Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 187: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction + Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 172

July-August 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #59

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Unleashed Shagg Upon the World!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Tomb of Darkness #18)

"I Was Trapped in Horror House!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Revenge of the Wooden Woman" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

"I Am the Beast-Man!" (a: Don Heck) ★★1/2

While rummaging through ancient Egyptian ruins, an archaeologist stumbles upon a strange mechanical device hidden beneath the desert. When he flips the switch on the panel, he gets the shock of his life as the nearby sphinx rises up and begins to talk to him. It introduces itself to the excavator as "Shagg, warrior from the third galaxy" and lays out its plot for world domination.

Our hero is drawn within the idol itself and must watch as Shagg works itself across the globe, destroying everything in its path. At one point, riddled with guilt, he screams "I Unleashed Shagg Upon the World!" but, alas, no one can hear him. After destroying Paris (and defeating the "battle-hardened" Parisian troops), Shagg decides America is where it's at and makes the long journey to the States. Reaching New York, Shagg is able to lay waste to skyscrapers while, at the same time, having an inner monologue with his prisoner. 

When Shagg spills the beans about a future invasion by the "fellow third galaxy warriors" who awakened him, our intrepid archaeologist reminds the big lunk that it was he, the puny human, who activated the switchboard. "Ah crap," the sphinx grumbles, "that means my backup ain't arrived yet. I'm too early!" Realizing that a few nukes could surely destroy a lone third galaxy warrior, Shagg uses his Cosmo-Gamma-Electro-Magnetic Wave-Doohickey™ to reassemble all the buildings he's damaged and erase all traces of himself from the minds of earthlings. He then heads back to Egypt for another slumber. With his memory erased, our hero, who fortunately took copious notes while he was terrified for his life, ponders whether the scrawl on the paper is from a fevered brain or whether Shagg will return another day!

These giant monster thrillers are pretty much criticism-safe since they're all loony and make little sense. That said, I always like to point out some of the more... imaginative aspects such as Shagg's boast that he comes from the "Third Galaxy." Is that meant to be third galaxy from our galaxy or third galaxy from the left or... which galaxy does Earth reside in?

In the formulaic "I Was Trapped in Horror House!," an escaped con finds himself hiding out in a carnival haunted house and, in the end, realizes it's actually the gateway to Hell. Well, Stan can't use the word "Hell" because that's a bad thing and the CCA would swoop in and shut Atlas down in a heartbeat, so he does the next best thing and shows the grim reaper and a sign outside the attraction that promises any who enter will meet their "true fate." Truly awful, with a microwaved script and rough panels courtesy of Paul Reinman.

Captain Cork loves only one thing more than the sea and that's the figurehead on his schooner, the beautiful Valkyrie. One dark day, pirates board Cork's ship and toss the Captain and his crew into a small rowboat with enough rations to last two days. Laughing, the pirates head off for treasures and adventures to come, little knowing that they will soon face "The Revenge of the Wooden Woman!" It's all very predictable (but then there are very few surprises to be found in Atlas Comics by 1960), but it's also a charming fantasy with some typically top-notch graphics from Mr. Ditko. If I was a ten year old kid in the Summer of '60 who knew nothing about good art, I'd be watching and waiting for this unnamed penciler who seemed to be able to make the most mundane of subjects magical and other-worldly. That said, the atmospheric splash (above) looks nothing like Steve's usual work.

You say, Peter, if these things are so formulaic and cliche-ridden and, sometimes downright boring, why do you keep reading the damned things? Good question, one that I and my writing partner ask ourselves and each other at least 15-20 times a week, depending on how many stories we have to read. My answer? "I Am the Beast-Man!" 

Secret Commie agent Igor Grozick boards a Russkie sub, armed with the most deadly disguise known to Western Civilization: a bear suit. No, now hang on, don't scoff. Just be patient. Igor's plot is to "sail" (in a life raft) from international waters (it's very hazy as to where the Russkies drop him off) to America and infiltrate the nuclear testing site just before a bomb is blasted, pose as a bear and, eventually, unmask the Americans for the fools they are. Igor easily does this despite the fact that he's on foot, has no visible food or water, and Nevada is hundreds of miles away from any seaport. Stop thinking for a moment and just go with the flow.

Anyway, our stinkin' commie protagonist manages to get to the site just as the bomb goes off and then waits patiently with his bear suit on for the scientists to arrive. When the big thinkers show up, Igor confronts them with a "talking bear" routine, explaining that the radiation from the bomb test has given him the power of speech. The scientists are awestruck (and apparently blind) and take their modern miracle back to the lab. When faced with examination and possible dissection, Igor reminds his captors that, under the Geneva Convention, bears have the same rights as humans and can deny any probing or bodily intrusions. 

Once the word gets out, Igor becomes a public sensation, appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show, giving lectures on hibernation and, at the United Nations, answering that age-old question, "Does a bear..." Just before he announces his intent to run on the next Republican Party ticket, Igor gets word from his bosses that it's time to take the suit off and show the American people just how gullible and stupid they are. He tells his audience that he must have a moment alone, heads in to his dressing room to finally take this stupid bear costume off, and (suhprize suhprize suhprize) finds that the disguise is now permanent. Igor looks at himself in the mirror, shrugs, and decides maybe it's not the Americans who are the дурацкий.

Now this is what I call a story. "I Am the Beast-Man!" made me laugh out loud more than Trump's recent "election integrity" speech, topping every inane twist along the way. I won't take up much more of your time but let's examine Igor's trip from sub to Nevada. I would assume the vessel dropped Igor somewhere off the Gulf of Mexico, which means he would have had to paddle several miles and then walk at least 1500 miles in a single day (Igor notes by morning I was at my destination...) across desert and mountains without any visible transport. With a large bear suit in his attache. Then he sits through the radioactive fallout, never exhibiting any side effects, and calmly converses with some very highly skilled and super-intelligent scientists while wearing a bear suit. The first thing I'd be thinking, were I Ivan, would be: can they see my face through this stupid mouth hole? Second, I'd think about the fact that my words don't synch with my lips. Then I'd worry that maybe that really big zipper on my back isn't hidden properly. Perhaps the Russkies were right; the Americans are gullible morons.

