Before the Space Mouse We've Already Re-Presented HERE and HERE...
...there was an earlier one whose adventures ran for several years!
And this is as close as you'll get to an origin for himfeaturing the introduction of equipment and plot elements that'll pop up over time in the series!
Oddly, this Frank Cairn-written and illustrated story was neither the lead nor the cover-featured tale inAvon's Space Mouse#1 (1953)!
...now let's go the other way, to a world where technology is non-existent and only a strong sword arm will keep you alive!
To Be Concluded Next Wednesday!
Based on a short story by Robert E (Conan the Barbarian) Howard, Adaptors Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway and penciler Gil Kane & inker Ernie Chua/Chan turned in an absolutely magnificent version of the tale using a lot of Howard's own prose in captions and dialogue! Though meant as a stand-alone story in it's initial publication in the pulp Weird Tales and subsequent reprintings as well as this adaptation in Marvel's Supernatural Tales #3 (1973), it has since been incorporated into both the Conan Mythos and the Marvel Comics Universe in the 2020 Marvel mini-series Conan: Serpent War! which included Conan and other Howard characters as well as Moon Knight and Khonshu! Trivia: There was another REH tale featuring James Allison (the dying protagonist in this story) called "Garden of Fear". It was adapted by Roy Thomas, Barry Smith & Sal Buscema as a Conan story in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian V1N9 (1971), eliminating any references to Allison in the present day! Allison's ancient incarnation in this story was Hunwolf the Wanderer and the tale was first published in the second issue of the pulp Marvel Tales, published by Martin Goodman, the first publisher of Timely/Atlas/Marvel Comics! There were seven James Allison tales. Who sez comics ain't educational?
Did you know the two famous sci-fi stories' plots that were combined to create this tale?
Hint: one original involves robots/androids,, and the other is about cannibalism...
This never-reprinted story by Stan Lee/Larry Lieber and Don Heck from Atlas' World of Fantasy #18 (1959) was based on two classic sci-fi tales...
"With Folded Hands" by Jack Williamson, which premiered in Astounding Science Fiction...
...and was expanded into the novel The Humanoids, (and a sequel, The Humanoid Touch, over 30 years later)!
Though never done on film or tv, the story was adapted to radio on Dimension X (which you can hear HERE) and the basic plot was re-used in the classic Star Trek episode "I, Mudd".
The other plot point, involving decoding an alien text to discover a secret agenda, was probably taken from the 1950 Galaxy Magazine short story "To Serve Man" by Damon Knight.
(Note that the classic Twilight Zone episode adapting the tale wouldn't appear until three years later.)
Also note that, while the comic tale was never reprinted, it was redone only two years later by another of Atlas/Marvel's major artistic stars!
