Strange Adventures

Strange Adventures

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Strange Adventures

1 (August-September 1950) The Menace of the Green Nebula (KL)
2 (October-November 1950) The Doom From Planet X; The Secret of the Flying Saucers; The Endless War; The World of Giant Robots (KL)
3 (December 1950) The Metal World (KL); The Dream House; The Stranger From the Stars
4 (January 1951) The Invaders from the Nth Dimension; The Crime Chase Through Time
5 (February 1951) The World Inside the Atom (KL)
6 (March 1951) The Confessions of a Martian
7 (April 1951) The World of Giant Ants; The Man With 100 Lives; Hollywood: 3000 A. D.; The Lost Earthmen (KL)
8 (May 1951) Evolution Plus; Time Capsule from Tomorrow; Revolt of the Humans
9 (June 1951) The Origin of Captain Comet (CC); Push-Button Paradise; The Mad World; The Exile of Space (KL)
10 (July 1951) The Air Bandits from Space (CC); The Other Earths
11 (August 1951) The Day the Past Came Back (CC); The Missing Moon (KL)
12 (September 1951) The Brain-Masters of Polaris
14 (November 1951) Destination Doom (CC)
21 (June 1952) The Genius Epidemic
22 (July 1952) The Guardians of the Clockwork Universe (CC)
23 (August 1952) The Ghost Planet
31 (April 1953) Lights, Camera -- Invasion! (CC)
33 (June 1953) The Human Beehive (CC); The Hunters from the Stars
34 (July 1953) 30th Century Coin Collector; The Star Oscar
36 (September 1953) Do Not Open Till Doomsday; Experiment in Destiny
37 (October 1953) The Invaders From the Golden Atom (CC); The Wonder Toys
38 (November 1953) The Seeing-Eye Humans (CC)
41 (February 1954) Last Day on Earth
42 (March 1954) I Delivered Mail From Mars!; The Eye-Dropper World
46 (July 1954) I Flew a Flying Saucer!
48 (September 1954) The 21st Century Film Library
49 (October 1954) The Invasion From Indiana
51 (December 1954) Warning From Another World
52 (January 1955) Prisoner of the Parakeets
53 (February 1955) Interplanetary Swap Shop
56 (May 1955) The Fish-Men of Earth; Explorers of the Crystal Moon; The Sculptor Who Saved the World
57 (June 1955) The Moonman and the Meteor; The Riddle of Animal "X"
60 (September 1955) World at the Edge of the Universe
62 (November 1955) The Watchdogs of the Universe
63 (December 1955) The Sign Language of Space
64 (January 1956) Gorillas in Space; The Man Who Discovered the West Pole
65 (February 1956) War of the Mind Readers
66 (March 1956) The Flying Raincoat; Man of a Thousand Shapes
67 (April 1956) Search for a Lost World; The Martian Masquerader
68 (May 1956) The Man Who Couldn't Drown; Strange Gift From Space
71 (August 1956) Zero Hour For Earth; Raiders from the Ultra-Violet; The Man Who Ate Sunshine
72 (September 1956) The Skyscraper that Came to Life
77 (February 1957) The World that Slipped out of Space; The Incredible Eyes of Arthur Geil; The Paul Revere of Time; The Mental Star Rover
78 (March 1957) The Secret of the Tom Thumb Spacemen; The Life Battery; The Prisoner of Space X
81 (June 1957) Secret of the Shrinking Twins; The Spaceman of 1000 Disguises
83 (August 1957) Private Eye of Venus; The Volcanic Man; The Future Mind of Roger Davis
89 (February 1958) Earth for Sale
90 (March 1958) The Day I Became a Martian
94 (July 1958) Elevator to the Future
95 (August 1958) The Martian Barrier; Back Window into Space; The Boy Who Saved the Solar System
96 (September 1958) The Man Who Aged Backwards; The Menace of Saturn's Rings
97 (October 1958) Secret of the Space Giant; Throwback World
98 (November 1958) The Spaceman Who Came to Dinner
101 (February 1959) The Giant from Beyond; Prize Fish of Venus; Mystery of the Twin Spaceships
105 (June 1959) The Case of the Stolen Faces; Space Scoop - 2159 A.D.
106 (July 1959) The Secret of the Space Jewel (M)
108 (September 1959) The Human Pet of Gorilla Land
109 (October 1959) Secret of the Tick-Tock World (M)
113 (February 1960) Menace of the Shrinking Bomb
116 (May 1960) The World Inside the Earth
118 (July 1960) The Turtle-Men of Space; The Indestructible Menace
119 (August 1960) Raiders of the Giant World; Secret of the Cosmic Bullet; The Case of the Counterfeit Credits (SH)
121 (October 1960) Invasion of the Flying Reptiles; The Wand that Could Work Miracles
122 (November 1960) David and the Space-Goliath; Star-Actor of the Starways; The Case of the Red-Hot Robot (SH)
124 (January 1961) Earth Victory -- By a Hair (M)
126 (March 1961) The Interplanetary Tourists
131 (August 1961) Emperor of the Earth
133 (October 1961) The Invisible Dinosaur
134 (November 1961) The Aliens Who Raided New York
136 (January 1962) Lost -- 100,000 Years!
141 (June 1962) Battle Between the Two Earths
143 (August 1962) The Two-Way Time Traveler
145 (October 1962) The Man Who Lived Forever; Secret of the Marble Starmen; The Mass-Energy Robbers of Space (M)
147 (December 1962) The Dawn-World Menace
150 (March 1963) When the Earth Turned into a Comet
157 (October 1963) Rescue by Moonlight (M); The Immortality Seekers
159 (December 1963) Yes Virginia -- There is a Martian; Will the Star Rovers Abandon Earth? (SR)
160 (January 1964) Captives of the Eclipse
162 (March 1964) The Case of the 14 Clueless Crimes (SH)

From Beyond the Unknown

7 (October-November 1970) Earth Shall Not Die

These best stories of the comic books are preceded by their issue number. They were edited by Julius Schwartz.

Series tales are marked: (KL) are Chris KL-99; (CC) are Captain Comet; (M) are Space Museum; (SH) are Star Hawkins; (SR) are the Star Rovers.

Warning: I have only been able to find and read selected issues and reprints of Strange Adventures. The above list of stories in this magazine that I've read and enjoyed. It is a start at finding the best stories to appear in this comic, but is certain to be full of gaps.

Strange Adventures

Strange Adventures was the companion comic book to Mystery in Space. It too was a genuine science fiction comic: the stories were rarely fantasy and never supernatural: the two magazines were consciously 100% science fiction. Mystery in Space tended to be more about other planets, whereas Strange Adventures concentrated more about stories set on Earth, and among slightly more planetary and less spaceship like backgrounds. Several of the stories in Strange Adventures were about daily life on contemporary Earth, which was transformed by some mysterious sf event. The setting of the tales was often domestic, showing a typical home of the era, or set in the heroes' everyday job. There is often considerable quiet comedy, showing daily scenes transformed in a surrealistic fashion.

Strange Adventures also published several tales about sf writers and their work. Usually these men would themselves get involved in science fiction situations. These tales were often self referential in their plotting, with figures standing in for the authors themselves. These tales tended to be humorous in depicting the author and editor Julius Schwartz, but serious in their sf imaginings.

The Silver Age sf comic book is a missing link in popular culture. Its ideas about sf used to be available to everyone in society, being sold in every supermarket and pharmacy. These ideas are very rich. One could argue that they are more imaginative than anything in prose science fiction on the one hand, or in film and TV sf on the other.

Sid Gerson Film stories

The Star Oscar (1953). Writer: Sid Gerson. Art: Frank Giacoia. A small, friendly but mischievous alien tags along with an actor in Hollywood, using his alien powers in various ways in the film industry. Silver Age comics books occasionally did stories about the movie industry: it was assumed to be a subject of interest to all Americans of the era. This story contains, at a very early date, a whole compendium of plot ideas and attitudes that will appear in later Hollywood stories. It anticipates plot elements of Otto Binder's "Lois Lane in Hollywood" (Lois Lane #2, May-June 1958) and Jerry Siegel's "Private Monster" tales (Jimmy Olsen #43 and 47, 1960), for instance. It shows considerable knowledge about the film industry.

An assertion that some films were "artistic successes, but financial failures" is an intelligent approach. Perhaps there is something self-referential about this. The sf comics such as Strange Adventures were reportedly not big money makers in the 1950's; apparently they were kept going in part because their creators liked working on them so much. Perhaps the writers and artists saw their comics as artistic but not financial successes. Also, the desperate search of the Hollywood producers here for a money making formula that will keep the studio afloat mirrors the real life search of the financially troubled comic book industry at this point.

A neat moment in the tale: the alien makes himself the exact duplicate of an actor in a cowboy film; both wear the elaborate buckskins popular in the 1950's. The white tux worn by the hero at the opening Academy Awards ceremony is also cool. It has huge shoulders, and folds in the sleeves at the shoulder join. It is worn with a carnation and handkerchief. As usual, Giacoia makes his men look very classy and sophisticated. Hollywood figures were widely viewed as wearing sportier clothes than the rest of America, and this tale is a vivid evocation of this.

The 21st Century Film Library (1954). Writer: Sid Gerson. Art: Henry Sharp. A couple likes to rent "how-to" films, but the latest batch seems to have arrived from the future. Just as Gerson's "The Star Oscar" deals with the possible impact of an alien on Hollywood, this story looks at what would happen if films of the future somehow were made available today. These films are "how-to" films: little documentaries on do-it-yourself technology. So they spell out in detail how to create advanced, highly useful products. I had no idea that there were documentary film rental libraries in 1954; I knew of catalogues that rented classic fiction films, but not this sort of "home improvement" movie that this couple rents.

Sid Gerson Tales

The Hunters from the Stars (1953). Writer: Sid Gerson. Art: Mort Drucker. Sgt. Tom Mason, just home from Korea, is hunted by aliens for sport in the woods around his home town. This is a science fiction version of Richard Connell's famous suspense short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924). In that tale, a vicious hunter makes the hero become his human prey. Connell's story has been much filmed, and this tale should be considered as a comic book adaptation.

Both aliens and humans use some ingenious technology in this story. The two part locus of the tale, both Earth and the aliens' spaceship, echoes the two location construction of such Gerson stories as "30th Century Coin Collector" (1953).

Drucker has some good art showing the night sky; this was a favorite subject of mystery and wonder in the sf comics.

30th Century Coin Collector (1953). Writer: Sid Gerson. Art: Carmine Infantino. A cash register allows the exchange of rare coins between the years 1953 and 2953. This is a fun story. It shows ingenuity in its treatment of events in both time periods. Once again, Gerson deals inventively with the arrival of alien or futuristic artifacts in our Earth. This story seems ancestral to John Broome's "Interplanetary Swap Shop" (1955). Both tales deal with small, box like machines, which one day mysteriously open as portals between worlds, allowing the swapping of small objects, but not people. In both tales, people have to use ingenuity to make effective use of the transport portal, experimenting with different kinds of objects.

Do Not Open Till Doomsday (1953). Writer: Sid Gerson. Art: Carmine Infantino. Aliens send Earth amazing high tech devices, but what are their motives? Once again, Gerson has written a story about high tech marvels showing up in the present. This tale has some different construction, however. Many of Gerson's stories focus on the marvels showing up in one location on Earth, and focus on one or two persons who receive them. The arrival of the devices is a secret from everyone else on Earth. By contrast, in this story the devices show up in public, are received by numerous different people, and are a public phenomenon known to all.

Experiment in Destiny (1953). Writer: Sid Gerson. Art: Murphy Anderson. Aliens Dzan and Kridu allow an Earthman, chemist Calvin Tate, to relive parts of his life as an experiment in making the right choices. This story has a serious, meditative, somber mood. It looks at the serious choices we all make in our lives.

Stories like this tend to use either time travel or parallel "worlds of if" as their rationale. By contrast, in this tale the aliens create doubles of humans, allowing them to relive experiences. It is a completely different approach to this situation.

