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 176: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 161

March 1959

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #51

Cover by Russ Heath

"The Ghost Ship of Space" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★

"The Creatures in the Volcano" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Wally Wood)

(r: Crazy #65) ★★1/2

"The Prison Planet!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★★1/2

"Alien on Earth!" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★★

"Robot on the Rampage!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★★★

"The Ghost Ship of Space" is wreaking havoc throughout the universe, causing the disappearance of three space vessels in just a month! When the military sends yet another ship (the Saturn 934) out to find what's going on, Daily Cosmos reporter Frank Brandon is sent along to get the skinny for his millions of readers.

It isn't long before Frank's rocket spots the Ghost Ship and gives chase. In a matter of seconds, the craft does a 180 and heads right for the good guys, but the Ghost Ship flies right through them. It really is a ghost ship! The Saturn follows the specter to a nearby planet, where the crew is taken prisoner by an army of BEMs. 

The Saturn crew meets up with the missing men they'd been sent to rescue and they learn that the BEMs are trying to build their own spaceship in order to conquer the galaxy, but they just don't have the brain power. Frank fools the creatures with a fake bomb and the boys are soon heading back to Earth with a crazy story to tell. Standard space opera with a silly twist at the end, but some sharp Sinnott graphics.

Tubuai is the leader of a tribe living on a volcanic island. When the volcano gets set to blow, he urges his people to move to the neighboring island of Ono-I-Lau until it's safe to return home. Time passes, the lava cools, and the people head back. But Tubuai is suspicious; he does not believe the eruption was organic. He climbs the high mountain and descends into the volcano, where he is assaulted by a trio of aliens, who explain that they are a scouting party from the planet Igneous Rex and they plan to wipe out mankind and claim Earth as their own.

Thinking fast, Tubuai contacts the United States Government, which had made him an offer to buy the island years ago, and offers to sell his home dirt cheap. The tribe moves to another island and the US begins its atom bomb testing on the volcanic island. A pretty good story with a great ending, but it's pretty lame that Tubuai claims he can't tell his people the truth about "The Creatures in the Volcano" until he's "won back their respect." We're moving into classic Kirby Atlas-era sci-fi comics, with lots of faces looking into "the camera" and finger pointing. I'm not sure Wally Wood made a good inker on the King's material; Rule was a safer bet. The three aliens could have fit well in a Fantastic Four strip.

Two million years ago, criminals were sent on a rocket ship to colonize "The Prison Planet!" It took centuries, but the pilgrims in the new world managed to make a go of it; now and then, new "inmates" were dropped off and forced to acclimate. Meanwhile, back on the home planet, the population had gone soft since crime had been all but eradicated; this left them weak and open to attack by enemies from other planets. Civilization is wiped out and the planet is left a barren landscape. Back on the prison planet, over the centuries, the marooned have gotten a lot smarter and they've built their rocket ships. They intend to return home--to Mars. Good surprise there in the final panel, but I'm afraid Carl Burgos's art is getting rougher.

"Alien on Earth!" is another take on The Day the Earth Stood Still, wherein an alien exits his parked spaceship and causes panic all around the world. After the US government drops an A-bomb on the creature, it turns and leaves. Mankind is safe once more. In the final panel, we discover the alien was on a mission to see if the human race was still bloodthirsty and he reports back to his C.O. that in no way can Earth people be allowed to roam freely through the galaxy. Yep, the climax is exactly what we expected it would be and there are plenty of stinkin' commie digs to go around, but the art is pretty darn good.

One hundred years in the future, man has perfected the robot and now has very little to do. But then the mechanical servants begin breaking down and a "Supreme Calculator," a robot to watch over all robots, is created to restore order. But then the SC begins thinking on its own and before you can say Terminator 2: Judgment Day, humans are slaving for the gizmos. Thank goodness for the human spirit, though, as one particularly clever worker notices the SC's plug is dirty and disconnects it from the wall. As Earth breathes a sigh of relief, the scientists go back to the drawing board to make the perfect robot. Wonderful little SF classic, a heck of a lot smarter than most of the scripts being passed around the Atlas lunchroom (could it have been written by the artist himself?), and some dazzling work by Steve Ditko.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #2

Cover by Steve Ditko

"Invasion from Space" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★1/2

"Trapped in Yesterday!" (a: Carl Burgos(?)) ★★1/2

"The Planet That Wasn't There!" (a: Russ Heath) ★★

"The Secret of Planet 'X'!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

"A Robot in Hiding!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★

An armada of massive ships appears over the skies of New York; could it be an "Invasion from Outer Space"? The heads of each nation gather and decide the best action to take would be to blow the strangers out of the sky. One man, a really smart and brilliant Einstein look-alike, offers a different strategy: disarm the world's super powers and show the visitors they want peace.