Perhaps my favorite image from "I Am the Beast-Man!" is Igor, standing on stage, holding his speech in his paws, debating the pros and cons of hibernation with a room full of hoity-toitys. This is comedic gold and the proof that even Stan had a sense of humor now and then. That is, if Stan meant it to be a joke.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #10

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Brought the Mighty Cyclops Back to Life!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #1)

"I Was Trapped in Nightmare Valley" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #4)

"Behind My Door Waits... Medusa!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #4)

"I Am the Shaggy Creature" (a: Don Heck) ★★

Duncan, a spoiled, rich young man who's never grown up, is on a boat ride with his girlfriend, the luscious Amanda, and he pops the question. Amanda turns him down, citing the fact that Duncan is a spoiled, rich young man who's never grown up, and then watches as Duncan proves her point by sulking. Ignoring possible danger, Duncan steers the craft into a fog bank and shudders as the ship hits something solid. Turns out the couple have run aground on an uncharted Mediterranean island and they make the best of their misfortune by having a look around the snow-covered landscape.

After scaling a steep mountain, Amanda and her halfwit beau stumble upon a terrifying discovery beneath the ice: the giant Cyclops of mythological lore! Sensing he's found the greatest archaeological relic of the 20th century, Duncan grabs an axe and starts chopping away, dollar signs flashing in his eyes. Though Amanda tries to talk him out of it, Duncan keeps swinging and soon the monster is free. Sure enough, the one-eyed behemoth rises from his icy tomb and chases the couple into a narrow crevice in the mountain. While it's trying to root them out, a ship appears on the horizon and the giant decides he wants a larger meal.

Duncan, feeling guilty as hell, exclaims "I Brought the Mighty Cyclops Back to Life!" and tricks the monster into walking on thin ice. Falling through the thin glacier, the Cyclops is trapped... until the next adventurer comes along. Amanda, seeing a vibrant he-man hero for the first time, agrees to be Mrs. Duncan and the couple sail off into the sunset. Though the script for "Cyclops" mines the same territory as King Kong, the art is dazzling. Though not as chilling as the Harryhausen version, this Cyclops is still a formidable figure and thankfully doesn't spend time delivering speeches about his past conquests or what he intends to do when he reaches the mainland; he just menaces. I have to also admit that this story holds a fond place in my nostalgic funny-book heart. I still remember walking into Thrifty Drugs at the ripe old age of eight and begging my mom to fork over fifteen cents for the first issue of Where Monsters Dwell, the cover subject of which was this here Cyclops. I took that comic home and read it to tatters. 

In the drab "I Was Trapped in Nightmare Valley!," a hunter heads into a forbidden Himalayan region despite the warnings of the locals. Turns out aliens landed there centuries before and possessed the local foliage. The trees are just waiting for their time to conquer Earth. Just then, a volcano erupts and wipes out the threat. Thank goodness for that. Much better is Steve Ditko's "Behind My Door Waits... Medusa!" An old man in a curio shop relates the tale of how he came to possess a very lifelike statue of a terrified man.  Behind an ornately carved door sits the most famous of the gorgon sisters, just waiting for her next victim. Of course, the customers who inquire then scoff at the old man's story, but none dares open the door. Some really special graphics here by Ditko; we never actually see Medusa, just a brief glance (and even then it looks like her mane is alive with bucatini rather than vipers), but the penciling is so detailed we never even give that a second thought. Like "Cyclops," this is one I vividly remember from the early days of Where Monsters Dwell.

Last up is "I Am the Shaggy Creature," wherein really smart genius and "world's greatest scientist" Victor Phillips is on the run from the police for making "fool-proof burglar tools" (!) and must hide out somewhere they won't suspect. He quickly whips up a potion that will turn him into a gorilla and just as quickly invents an antidote. He grabs both vials and heads off to a local carnival where he hides in one of the tents. When the cops finally trace Phillips to his hideout, he downs his formula and jumps into the gorilla cage, antidote at the ready. Unfortunately, Phillips doesn't allow for monkey body... monkey brain. Another strip that highlights just how squanderous these Atlas big brains could be. Phillips has the know-how to invent lots of legal, money-rich devices and he chooses to excel at a better safe cracker. Heck's art is adequate but it's the humorous final panel that wins the day.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #10

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Was Trapped by Titano the Monster That Time Forgot!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

(r: Tower of Shadows #7)

"Only I Know When the World Will End!!!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Fear #1)

"Something Lurks Inside!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Fear #1)

"What Was the Strange Power of Simon Drudd!!" ★★

 (a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule)

(r: Fear #1)(r: Crazy #76)

A humongous crab known as Titano has started appearing in various watery spots around the globe. It's so big that no one has ever seen more than a portion of the creature. The U.S. Navy is assigned to locate and destroy Titano, so they set out to sea and quickly find him. A descent by bathysphere gives the Navy men the first glimpse of the big fella, and soon an officer named Hartnell hatches a plan. A submarine is painted with luminous paint to attract Tinano's attention and passes by him. Titano gives chase and the sub heads north until it reaches the arctic. Just as Titano lunges for the underwater vessel, it swerves, and Titano is trapped in a glacier!

I am a bit concerned by what I just read in "I Was Trapped By Titano the Monster That Time Forgot." In the last panel, the Navy men wonder what will happen if the glacier thaws. With today's concerns about global warming, how long will it be before we start seeing online reports of Titano sightings? What then?

Why is everyone searching for the man known only as Kartu? He sits alone in a cave in Virginia and thinks back to his sudden, unexpected appearance on Earth, when he turned up in midtown Manhattan, claiming that he was from another planet. Kartu was taken to a hospital, where he said that he came from the planet Aqua-Centurius. He had been vacationing on Sertius Major and was on his way home when he suddenly found himself in a space and time warp that cast him into NYC. The only problem was that he knew that Earth was going to be destroyed the next day when a runaway planet crashed into it!

No one listened to him and he made his escape into the Blue Ridge Mountains. The next day, astronomers witnessed one planet collide with another and destroy it! Everyone realized that Kartu was telling the truth but had gotten mixed up about which planet he was on. Unfortunately, they can't make use of his knowledge because he's in hiding.