The Wonder Toys (1953). Writer: Sid Gerson. Art: Gil Kane. The new worker Doom Baw at a toy factory is a young man from the Fourth Dimension, who introduces amazing new techniques. This story shows some resemblance to Gerson's film stories. In both, high tech wonders show up from a different time or place, and both lead to light hearted fun in the present. Both stories deal with entertainment: film or toys. This story is more whimsical and less scientifically plausible than Gerson's film tales. In fact, it borders on science fantasy, not science fiction. The striped paint in this tale reminds one a bit of the rainbow scoop in "The Invaders from the Nth Dimension" (1951)

Kane uses Constructivist techniques for the dimensional doorway, composing it entirely out of triangular regions. This is imaginative and creative. Kane depicts Doom Baw as a juvenile version of one of his leading men. He is dressed much more casually than most sf book characters, in a tee shirt.

The alien beings that show up at the end are genuinely surreal. Their body plan is already set forth in Gerson's dialogue, and Kane's implementation of this completes the bizarrie. Alien beings this strange did not appear in the sf magazines after the arrival of the Comics Code censorship in April-May 1955, although it is pure speculation to suggest that there is some connection here. I have no idea if the Code censored alien beings or not.

John Broome Computer Stories

Revolt of the Humans (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Jim Mooney. A human being revolts in a future world run by a giant computer that controls all aspects of human life. This is an archetypal revolution story by Broome, one that also emphasizes man versus evil computer. It concentrates on the hero's psychology, and in a particularly pure and revealing fashion. We see the hero's awe when he starts learning new ideas: always a key moment in Broome, whose heroes have to learn to think in new and unaccustomed ways. The hero also has to overcome his passivity, and start planning for the future: another key Broome theme.

The Brain-Masters of Polaris (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Alex Toth. An Earth spaceman suspects that the Polaris military is building a forbidden computer to use as a war weapon. Broome has the gift of creating an exciting adventure story. John Broome is astonishingly prescient about futuristic technology. This and "Revolt of the Humans" must be two of the earliest portraits of a computer outside of prose science fiction, such as Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (1950). The friction free road is also an imaginative concept. Other comics writers also used giant computers in their stories in this era: Otto Binder included both a cyclotron and a giant "mechanical brain" in his "Captain Marvel Battles the Plot Against the Universe" (Captain Marvel Adventures #100, September 1949). Both Binder's and Broome's computers are huge devices, the size of small houses. The word "brain" is used to describe both.

Toth's art is full of large machines and spaceships that look like animals. They have features that look like eyes, mouths, ears and so on. This gives a mischievous quality to these machines, as if they were really alive. They resemble to a degree the anthropomorphic machines that sometimes show up as characters in kids' picture books, such as human-faced trains and trucks. The hero of the story resembles actor Robert Mitchum. He wears a cool, Blackhawk style uniform. A panel on page 5 is especially striking, showing the squared shoulders and flared coat tails of the uniform, as seen from behind. The hero is standing alone in a sea of grass. It is a powerfully evocative image, recalling early days on the US prairie. It also evokes childhood. I remember spending much time as a kid in fields, vacant lots, school yards and other open places, all of which seemed vast and endless to a small child.

Page 2 shows skies full of planets. On page 7 there is a scene of multiple flashing lights; their round shapes look like the numerous planets in the earlier illustration.

Dream-Journey Through Space (#58, July 1955). Writer: John Broome. Art: Gil Kane. An Earth engineer who builds computers is translated every night during his dreams to a strange world whose people are ruled by intelligent machines. This is another Broome story warning of the dangers of intelligent computers taking over Earth life. This is a grim and fairly minor tale, and one that sees little good of any sort in computers. It anticipates such later anti-computer tales as Edmond Hamilton's "The Team of Luthor and Brainiac" (Superman #167, February 1964). Kane's illustration of the computers makes them look large and menacing. The computers have the elaborate, "many panel and device" construction of Kane's spaceship interiors. Unlike his beautiful spaceships, however, the computers are ugly and menacing looking.

The hero Howard Wright here has been "chosen" for his role, just like Hal Jordan will be chosen by the Guardians in Kane's later Green Lantern stories. The idea of a human's dreams leading to transportation to another world will recur in Broome's much more light hearted "The Secret of the Tom Thumb Spacemen" (1957). Kane's art during the transportation scenes is full of the brightly colored circles that will later appear during the passage from the dimension of Qward to Earth in Green Lantern. Such abstract art extravaganzas seem to have been a comic book tradition, for depicting travel through time, or from one dimension to another.

John Broome Science Fiction Media tales

Explorers of the Crystal Moon (1955). Writer: John Broome. Art: Sid Greene. A young boy takes a trip to an alien moon through a virtual reality television. This is one of several fun stories in the sf comics about friendly encounters between Earth kids and aliens. In the early parts of this story, the aliens discuss a series of advanced technologies that modern Earth does not have. This is related to one of Broome's perennial themes, technological and social change.

The second part of the tale shows the boy exploring an alien moon, thanks to a high tech television the aliens provide. The boy feels he is actually on the moon, and that he is experiencing the adventure in real life. In many ways this is a precursor of today's "virtual reality". There are some differences, however. The technology in Broome's story is call "hypnocasting". This implies that it somehow uses hypnotism: that the viewer is hypnotized into believing that they are actually having this adventure. The illusion is partly in the viewer's head. By contrast, today's virtual reality is a purely sensory experience: the viewer sees elaborate computer generated patterns, and has the illusion that they are in some new reality. It is a purely external experience, one not caused by anything inside the viewer's mind. Still, the hypnocasting in this tale is remarkably similar in ultimate effect to today's VR technology. It would be good to see this tale made available to today's readers - it would probably fascinate people. A technology similar to hypnocasting is popular in the bottled city of Kandor, in "The Boy in the Bottle" (Jimmy Olsen #53, June 1961), written by Jerry Siegel. John Broome also went on to write some Green Lantern and Flash stories dealing with vast, realistic illusions, such as "The Amazing Theft of the Power Lamp" (Green Lantern #3, November-December 1960).

The Sculptor Who Saved the World (1955). Writer: John Broome. Art: Gil Kane. A 20th Century sculptor suddenly becomes a success, when strange futuristic sculptures start appearing in his studio. This story is notable for its inventive abstract sculptures, beautifully drawn by Gil Kane. These bear some resemblance to the machines and futuristic buildings in Kane's stories. This is not too surprising, at least in terms of the plot of the tale: they turn out to be future weapons, accidentally teleported to our present. The story's sympathetic depiction of abstract art is unusual for popular culture. Many works, such as Ernie Bushmiller's comic strip Nancy, never missed a chance to poke fun at modern art, although Bushmiller also showed a fascination with its visual forms. Here, however, the text is completely admiring. Everyone keeps praising the art's "imaginativeness". And indeed, Kane's versions of the sculptures show considerable imagination. There is much empty space in them, like the sculptures of Henry Moore. But in addition, Kane shows the flanges and repeated elements that frequently adorn his futuristic buildings and machinery. The complex, beautiful curves of the pieces are also much more elaborate than anything in Moore.

The story contains one of Broome's life histories for his central character, sculptor Paul Paxton. We see his initial obscurity, his rise to fame, and his eventual fall. He is a very sympathetic character, and in general is depicted far more favorably than many artists in popular culture. He is one of a number of Broome characters who eventually makes a heroic sacrifice for the good of humanity. Paxton is one of Broome's heroes who is an artist, like the high tech musician in his "Behind the Space Curtain" (Mystery in Space #55, November 1959). The hero in the DC sf comics almost always has a profession related to subject matter of the story; here he is an artist, not a scientist or engineer. There is also in fact a scientist in the tale, the Professor Gwinn who travels from the future, and who originally created the machines.

The Martian Masquerader (1956). Writer: John Broome. Art: Gil Kane. A Martian comes to the offices of Strange Adventures, and tries to sell a story about his own life. The frame tale in the comics office is hilarious. The editor, Mr. Black, seems to be a thinly veiled version of Julius Schwartz, and Broome gets in some funny digs at him. Kane's version of Schwartz is less flavorful and more normal looking than Sid Greene's many caricatures of him. This is the earliest tale of which I am aware that features the DC sf comics as characters in one of their own stories. As is usual in such stories, the words "comic book" are not mentioned. The books are treated simply as magazines or periodicals, and the writers are "science fiction authors". There is perhaps some issue of prestige involved here. Like most of the subsequent tales, this one deals with a writer's attempt to sell a story to Schwartz. Such sales attempts seem to be the central nexus of the relationship between Schwartz and the writers.

The office is full of large framed copies of covers of Strange Adventures; later tales showing Schwartz' office do not contain these. Perhaps this is a fantasy of Kane's to make the offices more colorful. It does visually convey the fact that this is the office of a comic book; if the covers were not there, this would look just like any typical American business office. Also, Kane was a frequent cover artist of the magazines; perhaps he is trying to show off his wares, and stress the importance of the covers in the magazine's work.

The Martian tale itself is routine. We see the whole life story of the hero, as is typical of Broome. Also typical is the way the Martian has left his own society, gone into exile in another, and is carrying out a program that is in radical opposition to his own societies' standards and mores.

The bird-like appearance of the Martians anticipates Kane's later creation of Tomar-Re in Green Lantern. The tale is based on a cover by Gil Kane, showing everyone about to unmask at a "Science Fans Masquerade Party" - this is perhaps like a typical real life sf fan party of the era, with everyone dressed as spacemen or aliens. Kane does a good job with the space suit of the man leading the party.

The Skyscraper that Came to Life (1956). Writer: John Broome. Art: Sid Greene. An alien general planning an invasion of Earth disguises himself as a human and travels to Earth, to find out why other alien spies sent to Earth have disappeared. As in "The Martian Masquerader", here we have another John Broome tale of aliens coming to Earth and disguising themselves as human. In neither story does humanity have any idea it is being infiltrated. Both stories take place in the daily life of the 1950's Earth, a realm that is treated as realistically and non-science fictionally as possible. This stress on typical daily life is characteristic of Strange Adventures, which often focused on the surrealistic incongruity of normal life encountering the science fictional. Both Broome stories also deal with aliens becoming part of science fiction media: in the previous story the alien becomes an sf comics script writer; here he becomes a producer of science fiction movies. DC's sf comics often had sf creators in them, specializing in all the different media which purveyed sf in 1950's America: books, films, television, and the comics themselves. When a writer appeared in the sf comics, which he frequently did, he was nearly always an sf writer. He was rarely a creator of "literary" fiction, or of such popular genres as Westerns, mysteries or love stories.

This tale contains many typical elements of Broome's political tales. The alien planet is clearly a Soviet style dictatorship. The spies it has sent in have gone native on Earth, turning against their society. They are typical of the many sympathetic portraits of exiles and refugees in Broome's work, and anticipate the refugees from Qward in Broome's "The Secret of the Golden Thunderbolts" (Green Lantern #2, September-October 1960). The plot here recalls the delightful old comedy film, Ninotchka (1939), which also deals with Soviet agents who go "native" once in Paris.

Broome includes a 3D camera in the story, used by the alien general to snap a picture of the Earthman he will impersonate. The Earthman is noticeably handsome and well dressed, in a spiffy suit and tie. Such civilian suits are perhaps atypical of Greene's often more casually dressed heroes. All the aliens in the story have disguised themselves as exceptionally good looking young Earthmen, and all are equally well dressed in sharp suits. This serves several functions. It visually indicates that they are good guys. It creates a strong sense of male bonding among the heroes of the tale. It also conveys a sense of the appeal of Earth life. These are aliens who have given up their own war mongering planet in favor of new lives as Earthmen. They are dressed in clothes that suggest they are having grown up careers in glamorous 1950's professions. They look like the sort of successful men that the readers of Strange Adventures would like to grow up to be. There is an element here of adolescent allegory. The young readers of the magazine, many of them teenagers, will soon be putting on adult roles. Teenagers often feel like aliens entering an adult world, and the adult identities they assume often feel just like masks, just like the aliens and the new identities they assume here. This story suggests that these new identities as adult Earthmen are infinitely desirable, that they have overwhelming appeal and promise, and that people will want to spend their lives in them, just like the aliens here.