"Nyet!" "Nein!" and "Nuts!" are the leaders' answers and before you can say "Armageddon," a host of the East and West's "mightiest missiles" are fired off at the spaceships. After the smoke clears, a stunned audience realizes this enemy is a whole lot stronger than assumed. In a panic, the leaders agree to Option B and immediately destroy their bombs, missiles, submarines, guns, slingshots, espresso machines, anything that could be construed as a weapon. The ships then leave the airways and the world breathes a sigh of relief. Elsewhere, in the "private observatory" of the peaceful professor who suggested Option B, a sigh and a chuckle are emitted as the scientist admits to his wife he wasn't sure his ruse would work. You see, confident that the Earth was ruled by men who weren't the brightest bulbs in the box, the scholar had projected a really convincing picture of spaceships onto the New York skies to nudge the world into peace. 

You can tell that The Day the Earth Stood Still left its mark on Stan, Jack, and the boys, since every possible variation on the plot would be squeezed out like a lemon from here until the Fantastic Four appeared (even popping up in the superhero comics as well). The reveal, that no one would notice that the vessels were really a projected image, is a hoot. I guess our hero, the scientist, was sure that all the combined firepower wouldn't accidentally start some apocalyptic chain reaction in our atmosphere. The 1950s Atlas world was clearly one that could be swayed by parlor tricks, in stark contrast to the real world we live in now. Hmmm.

While the ingenious and smart Professor Wilkes puts the final touches on his... wait for it... time machine, buck-toothed simpleton Jason Grubb, a mild-mannered mop-pusher, watches from the shadows in envy. Once Wilkes attaches all the little signs to each knob and button (so that he won't forget which lever to pull to go back in time and which one is the brake), Jason's diseased brain concocts a brilliant but evil plan: he will steal the Professor's new invention, go back in time to Camelot, convince King Arthur he's a genius, and live like... well, a king, I guess.

Jason runs home, grabs his TV set, a portable radio, and a camera, and heads back to the lab. Evidently not as dumb as he looks, he sets the way-back machine for August 20, 500 and something, the exact moment when King Arthur is hanging out in his castle, sets a timed explosive device to destroy the time machine so that Professor Wilkes won't find him, and settles back in for the ride. Sure enough, moments later, he is being escorted into the castle with his three forms of magic tucked under his arm (a full-size TV set weighed a lot less in 1959) for an audience with King Arthur. In short order, he's reminded that: there is no electrical outlet for the TV set, radio stations have not been invented yet (No rap music? Camelot, here I come!), and there's no technology to develop pictures. Pissed that his time has been wasted, Arthur orders Jason to be his new royal mop boy. All that our hapless moron can do is hope Professor Wilkes can build a new gizmo and rescue him.

"Trapped in Yesterday!" is about as dopey as they come, but you have to admit it's entertaining as well. Each successive failure on Jason's part is one part cringe-inducing and one part chuckle-worthy, as is the fact that this janitor would form an elaborate plan involving Camelot instead of going back a week or two and making a killing on the stock market or the horse races. 

In 2026, the president of the free world looks on as a rocket ship is launched and falls back to Earth, exploding in a massive fireball. This was the 17th such trial to perfect a rocket ship that can search the galaxy for another inhabitable world, one he is convinced exists. You see, this world is overpopulated and time is running out; there are only so many Swanson Frozen TV dinners to go around. Anyway, after the 17th failure, the president goes home and discusses the future with his daughter, Elizabeth. Surely the launches must stop, laments his gorgeous daughter. "No, we must forge on," the man grimly reminds her, "and don't call me Shirley."