"Only I Know When the World Will End!!!" features average Heck art and a story that is a variation on others we've seen before. I'm getting tired of stories that begin in the middle and then have the main character think back to how it all began. I'm also tired of the titles with someone exclaiming, "I Know This or That!"

Ted Karson is the first man sent into outer space. When his ship returns, it circles the Earth and he sends no radio message. People wonder why! When a capsule is dropped from the ship, it's assumed to be a bomb, and his ship is destroyed. The capsule lands and is opened to reveal Karson's flight log.

He wrote that, on his way back to Earth, he landed on Planet X, where he discovered a race of evil, giant spiders. Karson rushed back to his ship, only to find spiders inside. He realized that they traveled on radio waves! One of the creatures bit him and he discovered that he carried a horribly contagious infection. He could not return to Earth and he could not send a radio message that the spiders could use to travel to our planet. His ship had to be destroyed and, by doing so, Earth was saved. A statue is erected to Karson, the man who saved his planet.

The story in "Something Lurks Inside!" is unusually clever and Ditko does his usual good job of illustrating it. This doesn't seem like a retread of a narrative we've read before, so it's more enjoyable than most of the Atlas tales.

A pair of scientists, Bentley and Simon Drudd, work to develop a serum that will restore youth. Everyone laughs at them, but they persist and finally nail it. Bentley wants to share it with the world, but Drudd wants to keep it for himself, postulating that he can take it over and over, accumulate knowledge, and rule the world! Drudd points a gun at Bentley and locks him in a walk-in freezer. Drudd drinks the serum and gets younger and younger until he ceases to exist. Bentley pulls the burglar alarm and tells the story to the cops when they arrive and let him out.

I was enjoying Kirby being Kirby in "What Was the Strange Power of Simon Drudd!!" until the end, when he fell back on the tired plot device of the scientist getting younger and disappearing. Maybe he watched The Incredible Shrinking Man on TV right before he churned this one out.-Jack

Strange Tales #76

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Am Dragoom! The Flaming Invader!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #2)(r: Weird Wonder Tales #11)

"Beware!! The Ghosts Surround Me!!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1) (r: Fantasy Masterpieces #1)

(r: Vault of Evil #19)

"The Dummy and Me!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Uncanny Tales #10)

"I Found the Mad Universe!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Uncanny Tales #11)

Victor Cartwright's monster movies are entertaining and profitable, but no one takes him seriously. Then one day, from the planet Vulcan arrives a giant creature made of fire who proclaims, "I Am Dragoom! The Flaming Invader!" Nothing on Earth can stop him and he surrounds the planet with a blanket of flame, making everyone beg for mercy. Dragoom is just settling in as world emperor when he is told of five fire creatures that have arrived in Mexico! He flies there to see them and, believing that they are fiery police from Vulcan, Dragoom flees the Earth, never to return, not realizing that they were just dummies created by the monster movie-maker Victor Cartwright. No one will sneer at him again!

Not bad at all! The end is fairly predictable, but Kirby and Ayers go to town with their depictions of Dragoom. He fills the splash page and takes up more than half of pages three and four. That's a lot of flames to color!

Hans and Gustav commit a robbery in a Transylvanian village and run into the forest. When Hans falls and breaks his leg, Gustav shoots and kills his partner to prevent the man from being caught and revealing his identity to the cops. Deep in the forest, Gustav comes upon a spooky hovel. Inside, he encounters creatures who explain that they live in a parallel dimension--they can't hurt him and he can't hurt them.

Gustav thinks the house is a good hiding place until he passes out. When he awakens, the cops arrive and he's ready to give himself up, but they can't see or hear him because he's now in a different dimension!

What exactly is the point of "Beware!! The Ghosts Surround Me!!"? First of all, there aren't really any ghosts, and they never exactly surround Gustav. Why does he end up in another dimension? Is it the dimension where the creatures live? Who knows? When their dimension is depicted, it resembles a futuristic world, but at the end, Gustav wanders off into a landscape of purple and blue circles. I don't think Carl Wessler was still writing Atlas stories by this point, but the random ending reminds me of something he'd pen.

A ventriloquist has a gambling debt and some crooks show up during his act to collect. After he's done performing on stage, he uses a brief moment of darkness to try to get to his dressing room, where he keeps a gun, but a crook is guarding the door, so the ventriloquist and his dummy head for the prop room. He evades the crooks only to find his gun gone from its drawer. The duo climb out a window and tumble into an alley, where the crooks find them lying on the ground and shoot the tall one. The crooks leave and the short one gets up, relieved that they thought he was the dummy and mistakenly shot the real dummy.

"The Dummy and Me" is just plain awful. Anyone with any sense could see the end coming a mile away. Paul Reinman's art isn't getting any better, either. he's now at the bottom of the Atlas artists.

Professor Dark has built a super-duper microscope that allows him to study the details of the tiniest atom. He discovers that atoms are tiny worlds and on one of them he observes signs of life! Dark witnesses war between the silhouetted creatures and is so horrified that he destroys the microscope. "I Found the Mad Universe!" he tells his assistant, not wanting to display more war and give anyone ideas for new weapons. He calls the atom world--wait for it--Earth!

Auggh! Not again! How many times do we have to suffer through this hackneyed plot and overused surprise ending? Ditko's art is really good, so there's that.-Jack

This Thursday...
Jack Extolls the Virtues of
Benny and Lombard!

And Next Week...
See What Happens When
Don Heck Puts His Foot Down and
Demands Better Scripts!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 186: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 171

May-June 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #58

Cover by Steve Ditko

"Return of the Martian!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

"I Found Rro... the Thing from the Bottomless Pit!" ★★

 (a: Don Heck & Jack Kirby)

"They Called Me a Witch!" (a: Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

"Beware!!! Of the Little Toy Men!!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Marvel Super-Heroes #29)

Minutes after the events documented in the riveting "The Martian" (in JIM #57), Zetora the giant orange Martian breaks out of his cell and heads for Manhattan. Leaving a path of destruction behind him, the swim trunks clad behemoth crushes everything the army throws at him and finally reaches his destination: the United Nations building. There, Zetora somehow squeezes in through the small doors and faces the leaders of all the nations on Earth. He delivers his ultimatum: surrender or perish. Seeing no other way around it, the leaders quickly give in like a bunch of children on a playground and hand Earth over to the Martian. 

