Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 178: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 163

May 1959

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #52

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"Menace from Mars!" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★★

"The Man with the Atomic Brain!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

"Trapped on Earth!" (a: John Forte? & Carl Burgos?) ★

"Travelers in Time!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★1/2

"Invasion from Outer Space!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

The Martians are coming! The Martians are coming! The Red Planet has declared war on Earth but, strangely, the Martians are open to negotiations before they attack. Government officials want to send a he-man muscle builder to give the impression that Earth is home to lots of testosterone and ass-kickers, but councilman Lynn Hamilton proposes an alternative to defeat the "Menace from Mars!"

Lynn wants his bosses to send him to Mars to use his brain to outwit the Martians. After the brass hesitantly agree, Lynn has a "strange cargo" loaded aboard the craft and blasts off to the Planet of War. When he arrives, he's teased and assaulted by the mammoth Martians; how could the puny earthlings stand up to the biceps and abs of the Red Planet's warriors? Lynn has his cargo unloaded and then dazzles and startles his audience with his presentation. A trained gorilla, horse, and elephant show just how mighty Earth can be. The Martians agree and a peace treaty is signed. Our world is again saved! Lots of really muscular Kirby figures and a script that veers from the norm now and then; nothing groundbreaking, but fairly entertaining.

Ted Lestron, "The Man with the Atomic Brain!," is a freak to his fellow earthlings; he can move objects with his mind, walk through walls, teleport himself anywhere in the galaxy, and wait in a Starbucks line for fifteen minutes without demanding to see a manager. But, through a series of life-altering events, Ted discovers he's actually part of an advanced species of man awaiting the day that they can help their less-advantaged neighbors build a better world. More and more, you can see both Kirby and Ditko advancing to the starting point of Something Big. Kirby's assigned the "threat from outer space" and (very soon) the "gigantic menace" scripts and Ditko envisions the way-out, mystical, and (sorry, Kirby fans) deeper stories. It's almost as if Stan had forecast a time when Kirby would handle Fantastic Four and Ditko, Doctor Strange. The mutation/meditation angle doesn't always work with the Ditko strips, but here it builds to a very satisfying climax. 

Two knuckleheaded aliens on the planet Serpus Mentoria decide they're going to invade Earth by sending a thinking vapor to take over the body of the "most intelligent" earthling it can find, but the dopey mist enters a ventriloquist's dummy and finds itself "Trapped on Earth." Lightweight fare with minimalist art (the two BEMs are literally balloons with eyes) equals a skip. At least our uncredited writer didn't fall back on the standard possessed vehicle of a cat or dog.

Not much better is "Travelers in Time!," wherein screenwriter Norman Crane tries to sell a producer on the fanciful notion that haunted houses are actually portals for travelers in the future. The producer isn't having any of this nonsense and Norman goes back to the future to assure his compadres that 1959 still doesn't believe in time travel. None of this drivel makes sense; why would Norm establish himself in the movie business, pitch the idea, and race back to 2889? Does he drop in on other time periods? The final panel has Norm telling his buddies that "they still don't suspect us," as if something nefarious is planned. 

A mostly forgettable issue of Journey Into Mystery closes with "Invasion from Outer Space!," a painfully predictable sci-fi epic about an attack on Earth by the planet Ursa Arida (Dry She-Bear!). The invaders are robots and Earth surrenders easily. Only the great astrophysicist Professor Harvey Adams remains calm because, as he explains in the final panels, robots will rust and here comes the rain! Earth is saved once more.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #3

Cover by John Buscema

"The Terrible Time Machine!"

 (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★★

"The Thing from Planet X" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

"Robot Hater!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Haunted House!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

"The Aliens Who Conquered Earth" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★

Physicist Ashley Hunt is working on a time machine so that he can travel back to ancient Egypt and burglarize the tomb of Tut-Kin-Tut. The king's treasure was buried in an earthquake in 2680 BC, so he sets the wayback machine for 2700 BC in order to easily ransack the tomb.

Problem is, the king's tomb is not easily opened without dynamite, so Hunt hops back into his machine and arrives back in the present day, loading up enough TNT to blow up all of Egypt. Whoops, the machine pulls a boner, arriving back in Egypt an hour too early, and he's astonished to see himself attempting to open the tomb. What a palaver! "The Terrible Time Machine!" follows most of the standard time machine yarns but does add a fun twist. The panels explaining all the various screw-ups are a bit wordy and trying to keep track of what was going on was giving me a headache by the climax but, again, it's hard for me to criticize when these guys are showing more imagination.

The crew of an exploratory research spaceship are forced to scuttle their ship and then face a court-martial when their escape pod reaches Earth. The three astronauts agree they can't tell the real reason they destroyed their ship: while on "Planet X," which they considered a harmless world, they gathered specimens, and one of the artifacts was a strange-looking plant. Turns out this plant had telepathic powers and was able to control the minds of its victims. Its goal was to travel to Earth with these men and conquer mankind! Luckily, our heroes are smarter than the corsage and are able to abandon ship. The good news is that they are cleared of all charges and decide to tell the world the truth about "The Thing from Planet X." Ditko's graphics seem tame compared to recent strips; there's not the usual experimentation with panel sizes, as if the artist was in a hurry and had to pump this one out. The story itself is charming and the last panel, where our protagonists breathe a sigh of relief and then vow to return to Planet X to destroy the rest of the poppies, is hilarious.

