Reading Room MYSTERIES OF UNEXPLORED WORLDS "Forbidden Formula"

Before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #13 (1963)...

...there was 

...The Watcher!

We're talking big bald alien in a cloak, part of a legion of cosmic observers keeping an eye on the doings of other races throughout the universe (and, presumably, the multiverse)!

Here's his first (and only, AFAIK) non-Marvel appearance from Charlton's Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #18 (1960)

Unlike Marvel's Watchers, Codin and his fellows deliberately interfere directly with others, albeit surreptitiously.

But, I'm compelled to ask...did this story influence either Stan or Jack several years later when they introduced their Watcher?

Guess we'll never know...

Both the writer and artist of this never-reprinted tale are, ironically, unknown.

(Too bad the Watcher can't tell us...)

The Grand Comics Database speculates the illustrator is Bill Fraccio, a long-time Charlton mainstay who did everything from romance to Westerns to war to sci-fi!

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MarvelMasterworks

Fantastic Four

Volume 2

(featuring the first appearance of Marvel's Watcher)

Monday Mars Madness ATTACK ON PLANET MARS "Chapter 2: Princess of the Electronized Tower"

When Last We Left Our Tyrant...

Art by Gene Fawcette

In the year 2430, Tarrano, an Earthman, has seized control of both the planet Venus and its outpost on Earth, Venia.

At that outpost, the tyrant has kidnapped Elza and Georg, children of the recently-murdered scientist, Dr Brende, along with reporter Jac Hallen.

Tarrano's agents have assassinated all the national leaders of Earth, leaving the various governments in a state of confusion.

Meanwhile, back in Venia...

"Here goes"...what?

Can the trio defeat an entire city?

Be Here Next Monday to Find Out!

Based on the novel Tarrano the Conqueror by Ray Cummings, this chapter of the 1951 comic adaptation was penciled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Vince Alascia.

The writer of the adaptation is unknown.

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Tarrano the Conquerer

by Ray Cummings

The Annual RetroBlog Summer Blogathon is Under Way...

...with this long-lost, never-reprinted, Silver-Age Captain America novel!

If you haven't had a chance to read it, start HERE at the beginning!

If you've been a True Believer (as Stan the Man Lee would say) and already devoured the first six pulse-pounding chapters, click HERE on Monday and continue with Chapter 7!

Space Force Saturdays SPACE WORLDS "Vengance of X-1"

One of the kool things about sci-fi comics is that, until the late 1970s...

...they visualized concepts, environments, technology, and situations no then-existing SFX technology could convincingly-show to an audience!

Artist Allen Bellman and the unknown writer really let their imaginations run amok in this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Space Worlds #6 (1952).
No TV show of the era, and few feature films (perhaps War of the Worlds or Forbidden Planet) could possibly have mustered the SFX technology to even approach this sort of thing, which today could be done by a high-budget TV show or mid-budget feature film.

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Mysteries in Space

The Best of DC Science Fiction Comics

Friday Food Fun "Man's Guide to Outdoor Cooking" Finale

Last time You "Met the Meats"...

...now it's time to conclude this graphic primer (with a kool, kitschy wraparound cover) about cooking outside with fire!

Sadly, Mayrose Meats (a Midwestern staple for decades) no longer exists.
Its' parent company, St Louis Independent Packing, was bought out by Swift & Company in the early 1960s and the Mayrose brand was discontinued.

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Chop Sizzle Wow

50 Step-by-Step Kitchen Adventures

(Told in Manga Format)