Luckily, Zetora picks just that moment to fall over dead. You see, earthlings might be immune to the bacteria found on our planet but... Martians are not! So this will be the deux ex machina from here on out I suppose, with Stan throwing his hands up and shrugging. If it worked for H.G., it should work for Jack and Dick, right? "Return of the Martian" is short on substance but it's got some pretty good creature art.

In "I Found Rro... the Thing from the Bottomless Pit!," a New Mexico engineer digs a hole straight through to the Earth's core and releases a fire-breathing dragon that flies all the way to San Francisco and then comes back to the original dig site (why it did this is never revealed, but I assume it just wanted to check out the surroundings). The army blasts the dragon from the sky and the monster slides back into its hole, but not before dropping a small cylinder etched with hieroglyphic-like engravings. When the suddenly very busy United Nations has the scrawl deciphered, it tells the story of a peaceful dragon race at the center of the Earth that was hoping to meet up with new friends. However, in light of Rro's violent reception, the welcome mat has been pulled. Don Heck's Rro doesn't much resemble Ditko's cover creature; someone forget to tell Don that monsters wear shorts.

In 18th-century Salem, seamstress Amanda Dalton falls hard for handsome John Redmond, but his ex-gal, Evelyn, is a jealous shrew and spreads word throughout the village that Amanda is a witch. John denies the accusations to his neighbors and chalks it up to a jilted Evelyn, and the village folk seem to take his word. Still, Amanda turns down John's offer to marry him because... she really is a witch! "They Called Me a Witch!" ends with a twist we've seen on several occasions across several publishers. Without giant monsters, the Kirby/Sinnott art is pretty bland. Oddly enough, someone thought it okay to include the postal statement right on the splash!

In the finale this issue, "Beware!!! Of the Little Toy Men!!," a newspaper reporter tries to convince his editor that a local eccentric millionaire who's passing out free toy men to kids is actually an alien from space laying the groundwork for invasion. His toy men will rise up and conquer Earth when the time is right. Then the editor tells his journalist that he's insane and to get back to work. Regardless of the rebuff, our hero makes it his duty to alert the citizens of Earth. Some truly awesome graphics from Ditko here while the script is lifeless and, in the end, ridiculous. In the final panels, the reporter finally gets his editor to believe him by revealing a secret that should have the boss calling the men in white suits rather than the FBI!-Peter

Tales of Suspense #9

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Saw Diablo! The Demon from the Fifth Dimension!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Monsters on the Prowl #30)

"The Wrath of Chondu!" (a: Doug Wildey) ★★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #7)

"Time on My Hands!" (a: John Forte) ★

"Earth Will Be Destroyed!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(Crypt of Shadows #19)

"The Return of the Living Robot!" (a: Don Heck) ★

An intrepid adventurer overhears talk in a "gloomy Trinidad cafe" of a monster beyond all knowledge of science, a creature made of smoke that lives in the Sierra Madres. Unable to hold himself back, our hero heads to the Aztec village terrorized by the hazy behemoth. Sure enough, within minutes of arriving, the man is screaming "I Saw Diablo! The Demon from the Fifth Dimension!" The giant cloud telepathically relates his story to the bewildered human; Diablo has been on Earth for centuries, gathering up enough power to take over. Nothing on this puny planet can defeat it.

But just before Diablo gets on the walkie-talkie to his Diablo Brothers, our protagonist gets a brainstorm and fools the demon into heading home, job unfinished. Why would inhabitants of a "fifth dimension" recognize themselves as coming from a "fifth dimension?" Wouldn't they consider themselves the "first" and us the "fifth?" How do they know they're not the "sixth" or "tenth?" This must have been one of the easier big monster strips for Kirby to pump out, since Diablo resembles "The Squiggle from the Fifth Dimension." Though our brave adventurer goes nameless (he's the narrator), years later the character is identified as Ulysses Bloodstone, Monster Hunter. 

Doug Wildey's amazing art is the reason to wade through the three pages of "The Wrath of Chondu!," about a mind-reading showman who gets carjacked and must prove he really can warp men's minds. Wildey's work is extremely atmospheric, very much like that of Gene Colan's, and a breath of fresh air amidst so much monotony. Steve Gerber memorably brought Chondu back to team up with two other Atlas title bad guys (Dr. Nagan from "It Walks Erect" in Mystery Tales #21 and Dr. Morgan from "Prisoner of the Fantastic Fog" back in World of Fantasy #11) to take on The Defenders in that team's 21st issue. 

The other three-pager this issue, "Time on My Hands!," concerns a thief who steals into a government building and jumps in a just completed time machine. He sets the dial to 1975, jumps out, and heads for the local library, where he looks up the winning nags for the races on the day after he left. The knucklehead then heads back to his craft, only to find it missing. When he tells a passing cop that he's misplaced his time machine, the cop runs him in. Time machines have been illegal since 1973! Besides, the cop sighs, the dope parked his gizmo in a garbage disposal and it's been incinerated. This is an almost note for note rewrite of "Trapped in Tomorrow" from Strange Tales #68 (April 1959). The ink is barely dry before Stan is ripping himself off now.

Having destroyed their own world through nuclear war, the inhabitants of Gorgon look to make another world their own: Earth. The planet's supreme ruler orders his scientists to lock in their terrifying U-Gun on Earth and fire when ready. "Earth Will Be Destroyed!" But the eggheads are perplexed, since the U-Gun simply spins in circles, unable to fix on its target. Ya know why? Cuz Gorgon is a tiny speck on a microscope slide and it's about to be washed away. Another groaner aided significantly by the dazzling pencil of Mr. Ditko. Last up is "The Return of the Living Robot!," a sequel to last issue's "It Walks By Night!" The Living Robot survives his fall into the sea and vows vengeance on mankind by... returning to civilization and changing the dumb laws that make robots illegal. 

