Monday Madness: FLYING SAUCERS x FOUR #2 "I Discovered the Secret of the Flying Saucers!"

Last Monday, we looked at the first of four stories involving sentient flying saucers...

Art by Jack Kirby and either Christopher Rule or George Klein

...all written by Stan (the Man) Lee.

Today, we'll look at the second one, with art by the most famous collaborator of all...Jack (the King) Kirby!

At this point, Lee was editing the entire Atlas (soon to be Marvel) comics line...as well as scripting most of it!

But, this story shows indications of being done using the "Marvel Method" of having the writer and artist discuss the story, the artist then co-plotting and drawing it, then the scripter writing dialogue and captions to fit.

With distinctive art by Jack Kirby and Christopher Rule, the cover-featured tale from the first issue of Atlas' short-lived 1958-59 anthology Strange Worlds, feels more like something from Kirby's previous anthology series, Race for the Moon, rather than Lee's previous horror-oriented take on the concept of "alien IS flying saucer"!

The "epic space adventure" feel was something a lot of Kirby's previous work had, while most of Atlas' sci-fi stories (edited or written by Lee) favored a more "personal"approach with a minimum of spectacle, and certainly no half-page or full-page shots of alien cities or space battles!

Stan Lee has acknowledged that he was using the "Marvel Method" in 1961 when the first appearances of Amazing Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were created, so it's obvious the time-saving technique, that gave more creative input to the illustrator, was already in use.

So I'm going with:

Plot by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Layout/Pencils by Kirby

Script by Lee 

Inks by Christopher Rule

Trivia: This was Kirby's first sci-fi story on his return to Atlas/Marvel!

Next Monday, see how Atlas/Marvel's most idiosyncratic artist handled the same plot two years later!

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Science Fiction Comics

Taylor History of Comics

Vol 3

What's the PERFECT GIFT for Your Sweetheart on Valentine's Day?

Comics aren't just about spandex-clad heroes and heroines in battles of cosmic import!
They also tell intimate tales of heartbreak and true love, betrayal and redemption, and misery and sheer joy!

With than in mind, Valentine's Day is coming, and what says "True Love" better than a gift from 
True Love Comics Tales™?
(Plus, it's both longer-lasting AND cheaper than a dozen roses!)
Choose from dozens of designs on greeting cards, teddy bears, calendars, shirts/tops/intimate wear, diaries, and many other kool kollectibles!

A public service announcement for all lovers from your friends at Atomic Kommie Comics™

Space Hero Saturdays BUSTER CRABBE COMICS "Invaders from Beyond"

Though Buster Crabbe starred in more Westerns than any other genre, he's best-known to the public at large as the movie serial Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers!

As we mentioned earlier,  his comic book adventures included sci-fi and high adventure tales as well as Western stories.

This never-reprinted story, cover-featured in Eastern Color's Buster Crabbe Comics #9, combined sci-fi and Western action, though set in the "present" (1953), like Space Western Comics, which was being published at the same time.

The writer is unknown, but the art on both the cover and story is by Mike Roy, who worked steadily in comics from the beginning of the Golden Age in 1941 until 1980!

Note that Buster is Buster Crabbe, not "Buster Crabbe as a character like Billy West" or somesuch in the tale, and it's assumed that he's actually able to do anything he's shown doing in his films.

There's more alien butt-kicking four-color action with the greatest movie action hero of the 1940s-50s to come!

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Thrilling Fantasy Tales

Friday Fun YAK YAK "Hysterical Historical Quizzical Quiz"

Let's open the New Year with legendary writer/artist Jack Davis demonstrating the Internet didn't make us dumb!

We were always like this!

A never-reprinted feature from Dell's Four Color Comics #1186 (1961)

Dell gave MAD mainstay Jack Davis his own title, to do with as he pleased.

The series, Yak Yak (subtitled "A Pathology of Humor") only ran two issues, but they were pure Davis, who wrote, penciled, inked, and colored the whole project as well as providing painted covers for both issues!

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Art of Jack Davis

Reading Room GREEN PLANET Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

Art by Dick Giordano

Exiled by the repressive government of Earth, Jason Tolliver and other dissenters are shipped to the planet Klorath in a far distant solar system where a colony of rebels led by Tolliver's father had been established.

Upon arrival at the so-called "Green Planet", they discover a partially-completed colony encampment, totally-deserted.

The new arrivals cautiously move into the camp, and utilize the supplies to finish the camp and grow food.

Within a couple of weeks, the camp is completed and the first crop ready to harvest, but an attack by a giant pterodactyl-like creature on the farmers provides a possible answer to the fate of the previous Earthmen.

Following the creature to its' nest on a nearby cliff, Jason encounters another human...but not one of the Earthmen!

Tolliver and the fur-garbed man fight off an attack by one of the pterodactyls, then go their separate ways, having conquered a common foe, but unable to communicate.

Jason returns to the camp, calls a meeting and informs the others that they are not alone on the Green Planet...

For those who say classic sci-fi was just Westerns with spaceships instead of horses, this story, with its' "pioneers and native inhabitants" concept seems to prove them correct, albeit with a much happier ending than most settler-Indian encounters in the real Old West.

Penciled by Charles Nicholas, inked by Vince Alascia using the combined pen-name "Nicholas Alascia".

Based on the 1960 Monarch Books novel by J Hunter Holly (Joan Carol Holly), the writer of the comic adaptation is unknown.
Note: Charlton Comics and Monarch Books were divisions of the same company, much as Archie Comics and Belmont Books were also owned by the same people.

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Green Planet

by J Hunter Holly