Number 1610: Flying gorillas from outer space!

Last week I showed some gorilla horror stories, and now a gorilla science fiction tale from DC. Flying monkeys have been around since the Wizard of Oz, but flying King Kong-sized gorillas, well, that's new.

Not only are they flying giant gorillas, they come from a planetoid which has parked itself in Earth’s sky so the flying giant gorillas can steal our atmosphere. Atom bombs can’t stop them, so our scientists use fear gas* on them. What a crazy plot.

Script is by Gardner Fox. Fox wrote it for editor Julius Schwartz, who used high concepts when planning out stories for his magazines. It’s drawn by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson, and it appeared originally in Strange Adventures #125 (1961). The striking cover is by Sid Greene.

I bought this issue of Strange Adventures when it came out. As goofy as the story is, and despite my love for gorilla-fiction, what I remember most about the comic were the full page ads that heralded Joe Kubert’s Hawkman and the first full-length Aquaman comic.

*There really is such a thing as fear gas, although that name implies that is the gas’s sole effect. It does a lot more damage than that. You can read about it here.

UPDATE: I found this incredible Chinese fireworks package  on the Design/Destroy website a few days after posting the story. I love a coincidence.

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Number 1403: Other Earths

Bram Hilton zips along through space at one million light years per second in his intergalactic bell jar. I assume he needs to go that fast because the bell jar is small with no refrigerator, microwave oven, wet bar or toilet, and he probably needs a lot of rest stops. What he's looking for with a “vibration-duplicator” guiding him are other Earths that are like our planet, just in different phases of time. He ends up in Troy and at the Lincoln assassination. Pretty good timing for taking vibration-duplicator potluck!

Murphy Anderson drew this story for Strange Adventures #10 (1951), and the writing is credited on the splash page to Manly Wade Wellman. Wellman wrote science fiction and fantasy for several decades, and I have read many of his stories and books. I don’t recall any of his prose fiction being as oddball as this comic book story, and I attribute that to editor Julius Schwartz handing him a plot to work from, and having Wellman do his best to make sense of it.

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Number 1251: Phantom Stranger makes his debut

The Phantom Stranger has a whole history with DC Comics, encapsulated in this Wikipedia entry. For our purposes today we're ignoring all of that to show you the first Phantom Stranger story from The Phantom Stranger #1 (1952).

[SPOILER ALERT] This is shown with a caveat: it's a story that appears to be supernatural but is shown to be a hoax. That was a basic trademark of DC's mystery comics line, which during the horror comics fad of the early '50s fell short of horror due to the debunking done in virtually every horror story. There's a fictional tradition of this type of mystery, and while a gimmick, it's a clever gimmick. For those who prefer their supernatural straight with no twists at the end to spoil the illusion, years later DC went full-bore into the supernatural, including the stories featuring this character.[END OF SPOILER]

This first series featuring The Phantom Stranger had a short run, just six issues. It was edited by Julius Schwartz.

This story is written by long-time DC scripter John Broome, and is drawn by Carmine Infantino and Sy Barry.

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Number 1213: The short Danger Trail

DC's Danger Trail lasted five issues, from #1, dated Jul-Aug 1950 to #5, Mar-Apr 1951. I have no idea why it had such a short life. It had good covers and interior art, and interesting characters in action-filled stories of intrigue. The artists, among them Carmine Infantino and Alex Toth, were some of DC's best. I don't know if sales were bad, or because editor Julius Schwartz was debuting a new title, Strange Adventures, with a first issue dated Aug-Sep 1950. In the wings was a sister publication, Mystery In Space, the first issue dated Apr-May 1951, which coincided with the last issue of Danger Trail. Science fiction was Schwartz's entry into magazine editing, after all. Read more about editor Julius Schwartz.

King Faraday, starring in this Robert Kanigher-scripted story from Danger Trail #2 (1950), had an even shorter career than the comic book. He appeared in the first four issues. He was brought back years later by DC in one of their revisionist versions of old and obscure characters, but that’s outside the scope of this blog. The story I'm showing here is a little caption heavy, but well drawn by Infantino and Frank Giacoia.

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Number 1045


A heretofore untold story, now told


Here's a story I have never told publicly. In 1962, at age 15, I wrote DC editor Julius Schwartz a suck-up letter. I told him he was my favorite comic book editor, I loved all his comic books, and hoped someday to write for him. Could I please get a look at a script to see how it's done? After I sent the letter I told Big Pappy, thinking he'd congratulate me for my cleverness. He snorted, "He'll see right through that, boy. Your letter will just get thrown away." I burned crimson with the realization that Big Pappy was right. I had humiliated myself and my name would be forever branded onto Julius Schwartz's brain as a brown-noser looking for a freebie.

A couple of weeks later I got a Gardner Fox Hawkman script in the mail, inscribed by Julie himself. I took it to Big Pappy and, gloating, showed him. He didn't react as I expected. He just shrugged. Oh well. I got what I wanted. While still embarrassed by my ploy to get it, it's time to show you what Mr. Schwartz sent me nearly 50 years ago. (When I scanned it I removed my name.)

Julie rewrote a lot of Fox's captions and dialogue. He was the editor, so he edited. The only copy of the finished story I now have, beautifully drawn by Joe Kubert, is in the DC Hawkman Archive, so I scanned it from that volume. I'm not showing you the script and finished product page-by-page for comparison, but take it from me: it was published word-for-word from the Fox/Schwartz script.

P.S. I never submitted a script to Julius Schwartz or any other comic book editor. Big Pappy saw what Mr. Schwartz apparently didn't: I was just a brown-noser looking for a freebie!

From The Brave and the Bold #44, 1962:

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