No destruction or widespread panic in this guy's plans. The Robot steals the identity of his friend, Cyril Stredford, a man who has the ear of the House of Commons and pleads his case to the government. Just as the law is about to be repealed, the real Cyril bursts through the doors, screaming "I Was Attacked by the Living Robot Who Wasn't Really Me!" The Robot grabs a hunk of the highway, but Cyril catches up to him and, in a brutal brawl, tosses the artificial man off a roof and then ponders whether a good robot like himself can change the views of mankind. Yep, Cyril is a robot too!!! Who'd a thunk? As dumb as this entry is, I do like the idea of sequels to these Atlas tales. I'm not saying that will raise the level of quality, but it's an interesting idea.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #9

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"Return of the Genie!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Vault of Evil #11)

"No Way Out" (a: Steve Ditko) ★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #34)

"I Saw Droom the Living Lizard!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #8)(r: Where Monsters Dwell #28)

"Fangs of the Bear" (a: Doug Wildey) ★

(r: Crypt of Shadows #13)

After months of being stuck in a bottle resting in swamp mud, the genie is freed when an old feller happens by and pulls the cork for a peek inside. Seeking revenge on the human race, the genie flies to Manhattan and covers it with a magic vapor that removes the law of gravity. He then flies to Chicago and reduces everyone to insect size, then to Detroit, where he turns domestic pets into giants, and on to other cities.

His big idea is to bring the moon to Earth, scaring people who fear a collision. Finally, he creates an army of goliaths and takes over one country after another. The genie plans to take over the galaxy but, when his spaceship exits Earth's atmosphere, he loses his powers. Next thing he knows, he's back in the bottle in the swamp, aware that he'll remain trapped until he learns a lesson about greed.

Kirby and Ayers draw some decent panels depicting the mad genie, but the story goes nowhere. Was any reader clamoring for the "Return of the Genie!"? I know I wasn't.

In the 21st century, man can travel to the farthest reaches of our nine planets (Pluto still counted) but some mysterious barrier prevents ships from going any further. Is there "No Way Out"? Dr. Harris, a top scientist, volunteers to pilot a spaceship to the barrier and see what's up. He gets there and can't break through, so he heads home, where he sees a fish bowl and suspects that mankind is being protected, like fish in a bowl, by some mysterious force.

Far from Ditko's best work and a terrible story to boot. There is unintentional hilarity when Harris gets out of his rocket ship and takes a power drill to the invisible space barrier. Nope! That doesn't work either.

Hoping to solve the problem of overpopulation, a scientist named Henry Gordon invents a serum to make produce grow bigger so it can provide more food for hungry people. When some of his serum accidentally spills on a lizard, it grows to enormous size! "I Saw Droom the Living Lizard!" thinks the scientist, and Droom starts knocking over buildings.

The military can't stop Droom and the president declares a state of emergency. Droom heads out to the country and plucks a bomber from the sky before it can drop a nuclear bomb on him! Finally, the military attaches rockets to Droom and launches him into outer space! Droom stops growing, spends ten million years in suspended animation, and ends up on the primitive planet known as Earth, where his kind will rule until they die out.

Hoo boy, not another story where it turns out that the events we're seeing a) did not happen on Earth and b) happened a really long time ago. What a shock! Heck probably wasn't the best choice to draw this story, but how many pages could Kirby crank out in a month? Wait--don't answer that.

A man invents a robot teddy bear and sells it to a toy shop where rich people shop, intending to use the cuddly little guy to commit robberies. A rich couple buys the bear and takes it home, so the inventor has the bear steal a jewelry box and return to the lab. The next day, the inventor sells the same bear back to the toy store, claiming it's a new one, and it's purchased by a poor young man who takes it home and gives it to his disabled son. Despite the inventor's best efforts to recall it, the bear refuses to leave the boy's side. The inventor grabs a gun, goes to the family's apartment, and demands that they give him the teddy bear. The bear attacks the man and squeezes him till he passes out; the cops come and take the crook away and the boy and his bear live happily ever after.

"Fangs of the Bear" wraps up a terrible issue of Tales to Astonish. The bear doesn't even have fangs! It amazes me that Marvel reprinted all four of these stories in the 1970s. I guess they were looking to fill pages and not worried about quality.-Jack

Strange Tales #75

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"Taboo! The Thing from the Murky Swamp!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #2)(r: Weird Wonder Tales #13)

"The Return of the Totem!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #13)

"Doomsday!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

"I Made the Hulk Live" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Tomb of Darkness #22)

Lewis Conrad, the famous explorer whose adventure books sell millions of copies, is in the Amazon Rainforest when he encounters "Taboo! The Thing from the Murky Swamp!" Taboo looks like a great big creature made of mud, but when he picks up Conrad, Taboo uses mental telepathy to explain that he's really an alien who is stranded on Earth. Lewis agrees to help the mucky guy get home and visits the United Nations, where every nation shares its scientific knowledge with him.

Lewis returns to the swamp and gives Taboo a device containing all of the knowledge, but the monster laughs and says he tricked us and will return to destroy all of humanity. Taboo flies off into space, where he blows up--Lewis  put an H-bomb in the device that could be detonated by remote control just in case Taboo was lying.

The splash page by Kirby and Ayers is dynamite and the story's not bad either! I was expecting some pushback from world leaders when Lewis asked if they could share all of their scientific knowledge so that he could give it to a swamp creature, but they didn't have a problem with it. I was glad that Taboo turned out to be a sneaky villain and that we were able to blow him up. That was a pretty neat trick to hide an H-bomb in the device!

"The Return of the Totem!" finds the big wooden pole hopping back to the Indian village after knocking a big hole in the wall of the jail. It picks up teepees and makes mayhem, so the tribe races to a nearby cave and hides. The old Indian visits the police to warn them, but they scoff at the thought of a walking totem pole until it attacks the mayor's home that night. The next day, the totem pole disrupts a company picnic but is stopped by the old Indian, who tosses some magic potion on the pole and causes it to fall off a cliff into water, where it drifts out to sea.

Will the totem return? I certainly hope not. These stories are hard to take and even Ditko seems to realize how silly the idea of a totem pole hopping after people is.