Secret of the Space Giant (1958) Writer: ??? Art: Mike Sekowsky. Alien conquerors of Earth are tricked by humans, including a science fiction movie producer who creates fake footage.

The author of this tale is unknown. With Broome, it shares the theme of revolt against a totalitarian dictatorship. With Binder, the plot contains an elaborate hoax. However, the tone is unusually grim and somber for Binder. His characters are usually much blither in the face of trouble. Here people recognize that they are staking the face of Earth on a desperate gamble. The fit of the tale is closer to Broome. Its elements of media hoax remind one of the sf movie producer in "The Skyscraper that Came to Life" (1956), and the sf film within that story. In both tales, we actually see parts of the movie produced. The tale also shows what life is like under the dictatorship, and the loss of freedom and control imposed: also typical of Broome's tales.

John Broome Human Pet stories

Prisoner of the Parakeets (1955). Writer: John Broome. Art: Henry Sharp. Atomic tests cause parakeets to mutate into giant, intelligent beings; they capture the human hero and make him into their pet. Role reversals between humans and animals were a John Broome specialty. This brief story shows him pursuing the theme at a relatively early date. The birds in this story are villainous, and want to conquer Earth; Broome's later treatment of the subject in "The Human Pet of Gorilla Land" (1959) has the animals being intelligent and kind. There are parallels between Broome's stories of machines taking over Earth and his animal tales. In both, beings that are now subservient to humanity become its master.

Henry Sharp's art includes a striking image of a giant bird feather found in the water, below the hero's boat (p2). The feather forms a perfect circular arc, and is part of a geometric composition. The city built by the birds is in the comics' Art Deco mold, with towering buildings connected by high ramps. Somewhat unusually for the comics, it appears to be made up of separate stone blocks, which can be plainly seen in the drawing. This perhaps indicates that the birds have not fully mastered technology, and are simply capable of shaping blocks of stone and piling them together.

The story is also notable for its Naval figures (p6). Their snazzy white uniforms are typical of the interest of Strange Adventures in uniformed heroes. Some of the men wear radio earphones right over their high, peaked white caps.

The Human Pet of Gorilla Land (1959). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. An Earthman becomes the pet of a little boy Gorilla in a world populated by giant, intelligent gorillas. Broome does a complete role reversal between humans and apes in this tale. Such role reversals between a human and animal species were common plot gambits in the DC sf comic books, including some previous stories written by Broome. This is probably the best of them. This is in part because of the absence of horror material. The gorillas in this tale are thoroughly nice, not nasty, and they behave decently towards both the humans and the Jovians in this tale. There is more of a sense of wonder here, that a tone of fear. It allows for thoughtful contemplation of humans' relationship to nature.

The young Gorilla is one of the sf comics' typical boys, even though he is not human! His good nature, and his loving, decent parents, are a typical Strange Adventures family, one that shows up in several stories: see the discussion below under "Yes Virginia -- There is a Martian" (1963). Infantino is gentle with his depiction of the gorillas. The gorilla family is the subject of the beautifully drawn opening panel : always an indication that they are one of the major features of the story. Throughout this story, Infantino's compositions are largely based on groupings of his figures. In the opening splash panel, we see the repeated curves of each of the three gorillas, echoing one another. Each also has a stone on a chain around their neck: another repeated figure. Infantino often built up compositions out of such repetitions. The Jovian con-men are some of Infantino's comic aliens - he had similar beings in other tales, such as "Giants of the Cosmic Ray".

I particularly liked Infantino's Art Deco depiction of the gorilla boy's motor scooter. Infantino often made his lab machinery look Art Deco, but this is a unique Deco version of a much more common machine. Other Deco features: the grid lines in the space ship instrument panel (page 2). A panel on page 4 is unusual in that it is a combined cityscape and starscape, all in one image. On page 9, Infantino uses the curves and flanges of a parked, standing rocket as background lines in his compositions. We see the rocket from different distances and different framings in different panels, allowing Infantino to employ its curves in varied ways to build up compositions. This too is a classic Infantino strategy.

The human in the story is much smaller than the gorillas. Broome wrote several tales for the sf magazines about shrinking or tiny beings, including "The Secret of the Tom Thumb Spacemen" (1957) and "Secret of the Shrinking Twins", as well as such early stories as "The Boy Who Saved the Earth" (Mystery in Space #6, February-March 1952). Infantino does what he can to preserve the Earthman's machismo under these circumstances. His space uniform is close to an explorer's outfit, with epaulette shirt and fancy boots.

Gorillas in Space (1956). Writer: Bill Finger. Art: Carmine Infantino. Based on a cover by Gil Kane. American human scientists working on a building Earth's first man-made satellite discover they have been scooped by gorillas, who've launched their own satellite into space. This tale opens with the observation that a real life race was on in 1956 to launch the first artificial satellite. This would climax two years later in 1958 with the Soviets launching Sputnik. The appearance of Sputnik came as a huge, shocking surprise to most Americans; it was treated as a wake up call for the entire nation, underlining the need to boost science and technology education. By contrast, Kane, Finger and Strange Adventures know all about this space race, and have made it the subject of a story.

The cover inspiring this tale is something of a classic. Strange Adventures and the other DC comics loved Gorilla tales; their appearance on a cover was enough to boost circulation, according to Les Daniels' DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Super Heroes (1995). So in some ways, this cover had to happen. The idea of Gorillas in outer space has a delightful inevitability, combining two great obsessions of the sf magazines, gorillas and space travel. The whole idea has a humorous, zany, almost campy quality, as well as some real imagination. Kane's cover shows gorillas looking out on large, circular space stations, filled with rockets and other equipment. It is a spectacular vista, one that would be repeated in the inside art of the story. Kane shows good imagination in depicting what a space station might be actually like.

The idea behind this story and its cover is deliriously nutty, and Finger's story carries forward the tone of light hearted escapism, complete with a good deal of derring-do. The actual story is something of a mixed bag. Bill Finger only occasionally wrote for the sf comics. This tale shows his fascination with hoaxes and down right lying, usually to victimize someone. The story is well plotted, but it does not open up the grand science fictional vistas of the best sf magazine tales.

Infantino's art is good. The flat circular space stations are shaped somewhat like the planetoid Gala in his Knights of the Galaxy series. Infantino has stuck to Kane's geometric cover designs, and the ship's exteriors show nothing of his personal Art Deco approach. The starscapes (p 4 and 5) are in Infantino's grand tradition. Infantino also does a good job with the panel showing his hero putting on a gorilla suit. Such suits were also common on TV of the era, but I've never seen anyone wear one in real life. They should be revived for the new millennium!

John Broome tales

Time Capsule from Tomorrow (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Alex Toth. Future scientist E-Semex smuggles back a warning to 1951 newspaper columnist Allyn Drake, warning of alien invasion. Broome heroes are often contacted by aliens who need their help; here his hero is contacted by men of Earth's own future.

The 1951 columnist is another of Broome's men who start out by being failures at the careers. Allyn Drake's column completely fails to generate and response from readers: another Broome hero who is out of touch with his times, marching to a different inner personality from everyone around him. Like other Broome heroes, he goes on to a big success. Here, that success has nothing to do with his own talents - it depends on the communications he gets from the future. This success is more like that of a Broome villain, than of a Broome hero, who tends to draw more on his own hidden talents. However, his success does has positive consequences for humanity, like Broome's heroes, and unlike his sinister villains.

This is another Broome story, in which the efforts of a lone hero to lead others in revolution, destroys and evil dictatorship, setting the populace free. While some Broome tales have this revolution as their sole plot, this tale interweaves the revolution with its complex science fiction plot about communication from the future. So the story is an example of Broome's "science fictionalizing" a previous plot: adding another sf dimension to a previous plot-line, to come up with a new, and more complex tale.

Toth does a good job of portraiture, contrasting the black-haired contemporary reporter, and the blond future scientist.

The Mad World (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Bob Oksner. A spaceman has to go to the planet Illumia where everyone suffers from strange delusions. This is another Broome tale, about a revolt against a dictatorship that uses high tech methods to keep a population in thrall. As is often the case in Broome, people have been brainwashed to accept an inferior reality. They have to fight mentally to move on to a better way of thinking. They also have lots of anxieties about having mental problems, also a Broome theme. The story also has a central mechanical station that powers the dictator's control: also a frequent Broome device.

The hero, Lt. Thon Blayne of the Space Patrol, is the sort of blond leading man in the Aryan Flash Gordon tradition that Strange Adventures would tend to avoid in the future. There is also more emphasis here on military rank, than in most Strange Adventures stories to come.

The best part here are Bob Oksner's space suits, which are really coolly designed. They are red, with huge curving white projections over the shoulders and chest. They also have white bulges on the elbows and knees: curved exaggerations of the human form jut out everywhere. They are some of the most glamorous outfits of the early 1950's comic books.

Oksner uses visual puns in his space ship design. The Black Ships piloted by the bad guys look like giant insects. And the hero's ship is one of the most phallic looking ever drawn, pink and with a nose-shaped head on top of a cylindrical shaft.

The sinister being, made up of geometric shapes that come together, is an unusual combination of abstract and representational art. Its conception depends both on Broome's dialogue and Oksner's drawing.

The Return of the Conqueror (#40, January 1954). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. One of two brothers will become famous, as we see their life stories in flashback: either a military man seeking fame and publicity, or a shy scientist interested only in his work. This is one of many Broome tales criticizing men who seek celebrity, always a key motivation for Broome villains. The two brothers here are also among a lineage of other brother acts in Broome comics, including the Jordan Brothers in Green Lantern.

The military brother here does a lot of things that Strange Adventures usually found reprehensible, notably invading and conquering peaceful beings on other planets. The tale rejects the military brother as a whole, but it never specifically comments on the morality of this individual action. The military brother also gets involved in a patriotic stunt, something also rarely found in the DC sf comics, but not explicitly criticized either.

The most interesting aspect of this tale is its astonishing scientific prophecy: it centers on the threat to Earth from holes in the ozone layer. This event has come true today. Broome's tale includes both causes and cures for this event, both of which are imaginative, but neither of which have much real life relevance. Broome liked stories that took place among large, diffuse objects in space: see "Raiders of the Waterless World" (Mystery in Space #56, December 1959).

Last Day on Earth (1954). Writer: John Broome. Art: Sy Barry. After meeting and falling in love with a mysterious woman, a young physicist starts shrinking. Pleasant love story. This simple, short work reminds one of other Broome tales in which a hero finds happiness with aliens.

Sy Barry has a good portrait of the hero in a white tux. He is at a fancy restaurant with the heroine. Such clothes were a cultural ideal in the 1950's. The detective in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) wears a similar tux at the end of the film.

Interplanetary Swap Shop (1955). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. A California husband and wife find a device that swaps objects between Earth and another planet. Outstanding story full of imaginative plot detail. The story starts out simply, and keeps building more and more plot developments out of its central idea. Broome often featured such step by step construction of a tale, in which the characters get deeply involved in an sf situation through a series of small, gentle steps.

The husband and wife do not become radicalized, unlike some of Broome's characters; they never move into opposition to conventional society. However, they do become world saving heroes, another Broome tradition. Both their idealism and intelligence mark them as Broome heroes. The couple do have the initiative to take action on their own, without promptings by society. They are original thinkers.

The finale here is one of the sf magazine tales in which the hero and heroine look up to the stars in wonder. This is a powerful image. Also good: a portrait of the hero, when he has his glasses off (p2).

The Fish-Men of Earth (1955). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. Aliens make the air on Earth so dense that humans are able to swim through it. This story invoked one of the most common and most powerful dream images: that one can fly through the air, swimming in it as one would a lake. The story is based on a spectacular cover by Carmine Infantino, which shows the air swimming with dream like brilliance. Broome explores the consequences of this change with his usual thoroughness. Like his women's lib tale "It's a Woman's World" (1952), this story looks at genuine change coming to society, a complete social transformation. This story is also one of several in the sf magazines that makes the process of scientific investigation vivid and real to their readers.