In the year 2000 AD, businessman Vincent Latimer loves his job, loves his wife, loves everything about the planet but... he's a "Robot Hater!" Yep, that's right, a robot hater, and Vin is up to his ears in the tin cans since the world had fully turned itself over to android assistance by the end of the 20th Century. What's a human-lovin' guy to do? To make matters worse, Vin has to fly to the moon to check on a cellulite shortage at the factory and can't find a single airline that uses flesh and blood pilots. When he happens upon the Paragon Interplanetary Flight Company, he "assumes" these guys are for real and books a flight.

On the way to the moon, the ship is struck by a meteor shower and Vin is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, his head is bandaged and he's almost to his destination. He remarks to the pilot that he's so glad he insisted on a human space captain, since he's sure a stinkin' robot would have destroyed the ship. "I, too, am a robot!" replies his savior. Vin admits to himself that, once he gets back to Earth, he has some deep soul searching to do about prejudice. What a load of hooey! I was assuming we'd find out that Vin himself was a robot at story's end, but this reveal was even stupider. 

Two escaped convicts hide in a spooky abandoned house in the middle of a creepy swamp and pretend they're ghosts when some pre-teens start nosing around the place. The duo laugh and think the ruse will help them hide out as long as they need to. That's when the real ghosts show up. Well, not really ghosts; in the lame final panels of "The Haunted House!" we discover that a family of invisible creatures from another dimension live in the old wreck. How much more effective this one would have been without the dopey reveal. Last up this issue is "The Aliens Who Conquered Earth," with some really sharp visuals by Joe Sinnott. The script is the standard "aliens invade Earth" rigamarole but, oddly enough, after H-bombs and grenades are ineffective, our world is saved by our faith in God. I've not seen that twist used before.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #3

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"I Journeyed Back to the 20th Century!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

"I Discovered the Men from Mars!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

"I Found the Perfect Hiding Place in Space!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★

"I Am the Giant from Outer Space!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"I Escaped to the Stars" (a: Bob Forgione) ★

In the year 2469, Arro Gordon spends all his money and builds a time machine, just so he can say: "I Journeyed Back to the 20th Century!" On arrival, he finds that everyone is after him, but his personal force field protects him from being touched. He decides to get rich quick and grabs a stack of gold bars from Fort Knox, but suddenly his time machine disappears. His force field soon follows suit and he's captured and jailed. Arro realizes that, since he's trapped in the past, he can't get back to the future to build the time machine, so it never existed.

Atlas writers sure are on a time machine kick. The ending of this story makes little sense because it tries to apply twisted logic to a premise that is illogical to begin with. Ditko's art is good, but he can only do so much.

Dan Hadley, an agent of the U.S. Government, is out patrolling during the never-ending Cold War in the year 1990 when he spots a spaceship floating in the water just off the coast. Dan approaches by raft and two Martians welcome him on board. The visitors from space tell Dan that they want to help the West defeat the Commies and ask him to share his country's latest weapons. Clever intelligence agent that he is, Dan quickly surmises that the Martians are fake and that they are actually Commie spies. Not long after, Dan sees another ship off the coast and assumes it's another Commie trick. He calls HQ and soon the big guns are blasting away at the ship. To the surprise of no reader, it takes off for outer space, and Dan laments the fact that he caused the people of Earth to miss out on our chance to meet real visitors from another planet.

Joe Sinnott's art isn't as individualistic as Steve Ditko's, so "I Discovered the Men from Mars!" doesn't have much to recommend it. The plot is as tired as they come.

A greedy miser in the future named Zachariah Stubbs loves his money but worries that he might be robbed, so he's thrilled when he sees a news report about new spaceships that are capable of interstellar travel. He rents one, falls asleep, and awakens on an asteroid, where he buries his money and marks its location on a map. Stubbs returns to Earth but soon misses his cash. Although he can say that "I Found the Perfect Hiding Place in Space!," he realizes that he has no idea which asteroid it's on, since he slept through the spaceflight.

Truly awful! Carl Burgos's art is barely passable and the premise is idiotic. I've been noticing more typos in Atlas lettering ("exhilerate") and we are encouraged to think of the main character as a crude man because he drops the "g"s from the end of his words, such as "nothin'" and "keepin.'"

"I Am the Giant from Outer Space!," announces a huge visitor in a blue spacesuit and helmet. The tiny people he encounters are terrified and, when he visits a city, he accidentally knocks over buildings and causes unintended carnage. Realizing that things aren't working out, the alien climbs back into his spaceship and takes off. Surprise! He's an Earthman who was visiting the planet of Micromia, where the people are tiny.

Are there any new ideas left at Atlas? This sudden switch to science fiction has resulted in one story after another where the writers rehash the same themes. Paul Reinman draws a decent spaceman, I guess, but the story aims to be funny and just falls flat.

People are mostly peaceful in the year 3035, so a crook named Harry Wolf thinks it will be easy to rob his former employer. To his surprise, he is caught, arrested, and sentenced to solitary confinement for life. As he is being led to a spaceport, he breaks free and boards an empty spaceship. Harry takes off for the stars, happy to have escaped and satisfied to be on a ship with enough provisions to last a lifetime. Back on Earth, the judge notes that the prisoner, as usual, was allowed to escape, and now he can live out his sentence in hope.

"I Escaped to the Stars" is as bad as the rest of the stories in this woeful issue. Bob Forgione demonstrates that he does better as an inker for Jack Abel than on his own.-Jack

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