Soon after, the 18th ship is launched, breaks the planet's ozone layer, and then explodes. As he sighs the sigh of a man with the world on his shoulders, the president is approached by one of his aides and informed that Elizabeth snuck aboard the doomed flight. Finally convinced that the project is for naught, the president hangs his head and laments that the world he's been searching for, one he calls "Earth," probably doesn't exist. I've always wondered how it is that far off worlds know that our planet is called "Earth." Could they be listening in to Alan Freed's Saturday night rock 'n' roll show? Is there a giant sign that can be seen only from space that identifies our big rock (and perhaps outer space signposts that notify our weary travelers that there are only 64,000,000 miles left in their journey?)? Alas, "The Planet That Wasn't There!" answers none of those questions but does allow us a rare (for 1959) look at Russ Heath's majesty. 

In the far-flung future, the tyrant Kluge becomes bored of ruling over his tiny world and wishes to expand his power base. He commands his underlings to build a rocket ship and he and the crew set off to find a conquerable world. They land on Planet X and the locals seem very amenable to slavery; Kluge has found his new kingdom. Or so he thinks. There's a very good twist in the tail and some nice Ditko art to slobber over; the number one lesson to learn from "The Secret of Planet 'X'!" is that communism is not the answer to happiness.

After Roderic Zante, the supreme ruler of the entire world, declares that all robots must be rounded up and deactivated, a mild-mannered android leaves his family of humans and becomes "A Robot in Hiding!" Our robotic protagonist sets out on a journey to change Zante's mind and restore "freedom" to his android brethren. Once he gets to the ruler's palace and breaks in, he discovers that Zante is a robot himself, programmed to lust for power rather than serve. Our hero pushes Zante's button and shuts the ruler's power down once and for all. Peace is restored to the galaxy and robots are reactivated, biding their time until they can overthrow their human captors. That last part was just me trying to inject some razzle-dazzle into a very boring and oft-told tale.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #2

Cover by Steve Ditko

"When Aliens Meet!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

"I Fell to the Center of the Earth!" (a: Matt Baker & Vince Colletta) ★

"I Was a Man in Hiding!" (a: John Buscema) ★1/2

"I Spent Eternity in a Deep Freeze!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★

"My Job: Capture a Martian" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

Dunstan Craig is the most ruthless hunter of alien creatures in the year 2058, traveling from planet to planet and bringing back specimens for zoos on Earth without a shred of pity for those he captures. When the spaceship he's riding on has an emergency, Dunstan hops into an emergency space boat and zips off to the nearest planet, but "When Aliens Meet!" the hunter gets a taste of his own medicine and is put on display in a zoo.

Don Heck's art is muscular and exciting, but any reader who didn't see that ending coming should turn in his comic book badge here and now.

An archaeologist named Henry Burke jumps at the chance to head to Asia and dig deep down into the Earth with the latest atomic-powered equipment. He investigates an obstruction and soon remarks that "I Fell to the Center of the Earth!," where he encounters cavemen and a dinosaur. After he is pulled back to the surface and convinced he imagined it all, one of his crew digs up a rusted, moldy cigarette lighter engraved with Burke's name.

Matt Baker may have done some great work in the Golden Age, and I respect him for being one of the early Black comic book artists, but this story is a dud. There's no rational basis for anything that happens and the concluding twist has been done to death.

In the year 2087, everyone wears a wristband that allows the police to locate people at a moment's notice. This cuts down on crime, but when Harry Grant reads about the discovery of a new planet, he realizes his long held ambition and robs his company's payroll. Harry rents a rocket ship and takes off for the new planet, figuring that he won't be traced, since the wristbands won't work away from Earth. Sadly, Harry's hope that "I Was a Man in Hiding!" would be a successful plan is thwarted when he arrives at the new planet and discovers that he towers over everyone else there.

The GCD suggests that this is a Wessler script, and it reads like one, since the main character's biggest concern is committing robbery. The art by John Buscema is adequate but looks nothing like the work we'd see ten or fifteen years later, when his characters always seemed to have muscles like bowling balls.

"I Spent Eternity in a Deep Freeze!" is another story penned by Wessler, with another character robbing a payroll. This time it's Joe Sykes, who pilfers cash from a self-service refuel center on a satellite. He volunteers to be frozen for a long space voyage, thinking he'll be famous when he gets back. Somehow he awakens in another dimension, where no one on Earth can see or hear him.

This story is truly awful, with sub-par art by Carl Burgos and a script by Carl W. that ends in a fashion that makes absolutely no sense.