The Man Who Couldn't Drown (1956). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. Based on a cover by: Ruben Moreira. A scientist who falls off a ship discovers that he can breathe salt water; he becomes the center of a massive scientific investigation. The tale gives a vivid picture of scientific investigation. The hero is himself a scientist, and takes part in the investigation as an experimenter, as well as a subject. The tale shows how new hypotheses are generated, the role chance plays in coming up with new concepts, and the need of scientists to use their intelligence to turn such chance events into new ideas for testing. It depicts the need for scientists to include as many good ideas in their testing as possible. Such a picture of how scientists work must have been very educational to the young readers of Strange Adventures, and all in the context of an exciting tale.

This tale shows several earmarks of Broome's construction. It includes a whole life history for its hero. It shows him getting more and more involved with underwater life, in the step by step approach Broome loved. Finally, at the end of the story the hero takes a drastic, radical step: this too is a traditional Broome climax. This approach of Broome's requires significant plot inventiveness and logic. The tale comes to a peaceful, constructive conclusion, reflecting Broome's idealism. This was also typical of the sf comic books: they felt social issues were important, and wanted them to be explicitly resolved by the ends of the stories.

The hero of the tale becomes the center of national publicity. This is quite common for Broome heroes, and even more often for Broome villains, whose head gets turned by their celebrityhood. The investigation is led by the National Science Foundation, which is a very much real institution. This is fairly rare in comic books, whose legal departments usually keep them from portraying real life people or places.

The underwater Atlantis city here is in Infantino's full Art Deco style. The city has curving pipe shaped towers, like Infantino's planetoid Gala in the "Knights of the Galaxy" tales (Mystery in Space #1 - 8).

Ruben Moreira's cover and the splash show the scientist underwater. He is fully dressed in shirt and tie, doubtless to underscore the fact that he is living underwater and fully operational in this environment, just as if he were a surface man. It is a surrealist image. Broome has included dialogue in the story to "explain" this - otherwise readers surely would have questioned this. He has his tie loosened: this is as casual as one gets in the dressy environment of the sf comic books! Another sequence shows him in sports clothes, white slacks and black shirt. This too is somewhat unusually casual in the sf comics.

The World that Slipped out of Space (1957). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. A convict in prison in contacted telepathically by aliens, who need Earth's help to save their planet. This story is based on a cover by Gil Kane. It recalls others he did, showing prisoners using unusual sf methods to escape from jail: see #81, as well. Broome treats this as just one episode in the story, and one remote from the main structure of the tale.

This tale shows Broome's idealism. Everyone on Earth pulls together to save the new planet. Women are explicitly involved in this; Broome stresses their intelligence and willingness to make an effort beyond the ordinary. Broome wrote several major stories about refugees; this tale is about a whole planet of refugees, fleeing from a natural disaster in another dimension.

US Government scientist Darwin Jones appeared in numerous Strange Adventures stories, right from the start in #1. He was rarely the protagonist of the tales. Often he was a supporting player. He and the Department of Scientific Investigation he headed would be plot catalysts. The DSI resembles a scientific version of the FBI. It is in charge of government investigations that involve science. It is usually treated with the serious dignity that marked most depictions of the FBI in its era. The Darwin Jones tales do not have the marks of a series. They did not appear in consecutive issues, or on any regular schedule. He appears in stories by many different writers and artists. Darwin Jones seems to be a character who is available to any Strange Adventures writer, who might find his appearance helpful in the tale.

The Alaskan landscape on the splash, showing a frozen wilderness with a starscape above, anticipates Infantino's moonscapes in "When the Earth Turned into a Comet" (1963). The vertical and vertically angled lines are also much employed in Infantino compositions.

The Secret of the Tom Thumb Spacemen (1957). Writer: John Broome. Art: Sid Greene. This tale combines two famous plots: an ordinary Earthman is tapped to impersonate a look alike alien king of another planet who is ailing and who cannot attend to his duties (the Prisoner of Zenda story), and the Earthman must pull out a sword as a test of his kingship (the Excalibur story). There's lots more plot in this compact story: why are the space travelers the size of toy soldiers? And what is the hero going to do about his bad dreams? This story anticipates Broome's two Green Lantern tales about dreams. Always in Broome, dreams lead to surrealist adventures, often ones that contain great wish fulfillment fantasies, as well as release of subconscious drives.

Sid Greene's art is pleasantly escapist. As is usual in Zenda stories, the emphasis is on elegant fun. Here the hero gets to dress like the spacemen, who wear fancy outfits with red pants, white tunics and green boots: Christmas colors. The spacemen look like Nice Guys in these clothes, which are both fancy and wholesome. There is a sense of belonging in this aspect of the plot: the hero is now a member of a group of friends, all of whom have mild social prestige and dignity. The hero is shown as a workman leaving his factory at the beginning of the story, lost in the crowd, and social acceptance and brotherhood like this must be gratifying. I also liked the bed containing the ailing king: it is modernistic, like most of Greene's furniture, with a rounded head board marked with repeating flanges on either side. Greene created his own world in the comic books, one in which the buildings, furniture, machines and space ships all had their unique, highly personal designs. He is as much a total designer as was Frank Lloyd Wright or any other modern architect.

Secret of the Shrinking Twins (1957). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. Twin brother detectives go undercover in a prison to uncover a breakout, but soon are shrunk by an insect scientist into his microscopic world. This story shows several elements that will appear in Broome's later Green Lantern stories. The brothers here recall the Jordan Brothers in that comic book, being a series of grownup, look alike men who work to defeat criminal schemes. There are similar choices of profession in the two groups of brothers, and even some similarities in personalities. Furthermore, the men wear rings, which behave in many ways similar to the power rings in Green Lantern.

The villainous scientist here is a would be dictator, trying to take over his home world, which is ruled by a "Democratic Council". This is exactly the same political situation that will appear in Otto Binder's Krypton stories, such as "Superman's Return to Krypton" (Superman #123, August 1958).

The twin brothers are a bit more macho looking than many of Infantino's ethereal looking heroes. Perhaps this is because they are detectives, and work undercover in hard-boiled environments, such as prisons. Also, they are based on a cover by Gil Kane, and reflect the more robust appearance of his leading characters. The brothers are well characterized, and it seems a pity that they are not series characters. By contrast, much of the art in the tale is squarely in the Infantino tradition. The alien cities are Art Deco, and so is the equipment in the scientist's lab. The warden's office is a typical Infantino seat of authority, with its large desk, and multipaned floor to ceiling windows behind. There is also an Infantino starscape (page 3).

The Indestructible Menace (1960). Writer: John Broome. Art: Sid Greene. Giant toy dolls from a prehistoric advanced civilization are excavated, and innocently cause havoc in contemporary times. A scientist has to figure out the principles of the dolls' behavior, and how they can be stopped. Broome treats this apparently simple subject with a wealth of invention. Since dolls are toys and not dangerous, there is a slightly comic edge to the story, a realization that nothing bad is going to happen. The reader can relax and concentrate of the sf events and their scientific investigation: Broome is inventive with both.

This story seems very unusual within Broome's work, and the sf comics as a whole. The various devices recall a little bit the ingenious traps with which Green Lantern would imprison Sinestro. The dolls also have a thematic link to Broome's stories in which pets or thinking machines become gigantic and take over humans' lives. However, they are much more comic and good natured than the sinister computers in Broome's tales. This story resembles some of Gardner Fox's sf mystery tales involving large robots and their control. The idea of giant robots from a prehistoric civilization being revived and undertaking mysterious tasks in modern times recalls Otto Binder's "The Warning from One Million B. C." (#109, October 1959).

Greene shows his architectural gifts in this tale. The splash shows an Earth skyscraper, while flashbacks to the prehistoric past depict strange curving ramps with rails on buildings (p2).

Captain Comet

The Origin of Captain Comet (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. Based on a cover by: Carmine Infantino. Young Adam Blake grows up with amazing powers, and tries to find out what sort of person he really is. This story is a powerful look at people who are different from others: a perennial Broome theme. Blake eventually takes on a new identity as Captain Comet.

Captain Comet was a series super-hero whose work appeared in Strange Adventures (1951 - 1954). His stories took place in the present, and were often set on Earth, like much of the rest of this magazine. Captain Comet was a mutant, a representative of a super-species of Earthmen that would appear in the future. This gave him unique powers, such as invulnerability. He is often referred to as "the man of destiny", because all humans will be like him in thousands of years - he is the destiny of our species. Broome's heroes were often unique persons, different from society around them, and with unique powers. He had a secret identity: he was Adam Blake, a reference librarian in Midwest City, an information clerk who could answer almost any question on any topic. Despite their huge contributions to society, there are few librarian heroes in popular culture. I personally owe much of what is good in my life and work to libraries.

Captain Comet's origin is similar to that of the Golden Age Flash, in that it involves a college age youth who discovers that he has miraculous powers. Both heroes have a professor as a mentor.

This story stresses Adam Blake's mental abilities. It does not focus on super-strength, unlike many comic book super-heroes. Even when Adam is shown to be an amazing athlete in college, his success rests on his ability to outmaneuver opposing players by anticipating their moves - a mental gift. This emphasis on thinking and brain power will be a constant in the entire 14 year run of the Schwartz-edited Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space.

Some of Adam's abilities are linked in the script to psi powers, such as mind over matter. This link will tend to disappear in later stories. Captain Comet will still have amazing mental abilities, but the stories will no longer serve as commercials for research into ESP. His powers will "just" be startling futuristic abilities, without any attempt to describe them in terms of contemporary ESP research. The elderly scientist who tests Adam in the first tale, Professor Emery Zackro, will also disappear as a series character.

While performing his feats, he wears a bright red uniform, with white and blue trim. Captain Comet's visual appearance was created by Carmine Infantino, who did the cover for this origin story, as well as the art for the actual story. Infantino had a flair for red costumes, and Captain Comet's anticipates that of Adam Strange to come. Blake wears his Captain Comet uniform under his suit, just like Superman. He often changes in a cubicle in the basement of the library, just like Superman uses a storeroom at the Daily Planet. Infantino's cover is one of his most spectacular. It shows a giant Captain Comet, symbolically standing on top of a modern city's skyline, filled with skyscrapers. The skyline is curved in a circular arc. Behind Captain Comet is one of Infantino's beautiful starscapes, representing his connection with the world of the stars and outer space. Trailing behind Captain Comet's lower body is a giant red comet, which is also curved into a circular arc, one whose curvature is in the opposite, balancing direction from the skyline.

Standing in front of Captain Comet, but around half his size, we see the Captain's secret identity of Adam Blake. Adam Blake is dressed in a modern suit, and carries a brief case. It is rare to see a portrait showing both a hero and his secret identity. Infantino would later show a hero in both his star fleet uniform and in a suit with briefcase in the splash panel of "The Secret of the Space Jewel" (1959). In that tale the one man is looking at the other. Captain Comet and Adam Blake are standing immediately in front of each other, however. The two seem closely linked in the image. It is as if they shared a single body.

Adam Blake's white suit on the cover is sporty, stylish, and more like sports wear than a business suit. Fred Astaire wore similar clothes in 1950's movies.

The Air Bandits from Space (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. Based on a cover by: Bob Oksner. Aliens try to get rid of Earth's atmosphere. The origin of Captain Comet's space ship, the Cometeer. Both the Cometeer, and the alien space ship, are full of biomorphic curves and projections. Infantino shows both on the splash, and later in the story. The story also has some of Infantino's depictions of the hero looking up to the night stars in wonder - always one of Infantino's most involving, haunting and hopeful subjects.

In addition to his space ship, Broome has some good ideas about his hero's perception of light and electromagnetic waves in general. This allows him to do detective work, tracking down the alien ship. Broome stressed the hero's step by step tracking down of a mystery in his non-science fiction detective comic book, Big Town.

While the previous Captain Comet origin story was set completely on Earth, with him battling a gang of typical crooks, this tale tries to be as science-fictional as possible. Throughout the rest of the series, Captain Comet would regularly travel to other worlds, to battle alien menaces, as well as getting involved with Earth-set crime. One suspects this tale was viewed as the origin, part 2, one designed to demonstrate other aspects of Captain Comet's persona and subject matter.

