Best of Reading Room MAN O' MARS

Here's a kool klassic from the 1950s...the lead story from a 1953 one-shot that combined all the great cliches of space opera (spaceships, ray guns, aliens, half-naked space babes) in one tight ten-page tale...

These days, this story would be a six-issue mini-series with tie-ins to several other titles.

The rest of the book was made up of unrelated reprints from earlier issues of Planet Comics.
The interior artist is Maurice Gutwirth, but the writer is unknown.
The cover was done by Maurice Whitman, one of Fiction House's more prolific artists.

The First Earthman on Mars...

With The Martian hitting theatres today...

...we thought it'd be fun to re-present a much earlier tale of a human on Mars.

In fact, it's so old that it wasn't even called "science fiction"!

It was a "scientific romance"!

...and, unlike The Martian, this Earthman found the Red Planet teeming with life!
Start HERE, and you'll be able to see the entire saga by clicking on the links at the end of each chapter!

Reading Room COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB "Day in the Life of an Atomic Commando"

How could we follow up going to the Moon and recruiting a new Atomic Commando?

How about a Cold War spy thriller?

How was that for a taste of hard-boiled Cold War paranoia?

This never-reprinted tale from ACG's Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub #3 (1954) was produced by series creators Richard Hughes (writer) and Sheldon Moldoff (illustrator).

Reading Room COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB "Death of the H-Bomb!"

We Have Already Seen...

When an atomic bomb launched from the Moon hits Earth, the Atomic Sub is hastily converted to an atomic spaceship.
The Atomic Commandos journey to the Moon, where they discover a race of humanoids angry at Earthmen since other Earthmen (Russians) built an atomic missile base there, while killing curious moonpeople who tried to communicate with them!
Sentenced to death by the leader of the Moonmen, the unarmed Commandos face a huge lizard, while the sub is about to be destroyed by atomic plasma fire.
However, aboard the sub is a young "Become a Junior Atomic Commando Contest" winner...who's developed a telepathic transmitter/receiver...

So now the kid's a full-time member...
This never-reprinted tale from ACG's Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub #3 (1954) was produced by series creators Richard Hughes (writer) and Sheldon Moldoff (illustrator).

Tomorrow, a special feature about one of the Atomic Commandos!

Reading Room COMMANDER BATTLE AND THE ATOMIC SUB "Journey to the Moon!"

Once more the Atomic Commandos guard democracy from any threat...

...below the ocean's surface, and well beyond...

Be Here TOMORROW for the suprising conclusion...

I'm surprised Irwin Allen never did a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode like this!
Making a submarine into a spaceship seems like the sort of thing he would've loved to do.
Adding a kid sidekick, though, is never a good idea.
They end up taking over the spotlight, and the series' emphasis goes from soft sci-fi to kid-show.
But I digress...
This never-reprinted tale from ACG's Commander Battle and the Atomic Sub #3 (1954) was produced by series creators Richard Hughes (writer) and Sheldon Moldoff (illustrator).