While arguing about whether there is a supernatural force that governs the universe and maintains order, a pair of scientists named Walter and Lynn invent a deadly gas called X-39 that will kill everyone on Earth in 24 hours and accidentally knock over a beaker of the stuff, releasing it into the atmosphere! As it spreads, the scientists chat about all of the terrible battles that have occurred throughout human history. Suddenly, a powerful wind comes out of nowhere and blows the gas safely into space! Now Walter agrees with Lynn that some force protects the universe.

Some of Paul Reinman's panels in "Doomsday!" look a bit like the work of Gil Kane, but this story is essentially a page filler. One would think that scientists would be a bit more careful with a gas that could kill everyone on Earth. Oops! Knocked it over!

A short man named Al vows to get revenge on those who mocked him, so he develops a formula to make him tall and powerful! It doesn't work, so he builds a giant robot outfit that he can wear in his quest to become ruler of the world. Al climbs inside and the suit locks around him, but he realizes that he left the key to the starter on the lab table, so now he's stuck inside!

The most interesting thing about "I Made the Hulk Live" is its title, which anticipates the Marvel hero who will come a few years later. This is another story about a scientist who makes a stupid mistake. Nothing much happens outside of his imagination.-Jack

Thursday on The 100:
No One Said These Were All
Going to Be Good Time Fun Flicks!

And In One Week...
A Genuine
Ditko Classic!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 184: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 169

January-February 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #56

Cover by Jack Kirby 

"I Brought Zog Back to Life!"  (a: Don Heck) ★★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #6)

"I Spent a Night in the Haunted Lighthouse!" 

(a: Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

(r: Fear #4)

"I Planted the Seeds of Doom!"

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

(r: Where Creatures Roam #6)

"I Shrunk Away to Nothing!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #6)

A gigantic snow-white monster encased in a block of ice suddenly appears in the North Atlantic. Helpfully, the thing's name, "Zog," is etched into the ice. The world's leading scientists counsel the world powers and strongly advise that the creature not be tampered with. For if it should escape its enclosure, the world would be in peril!

Scientist Charles Burton does not agree with his colleagues; Burton believes the thing should be released and then studied for hostile behavior. No one will listen to him, not even the huge audience that watches him argue his position on the Ed Sullivan Show. No, it will be up to Burton to discover if Zog is a rampaging beast or a passive visitor. Burton rents a plane, drops a "thermo-liquifying bomb" on the behemoth, and screams "I Brought Zog Back to Life!"

The military catches Burton and he's quickly sentenced to die for treason. Just as he's about to be ventilated, the execution is halted and Burton is brought to a council room where the brass and a select set of scientists are watching Zog on a TV broadcast. Remarkably, the beast is not destroying everything in its path--quite the opposite. Zog dips below the surface and rises several minutes later, once again encased in ice with the word "Zog" above its head. Burton finally sees the truth: Zog is an alien who got lost in space, landed on Earth, and quickly froze itself. You see, its home planet is made of ice and the word "Zog" is not its name but rather the equivalent of our "SOS." At least that's what know-it-all Charles Burton theorizes.

Hard to argue with the guy who lays it all out so clearly in the final panels of "Zog" in a speech so well thought out you wonder why Chuck didn't know all this before he thermo-bombed the big guy. I enjoyed this one despite the fact that it's the rare giant monster story where the destruction is imagined rather than played out. Don Heck isn't an artist I would associate with giant monster tales but his work here is okay.

John is fascinated by the old abandoned lighthouse and his buddies tell him the word on the street is that... it's haunted! Later that day, John is at sea in a small boat when it capsizes during a brutal storm and he's forced to swim to the lighthouse. Once inside, John looks around but finds no ghostly figures. Those arrive shortly thereafter on the ghostly boat that anchors just off the dock. John hides and witnesses a terrifying scene: ghost pirates ransacking the lighthouse and loading provisions onto their ship. The next day, John screams "I Spent a Night in the Haunted Lighthouse!" to his friends and, of course, they laugh... until he produces a life preserver labelled The Flying Dutchman! 100% predictable, but the sight of the pirates loading ghostly cargo onto their ship is pretty cool. What's in the crates? Where are they stored in the lighthouse? Do the provisions replenish themselves automatically?

While being chased by the dinosaur-like creatures on Planet X-41, astronaut Hank Garnett barely has time to stop and pick some of the exotic flowers he finds along the way. Once he makes it back to Earth, Hank finds the seeds absorb a whole lot more water than Earth seeds but eventually grow to be gorgeous flowers. Hank gets a brainstorm: why not sell the thousands of seeds that fall from the flower and make a bundle? Just as things are looking up for Hank, he gets back to his luxury apartment to witness an awe-inspiring event: his flower transforms into one of the dinosaurs of Planet X-41! Before Hank has to time to scream "I Was the Guy What Planted the Seeds of Doom!" he's being chased around his apartment by a T-Rex. 

Luckily, the beast collapses due to dehydration. "Of course!" reasons Hank, "Back on X-41, it rains every fifteen minutes!" With luck, Hank is able to round up the thousands of seeds he sold and he tosses those and the big guy into his rocket ship and heads for X-41, having learned that there are some areas of botany man was never meant to tamper with. Hey, it's a dopey strip, but it's got all kinds of energy and the twist, that the dinos grow from flowers, is an original one. I love how, in the final panels, Hank and his fellow astronauts agree that they should be more careful with what they bring back from now on.

At the same time Brad becomes bored of the world around him (having experienced adventure in every port in the world), he gets word that his brother is gravely ill and must have costly surgery. To work up the dough, Brad answers an ad placed by Professor Ace, whose new machine will revolutionize... something... if he can just get it to work! He needs guinea pigs, which is where Brad comes in; Ace will pay Brad ten grand to be zapped by his gizmo and shrunken down to microscopic size. The egghead has zapped animals in the past but now he wants to go for the gold. The only problem is, none of the test patients ever came back!