Garner is a private eye who is surprised to learn that "My Job: Capture a Martian" is his latest assignment. A professor bursts in with a wild story about seeing a flying saucer land; when he investigated the craft, he found it empty, but soon an explosion left no trace of it. Garner takes the case and begins to search. Eventually, he gives up and tells the professor he's had enough. What the professor doesn't know is that Garner is the Martian and he has just eliminated the last shred of suspicion!

Thank goodness Joe Sinnott turns in a decent job on the artwork here, because this story is just about as bad as the rest in this dreadful issue. If this is the big Atlas revival, we're in trouble.-Jack

Next Week...
More Kirby
Giant Monster Madness

The Hitchcock Project — Book Now Available!

We are excited to announce a new title now available from Cimarron Street Books — Sources of Suspense:  Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the Stories That Shaped It!

Drawn from the 14-year series of blog posts in the Hitchcock Project, the book has been fully edited and updated. Now you can have all of the details about the Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series at your fingertips in one handy volume. No need to go searching online and clicking back and forth among endless links to find your favorite episodes!

You can order the book directly from Cimarron Street Books here and from Amazon here. It's available in both an oversize trade paperback and hardcover!

The companion volume, covering The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, will be published by Cimarron Street Books later this year.

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 175: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 160

February 1959

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Strange Tales #67

Cover by Joe Sinnott

"Trapped Between Two Worlds!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

"I Seek the Sea Serpent" (a: Don Heck) ★★★

"I Was the Invisible Man!" (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule)

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2)

(r: Giant-Size Man-Thing #1) ★★1/2

"The Man Who Never Was!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★1/2

Brilliantly smart egghead scientist Jeff Raye is working on a matter transporter when his *%$#ing cat gets nosy and pushes the wrong button. Jeff is instantly transported to another planet, in another galaxy, one ruled by war-hungry tyrants. These mad warriors see Jeff's machine as a way for them to conquer the universe, but Jeff has an ace up his sleeve and returns to Earth to destroy his dangerous invention.

I won't even attempt to figure out what most of "Trapped Between Two Worlds!" is about; there's just too much science fictiony mumbo-jumbo for my small brain to work out. I'll quickly say, though, that Ditko's emergence as one of the go-to Atlas artists is an immediate game changer. This doesn't look anything like the strips that were running only a few months before and the extra page count (six as opposed to three or four) will help the stories breathe. 

Efrem becomes obsessed with the legend of a sea serpent that supposedly rears its head now and then in the waters of South America. With the help of a small crew, Efrem explores the aforementioned sea waters and, sure enough, the sea serpent makes an appearance, but a panicked captain fires a harpoon and kills the beast. It sinks to the bottom of the ocean and, when Efrem dives down to recover the really big corpse, the truth is unveiled. The thing was an alien from the water planet Aqua-Centurious, and it was merely trying to reach its damaged ship at the bottom. Now, all its secrets are lost, thanks to the foolishness of man. 

Big monsters were all the rage at the local cinema in 1958, so it's no wonder Atlas would dip its toes in the sub-genre (very soon the company would simply take its shoes off and dive right in). I enjoyed "I Seek the Sea Serpent" very much and must once more cast a positive vote for the art of Don Heck. Now, I agree he was no Al Williamson when it came to dinosaurs and big monsters, but he got the job done and his human characters are more than stick figures. I'm all in on this new era (for now).

Decades before playing drums for U2, Adam Clayton was just another brilliantly smart egghead working on his big invention, the Vibra-Light™, a groundbreaking gizmo that changes sound into light and other really cool, useful tricks. Setting the machine on stun, Adam receives a dose of fabricated ray beams and finds he can travel at the speed of light. This makes him virtually invisible. While out running through the streets doing silly tricks (pinching girls on the rump, etc.), Adam happens upon a gang of bank robbers and steals their booty.

Though he contemplates keeping the dough and entering a life of crime, Adam has a better idea. He returns the cash to the cops and lets them know there's a new boss in town: the Invisible Man! Evidently, one of the benefits of the Vibra-Light™ is that it enables Adam to do things he never could do before, so he builds houses and KOs boxing champs for fun and profit. But, alas, Adam discovers that his new power is also draining his energy and aging him at an alarming clip, so he puts his Invisible Man identity out to pasture and retires to live out what few years he has left.

