Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 179: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 164

June 1959

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Strange Tales #69

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"The Man in the Iron Box!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★

"Rocket Ship X-200" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Fear #5)

"Journey Into Nowhere!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★

(r: Fear #3)

"The World That Was Lost!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★1/2 

(r: Tower of Shadows #9) 

"The Threat from the 5th Dimension!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★

(r: Tower of Shadows #9) 

Brilliant but selfish scientist Phineas Stokes perfects a suspended animation coffin that will keep him alive and in a deep sleep for one million years. Phineas ain't digging the current affairs in the world and wants to wake up when war is over. Presumably, one million years will do the trick. Government officials come to Stokes's door and beg him to help them with defensive weapons, but Phineas sends them away, telling them he couldn't care less about America. 

The day arrives and Phineas Stokes takes his place in the Suspendo-Anima™ chamber to take his big sleep way below his home in a secret cavern. Meanwhile, far above his new bed, government leaders seem to get their acts together and join for world peace. War ends and, as the centuries roll away, earthlings spread their wings and depart for other planets in the galaxy. Earth becomes barren. "The Man in the Iron Box!" awakens (freshly shaved and his hair exactly the same length as when he laid his head down on his fluffy pillow) and roams the empty landscape until he's approached by a handful of commie-lookin' goons who explain that they're from a distant planet that loves war. Phineas is cuffed and taken prisoner, soon to be one of their "warriors."

Ironic, huh? We're reminded in the final panel (probably by Stan) that this is the fate of anyone who doesn't come to the aid of their government (presumably this means the Soviet government as well, but that's not stated), so if a Fed knocks on your door and asks you to build a better H-bomb, you should do it. I would have liked to know how this iron box stayed powered for one million years. Couldn't be solar and I would imagine the electric company shut Phineas's power off after three months of non-payment.

Charlie Brewster still hangs onto his old-fashioned "Rocket-Ship X-200," which can only do the Kessel Run in 25 parsecs, unlike the new speedboats the young whippersnappers fly, which zip through space so fast they would miss an incoming armada of warships from another planet. Whoops, I got ahead of myself, but then there's not much here to blab away about. Charlie saves Earth and the other space jockeys decide there's room for old-timers in the space lanes. I never saw that ending coming... well, okay, I did. Nice Heck work, though.

Two brilliant but naive scientists perfect a time machine, but not just any time machine. You see, in the Atlas present day, everyone is building a time machine (and we've certainly read each and every one of their stories, haven't we?), but this gizmo will be different in that it will be the first time machine that can travel into the future. So, Walt and Tom hop into their multi-million-dollar machine and hit the way forward for one thousand years. When they step out, they're disheartened to see a tribe of cavemen wandering around with clubs.

 "Damn, it's the Republican National Convention of 2024"  "We seem to have made a miscalculation in our time/space continuum figures and arrived one million years in the past!," utters Walt, and the two zoom back to present day. One of the cavemen spots the two visitors and hoofs it back to the tribe to explain to them (and us) that the first wave of time travelers has arrived and they have to be ready when the next bunch lands so they can explain to them that it's not really the past but the future cuz damn us all to hell we did it we finally did it and after the 8th world war the planet will be ruled by... men in loincloths. Love that final panel that explains everything to the eight-year-olds that didn't get it. We've yet to see a really good time machine story here in the Atlas zines, so I'm thinking Bill and Al used them all up years before. Once you finish "Journey Into Nowhere!" you'll discover that at least the title is perfect.

Eccentric millionaire Linus Vermeer hires Captain Jordan and his crew to take him out to a part of the sea he's sure holds the lost city of Atlantis. The crew all think the bald, wheelchair-bound Linus is batty, especially when he orders the captain to drop anchor and says, "This is it!" However, the look on their faces turns from amused to astonished when Linus whips away his lap blanket and jumps into the sea, his huge flipper wagging in excitement. Holy cow, this guy's a mermaid! The climax, of course, is supremely predictable, there's no other way to end this thing, but I do find it cool that Linus is the spitting image of a certain wheelchair-riding mutant leader who'll pop up about four years in the future.

The finale, "The Threat from the Fifth Dimension!," does not chronicle the popular music group of the late 1960s but rather the horrifying story of a man who is attacked by demons in his sleep. Are these really creatures hoping to enter our world through our hapless hero's sleeping body or the hallucinations of a diseased brain? Either way, this is one sloppy read. The script meanders and Ditko's art looks like a mess of colorforms and empty backgrounds. Not what we've come to expect from the mystic dazzler. And that puts a bow on what could be the worst ever issue of Strange Tales.-Peter

Strange Worlds #4

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"Journey to Jupiter!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★

"A Magician Walks Among Us!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

"The Man Without a Past!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"I Was the Changing Man!" 