The Day the Past Came Back (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Carmine Infantino. Based on a cover by: Bob Oksner. Dinosaurs appear, and wreck the city. This is the first tale in which Adam Blake goes to work as the library information clerk at Midwest City Library. Since Adam Blake has astonishing mental powers and abilities to gather information, it makes sense that he will work as a reference librarian, those amazing people who know everything about all subjects. This is also the origin of Adam's fellow librarian, the beautiful Miss Torrence.

This Captain Comet tale has an evolution machine, like that in Gardner Fox's "Evolution Plus", three issues previous in #8. It leads to some similar complications, although here these are worked into a complex thriller plot.

The museum guards have huge boots, as part of their uniforms.

Destination Doom (1951). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. Aliens demand a typical Earthman be sent aboard their spaceship for purposes of study. This tale combines a couple of Broome themes, which probably found richer treatments elsewhere. One is the theme of a regime of evil robots dominating humans; the other is that of a hero starting a revolution against oppression. The hero of this tale attacks the regime's power supply, just as in Broome's later non-series tale "The Doom From Station X" (Mystery in Space #15, August-September 1953). This story is notable for an unusually complete demonstration of Captain Comet's various powers. His powers are almost as varied and unlimited as Broome's later hero Green Lantern. However, while GL's can make his ring materialize anything his mind imagines, Captain Comet's are based in his unique biology, both physical and mental. While vast, they are fixed in scope and nature.

Broome's version of a machine civilization oppressing humans has some resemblance to E. M. Forster's prose sf story "The Machine Stops" (1910). Both envision a final end to this machine era. Broome also links his picture of war against humans with bigoted stereotypes robots have about people. He is very insightful here, knowing that discrimination is almost always supported by an ideology of prejudice and negative stereotypes. This makes his tale resonate allegorically with the Civil Rights and feminist struggles of his era. It is hard not to see the picture he paints of humans facing up to negative images as representing the real life struggles of blacks and women to overcome prejudice. Broome's "It's a Woman's World" (Mystery in Space #8, June-July 1952) gives a detailed look at stereotypes faced by women.

Captain Comet is a seriously grown up man, in Anderson's version. He is definitely not a juvenile. In full figure, he resembles Gary Cooper; in his close-ups he recalls Howard Duff, especially around the eyes. Captain Comet's space ship is bright red, just like his uniform. Its needle cone rises to a sharp point, while two rounded jets are on each side. It is hard to imagine anything more phallic looking. It seems to be a one person space ship, much like the planes flown by real life test pilots.

The hand in a glass bowl (p4) is one of Anderson's archetypal images. It is very beautiful. The hand is reaching in to draw a name from the bowl. It also conveys some of the "classical" feel of Anderson's futuristic architecture. Plazas and fountains in Anderson can be built around a large jewel, which resembles the clear circular bowl of this illustration. Towers in Anderson sometimes have an all window area at the top, which also resembles these jewels and bowls. There is something extremely dignified about all of this. All of the areas represent some elegant Shangri-La of the imagination. They are a dignified and majestic place, centering around some perfect jewel of great rarity and beauty.

Beware the Synthetic Men (#17, February 1952). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. Based on a cover by: Gil Kane. What's most interesting about this tale is the use of television. One of Captain Comet's seemingly endless powers is the ability to read thoughts. After all, he explains that thoughts are merely electric waves, which his advanced senses can pick up. But it turns out that thought waves are actually broadcast by TV, along with the picture and sound, so while watching at home Captain Comet can read the thoughts of a man who is broadcasting on live TV, right over the air waves! Green Lantern's ability to look into people's minds and see the truth is one of his most important capabilities. Here Captain Comet can do something similar. Television was so new in 1952 that it was still regarded as an sf invention. It seemed plausible that it might have undiscovered properties or potentials, such as thought broadcasting. There are also aspects of social commentary or even satire, here. The story explicitly contrasts what is being said by the broadcaster to what he is actually thinking. Even in the 1950's people were skeptical about this.

The Guardians of the Clockwork Universe (1952). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson.

Broome will make the Guardians of the Universe central characters in his Silver Age Green Lantern stories. It is startling to see an early version of them in his Captain Comet tales. The two versions of the Guardians show both similarities and differences. Similarities: both Guardians are nearly all wise beings who care for the well being of the entire Universe. Both have chosen an Earth hero (Captain Comet, Green Lantern) to be their champion. Both summon him through sending voices to Earth. Both send him on missions to other planets, of vital importance.

Differences: these early Guardians seem to be members of a single alien species of beings, all of whom live on a single planet. The entire race of beings seem to collectively be involved in the Guardianship. By contrast, the origin and nature of the Green Lantern Guardians seems mysterious. They form a council, and seem much smaller in number than a planet full of beings. And despite their similar appearance, they are never identified with an entire species of beings. Other differences: these Guardians are not the source of Captain Comet's power; they have a named leader Nestro; these Guardians are not "men of action", which is why they pick Captain Comet to be their agent of action.

Lights, Camera -- Invasion! (1953). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. A teleplay about a Martian invasion of Earth is taken over by real Martians. This tale refers to Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" (1938), although not by name, and depicts a TV remake. It is related to the many media stories Broome wrote for Strange Adventures. This story takes place in the Golden Age of live TV. It is only practical as a plot during a live broadcast.

The exiting adventure elements in this story resemble Broome's classic "Raiders of the Waterless World" (Mystery in Space #56, December 1959). Both tales involve a solitary man who must single handedly prevent a surprise alien invasion. The man is engaged on peaceful, unrelated activities when the surprise attack occurs. In both stories, the hero has an off base approach to preventing the alien attack, something they do not expect.

Anderson's art is superb here. His depictions of the Martian spaceships show excellent geometry. His depiction of Captain Comet in his red uniform is also at his most macho. He also does a good job with the Army officers here. These men fail, as they always do in 1950's sf movies and comics! Our hero then has to take on the aliens all by himself.

The Human Beehive (1953). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. Captain Comet visits an island where radioactivity has turned insects and other animals into giants. Elements of this story anticipate Gordon Douglas' science fiction movie Them! (1954).

Captain Comet is always going on journeys to other places: often planets, here an island. Broome often liked his heroes to travel. We also learn here that Captain Comet is resistant to all forms of radiation, just like Broome's Atomic Knights to come. This story is crammed with small details and little plot ideas of all kinds. Although the Captain Comet tales are short, usually six pages, Broome tried to get as much story into them as possible.

Murphy Anderson always liked characters in uniform caps. Here he has Adam Blake on board ship in a nautical cap, plus a simple white sailor's shirt - Anderson always favored pure white shirts for his heroes. This is a rare view of Blake dressed in anything other than a suit. Anderson has some very good portraits of Captain Comet here. Page 5 shows him kneeling on one leg, holding a tiny human on the palm of his outstretched hand. There is also a portrait of Captain Comet standing, seen from the back.

The Cosmic Chessboard (#35, August 1953). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. The Guardians of the Universe return and send Captain Comet on a second mission: he has to enter a chess tournament on Pluto.

The Guardians are the most interesting aspect of this story, which is mainly a fairly minor tale. The chess aspects anticipate Broome's work on Strange Sports Stories, showing the future of a popular sport. Here Captain Comet looks ahead 279 moves to win a chess game. This anticipates Deep Blue and other modern computer chess playing programs.

This story recalls Broome's Big Town tales. Like them, it tales place in a zone of advanced civilization: Big Town is a thinly disguised New York City; this story is at a solar system chess tournament. Like many of the Big Town tales, it takes place at a sophisticated event: here the tournament. This event is the background around which a mystery plot is woven.

Anderson has a good close-up of Captain Comet (p2). There are shadows mid-face.

The Invaders From the Golden Atom (1953). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. Lucy Torrence, Adam Blake's colleague at the library, has strange dreams where she is ordered to build a machine. This is one of the most detailed looks at Lucy Torrence anywhere in the series. She is a continuing character, and this close-up portrait is welcome.

This story is one of many Broome wrote that involve dreams. It is oddly gripping throughout. Other Broome themes are also present: such as rings that have strange powers, mysterious messages from cosmic sources, woman executives, unrequited love by the hero for the same, the color gold (like the color yellow), sinister realms run by the evil, gateways between worlds, flight, the ocean, helping friends from work who are in trouble, strange events and mysterious machinery at home, shrinking down to atomic universes, and one hero taking on a large group of villains. All of these ideas reappear in Broome's classic early Green Lantern stories. They seem to form a suite of ideas, one that resonates together in Broome's story telling imagination.

Storytelling is a mysterious enterprise. One story will absorb the reader's attention; another will be dull. It is often hard to understand why, at least on the surface of things. "The Invaders From the Golden Atom" fascinated me, just like Broome's Green Lantern stories. The way the two tales share common imagery suggests some clues. They create a psychological landscape, one filled with interesting ideas, plots and feelings. "The Invaders From the Golden Atom" is much shorter than the Green Lantern saga: just 6 pages, rather than the 19 issues that make up Broome's first Green Lantern tales. Still, both show the storyteller's art.

The Seeing-Eye Humans (1953). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. Alien beings are kidnapping humans with exceptionally strong eye-sight. Simple, dignified tale, with messages about overcoming adversity. The story is linked to the series of tales Broome wrote about giant animals making pets out of humans. Here humans are similarly put into the role of seeing-eye dogs for aliens.

The Guilty Gorilla (#39, December 1953). Writer: John Broome. Art: Murphy Anderson. The rogue Gorilla escapes from his courtroom trial, and organizes a gang of human crooks in Midwest City. DC comics in the 1950's published endless stories about intelligent gorillas; Broome himself wrote some classic stories about smart gorillas in the late 1950's. This one is at the adequate level, but is no great shakes. However, you have to love the deliciously absurd newspaper headline in this tale: "Mystery-Gorilla Leads Gang in Crime Wave". There is definitely something surreal about seeing an animal in a human leadership role. It also suggests that other 1950's myths about leadership might be false, such as those suggesting leaders should always be straight white males.

Murphy Anderson's cover is both beautiful and tongue-in-cheek. It shows the gorilla defendant seated on the witness stand. Captain Comet is standing there, in full red uniform, prosecuting him in the role of noble District Attorney. He stands ramrod straight, and holds a rifle he is submitting as evidence and discussing before the court. All of this is done with Anderson's superb draftsmanship and sense of drama. I've always had fantasies about being a crusading District Attorney, and this cover is an embodiment of them. Broome's story makes it clear that Captain Comet is not actually the DA, or any other court official; he is instead a "star witness". Still he is allowed to stand up and roam around in the front of the court, just like a District Attorney.

The tale is atypical in being a Captain Comet story involving organized crime. Usually the tales were purely science fictional. Unlike many comic book heroes, Captain Comet was not basically a crime fighter or detective.

Star Hawkins

Star Hawkins was a private eye, who lived in a near future 21st Century Earth. His light hearted cases appeared in Strange Adventures.

The Case of the Counterfeit Credits (1960). Writer: John Broome. Art: Mike Sekowsky. Hawkins' robot secretary Ilda cracks a case involving counterfeiters who bet on races. Like many of the Star Hawkins cases, this one has a Damon Runyon like feel. The crooks are dim-witted common gamblers, and the adventure is full of comic touches. Ilda is in a popular tradition of highly intelligent, decent but naive intellectuals who innocently get involved with crooks, and who defeat them in the end. I always enjoyed such tales, partly because I am an intellectual myself, and can identify with the heroes. The intellectuals in these tales are always mild mannered, and lacking in street smarts. They have formidable brain power: here represented by Ilda's robotic brain.

As in other of Broome's tales, there is a gradualist approach here. We see the relationship between the cooks and Ilda start off with small steps, then gradually escalate into her being held hostage. Broome is always careful to provide such a detailed history of situations.

Sekowsky's depiction of Ilda is a comic gem. She is purely geometric, contrasting with all the realistically drawn humans around her. She has considerable feelings, even though she is a robot.