What a downer of a climax! I love it! I'm glad the writer (Kirby?) opted not to push Adam into the cliched life of crime and instead chose helping his fellow man (well, except when he takes the tires off the car belonging to a couple of hot rodders while they're speeding down the highway). The National Enquirer-esque confessional titles ("I Was the Invisible Man!") are in full swing already, as is the dawn of Jack Kirby's utter dominance of Atlas/Marvel science fiction. Hard to believe that this was only the fifth appearance by Kirby in the Atlas sf titles; from now until November 1962 (when the sf/f stories would dry up altogether), Kirby would work on a further 186 stories and miss work only two months in that time. 

The spinning wheel inside the Atlas break room gets spun one more time and lands on... the time machine (I believe the wheel actually had only three options); therefore, we get the mundane and oft-told tale of Eric Bohn, the greedy assistant to smart, genius scientist, Professor Atherton, who's just put the last touches (blue paint job) on his time machine. Eric urges the prof to go back in time and make lots of money, but the egghead warns that if anything in the past gets changed, yadda yadda yadda. Do I have to tell you that Eric isn't listening to his mentor's speech and decides he's going back to find where Captain Kidd stashed his gold? Of course, he accidentally shoots and kills one of his ancestors (Holy Coincidence!) and thus disappears. I would love to report that "The Man Who Never Was!" is the last time travel tale we'll have to read for a while, but I'm sure the next one is right around the corner.-Peter

Strange Worlds #2

Cover by Steve Ditko

"I Was a Prisoner on the Planet of Plunder!" (a: Don Heck) 

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) ★★

"I Was the Miracle Man" 

(a: Al Williamson & Marvin Stein?) ★1/2

"I Saw the Day the World Ended!" (a: Bob Bean?) ★

"The Little Lost Planet" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

"I Am the Scourge of Atlantis!" (a: Dick Ayers) ★

Rick Dugan, agent of IGSSD (Inter-Galactic Spaceways Security Division) tackles his toughest case yet: six cargo ships have been hijacked on Route 34 (just west of the Kessel Run) and his boss wants Rick to disguise himself as a cargo ship captain and see what's what. Since none of the captains of the hijacked cargo ships have been able to provide intel, Dugan is convinced the perps are using hypnotism to pull off their heists.

Dugan visits many planets and all seems calm and serene until he hits Promixa the Second and suddenly the veil is lifted. The aliens on Proxima have been stealing the cargo by using a sinister form of hypnotism--hyper-sonic frequencies! Instead of hypnotizing with their eyes, these guys hum you to sleep and then commit their foul deeds. Lucky for Dugan he's deaf! Oh yeah, you read that right. Evidently, far into the future, special agents don't need their hearing to do the job. The twist of "I Was a Prisoner on the Planet of Plunder!" is a cheat, fer sure, but Don Heck doesn't seem to have read the script and just goes about his business of producing pleasant panels. 

"I Was the Miracle Man" is the story of Bruno Storme, the world's most intelligent guy, who becomes bored being the best at everything, so he builds himself a rocket ship and flies to another galaxy to conquer some unknown planet. Unfortunately for Bruno, this planet is populated by really smart geniuses who put Bruno on exhibit in a zoo. We've seen that last panel a thousand times before and it's no better this time. The usual dazzling graphics of Al Williamson are watered down by an awful inking job; it's tough to see Al through the muck.

Speaking of muck, I dare anyone to wade through the slop passed off as art on "I Saw the Day the World Ended!" Literally the world's smartest man, Professor Garth is working on a machine that can see the future (and telecast it without commercial interruption), but the poor guy has a heart attack just before he plugs the darn thing in. The military, deciding it's in the best interest of mankind to find out what's around the corner, orders the machine hooked up and the view screen spits out a video of the sun exploding and Earth facing an ice age. 

The smart thing to do would be to hide the extinction of mankind from the extinguishees, but the military has never been accused of making astute decisions, so word gets leaked. Prof. Garth awakens from his long sleep and is told what's happened. The egghead, lying in his hospital bed, chuckles and admits his machine has a few kinks to be worked out. It's showing a video of the past rather than the future! A final panel explains that once mankind was given hope, we began loving our neighbor and inviting the commies over for dinner. 