(a: Al Williamson & Roy Krenkel) ★★

"Manhunt on Mars!" (a: John Buscema) ★★1/2

Far in the future, Earth has set up trade with every other planet... except Jupiter. We've done everything we could to convince the biggest planet that we only want peace and brotherly love. We've hurled rockets, H-bombs, VHS tapes of the Star Wars Christmas Special, everything we could at their force field, but nothing will allow us to "Journey to Jupiter!" and present our case to them that we are simply a peaceful race with only good will in mind.

Only ace astronaut Glenn Scott figures out a way to persuade the Jupiterians to let down their guard; he floats a giant black box just outside Jupiter's force field and the gullible dopes can't help themselves. They examine the box and find it completely empty. For some reason, this equates with peace in their minds and they turn off their defenses. Glenn lands and negotiates a fair-trade deal and the worlds co-exist in peace from then on.

There's so much stupid but entertaining nonsense here to unpack. Why would Earth decide that the best way to show we want to be friends is by destroying Jupiter's force field? One of my biggest chuckles came when Glenn returns from a business trip on Mercury. I wanted to see what kind of suit he'd wear to avoid going up up up in a puff of smoke. The Jupiterians turn out to be a friendly but gullible bunch, don't they? What if Glenn had planted a 40-trillion megaton Z-bomb in that box? I really wanted to see the climax we would have gotten in the pre-code days where Jupiter's leaders are putting pen to paper while Earth's armada arrives to invade and strip mine the planet of its minerals. Now that would have been a cool twist. 

In "A Magician Walks Among Us!," brilliant but goofy Professor Dolen builds a time machine and travels back to the days of King Arthur, convinced that Merlin the Magician was, in fact, a scientist who had traveled back in time. Dolen's machine blows up once he arrives in Camelot and he's stuck in the past. His search for Merlin is fruitless; no one recognizes the name. It's not long after that the prof realizes to his (but no one else's) shock that.... Holy Cow!... he's Merlin! Predictable but fun fantasy with Ditko back on his game. 

A man working on a rocket assembly line suddenly questions who he is and how he came down with amnesia. The bosses tell him to get back to work, but the man's anguish is too much and he breaks out of the building. After a full-scale manhunt, our hero is found and sent back to the android factory for reprogramming. The problem with "The Man Without a Past!" and most of these Atlas SF/F tales is that the writer (Carl Wessler?) sticks to a formula that's been done umpteen times already, so the reader can guess from the third or fourth panel where the veer in the road will take us. It doesn't help that the Reinman art is so awful that the characters all look alike; this from an artist whose pre-code art was in the top tier.

Brilliant but self-serving Duncan Sloan has invented a gizmo that allows him to "dematerialize" and enter the brain of another human being. Rather than use this machine for the betterment of mankind and maybe win the war against those stinkin' commies, Sloan decides to invade the body of Emerich Fabius, the richest man on the planet, in order to hang out on the bestest beaches of France and attract the hot chicks. 

When Fabius's tin mines are seized by the government and he goes bankrupt, Sloan decides it's a good time to exit, stage left... and lands in the brain of Hollywood idol Vincent Stalwart, he of vast riches and hot chicks galore. Unfortunately, with Stalwart's sex appeal come jealous jilted lovers and one of them puts a bullet in the screen star. Sloan once again has to make a quick exit without being sexually fulfilled and nary a trip to the bank.

After a third attempt at transferal goes belly up (this time with a South American dictator--what could go wrong there?), Sloan decides he's good enough being in the body of a seventy-something brilliant scientist and dumps his machine in the waste basket, never to be used again. "I Was the Changing Man!" has a few good laughs (for once, these are intentional) and some dazzling graphics from Al and Roy but has me once again asking the question, "Why do these eggheads turn to criminal acts rather than marketing their inventions for profitable gain?"

