

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Thrilling Fantasy Tales