The Case of the Red-Hot Robot (1960). Writer: John Broome. Art: Mike Sekowsky. Ilda's dreams start showing real life robberies; she and Hawkins get involved with robbers who use a heat gun. The idea of a dreaming robot is quite creative. Broome has a persistent interest in dreams; they often lead to massive revelations of truth, just as they do in this tale. Ilda has a very wide set of personal powers, just like most of Broome's heroes, such as Captain Comet and Green Lantern. The scene in this tale where Ilda broadcasts her dream visions on the wall recall the scenes in Green Lantern where Hal uses the ring to explore people's thoughts and make them visible. It is a moment of considerable imagination.

The real star of the series was Hawkins' robot secretary Ilda. Despite being the title character, Star Hawkins is clearly a mock heroic figure of fun here. He gets the build up: the title billing, the glamorous private eye job, the handsome portraiture. But all of this just comically underscores the fact that the long-suffering Ilda has all of the talent, and does most of the detective work. There is more than a bit of social satire here. In the 1960's, women were mainly restricted to lower level jobs, such as secretaries. Many of these women were far more talented than the men they worked for. In many cases, it was their ability that was actually running the business, and keeping it afloat.

Mike Sekowsky scores in this tale with the rocket jet "motorcycles" ridden by the police of the future. Riding such devices would be really cool. They would also make a great arcade game. He has his cops in head to toe blue uniforms, complete with helmets. These too are neat.

The Case of the 14 Clueless Crimes (1964). Writer: John Broome. Art: Mike Sekowsky. While speaking to a police convention in another city, Star Hawkins accepts a challenge to find a thief whose 14 robberies have left no clues. The last Broome-Sekowsky Star Hawkins tale, and the last story of any kind in the Julius Schwartz edited run of Strange Adventures. The tale is a straightforward sf detective story, with a nice use of both deduction and investigative sleuthing. Hawkins eventually traces the villain to his lair, a similar finale as many of the stories Broome was writing for The Flash. Hawkins makes his first deduction from the fact that the robber has in fact left no clues. There is a Borges-like, paradoxical feel to such a deduction. Broome constructs this part of the plot with convincing logical detail. Another clue in the tale shows Broome's interest in polarity, a subject that shows up in his Green Lantern stories.

The mystery is entirely solved by Hawkins, with little or no help from Ilda. This is consistent with the theme of the story, that 21st Century humans are relying too much on machines, and too little on their own powers, a thesis advanced by Hawkins at the start of the story. Such a thesis is consistent with Broome's anti-computer stories of the 1950's. It is a contrast to Ilda herself. The character of Ilda, and her many robotic features depicted throughout the series, showed some of the great possibilities of robots. Although the series is comic in tone, it offers one of the more imaginative and detailed looks in fiction of what robots might actually be like.

France E. Herron tales

The Invasion From Indiana (1954). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Gil Kane. Aliens invading Earth hypnotize Earth people to make them see them as friendly humans, from Indiana.

The idea of aliens disguising themselves as conventional looking, handsome young humans will pop up again in Mark Clifton's prose sf novel, When They Come From Space (1961). Gil Kane breaks the splash page up into two vertical panels, just as he will often do later on in Green Lantern. One shows the aliens as they appear to humans, looking like handsome young Earthmen in glamorous space suits. The other panel shows the aliens as they really are. The two vertical sections are "in parallel". Both are occurring at exactly the same time, and together make up a composite portrait. The splash can be thought of as a "compound panel", a single panel made up of multiple sections.

Kane depicts the aliens as some of his classic leading man types. The aliens are so wholesome and conventionally good looking that some slight elements of satire sneak in. These men are downright bland in their conventional appearance. Most of the actual heroes of other Kane stories have a bit more of an edge than this. They also tend to have more individual personality. The aliens are almost a satire on what Americans admire in people. Their utter blandness and WASP like appearance has a mindless quality, as well as large elements of social convention.

The ending of this story involves 3-D films. Herron liked three dimensional effects: see the buoy in his "The Prisoner of Space X" (1957). This concluding part of the tale shows good logic.

Warning From Another World (1954). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Henry Sharp. A woman doctor, who is a professor of space medicine, tries to revive an alien fished out of Earth's ocean, and determine what planet he is from. This tale is a feminist classic. It is a rare Strange Adventures tale with a woman as its scientist-hero. The story is explicitly feminist; the heroine Dr. Grant has to face down surprise from her colleagues that she is a woman. Feminism was a major subject in the DC sf comics in the early 1950's, with such tales as Robert Kanigher's "Challenge of the Robot Knight" (Mystery in Space #7, April-May 1952) and John Broome's "It's a Woman's World" (Mystery in Space #8, June-July 1952).

The story reminds one of several Otto Binder sf mysteries to come. It was written at a time, however, when Binder was just beginning his work for DC comics on a large scale. I do not know what precedents it had it the work of Herron, Binder, or other writers. Just as in Binder's "Back Window into Space" (1958), the heroine has to figure out what planet the alien is from. And as in Binder's "The Spaceman Who Came to Dinner" (1958), she has to figure out correct physical conditions in which the alien can flourish.

Herron liked stories in which mysterious alien beings appeared on Earth, and the difficulties humans had in communicating with them. His "The Volcanic Man" (1957) is also of this type. The Volcanic Man comes from an underground civilization; the alien here is from another planet, but is fished out of the sea here on Earth for his first appearance. Herron's work has strong chthonic qualities. It often involves geology or underground exploration or technology.

The Prisoner of Space X (1957). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Sid Greene. A space pilot breaks through a dimensional barrier, only to meet a hostile reception. The story explicitly compares this flight to the breaking of the sound barrier in 20th Century aircraft flight. Herron shows some good imagination in his depiction of space flight. I also liked the "space buoy" towards the end. It serves to warn of danger, just as a 20th Century buoy does in water. But it emits warning lights in all directions, as befits the three dimensional nature of space.

Sid Greene's art is very rich in this tale. Greene often showed alien cities from above: a space ship will approach the planet, and look down over an alien city, complete with buildings, roads and landscape, all spread out below. The architecture shown in this tale is some of his most curvilinear and outré, with spiraling ramps and unusually curved buildings abounding. In the large introductory panel, we also see some of these buildings from close up, once again from the slightly elevated angle Greene often preferred for these introductory splash panels. Greene often took advantage of the large size of the splash panels to reveal both a panoramic view of several alien buildings, and their architectural detail.

The Friendly Enemies of Space (#81, June 1957). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Gil Kane. Aliens land on Earth; their repeated friendly attempts to communicate with Earthmen keep leading inadvertently to scientific disasters for Earth people. Otto Binder was not the only writer to use of the theme of "the difficulty of communicating between Earthmen and aliens". Here is a First Contact story by Herron on the same theme. Herron's piece is far more awkward than Binder's. It is full of Herron's strange invented pseudo-science which runs through his stories. Herron's work is G-rated, wholesome, and inoffensive. But it is also truly weird. It is not a favorite of mine. However, I suspect that Herron's weirdness contains unusual ideas, and strange ideas always have value. Most noteworthy here is the synesthesia passage. One side-effect of the aliens' science is to temporarily swap the senses of hearing and sight in humans. Gil Kane's art here strangely transforms comic book conventions. Instead of word balloons contains dialogue, as they usually do, here instead they contain colors. This shows that people are talking in colors: part of the synesthesia in the story. Kane did a similar effect in a Green Lantern tale to convey a silent world in which men have lost the power of speech: "Zero Hour in Silent City" (Green Lantern #12, April 1962). In that tale, he showed people speaking with empty balloons, to convey the effect that they were trying to talk, but no sound was being produced. I also liked the slightly futuristic naval officer's uniform Kane depicts on page 3.

The Volcanic Man (1957). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Sid Greene. A giant from an underground volcanic civilization appears on Earth. The opening of this tale is much like 1950's sf films, with a giant monster running amok on Earth, wrecking havoc in its path. However, the splash panel explicitly asks whether the giant's mission is good or evil, and the scientist hero of the tale makes every effort to find out, and to communicate with the giant. Herron returns to the theme of First Contact, and the difficulties of communication, a theme he shares with Otto Binder. The geological approach also seems personal for Herron. This is one of his most satisfying tales.

The giant makes a diamond out of compressed carbon, just like Superman.

The splash shows one of Greene's aerial cityscapes. It is smaller than some of his other efforts, but still very good, with curving circular ramps and windows.

The Future Mind of Roger Davis (1957). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Gil Kane. While on vacation at a mountain resort one winter, Roger Davis develops the ability to foresee future disasters.

This minor tale is mainly notable for Gil Kane's art, especially his portraiture of the hero. We see him a large variety of sports clothes - something unusual for the DC sf comics, which usually had their heroes in coats and ties. He wears a T shirt (p2), and a Blackhawk style jacket much of the rest of the tale. The portrait with his collar turned up (p4) is especially good. Kane also does a good job with the panel depicting snow overhanging the resort, before the avalanche (p5). This looks much like the tidal waves he often drew of water in other stories. The avalanche reminds us that Herron is very interested in events that involve movement of the Earth or its surface.

Earth for Sale (1958). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Carmine Infantino. Aliens try to conquer Earth to exploit its natural resources; an Earth scientist proposes somewhat ironically to sell Earth to the aliens instead, while using properties of alien sand to defeat the aliens' schemes. This story is not to be confused with "The Man Who Sold the Earth" (#47, August 1954), a minor Otto Binder story about a con man who "sells" the Earth to aliens in the same way that modern con men "sell" the Brooklyn Bridge.

Infantino's art is fascinatingly schematic here. Much of the story keeps returning to a single location, a giant hour glass the aliens have set up to indicate that time is running out. Infantino keeps showing the hour glass from different perspectives and distances. He also uses the panel to cut off and frame the hour glass in different ways. All of the illustrations are dominated by the giant X formed by the hour glass' sides. They also show the aliens' rocket parked near by, from a similar series of perspectives and views. It too is a nearly purely geometrical construct. So much of the tale becomes one of Infantino's largest pictorial sequences, showing similar action from different points of view.

The geologist hero of the story, John Prentiss, is a typical scientist hero of the sf comic books. He is backed by the United Nations in the story, an institution always treated with admiration in DC Silver Age comic books. Infantino depicts him wearing a pin stripe suit, something that is rare for his heroes. More typically they are dressed in a more modest middle class style in sport coat and tie.

The Immortality Seekers (1963). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Sid Greene. An alien being in ancient time creates the Earth's continents to encode a message in their outlines and shapes in his planet's writing system. This tale shows Herron faithful to the tradition of the Cosmic tale four years after it was given up by Binder with his 1959 retirement from scripting DC sf comic books. Herron was always especially interested in geology, so the breakup of Earth's once unified land mass is a natural for him. Herron is accurately referring to a real event: at one time all of Earth consisted of a single continent, and its breakup and the subsequent drift of the pieces have formed Earth's current continents and islands. The aliens who come to Earth view the outlines of the continents from high above, from their space ships. Such views of Earth features from space were an important part of Binder's Cosmic tradition: see Binder's "Amazing Space Flight of North America" (Mystery in Space #44, June-July 1958) and "Parade of the Planets" (Mystery in Space #52, June 1959), both of which deal with continental outlines. Herron shows further ingenious geological events in this tale, which is fully developed as a plot in the best sf comic book tradition.

Greene shows his architectural flair on the splash, with spiral towers surrounded by circles of broadcast waves. Such spiral towers often showed up in his futuristic plazas. Here they are stand alone feature on a modern Earth island.

Captives of the Eclipse (1964). Writer: France E. Herron. Art: Sid Greene. Darwin Jones intervenes when an eclipse causes people on Earth to have a strange glow. As is common in Herron stories, it is hard to tell throughout the tale whether the glow is beneficial or not. Herron keeps us in suspense till nearly the end. Such a framework by Herron reminds us how important thinking is in real life. Things are not obviously true or false - one has to think hard to understand them.

Sid Greene always includes a portrait of editor Julius Schwartz in his tales. His appearance here is one of the most comic. It expresses in a rueful way all our problems as being part of the human condition.