In 1993 Russia, political prisoner Anton Volocheck escapes a visit to the firing squad and hops aboard a rocket ship to Mars. Once on the red planet, he discovers its people are just as bloodthirsty as his communist compadres back home. He escapes death a second time and flies back to Earth to tell his government officials what he's found. He then escapes yet again and finds his way to America, where he finds an audience with our president. He informs the chief that he has told the Russkies that Mars is a friendly planet and will welcome the Reds with open arms. A clever twist is hard to find by 1959, let me tell you, so the dark and twisted reveal at the climax of "Manhunt on Mars!" had me smiling from ear to ear. This was the last Atlas art Buscema did before he quit comics and took up commercial art at a New York advertising firm. He would not return to Marvel until 1966. Who knows what Buscema could have done for Marvel superheroes from '61-'66 had he stuck around.-Peter

World of Fantasy #18

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"The Creatures Who Captured Earth!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

"The Clock Strikes Never!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

"To Build a Robot!" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule)

(r: Tomb of Darkness #11) ★1/2

"The Man Who Talks to the Stars!" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Xom! The Menace from Outer Space!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

One day in 1980, the sky is filled with flying saucers! Aliens land and announce that they're from the planet Cygnus and they're here to show Earthlings how to have everything they want without having to work. Soon, people across the planet are living blissfully, but an astronomer named John Warren is having none of it. He concludes that the aliens plan to conquer our planet after we become lazy. At first, no one believes Warren, but he sneaks aboard a flying saucer and finds a book that lays out the aliens' plan, just as he suspected. He convinces everyone to fight the invaders and the aliens are quickly defeated. They leave and Warren tells us to remain ever vigilant.

The twist ending to "The Creatures who Captured Earth!" is that there is no twist. This boring tale is utterly straightforward. I was hoping it would turn out to be a pre-Twilight Zone adaptation of "To Serve Man," but no such luck. Heck's art is nothing to get excited about.

Frank Hanes steals the time machine he's invented and travels to the year 2059, only to find futuristic police waiting for him. He sets the wayback machine for the past and escapes, recalling how he felt unappreciated at his job at World Electronics, even when he invented a time machine for them. Unfortunately, Frank gets caught in a loop and finds himself a younger man, applying for his job and starting all over again.

Ditko's art is fun, but "The Clock Strikes Never!" makes about as much sense as any other Atlas time travel tale. By the end, the hooded personification of Fate is narrating, speaking directly to the reader and informing us that Frank's future will be based on the choices he makes. I have to hand it to Ditko for taking a mundane idea and making it visually exciting. The young Frank looks an awful lot like Peter Parker.

An inventor named Dexter Scott visits Luther Worthington, a titan of the automobile industry, and proposes a stunning plan--for a million-dollar investment, he'll build a thinking robot! Tut tut, says Luther, it can't be done, and he shows Dexter the door. Alone in his office, Luther admits that he has always discouraged experimentation because he, a thinking robot, doesn't want competition!

Yawn. More clunky art from Kirby and Rule, more simpleminded stories. "To Build a Robot!" barely qualifies as having a plot.

A reported named Hank Johnson gets a hot tip and rushes to the park to meet "The Man who Talks to the Stars!" The man in question is sitting on a park bench, calmly feeding the squirrels and the pigeons. He whips out his communication device and places a call to the star named Ursa Volans, but Hank isn't buying. The man explains all about the distant star and takes out his tourist map, which leads him to the realization that he's on the wrong planet. Oops! He's off in a puff of smoke, disappearing into the sky. Now Hank is a believer!

I got a kick out of the end of this one, when the man laments that "I landed on a restricted primitive planet by mistake! I'd better leave before I'm penalized and lose my passport!" I also am predisposed to liking a story with a newspaper reporter who calls another character "Mac." John Forte's style can seem wooden at times, but here it's just wry enough to work.

Philip Lindsay is a cosmic archaeologist in the year 2744, exploring a remote star system when he happens on an uncharted planet. He and his crew land their ship and are met by aliens who ask for help defeating "Xom! The Menace from Outer Space!" Xom is a great big, hairy creature who moves very slowly and is surrounded by a circular wall. Phil zaps Xom with this ray gun and that ray gun, but nothing has any effect. Phil then spies a plaque on the wall around Xom and confronts the aliens with the truth--Xom is a sweet teddy bear and they're the bad guys. They admit that they wanted the ivory from his giant teeth and, found out, they head off.

Once again, the aliens have one big eye. Xom doesn't do anything other than look big and menacing. I would have expected Kirby to draw a story with a creature like this, but perhaps the lack of a scene of Xom rampaging through the city streets meant it was assigned to Joe Sinnott.-Jack

Next Week...
Some Dazzling
Al Williamson!

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

Next Week...
Are You Ready For...
XOM!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 177: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 162

April 1959

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Strange Tales #68

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"Last Warning--Evacuate Earth!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★

"The Creatures from the Bottomless Pit!" 

