Our picks this week. Click the links to order from Amazon.
In the vein of earlier comics-to-multimedia stars Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, Atlas Comics launched their own pulp hero in 1951, looking ahead to the futuristic year 2000. Across five issues of Space Squadron (and one of Space Worlds), headline talents including George Tuska, Werner Roth and Allen Bellman (with back-up features by Joe Maneely, Christopher Rule, George Klein and Vern Henkel) showed Captain Jet Dixon and his Space Squadron blasting into action, facing cosmic threats like "The Armada of Death," "The Space Demons," "Terror from the Deep," "The Temptress of Jupiter," and "The Midnight Horror."
Come 1953, Hank Chapman and Joe Maneely gazed further into the future, envisioning the distant year 2075 and the adventures of Speed Carter, Spaceman. Scripted throughout by Chapman, Maneely launched and drew the first three issues before handing off to one issue each by Mike Sekowsky, George Tuska and Bob Forgione, with back-up features by John Romita, Maneely, and Bill Savage. As other aspects of the Atlas line leaned into the peak of pre-Code horror, the Captain of the Space Sentinels and young cadet Johnny Day battled monstrous aliens with stories including "The Space Trap," "A Slaughter in Space," "Die, Spaceman, Die," and "The Thing in Outer Space."
Unseen in 70 years, scanned in high resolution, restored to perfection and packaged as one extra-sized, beautiful hardcover volume, In the Days of the Rockets! will open a wormhole to the early cold-war four-color era of futuristic science fantasy.
In August 1961, FANTASTIC FOUR #1 hit newsstands, heralding a new take on super hero stories and the birth of the Silver Age Marvel Universe! But Marvel Comics had been around for years before that, publishing Western, romance, comedy, monster and science fiction titles…and in August 1961, FANTASTIC FOUR was just one of over a dozen very different Marvel books! Now, sixty years later, experience the excitement of being a comic book fan in that momentous month - with a complete collection of every issue that shared the shelves with FF #1, many never before reprinted!
COLLECTING: Journey Into Mystery (1952) 73-74; Kathy (1959) 13; Life with Millie (1960) 13; Patsy Walker (1945) 97; Amazing Adventures (1961) 6; Fantastic Four (1961) 1; Kid Colt, Outlaw (1949) 101; Linda Carter, Student Nurse (1961) 2; Millie the Model (1945) 105; Strange Tales (1951) 90; Tales of Suspense (1959) 23; Tales to Astonish (1959) 25; Gunsmoke Western (1955) 67; Love Romances (1949) 96; Teen-Age Romance (1960) 84; Amazing Adult Fantasy (1961) 7; Patsy and Hedy (1952) 79; Rawhide Kid (1960) 25
Avengers Assemble! Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are back in another Mighty Marvel Masterworks volume of classic tales from the Avengers’ early days! Hold on tight as Captain America, Goliath, the Wasp Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch battle the villainous Sons of the Serpent, the Living Laser, Ultrana and no less than Namor the Sub-Mariner! With guest-appearances by Iron Man, Black Widow, Hercules and Nick Fury, plus the first appearance of Giant-Man-to-be Bill Foster, and the beginning of Avengers storyteller supreme Roy Thomas’ amazing work on the series? There’s no question book one is a packed-to-the-limits must-have for every Marvel fan.
COLLECTING: THE AVENGERS (1963) #31-40
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