"Hang it!" exclaims Brad, "I'm in no matter what!" When Brad gets laser-beamed by the Shrinkobob, he vanishes immediately and, sure enough, keeps shrinking. Eventually, he ends up in an alternate universe version of Earth and wonders if he'll ever see his real home again. "I Shrunk Away to Nothing!" must be some sort of Marvel milestone as it's the first (that I can recall) to posit the theories of Earth-1 and -2 and... The only question I have is: why does he stop shrinking right there? Shouldn't he keep minimizing?-Peter

Tales of Suspense #7

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"I Come from the Shadow World!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Chamber of Chills #14)

"I Know the Power of... the Genie!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Crypt of Shadows #15)

"My Name is... Robot X!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"I Was Trapped Inside of the Martian Maze!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★

(r: Tomb of Darkness #15)

"I Fought the Molten Man-Thing!" 

 (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Journey Into Mystery #15)

A shadow man from another galaxy lands on Earth ahead of an invasion armada to see if earthlings have the type of weapon that can defeat the intruders. "I Come from the Shadow World!" Casey, a really smart but "ordinary" electrician comes up with a way to destroy the beast and save the planet. Some nice Ditko graphics but a pedestrian script. I'm not sure why the world's biggest-brained scientists couldn't come up with the kind of elementary trap Casey devised. 

After her Pop puts her over his knee and gives her a good spankin' (where was Wertham when we really needed him?), naughty little Nancy wishes with all her might and a genie appears in her bedroom (Wertham material again), granting her as many wishes as his new boss can make. Once she's exhausted the little stuff (relocating the Eiffel Tower and flooding the Sahara), she wishes that she were the only person left on Earth. That gets old after a while and she tells the genie she wants it all to be back the way it was before he popped in. The genie agrees but warns he will not be back since little Nancy has exhausted him! Wish granted, Nancy hears her father warning her he's about to put her across his knee. A fun little tongue in cheek fantasy, "I Know the Power of... the Genie!" veers from the usual formula and makes a precocious pre-teen the ultimate power in town.

In the lame "My Name is... Robot X!," it's 1990 and master criminal Joe Kane begins using a robot to help him with his heists. The big tin guy hates what he's doing, but Joe is his boss, so he keeps right on bending bars and breaking open safes. That is, until his joints rust due to a lack of oil right in the middle of a heist. Looks like Joe's crime spree will have to be put on hold. In 1975, the Martians have put trade talks on hold until we simple earthlings can figure out how to get out of their mystery maze box. Earth's smartest scientists give the box a crack, but no dice. Looks like we'll have to do without those Martian hovercrafts for one more year. "Hang on just a sec'!" exclaims simple spaceship steward, Will, "Can I have a go at this thing?" And just like that, Willy becomes the only man who doesn't scream "I Was Trapped Inside of the Martian Maze!" 

After a particularly harrowing close call, pilot Frank Harper loses his nerve and turns in his wings. His boss talks him into taking a vacation and thinking the situation over. Frank agrees and heads to the Pacific island known as Napuka for a little R 'n' R, but his beach time is interrupted by the eruption of the island's long-dormant volcano. Out of the lava lurches the Molten Man-Thing (or "Man-Thing" for short), a living glop of lava that heads for the nearest native village.

Using the intuition of a pilot, Frank realizes that lava cannot just get up and walk, so something must be inside the beast, something like a living engine. Frank manages to lure the thing into a wind tunnel at a local airstrip. The cool air proves to be too much for lava thing and it heads back to its home inside the volcano, leaving Frank to explain the scientific hows and whys to a bunch of natives who have no idea what he's saying. That's OK, though, I was having a hard time making heads or tails of the baloney he was spouting, too. Like all the best Atlas monster destroyers, Frank just happens to know what makes this one tick. The Kirby-Ditko team (I see lots of Kirby but very little Ditko) do what they can on "I Fought the Molten Man-Thing!" but there are way too many talking heads and not enough Molto.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #7

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"He Waits for Us in the Glacier!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) (r: Where Creatures Roam #2)

"We Met in the Swamp!" (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)

"I Lived a Ghost Story!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)

"I Saw the Other World!" (a: Dick Ayers) ★

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #1)

"I Spent the Night with the Thing on Bald Mountain!" 

(a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #2)

While cruising near the North Pole, an atomic sub encounters a giant glacier and uses gamma rays to melt through it. This releases a giant creature that lifts the sub up and then uses mental telepathy to tell a strange story. The creature explains that it is an alien from another planet and it has spent a million years waiting for the major life forms on Earth to die out. First, the dinosaurs disappeared, then cavemen, and on through the various civilizations of mankind that warred with each other. The creature warns that atomic weapons could finally wipe out the human race and, when they do, it will rise from the glacier and claim Earth for its planet. The creature fades from sight and the sub commander ponders its warning.

"He Waits for Us in the Glacier!" is a combination of a boring history lesson and a cautionary tale. The story is nothing new, but Don Heck draws a nice giant creature.

A reporter journeys deep into Black Tree Swamp to interview an old man named Lem Whipple, who spends his time looking up at the sky. Lem explains that he's waiting for aliens to return and confesses that "We Met in the Swamp!" Years ago, an alien ship landed in the swamp and got stuck. Six aliens emerged and offered Lem their greatest treasure in exchange for tools to free the ship. He complied and they gave him a box and took off. Once Lem realized that, when the aliens return, it would be to conquer mankind, he vowed never to look inside the box and to keep watching the skies until it was time to sound the warning about the aliens' return. The reporter opens the box to find only air, which Lem realizes is the most important thing to anyone traveling through space.

A bit of a letdown, but I'm enjoying this new Atlas development where Ditko inks Kirby. Look at the face of the man on the cover--pure Ditko, while the giant creature is all Kirby. In this story, Ditko succeeds in smoothing some of Kirby's rough edges and improves some of the faces without taking too much of the Kirby style away.

A real estate agent named Howard tries to talk a prospective buyer named Lang out of purchasing the old Greenwood place because it's haunted. Lang insists on checking out the house and agrees to spend a night there. At night, ghosts appear and make a believer out of Lang. The next day, he tells Howard he wouldn't buy the house for anything. That night, Howard heads to the Lang house and joins his fellow ghosts, glad that they avoided having a human move in.