(a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

"Test Pilot!" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★★

"Next Stop--Mars!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★1/2

"Trapped in Tomorrow!" (a: John Buscema) ★1/2

Makka, an alien from Aquila Centurius, is sent to Earth to determine if it's a good place to start Aquila's domination of the galaxy. Unfortunately for Makka, who resembles a vapor cloud, he's set down in a rural town and comes in contact with a/a tree; b/a dog; c/a bunch of hicks; and d/some JDs. After trying to have a discussion with these various life forms, Makka decides that Earth is not a great place to invade as the inhabitants have no fear. "Last Warning--Evacuate Earth!" recycles yet another moldy old plot line and not even Joe Sinnott can save this from sinking.

In "The Creatures from the Bottomless Pit!," tycoon Serge Kemplet discovers a cave at the bottom of the ocean that contains a vast, unmined wealth of valuable minerals and the first man there will be the wealthiest, most powerful man in the world. In no time, he's built a bathysphere that (somehow) can withstand the insane amount of pressure at the bottom of the sea and he heads down to his destiny.

Once he gets in the cave, he discovers it's the home of elves and fairies, the survivors of the sunken city of Atlantis! The little people tell Kemplet their plan  to hijack the bathysphere and conquer the surface world. They'll make him a very important person if he helps out. Is he in or out? Kemplet agrees but has a sudden attack of morality and destroys the vessel, marooning himself in the cave with the munchkins. Serge Kemplet has turned his back on fame and fortune and sacrificed his life for mankind. A fanciful and fun little adventure helped along quite a bit by Ditko's penciling magic.

One hundred years in the future, we get a look at the average workday of a "Test Pilot!" This pilot is flying a rocket ship into outer space and out of our solar system (in only seven hours!). We get to see firsthand the dangers our hero must navigate and the thrills he must feel. We know that this is a real glimpse into tomorrow because the writer drops terms like "hyperspatial directional lever" and "polymerized neoprene" into every other sentence. Nothing really happens but it looks pretty good.

Along the same lines is "Next Stop--Mars!," about a really short guy (nicknamed "Shorty" for some reason) who can't get involved in any of the school activities because of his compact physique, but who gets the last laugh when he's selected to be the first astronaut to fly to Mars. And that's the story! This science fiction stuff sure is easy. Last up this issue is "Trapped in Tomorrow!," another time machine turkey. Willy Phelps becomes the latest guy in his Atlas neighborhood to invent a time machine and takes it fifty years into the future so that he can make a fortune. The idea is that he'll go to the local 2060 library and study what horses won in the races immediately following the day he took off in his gizmo. But the knucklehead accidentally parks his machine in an electronic garbage disposal field and his ticket home is reduced to tinfoil and broken sprockets. Why did this dunderhead have to travel fifty years rather than, oh, let's say, two weeks, to sow his field of lucre?-Peter

Strange Worlds #3

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"I Was a Human Satellite!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

"My Job... Catch a Robot" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

"I Was Face to Face with the Creature from Planet X!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★1/2

"I Was the Man Who Lived Twice!" (a: John Buscema)

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) ★★

"I Fly to the Stars!" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) 

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) ★★1/2

A young man joins the rocket corps to cure his claustrophobia (!) and ends up freaking out aboard a ship deep in space. In a daze, he ejects himself from the rocket and goes soaring through space in a small ball that has enough food and oxygen to keep him alive for a week. The idea is to alert a passing freighter and climb aboard, but real life gets in the way and he ends up on an asteroid.

On the small planet, he discovers a ship full of space raiders who will be attacking the very ship he left behind. Can our goofy astronaut find the nerve to enter a tight, dark cave and use a radio to alert his crew, or will he be stranded forever? "I Was a Human Satellite!" is a perfectly readable example of the road Atlas was detouring down, virtually abandoning the horror story and concentrating on heroic fantasy and science fiction ("It's the space patrol!"), at least until the big monsters take over. As long as Ditko does the visualizing, it's hard to complain... much.

Cushing, chief of the National Robotics Division, is called in to investigate a shortage in the ore being mined on the moon. Cushing hops in his X-13 and quickly finds himself stepping out on the moon, which now holds colonies for America and also the stinkin' commies. Most of the work is done by androids, but would a robot steal? Cushing finds out the answer with a little sleight of hand and uncovers the real thief: you guessed it, a double agent working for those mischievous bastards, the Soviets! How could he tell? Cuz he's a robot, silly! You could probably hear the very loud groan I let out at the embarrassingly cliched reveal for "My Job... Catch a Robot." Not even the usually reliable Joe Sinnott showed up for work that day.