Chris KL-99

Chris KL-99 was a great space explorer. His stories appeared irregularly, in issues 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 15, always with scripts by the veteran science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton.

Edmond Hamilton's Framework for the Chris KL-99 tales. The Chris KL-99 stories tend to have a common framework.

There is sometimes an opening, in which Chris makes one to several brief visits to unusual planets.
Chris returns to Government Center on Earth, and communicates with the exploration command there.
A radio signal or message from a distant planet reaches the exploration command.
A mystery is often associated with the signal or message.
Chris finds a method of tracing the signal to its source, and takes off on a space journey following the signal.
Chris has to navigate some unusual outer space hazards while following the signal.
Chris may or may not briefly visit other planets while following the signal.
Chris arrives at the planet.
The mystery is solved, while Chris learns about the inhabitants and situation on the planet. (The half-way point of the story. And the place where a mountain of new plot is introduced.)
Chris makes an underground journey on the planet, guided by one of the planet's natives.
There are bad guys on the planet - Chris figures out an ingenious technological way to defeat them.
Chris performs an ingenious feat of Cosmic Engineering that solves some problem of the people on the planet. The method of the Engineering often derives from elements previously present in the tale.
Chris returns home to Earth, and either records the planet in the Hall of Records, or re-dedicates himself to his career as an explorer.

This framework is original to Hamilton. It does not seem to derive from other writers. Cosmic Engineering was a specialty of Hamilton, both in his prose science fiction, and in his comic book tales. In an interview, Hamilton said he learned about Cosmic Engineering plots from science fiction writer Homer Eon Flint, whom Hamilton read while young.

Variations in the Framework. Not every aspect of this framework is present in every Chris tale. Most importantly, Cosmic Engineering is not present in the first two Chris tales. It only emerges with the third, "The Metal World". From that point on, it is always present.

Also, quite a few Chris stories do not include the first step, that of brief visits to other planets. They simply begin with the next step, showing Chris on Earth at exploration headquarters. And Chris may or may not visit other planets while following the signal. Both kinds of visits are similar, and tend to show an exotic planet built around some unusual sf idea. They often have the most tenuous links with the rest of the story.

Some of the tales also have more elements of mystery about them, than others. It is a variable step.

Not a Formula. This is a serviceable framework for the tales. It tends to seem a bit cut and dried. Still, it offers Hamilton plenty of opportunity to come up with science fiction ideas. The planets, the way Chris follows the signal, the situation on the planet, the hi-tech way to defeat the bad guys, and the cosmic engineering, all require ingenious sf plotting. One hesitates to call anything that demands so many original ideas and ingenuity in each story a "formula".

The actual ideas in each step, such as the planets or the feat of cosmic engineering, are far more important than the framework itself. The creativity is in these specific plot ideas. These ideas are fresh and new in each individual Chris story.

The Chris stories seem like a dry run for the tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes tales that Hamilton would write in the 1960's. The Legion tales also often revolve around space exploration. And they frequently go to planets with strange properties. These planetary episodes tend to be longer and better developed in the Legion stories than in the Chris tales, where they can be as brief as a single panel.

The Menace of the Green Nebula (1950). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Howard Sherman. The first story about space explorer Chris KL-99. Chris explores the universe with two close friends: Halk, a giant Martian adventurer, and Jero, a small green Venusian scientist. These color choices are appropriate to the two planets, as people thought about them then: Mars was a place of red deserts, while Venus was green, wet and fertile. The two personalities of the aliens also seemed appropriate: Mars was silent, vast, noble and forbidding, like Halk, while Venus was friendly, good humored and intellectual, like Jero They also have an alien pet, Loopy, a dog like animal who changes colors according to his emotions. There is plenty of sense of alien adventure right here among the crew, with friends from four worlds. Hamilton's series loves alien beings. They are regarded as friends, and meeting people from another species is considered the greatest experience anyone can have. It is hard not to see symbolism here about race relations, and a suggestion that diversity of races is good.

Chris has a mission from the government: "to discover and explore new worlds and protect their inhabitants". The universe of the future is filled with rapacious merchants who would like to loot newly discovered planets of their natural resources, and exploit their inhabitants. It is the job of Chris and his crew to prevent this. This gives this tale a two part structure. In its first part, Chris finds a new world; in the second, he and his friends protect the planet from greedy colonizers.

One sees immediate parallels here with Earth's own history of colonialism. Hamilton clearly hates colonial exploitation, and has created a group of heroes who work against it. Hamilton clearly sees colonialism as one of the great tragedies of human history. There are some ironies here. Chris KL-99 is known in the stories as the "Christopher Columbus of space": note the similarities of their names. Like the real Columbus, Chris is a great explorer. Unlike the real Columbus, he is the protector of the people he meets, not their exploiter. Today, people with Hamilton's political and moral beliefs would never have invoked Columbus as a hero. This shows naiveté on Hamilton's part, and an ignoring of the real facts of Columbus' life. However, reservations about Hamilton's scrambled history aside, this is as morally admirable a series as one could wish.

In this first tale Chris' last name is KL99; in later tales a hyphen has been added, making him KL-99. He seems to be better known under the latter version among comics historians. The 99 is an honorific: it was added onto his name to honor his achievement in getting a 99% grade at the Space-Academy. Intellect is deeply honored here, as it almost always is in the comic book world. His name recalls that of pulp sf pioneer Hugo Gernsback, and his novel Ralph 124C41+ (1910). The + at the end of Ralph's name is also an honorific.

Howard Sherman's art is among the most spectacular of any story in Strange Adventures. It creates a whole future universe. A planet is full of rounded towers that look like chess pieces or giant mushrooms. There are square buildings with rounded dome like towers above them, like an observatory or a stupa. The government center on Earth is full of Art Deco buildings in the Moderne Deco style, with flanges and streamlining. There is an unusual, curvilinear space ship. Its complex 3D curved surfaces anticipate those of Curt Swan in "The Super-Brat From Krypton" (Superman #137, May 1960). Sherman also does a good job with the clothes, including Chris' uniform and the space suits. His work is a riot of visual invention, just as Hamilton's tale is one of the best tales of space exploration in the comics. A story like this expresses a great sense of wish fulfillment. It would be great to explore the universe, and see all the wonders it contains.

Howard Sherman's art in this tale is very rich. Virtually every panel conveys a future world. The illustrations are joyous, suggesting fun things emerging in the future. They are quite busy: every region of every panel is loaded with imagery. The colorist painted these building and space ships with a huge range of bright colors. The overall effect is a kid's delightful dream of the future, where every object is rich is detail with gizmos, and all in a wild Technicolor palette.

Sherman's underwater city (p2) recalls Mikolajus Ciurlionis' painting, Star Sonata Allegro (1908). That Symbolist work shows wavy lines extending horizontally through the air; Sherman's has actual water waves in his under ocean scene. Later, the Green Nebula will allow him to have similar complex curving lines through outer space. Even space or the sky is rarely blank in Sherman, in contrast to other artists.

The biomorphic spaceship "The Pioneer" piloted by Chris (p3) is quite different from the geometric, Constructivist space ships in the works of most DC artists, such as Gil Kane or Sid Greene. When he does use pure geometric forms, Sherman is fond of circles. The map room is filled with spheres representing different planets; the room also has ingenious circular doors. The two combine together for a rich and original looking composition. Hamilton loved map rooms and maps; one would love to visit such a room, and look at maps of all the known planets in the galaxy. There will also be circularly arched doors in the Space-Academy Hall (p4). Sherman will also use truncated spheres on the joints of his space suits (p 10). These recall a bit the Constructivist costumes designed by Alexandra Exter for Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924).

Sherman shows us a very nice city of the future, the government center (p4). The style has Art Deco features, like most comic book futuristic cities, but it also has some innovative features. One might call it Deco Plus. In addition to Deco like flanges, there are many circular features, with domes, and numerous repeated round or arched windows. Sherman also has flanged scientific equipment that is Deco in feel (p5). Chris' spaceship the Pioneer also has elaborate equipment and controls inside (p7); these anticipate the similarly very detailed controls of Gil Kane's space ships.

When Sherman gets to alien worlds, he goes all out. There are men with polygonally faceted bodies on the radioactive planet. Such polygonal men will also pop up in the work of Carmine Infantino, especially when he deals with crystal beings, as in his Adam Strange story "The Challenge of the Crystal Conquerors" (Mystery in Space #71, November 1961).

The World of Giant Robots (1950). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Howard Sherman. Chris goes to an advanced planet overrun by giant robots. This is perhaps the weakest of the Chris tales, although it is pleasant enough. There is no tracking of a signal through space, no mystery elements, and no cosmic engineering, so there is less sf ingenuity here than elsewhere in the series.

The Metal World (1950). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Howard Sherman. Based on a cover by: Howard Sherman. Aliens steal landmarks from Earth and other planets.

This is the first Cosmic Engineering tale in the Chris series. The engineering is complex, in that it involves a puzzle. Chris has to figure out a way to perform a seemingly impossible feat of engineering, and he figures out a loophole that will allow it to take place. Such a puzzle makes this part of the story doubly complex in terms of plot.

One of the worlds looted by the aliens is devoted to The Temple of the Stars. Its inhabitants are dressed like the Golden Age super-hero Starman: perhaps an inside joke.

Sherman's art is excellent, rich in the patterns and geometric forms he brought to the Chris series. The spaceship, shown in most detail on the cover, is a complex mix of cylinders and domed top, reminiscent of a building in the first Chris tale.

The World Inside the Atom (1951). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Howard Sherman. Chris and friends shrink down to an atom-sized planet inside a pebble. Hamilton will later write a tale involving an explorer expanding to a larger universe: "Search for a Lost World" (Strange Adventures #67, April 1956).The shrinking adds a whole new story-telling dimension to this tale, in addition to the framework. The shrinking helps construct the plot implementations of many of the framework steps.

In this story and the next Chris tale, "The Lost Earthmen", Chris actually fixes something that was broken long before the story opens. This seems audacious; he goes far beyond what any of the characters, or the reader expects. He also uses apparently useless things, that he encountered on his trip to the planet in peril. There is perhaps a message here. Things that seem unimportant, or beyond the boundaries of what people have always believed is relevant, might actually change their whole lives positively. This is perhaps related to Hamilton's theme of the outsider. Just as social outsiders struggle to prove their usefulness to society, so do objects and regions outside of social boundaries prove to be the key to fixing those societies' problems. These stories can also been seen as science fictional mystery-problem tales, the mystery being, how will Chris solve the problems of the planets he visits? Hamilton's solutions are both logical but surprising, in the tradition of mystery fiction.

The Lost Earthmen (1951). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Carmine Infantino. We learn the secret story of what drives Chris to be a space explorer. This story looks at Chris' tragic early life; the next tale, "The Exile of Space", shows Halk's back-story. Both tales also resolve the issues affecting their heroes.

Edmond Hamilton would return to the subject of space explorers rescuing people from a doomed planet, in his Legion of Super-Heroes tale, "The Mutiny of the Legionnaires; The Castaway Legionnaires" (Adventure #318, March 1964).

There are no bad guys in this tale. And therefore no story step involving the defeat of the bad guys. This somehow adds to the tone of the story. Here Chris has a personal and purely idealistic goal: rescue his family and their colleagues. Villains would dilute this, and distract from the central idea.

The Exile of Space (1951). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Murphy Anderson. We learn the secret, tragic background of Chris' companion, Halk the Martian. Halk is that familiar Hamilton character, the ostracized outsider, trying to prove his worth to society at large.

This story anticipates plot elements in the John Broome-written "The Doom From Station X" (Mystery in Space #15, August-September 1953), which also has art by Murphy Anderson. Broome and Anderson will also have Captain Comet battle a regime's power supply in "Destination Doom" (Strange Adventures #14, November 1951), a story that appeared five months after "The Exile of Space". The giant crystals here anticipate similar art in Anderson's XXX.

Halk's back-story is only tenuously linked to the rest of the tale. It gives this story a dual plot construction, with Halk and the main framework story being told in parallel.

