The final version of the "sentient flying saucer" story doesn't even include the words "flying saucer" in the title...
...and the ship design itself is closer to classic Star Trek or 1960s Italian sci-fi like Planet of the Vampires (one of my all-time faves)...
Published in the back of
Marvel's Strange Tales #101 (1962), this
MadMan-era, never-reprinted, Don Heck-illustrated, Stan Lee-scripted tale was the
final version of a Stan Lee plot involving sentient alien spacecraft first used in 1953 (
HERE), then re-used in 1958 (
HERE), and 1960 (
HERE).
NOTE: Atlas had given way to Marvel several months earlier with Amazing Fantasy #15 (first Spider-Man) and Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.
(When Spider-Man received his own title a year later, the FF were cover-featured guest-stars!)
BTW, the cover feature for this issue was the introduction of the Human Torch's short-lived solo strip!
Weird Trivia: All four of the issues these stories originally appeared in had a number "1" in the issue numbering (21, 1, 11, 101)!
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