On her maiden voyage as an ace reporter for the Daily Cosmos, Cynthia Adams is assigned the blockbuster story of a new creature captured and held in the zoo on Planet X. Cynthia enters the facility and is struck by the sheer power and girth of the hairy beast, so much so that she doesn't notice when the zoo closes and she's locked inside. Suddenly, the monster breaks free of his "hermetically sealed dome" and heads right for our heroine. Luckily, the shattered glass has set off an alarm and the police arrive just as the creature collapses. You see, the monster could not survive outside its glass home, filled with the atmosphere of its home planet! "I Was Face to Face...!" is a really weak sf tale with a monster that barely shows up and Kirby art that is crowded out by way too much wordage.

John Buscema's gorgeous art is the star of "I Was the Man Who Lived Twice!," about a young gypsy who refuses to learn the rules of society and shuns responsibility, hoping to latch on to a sweet young thing from the village, a girl from a wealthy family. When that falls through, the boy grows up to be a social outcast, doing menial tasks and hating every day. Then his gypsy mother writes to him that she's dying and wishes to give her son one last chance, detailing the whereabouts of a fountain of youth in hopes he'll clean up his act in a reboot. But the numbskull stays too long in the swamp of youth and becomes a baby, rescued by a gypsy couple and cursed (?) to relive his life all over again. I'm not sure why this guy, who's spent his entire life bitching about how hard he's got it, would want to be young again. Still, this is the best art we've seen from Big John in the Atlas sf/f titles.

The third issue of Strange Worlds ends on a high note with (ironically) the melancholy "I Fly to the Stars!" Interstellar space pilot Frank Coventry must break off his serious relationship with Sally but cannot tell her why. The reason becomes all too clear by the final panel when we discover that Frank's mission is to travel the galaxy for six months... but like dog years, space years are completely different than Earth years. By the time Frank comes back to Earth, it's been fifty years since he left. He looks up Sally and, sadly, she's just an old lady now, certainly not ripe for Frank's little black book... but she does have a daughter! Again, I know this is serious science fiction cuz Jack (or Stan maybe) uses terms like "hydrospectroscopic sighter" and "dynamoelectrical system" and really feels the need to explain Frank's conundrum for us in a lengthy final panel.-Peter

World of Fantasy #17

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"It Hides in the Forest!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★★

"When a Planet Dies!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

"The Man from Tomorrow!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★★

"The Brain Picker!" (a: Matt Baker & Vince Colletta) ★1/2

"Guardian of the Stars!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

A spaceship from another planet hovers over a city on Earth and a voice from inside announces that the ship comes from Ursa Eruditis, home of the most intelligent and warlike race in the universe. They plan to invade and conquer Earth in a month but offer us one chance at survival: one Eruditian will land on our planet and take the shape of an Earth object. If we figure out which one, it will show that we're smart enough to survive and they'll leave us alone.

The search begins across the world, but no one knows that "It Hides in the Forest!" A boy is out in the forest one day with his dog, Spot; the boy relaxes and catches fish, but the pooch recognizes that one tree is not what it seems and the planet is saved.

I'm getting to enjoy Joe Sinnott's art and I like the way this story's plot developed. It's a silly premise, but it was fun watching everyone around the world search in vain until the unnamed lad and his dog happen upon the alien.

Xanna, the warlord of another planet, announces his plan to conquer the universe. Granu, the prophet, tells Xanna of the ancient prophecy that says that any attempt to conquer other planets will result in Xanna's planet being flooded. The dictator ignores the prophet and readies his troops for war. Just before takeoff, a deluge floods the planet and the citizens wish their leader had listened to Granu. On Earth, a scientist has just washed a speck of dust off a slide and comments that there could not be any life on such a small speck.

Hoo boy, the folks at Atlas trot this one out pretty often, don't they? At least Don Heck's art is decent, though the aliens all have weird eyes that look like black, glassy discs.

A failed con man named Humphrey Pym has a sure fire scheme to make a bundle. He dresses in a spacesuit, puts a phony time machine in Times Square, and emerges to tell the crowd that he's "The Man from Tomorrow!" Pym feigns confusion, claiming he's from the year 2985, and fields generous offers from reporters before being arrested by a cop, who drives him to the countryside and chastises him for telling everyone that he's from the future. The cop and others really come from the future and don't want anyone to know, so Pym is placed back into the time machine and sent back to the future to keep him quiet!

Two entertaining stories in a single issue of an Atlas comic? What is happening? Even the art by Carl Burgos, which I usually don't care for, fits the story's tone, and I don't think we've seen this plot before.

Frederic Kane is exposed to radiation while out fishing when a nuclear bomb test occurs miles away. Several weeks later, he discovers that he now can read minds. Like any Atlas protagonist, "The Brain Picker!" uses his newfound power to get rich and soon crowns himself emperor of the world. His subjects seek a way to depose the tyrant and finally succeed by using a robot, whose brain he is unable to read.