The Missing Moon (1951). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Murphy Anderson. When Chris learns that Earth had two moons in the ancient past, he tries to discover where the other moon has gone. Somber tale that preaches a strong anti-war message.

Defeating the bad guys here involves outwitting them, more than using a technological gimmick.

The Rival Columbus of Space (#15, December 1951). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Murphy Anderson. I have not succeeded in tracking down a copy of this issue, and do not know if the tale follows the same framework as the other Chris KL-99 tales.

Edmond Hamilton stories

The Crime Chase Through Time (1951). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Ed Smalle, Jr. A modern day detective chases a crook into the world of 2950. This is a definitive time travel adventure story, in which people from the present visit the world of a thousand years from now. It is similar in several ways to the later Otto Binder time travel classic "The Boy Who Killed Superman" (Jimmy Olsen #28, April 1958). Both of these stories show modern day people exploring a great city of the future. Both involve crime and detection elements. In both, the hero has to obtain clothes of the future era to become less conspicuous. Both heroes have to struggle to adapt to the future world. Neither is an invited guest of the future city; each has just stumbled in using time travel, and each has to adapt on his own to the marvels of the future.

The story is typical of Hamilton's idealism, in showing a future era of peace, prosperity and scientific advancement. The absence of crime and violence in the future recalls Clifford D. Simak's City.

Hamilton includes a imaginative invention in his future world. Travelers simply point to a location on a map, and vehicles take them there. This anticipates today's computerized Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS). Hamilton showed a fascination with maps in his tales.

Ed Smalle's beautiful art shows a consistent design vision for the architecture of his future, based in Art Deco elements. The city is full of great skyscrapers, built in the Skyscraper Deco style popular on Earth in the late 1920's. They are connected by high ramps, running from building to building. These ramps are a science fiction innovation, and do not correspond with anything in our reality; one recalls somewhat similar ramps in Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1926). However, their style recalls that of Public Deco constructions, such as Hoover Dam. Smaller individual buildings in this future city use the Moderne Deco style. Especially delightful is the Jewelry Bazaar building. This is a circular, streamlined structure, with a horizontal flange running around it in the Moderne Deco style. Its sign uses Deco style lettering. The systematic use of Art Deco here is somewhat typical of DC artists, many of whom used Deco to build cities of the future, or of advanced planets.

Search for a Lost World (1956). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Sid Greene. A scientist from a micro-solar system that is an "atom" in a larger universe becomes bigger to fight a threat to his world. The sf comic books had essentially three ways of developing another world:

Other planets in our universe.
Another dimension, parallel to ours.
A micro-universe/macro-universe relationship, where one solar system is an "atom" inside the other.

Perhaps for the sake of variety, the sf comics tended to use all of these approaches with relatively equal frequency. Hamilton's story is one of the best treatments of the solar system as atom theme. It treats the idea with startling literalness, and a wealth of imaginative detail. Hamilton's enlarging scientist anticipates Otto Binder's "The Sky-High Man" (Mystery in Space #49, February 1959). Binder's story took place in our universe, and started on our planet Earth, while Hamilton's takes place in a sub-atomic world. Both stories use real logic, and feature a steadily expanding scientist. We see Hamilton sharing themes with Binder in his Strange Adventures stories: the cosmic perspective here, issues of perception in "Arthur Geil". Hamilton used expansion later in his "Superman in Kandor" (Superman #158, January 1963).

Sid Greene's art is excellent here. The scenes among the atoms are in the Greene tradition of outer space scenes showing many planets. Greene's space scenes typically have long curling lines running through them that are the exhaust trails of rockets. The curling lines and the planets make beautiful abstract patterns. Here there is no rocket - the expanding scientist is travelling by himself in a space suit. The curling lines are provided by a "Vibration-Vortex" behind the scientist that propels him along. These lines are much more tightly coiled that the typical rocket exhausts, but serve a similar structural purpose in Greene's compositions.

The young scientist in the tale, Vern Aiken, is one of Sid Greene's typical young men. He looks naïve, good natured and trusting, like all of Greene's young scientists. He is wearing a tee shirt, which also gives him a youthful look, and is trying date a young woman at the start of the story. He looks more like a 1950's hot-rodder than a lab coated scientist. The T shirt has a contrasting color V wedge on the front that is quite striking: one could imagine it becoming a fashion hit in 2000 if some current designer saw it and copied it! The scientist volunteers for the expansion mission, and becomes one of Hamilton's lonely, alienated, but courageous and socially constructive heroes by doing so. His story has considerable pathos, as do all of Hamilton's heroes.

The Incredible Eyes of Arthur Geil (1957). Writer: Edmond Hamilton. Art: Sid Greene. A man's vision is transformed, so that he sees only organic objects, such as people, plants and cloth. This is a genuinely imaginative tale. It is contemporary with, and slightly earlier than, a Superman family story by Otto Binder that also involves vision: "The Super-Hallucinations" (Jimmy Olsen #22, August 1957).

Hamilton's protagonists are often rejected from society, because society dislikes their ideas. Here his hero undergoes a similar isolation, but for different reasons. His changed vision makes it terribly difficult for him to work, travel, or lead any sort of normal life. Despite this, he struggles valiantly to keep his job and his connection to society. Even so, he becomes one of Hamilton's involuntary outsiders. Like all of Hamilton's outsiders, he maintains his idealism and good will, attempting to do only what is helpful to other people and society. The use of vision as an alienating factor might be significant. We often say that people with unusual ideas have vision, that they see things differently from everybody else. In Arthur Geil's case, that is literally true, not just a figure of speech or a metaphor. Arthur Geil's different vision might be a symbol for a different world view, a different perception of reality: the causes of most of Hamilton's heroes' isolation. One also wonders if there is significance in Arthur Geil's ability to see people, but not most things. This might be a metaphor for someone who is far more conscious of human beings than of social conventions or impersonal traditions. All in all, Hamilton has come up with one of the most powerful allegories since Hawthorne.

This tale contains a well done mystery sub-plot. The story's blend of a mystery against a science fiction background recalls Hamilton's "The Patent Planet" (Mystery in Space #30, February-March 1956). Both stories come up with ingenious solutions to puzzling, almost unexplainable events.

Sid Greene's art is full of inventive 3D "landscapes", that show people and objects floating in space, often in regular patterns. They recall Greene's flair with planetary landscapes, although these are composed out of contemporary Earth objects. Greene's illustrations are beautiful.

Otto Binder Tales

The Eye-Dropper World (1954). Writer: Otto Binder. Art: Murphy Anderson. A scientist uses radiation to make a colony of microscopic Paramecium from a drop of water the size of small insects, and watches as they evolve at a rapid rate. Binder was fascinated by microbes, and wrote about them in such tales as "The Boy Who Saved the Solar System" (1958). The miniature but detailed world the Paramecium develop anticipates Binder's bottled city of Kandor to come.

This tale starts out as a Binder transformation tale. The Paramecium become giant sized, for them, and also much smarter. The tale then modulates into one of Binder's parallel Earth tales: the Paramecium go through the same stages of evolution and history as our Earth. Binder shows his interest in media of communication, as well.

World at the Edge of the Universe (1955). Writer: Otto Binder. Art: Sy Barry. A young Earth boy's outstanding scholarship wins him a place on a space ship learning cruise with other smart youths from around the galaxy. This story anticipates Binder's later Legion of Super-Heroes (1958). In both tales, an Earth boy with whom the reader can identify meets up with a group of awesome youths, here from other planets, in the Legion story from the future. In both works, the hero is humbled by the qualifications of the group he is placed in: here by the deep knowledge the alien youths have of the galaxy, far beyond that of most people on Earth. In both stories, he struggles to blend in, and show that he can operate on the same level as the other youths in the story. I love the hero's intelligent attitude here: when confronted by a wide array of knowledge with which he is unfamiliar, he decides "I'll take notes, and learn all I can!". This is good advice for the young readers of the magazine, too - and older ones as well. It is idealistic and practical - the hero plans to share the knowledge with others back on Earth.

This is an early example of a Cosmic tale by Binder, a story in which the heroes re-engineer some astronomical feature, in order to solve some problem. Binder would write a number of outstanding Cosmic tales for Mystery in Space.

The Watchdogs of the Universe (1955). Writer: Otto Binder. Art: Sid Greene. An Earthman discovers a group of alien heroes who secretly aid beings in trouble all over the galaxy. The group has some similarities to the later Legion of Super-Heroes (1958), which Binder also created. Like the Legion, they are a group of good guys with awesome abilities, who spend time helping the less fortunate. And like the Legion, they pledge not to take any reward for their deeds, but to help others freely. This story is also similar to the later Legion tales in that it is about an initiation: the Earth hero eventually gets to join their group. Both here and in the Legion origin, the Point of View character is someone from modern Earth, someone who is awed by their futuristic skill. A difference here from the later Legion stories: none of the aliens is individualized. They all look a lot alike, and none has a unique personality or power. All this will be corrected in the Legion stories. These heroes solve a less wide range of problems than do the Legion members. Mainly they deal with natural disasters. This is similar to Binder's later "The Sky-High Man" (1959). There is a shrinking ray in the story; it anticipates Binder's Kandor tales to come (1958).

This tale is constructed as a bed time story the hero tells to his son; such use of bed time tales is frequent in the DC sf magazines. Such bed time tales would be familiar to most of the magazines' young readers; and they allow the writers to invoke the traditions of fairy stories and tall tales.

War of the Mind Readers (1956). Writer: Otto Binder. Art: Carmine Infantino. Carnival mind-reading magician Merle Mallory tries to outwit invaders from Uranus. In some ways this can be considered as one of Binder's First Contact tales - it does indeed involve the first contact of humans with aliens from another planet. However, the subject of the story is not the difficulty of communication, as in a true First Contact tale, but rather a well done complex plot about trying to deter the attempted alien invasion.

The "telepathy-translator" is this story is an intriguing device, a machine that translates telepathic thoughts into audible human words. This is consistent with Binder's interest in media of communication.

This tale has many elements of the sf mystery. However, it is not "fair play": that is, the clues seen by the hero and used by him to solve the mysterious elements are not shared with the reader before the mystery is solved. Instead, we learn about these clues during the hero's solution. This problem aside, this is a well constructed plot with many pleasing elements.

Binder only rarely wrote anything resembling a war story. Binder wrote hundreds of tales of peaceful science fictional futures, but only a handful of war stories. This tale resembles his "The Counterfeit Earth" (Mystery in Space #35, December 1956 -January 1957). Both are stories of war in outer space; both are frighteningly casual about the use of nuclear weapons in such an environment. Neither war is at all glamorized. Both deal mainly with hoaxes and counter-hoaxes; both contain dummy objects designed to confuse or mislead the other side. Both stories are almost entirely tales of strategy, with no elements of personal combat or space pilot dog fights; both emphasize thinking and careful plotting, not aggressiveness. Binder's heroes are involved in these wars only by accident, and against their will when invaders put their finger on them. None of them wears a uniform.

Infantino does a good job with his portraits of the hero. Merle Mallory is dressed in the magician's traditional white tie and tails. Once again, Infantino's hero looks very elegant, but he does not look upper class; Mallory looks as if his tails are his working costume, which indeed they are. Infantino has given Mallory jet black hair, to match his tail coat. Just as in Mike Hodges' recent film Croupier (1997), Infantino has noticed that black hair seems to go especially well with evening clothes.

The Paul Revere of Time (1957). Writer: Otto Binder. Art: Gil Kane. A mysterious Voice warns crowds of people around the world of an impending natural disaster. Binder had long been interested in media of communication. Typically, his stories employed these to communicate between humans and aliens. Here, however, they are used on Earth itself, in a story with only human characters. All the communication in this tale is purely acoustic, something that is also rare in Binder. This is appropriate to a story of human-human communication, because the Voice uses English, Russian and Japanese to talk to the crowds, something that works great with humans, but which would have been useless in First Contacts with alien beings. The Voice spreads itself around the world. This gives it a scale near to that of Binder's Cosmic tales, which have an astronomical scope. The Voice thus combines two of Binder's fu