"I Lived a Ghost Story!" reminds me of the sort of tale found in 1970s Charlton ghost comics--safe, corny, and not particularly well illustrated.

A cameraman runs into the street, shouting "I Saw the Other World!" Explaining that he's discovered a parallel dimension, the cameraman says he found a most unusual camera the day before. When he took random photos on the street and developed them, he saw an ultramodern city and concluded that it exists side by side with his own. The cameraman supposes that the camera came from that world, but the man he's talking to doesn't believe him. Just then, the sky gets dark, a lightning bolt strikes, and a hand emerges from an electrical force field and grabs the camera. The man that the cameraman was talking to has also disappeared! The cameraman thinks he imagined the whole thing. In the parallel dimension, the man who disappeared is now in the position of the cameraman, trying to convince a stranger on the street that another dimension exists.

Dick Ayers's art is even worse than Paul Reinman's, and this four-pager was a bit confusing at the end. I finally figured out what happened, though. The big hand coming from the sky reminds me of a Batman story with a big green hand coming out of the sky.

A successful sculptor named Anton George moves to a castle atop Bald Mountain in Central Europe, where he creates giant statues of two figures representing Good and Evil, locked in battle with each other. During a storm, the Evil statute is struck by lighting and springs to life, chasing George around the castle before grabbing him and hurling him at the Good statue. Good suddenly comes to life and puts George down safely before battling with Evil, a fight that ends in both falling to their death. George wonders what caused Good to come to life and save him from Evil.

For my money, Steve Ditko is single handedly making these comics worth reading at this point. "I Spent the Night with the Thing on Bald Mountain!" is really stretching things as a title, since the mountain is never identified, the statute is hardly a "thing," and the sculptor spends a few minutes being chased by it--hardly "spending the night." In any case. Ditko gives it his all and makes it worth a look.-Jack

Strange Tales #73

Cover by Jack Kirby & Bill Everett

"Grottu, King of the Insects!" (a: Jack Kirby & Bill Everett) ★★

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Where Monsters Dwell #3)

"I Saw the End of the World!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #3)

"I Was Captured by the Mole Men!" (a: Don Heck) ★★★

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #14)

"I Am a Walking Time Bomb" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

A reporter named Frank receives an urgent telegram from his friend, a scientist named Lynn, alerting him to the biggest story of the century! Frank hops on a jet plane and soon is with Lynn, who tells him that an African native wrote to Lynn about an army ant that is as big as a house and has human intelligence! Frank and Lynn voyage for three days to Mombasa, Kenya, before making their way into the jungle.

The native, Kasenga, tells them that, months ago, Commies came to Kenya and conducted an atomic bomb test. Not long after, the natives saw a swarm of army ants, and one of them was "Grottu, King of the Insects!" Grottu led the army ants on a path of destruction and communicated by mental telepathy. Frank, Lynn, and Kasenga soon locate the army ants and Grottu and find that they are headed to Mombasa to destroy it! The men convince everyone to evacuate the city, but when the ants arrive, Grottu leads them to the port. It plans to spread destruction to other countries! Luckily, Frank has a plan. He lures Grottu to a warehouse, where a huge amount of sugar is dumped on top of him. The rest of the army ants come scurrying for the sugar and smother Grottu, killing him and eliminating the menace.

I was remined of D.W. Griffith's 1909 short film, A Corner in Wheat, where the villain is smothered by a load of grain dumped on top of him. I guess we've officially reached the Atlas era of giant monsters created by atomic blasts, and it's a relief to read something other than alien invasion stories or tales about people who suddenly develop powers and want to use them to get rich quick. Everett's inks let Kirby be Kirby and don't alter the panels quite as much as Ditko's inks do.

When a scientist figures out how to build a time machine, the scientific community says it's too dangerous and the military shuts him down. He begins to work in a hidden cave and builds the device, with which he travels to the future, stopping in 2009, 2109, 2209, 2959, etc. What he finds is that the development of civilization goes in an endless loop, with mankind advancing, going backward, and advancing again. In the end, he finds himself back in his lab, again figuring out how to build a time machine.

Ditko's regular panels are good enough, but his depictions of the scientist in his time machine, traveling through space and into the future, really stand out in "I Saw the End of the World!" Ditko's first Captain Atom story would hit the stands a month later, and I see strong similarities in this tale to that later work.

A young detective in the NYPD argues with his more seasoned colleague about the merits of acting quickly or taking time to think. Just then, a subway guard rushes in to report the disappearance of a subway train filled with passengers between 42nd and 59th Streets! The detective goes underground to investigate and finds a tunnel branching off from the regular line. He follows the tunnel down into the Earth and comes face to face with the  mole men! The detective manages to escape capture, board the subway train, and guide it back onto the regular line, arriving at the 59th Street station. To his surprise, the passengers are not happy, informing him that the mole men were members of an advanced race that was going to share knowledge about how to live underground, something that could come in handy in case of an atomic war. The young detective, chastised, admits to his older partner that sometimes it's not good to act without thinking.

This is the kind of story I've been waiting for! Although the end is a bit much, there's some thought behind what happens and Heck's art is above average. In a sense, the writer takes bits and pieces of Atlas cliches and weaves them together into something that seems new and more interesting.

A robot from Xenon Major lands on Earth and makes his way to the U.N., where he announces that "I Am a Walking Time Bomb" and he will explode in 24 hours! The choice is to surrender to the other planet's conquering forces or to be utterly destroyed. People are skeptical, so the robot is taken to a hospital for examination, where he is surprised to see that Earthlings care for their elderly. On Xenon Major, people are killed when they're too old to work. Out on the street in NYC, the robot is again surprised when a mother protects her child; on Xenon Major, no one risks his life for another. Eventually, the robot decides that people of Earth should be left alone and he heads speedily home to explode and destroy his own unworthy planet. At the U.N., representatives of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. shake hands, promising to stop their conflict.

Not as good as the story before it, but still not bad! Reinman's art isn't as strong as Heck's at this point, and the story features some of the cliches we've come to expect from Atlas, but perhaps the new, six-page length allows the writers to develop their themes a bit more.-Jack

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