At least they didn't all turn out to be tiny people on a scientist's slide. The ending where someone turns out to be a robot is also one of the most overused Atlas plot devices. Baker and Colletta's art isn't bad, but it's hard to make much of such a tired idea.

No one thinks that it's a good idea to entrust the lighthouse space station to the care of a robot, even though the "Guardian of the Stars!" needs little maintenance and can execute dull routines with ease. When a convoy from the planet Tago III blasts off for Earth with a shipment of rare elements, the robot keeps watch, but people on Earth worry when the station stops sending signals and the convoy is late in arriving.

The convoy ship finally arrives and its captain announces that the robot blew up the space station! The people are angry until the captain explains that the robot did the only thing it could to provide a guiding light for the ship when a pirate boarded the station and turned off its beam. The people are so grateful that they erect a statue to the robot.

I'm always excited to see a new Ditko story, and I hope we'll be seeing plenty of them in the months to come. This one tells of a heroic robot and benefits from the artist's skill; the pirate looks like Baron Mordo from the Dr. Strange comics.-Jack

Next Week...
Amidst the Science Fiction,
a Good Old-Fashioned
Haunted House

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 174: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 159

January 1959

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #50

Cover by Joe Sinnott

"Worlds at War!" (a: Jack Davis) ★★

"Three Who Vanished" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

"Uneasy Lies the Head!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★1/2

"Adrift in Space!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

"The Green Fog!" (a: Matt Baker & Vince Colletta) ★1/2

In the year 1983, Martians land in a rural area and touch off a panic. The visitors request a meeting with the heads of government of the two factions on Earth, the Democrats and the Stinkin' Commies, and they are granted their wish, pronto. At the gathering, the Martian leader explains that the rest of outer space is plum tired of Earthling wars and violent antics; at some point, it is feared, humans will bring their aggression to other planets. That's a no-no.

So, informs the leader, Earth has one month to prepare for total annihilation at the hands of an even greater menace: Mars! The news startles all of Earth and the U.N. convenes a meeting, at which every nation agrees to put its differences aside and build a spacecraft to visit Mars and plead our case. In record time, that ship is built and an international crew is assembled. Blast off! When the boys land on Mars, they are in for a big surprise. Rather than armed forces, they are greeted with open arms and a wink and a nod; hey, that war stuff was just talk in order to get Earth to give up their hatreds and unite. C'mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together... and all that. Our crew heads back to Earth to give out the good news and peace becomes as common as mediocre Atlas funny books.

If this had been a few years before, in the paradise known as Pre-Code, that corny last panel would have been followed by an Army General excitedly predicting that, since Mars has no weapons, they'll be a pushover if we invade. Alas, no twist ending for "Worlds at War!" Just Hallmark Movie schmaltz and a heaping helping from The Day the Earth Stood Still. It's good to see Jack Davis's classic style around these parts again, even though it's short-lived. He'll have two stories published this month and then disappear again for four years. Jack does some interesting experimenting with the panel borders, enlarging some of the scenes to one-third page. 

Three men vanish at the same time under very odd circumstances. What's up? I'll tell you. Turns out these three men were casing Earth for an invasion from the "Supreme World" and they're back to give their reports to the Supreme Leader. After receiving the intel, the Leader informs the trio that they've done a heck of a job and now it's time to invade. Problem is, one of the men has become quite fond of Earth and doesn't want to see it become a slave planet, so he sabotages the Central Power and zaps himself back on Earth, confident that his new neighbors are safe. The script is nothing to get excited about (though certainly better than the opener), but Steve Ditko's art is dazzling, a teaser for what's to come in the 1960s. As with Jack Davis and "Worlds at War!," there are some detours from the usual panel framework; nothing as startling as Krigstein, but still much more freedom than was the norm. 

In the lifeless "Uneasy Lies the Head!," an assassin attempts to kill the "Leader", the all-knowing, supremely intelligent being who's ruled over Earth since the eradication of such trivial positions as the President of the United States. The thwarted attempt nevertheless raises several questions about the Leader and the "renowned" Dr. Zena aims to get to the bottom of who or what the Leader actually is. Spoiler Alert (for those who've never read an Atlas comic strip): he's a robot!