A small planet continually pops up in the skies when a calamity occurs. A falling statue in India threatens to crush hundreds until the little ball rescues them. An ocean liner strikes an iceberg and, before it can sink, it is teleported to a safe shore by the beaming little planet. Several more accidents are halted thanks to this visitor from space. But why is it here? Because, as we're told in the finale, it's "The Little Lost Planet"! Like "Trapped Between Two Worlds!," the script is a bit wonky and at times makes little to no sense, but I really dig what Ditko is doing with his layouts. Large panels are invaded by smaller ones, which can be crowded out by other small ones. Like Bernie Krigstein, Ditko was throwing the formula right out the break room window and doing whatever the hell he wanted, inspiring future artists such as Jim Steranko in the process. 

Last and definitely least this issue is "I Am the Scourge of Atlantis!," wherein the population of the sunken city decide it's high time to invade the surface world, but when they get there they see something so horrible they tuck tail and run. The awful sight? A toddler on the beach. You see, Atlantis was a really tiny nation when it sunk. This clunker signals the return of Dick Ayers, who'd been on sabbatical since 1957 and who will see lots of work between now and the sunset of Atlas.-Peter

World of Fantasy #16

Cover by Carl Burgos and Bob Forgione (?)

"Nightmare Planet" (a: Joe Sinnott)

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) ★★

"Arise, Oh Geni..." (a: Steve Ditko)

(r: Vault of Evil #15) ★★

"Worlds Within Worlds!" (a: Carl Burgos)

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) ★1/2

"Beware the Future!" (a: Al Williamson) ★1/2

"Prison 2000 A.D." (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule)

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) ★★

Through his telescope, a scientist observes a "Nightmare Planet" hurtling toward Earth! It's 2000 times bigger than the sun and populated by giant soldiers. Colonel Ken Travers is sent into space with a dozen men in order to find out what the aliens' intentions are. He arrives on the huge planet, sees that everything and everyone seems to be standing still, and realizes that time passes more slowly there. Ken returns to Earth to share the good news that the aliens won't even notice our planet, since it's so small and they'll pass by it before they're even aware it's there.

We've seen this twist before. The only novel thing about the latest version is that Joe Sinnott's art is smooth and competent, though it's nothing special.

A history teacher named Claude Hicks, who has terrible hay fever, finds the famous lamp among ancient ruins and releases the genie, who announces that he is all-powerful and has no intention of being Claude's slave. The genie quickly catches Claude's hay fever and is made so miserable by his own sneezing and coughing that he begs Claude to return him to the lamp. Claude throws it down a deep water hole so the genie will never again be freed. The story is terrible, but "Arise, Oh Geni..." features gorgeous art by Steve Ditko, so at least it's nice to look at.

In 2590, scientist Paul Stratton is certain that there are "Worlds Within Worlds!" and that a universe can exist in a drop of water. Despite his efforts to magnify tiny things, no one believes him. Unbeknownst to Paul, in the drop of water is a tiny world, where another scientist is ridiculed for his theory that there could be a bigger world out there somewhere. Every last thing in this story is predictable, right down to the snoozer of a finish. Carl Burgos's art is adequate.

Luther Zorn invents a time machine in 1965 but tells his wife it must be kept a secret, since knowledge of the future would cause mankind's downfall. Emma nags him until he goes public and soon he sends government officials into the future, where all of the world's problems have been solved. This news causes people of Luther's time to stop trying, since they think the golden future is guaranteed. Luther sends himself and Emma fifty years into the future, leaving the machine set to be destroyed after they leave. What do they find in the altered future? Who knows? I really have no idea what the end of this story means. It seems like Luther decided that mankind would just have to find out about the future when it arrives. At least Al Williamson's art is decent, though nowhere near his best.

In the year 2000, crimes are rare, so when John Fox commits one he is captured and sent to "Prison 2000 A.D." Quickly escaping, he hops on a rocket ship and flies to Vestas 203 in the asteroid belt, where he uses his wits to survive. One day a group of miners arrive and establish a colony. John is unmoved when they tell him that a ten year old boy wandered off, but when he encounters the boy in danger and helps him, John is welcomed into the colony, where he becomes happy and productive. In reality, John has been in prison the whole time and his adventures were put into his mind; he'll serve his six-year sentence in this way and emerge a better man.

I prefer Ditko's art to Kirby's, but this is a satisfying story with an ending I didn't expect.-Jack

Next Week...
More Giant Monster Madness
From "The King"