Billy is the most enthusiastic cadet on the Space Patrol, but Sgt. Devlin can't understand why the kid keeps reading those silly science fiction books. One day, the Sarge grabs Billy and throws him in a space jet and they go to investigate a strange SOS deep in space. It's during that mission that Devlin is glad the kid reads those dopey space opera stories. Don Heck's pencils at this point were still pretty darn good (this was way before he had to pick up the pace and turn in some sloppy superhero work) and the script for "Adrift in Space!" is at least readable, but the final panel, which explains everything that just happened in the previous page's panels, is pure Stan. Gotta make sure these kids don't scratch their heads in confusion and give up on Atlas science fiction.

Last up is "The Green Fog!," which chronicles the return of Dag Thale from the first solo flight in space. The festivities come to a grinding halt when a nasty green fog follows Dag out of his spaceship. The fog drifts and covers the globe, causing mass panic and calls for the head of Dag Thale. A few days later, the mist rises and Earth is much greener. It was a miracle brought to the dying soils of our world. Sigh.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #1

Cover by Don Heck

"The Strangers from Space!" ★★1/2

(a: Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, & Gray Morrow) 

"I Dared Explore the Unknown Emptiness!" 

(a: Don Heck) ★★1/2

"The Day I Left My Body!" (a: John Buscema) ★

"He Fled in the Night" (a: Uncredited) ★

(r: Kull the Destroyer #13)

"Prisoner of the Satellites!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

By the year 2000, Earth will have posts on the moon and Mars and the solar system seems to be Earth's play toy. Then a strange ship is spotted near Mars and by the time it lands on Earth, panic has set in. Fearful that the visitors are here to conquer our world, the military readies its mightiest weapons. The door to the ship opens and what appears to be a typical earthling emerges and explains it is here to begin trade negotiations. A heavy sigh is let out and, by the time the ship has rocketed into space, Earth knows it has found a new friend. Inside the ship, an ugly BEM turns off the machine that enabled it to look human and hopes that when it returns in 300 years, earthlings will be less suspicious creatures. 

"The Strangers from Space!" is yet another variation on the "we have to open our arms and welcome even the ones with tentacles and six eyes" morality tale that had become a staple of the Atlas sf story of the late 1950s. The difference here, obviously, is the detailed graphic work of  Williamson, Krenkel, and Morrow (the latter two  are name-checked in a couple of winks at the readers), which elevates (at least art-wise) this above most of the other pap being shoveled at the reader. It definitely feels like we've transitioned into a new era for Atlas genre titles. Like Journey Into Mystery, Strange Tales, and Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense would continue pumping out sf yarns until the superhero craze hit in the early 1960s and then ToS would become the home of Iron Man and Captain America until those two got their own titles.

"I Dared Explore the Unknown Emptiness!" adds to my hunch that something has changed. The story, about an Earth space crew searching the galaxy for another livable planet due to our foolish overpopulation, while simple, is definitely aimed a little higher than the usual eight-year-old mentality. In the end, the tale is way too preachy and silly (the ship's captain decides, after visiting several hostile planets, that the people of Earth will "somehow correct" the errors made in the past without positing a way in which to head down that course), but I appreciate the effort and Don Heck's visuals are snazzy.

Wells is serving a long sentence for second-degree murder when he decides he ain't cut out for life in a cell, so he tries to escape (armed with a butter knife) and is shot in the head for his troubles. Well, this is Atlas after all, so the bullet only "creases" him, but the upside is that his spirit leaves his body and is free to roam. So, what should Wells do with this sudden spiritual freedom? Rob another candy store? Get revenge on the jurists who convicted him? No, this convict is a little bit smarter. 

When Wells spies big-shot lawyer Martin Shaw in one of his fellow inmates' cells, he uses his mind to push Shaw into reopening his case and freeing him. Wells's spirit finally reunites with his wounded body and Shaw visits his cell, agreeing to represent him in a new case. Wells finds he still has the power to influence other minds so rather than, say, influence the warden to open the gate for him, he continues to push and push harder for Shaw to win the case in court. But the joke's on Wells; he pushes so hard that Shaw becomes exhausted and muffs the trial. Wells is found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Finally, a happy ending to one of these things! 

In the early 18th century, a simple clerk at a banking firm has daydreams about being so much more. Maybe a caveman fighting a Wooly Mammoth or a knight fighting a dragon. Something more than just these dadburned ledgers. In a fit, our protagonist quits his job and joins the crew of a sailing vessel, still dreaming of a life of adventure. In the end, we discover his name is Robinson Crusoe. Meh. "He Fled in the Night" sinks under its lifeless script and bland artwork.

Mark Coren finds himself a "Prisoner of the Satellites!" when his body is trapped in a constantly moving vortex of meteor fragments. What Mark doesn't know is that his conundrum is the work of outer space villains, preparing an invasion of Earth. Coren begins shrinking fast but, thanks to the brainwork of Earth's scientists, his shrinkage and the alien attack are thwarted at precisely the same time. Earth is safe... for now. Be careful what you wish for, Atlas science fiction fans. Here's a script that might be a little too complicated for a young audience since I had to read it twice to get the gist of what was happening. The text is definitely hard sf (The action of the orbiting fragments has set up a force which moulds the matter of Mark's body into a more solid compact unit!) and Ditko's art gives the piece the cosmic vibe the artist would become famous for during his Doctor Strange run. Mark doesn't use his sudden little person status to rob liquor stores so why should I complain?-Peter

Tales to Astonish #1

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"We Found the Ninth Wonder of the World!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule)

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #4)

"I Know the Secret of the Poltergeist!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1, Uncanny Tales #6)

"I Was the First Man to Set Foot on... the Mystery Planet!" ★

(a: Carl Burgos)

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #4)

"I Foiled an Enemy Invasion!" (a: Jack Davis) ★1/2

Dr. Parker disappeared in a hidden corner of the world a decade ago and now Professor Briggs and the crew of Captain Kane's ship are out on the waters looking for him. They catch a four foot starfish and a twelve foot lobster and know they're onto something. A giant moving object the size of an island rams their ship and the crew takes to the lifeboats while Briggs and Kane survive by lashing together two oil barrels and floating to a nearby island.

On the island they find that natives have built an enormous wall and tied Parker to a post in front of it. Briggs and Kane soon join Parker, who admits that his serum causes creatures to experience uncontrolled growth. A turtle the size of a building bursts through the wall and the trio manage to free themselves and leave the island by means of a convenient motor boat that Parker kept handy for just such an occasion. On the water, they observe Experiment XYZ, Parker's first subject, which is a turtle the size of a mountain. The men realize that "We Found the Ninth Wonder of the World!"

It's good to see Kirby's pencils, but this story is a mashup of King Kong and Wild Kingdom. There's no real suspense and little point to the conclusion, where the men see a really big turtle. The closest thing to a sense of danger occurs in Kane's mind when he imagines bringing the big turtle back to civilization but realizes it would wreak havoc in a large city.

A young couple buy a house, not worrying about rumors that it's haunted. Objects start to jump around and they contact an investigator of the supernatural who tells them, "I Know the Secret of the Poltergeist!" He does a thorough check of the house and assures them that everything has a rational explanation, but he buys it from the young couple for further study. After they leave, he removes his mask and reveals that he is a poltergeist!

Ditko is at his peak here and the investigator looks a lot like Dr. Strange, with grey hair at the temples. As is often the case with Atlas stories, not a lot happens and the artist has to try to make things interesting with kooky events in the panels. The final. large panel, where the poltergeist pulls off his mask and is joined by the others who have been haunting the house, is great.

In the year 2095, two men are using robot labor to build an underground city when a mysterious, electric-ridden planet approaches the Earth and causes all the robots to malfunction. Tom, one of the duo, hates robots but is excited to see that the new planet has caused radioactive oil to pour down on Earth. He sets off in a spaceship to visit the new planet and secure the oil rights; when he lands, he can say that "I Was the First Man to Set Foot on... The Mystery Planet!"

He meets kind, tall, bald people who tell him that oil is their staff of life. Insisting on making a deal, Tom excitedly jumps into a pool of oil and oily arms envelop him; one of the creatures rescues him and is consumed by the pool. Another reveals that they're all telepathic robots who know he hates them and they banish him from their planet, sending him back to Earth.

I know Carl Burgos is one of the pioneers of comics, but his art here is nearly as bad as the incoherent story. Tom goes on and on about how much he hates robots, so any reader paying attention and not asleep knows that the folks on the mystery planet have to be robots.

A reporter named Mark Briton is driving around in 2008 when he begins to see billboards popping up everywhere that feature a photo of what appears to be an alien soldier holding a gun and a strange message: "The Ten Uous Are coming!" He soon realizes that they are harbingers of an alien attack and he is able to say, "I Foiled an Enemy Invasion!" after all the billboards are rounded up and the tenuous, two-dimensional soldiers step out of the pictures and surrender.

I can only assume that the page rates were so low that Jack Davis did not put a lot of effort into this story, which is as weak as the rest of the tales in this issue. The first appearance of Tales to Astonish is certainly different from the sludge we've been seeing from Atlas for quite a while now, but it still suffers from poor scripts and hasty art. The Ditko pages are the highlight.-Jack

Next Week...
Despite what Harlan Said, We Discover
This Guy Was a Heck of an Artist!