[MarkWarner]

Last week was our first "comparison" and I think it went quite well. So, we will certainly do one in December, if anyone has any ideas about a Christmas related one that would be great! Also I have just noticed we are nearly on our 100th book! Also please send ideas for our centurian read!

I was recently woken from my slumber by a plaintive call outside the window. Repeated over and over were the words:

Fox Rocket Ship X   PLLEEEEAAAAAASSE! soon

I have taken pity on that poor tortured soul and have made it this week's read. It is a one-shot and  can be found here https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=37759. The story we are concentrating on is the first one "Out of This World".

[Captain Audio]

The cover suggests that blonde babes really want to be carried off to alien planets by depraved mad scientists. After all "they must want it, they wouldn't dress that way if they didn't want it".

That's is one thing old time sci fi got right about their future, now days its not uncommon to see the ladies dressed in far less.

[Morgus]

Great stuff...a future when men are men and women dress like cocktail waitresses. Nice art, Nazis on Mars, and we have 20 years before robots wipe us out...and Charles Atlas on the back cover...

[Italo.Perazzoli]

In the first story there is not only suspense but also some educational news.
Another particularity is the plot, the planet earth is threatened by an extraterrestrial force, the population of the planet earth will die without opposition due to a lack of technology able to repel the threat.

In my opinion this is not a fictional story, but a point of reflection and in particular what was the world today if hitler was able to built an atomic bomb?

[Captain Audio]

"in particular what was the world today if hitler was able to built an atomic bomb?"

When Albert Speer was asked how close NAZI Germany was to having an Atomic Bomb at the end of WW2 he replied "we were very close.....to having one dropped on us".

I liked the story and one particular moral question that was raised by the Mars girl who helped the hero. If the mad scientist died all those humans dwelling on Mars would perish.

Also the Hero started out in this story as a bit of a cad and a bully. The prejudice against "Jerries" was unvarnished. His prejudices were then justified by the events.

[crashryan]

Starting with the cover: it reminded me of those early Image Comics women who seemed to have had half their ribs surgically removed. Though Image women's chests were at least three times the size of this poor girl's.

The first time I read "Out of this World" I didn't thinks much of it, but upon re-reading it I found myself liking it. There's something wonderfully loopy in the way the story bounces between the super-scientific (a Nazi colony on Mars) and the utterly mundane (the head Nazi has a crush on an earthside cabaret singer). I also enjoy the pseudo-scientific gobbledygook: "Answer me before I realign your basic atomic structure!" Given the sophistication of his gizmos I'm unsure why Dr. Stefan feels he must communicate with Gretchen by dispatching a thug with a handwritten note. Couldn't he have just given her a radio? But that's part of the story's charming irrationality. I don't understand why the humans on Mars will perish upon Dr Stefan's death. His spaceship is still functioning. They can use it to repatriate (replanetate?) the colonists.

A word must be said about the art. I can certainly understand why one commentator thinks Steve Ditko had a hand in this story. Many of Ditko's trademarks seem to pop up. There's the construction of the hero's head on pages 3,4, and 6; the posing in the splash panel and especially in the last panel on page 8; and the profusion of cloth caps and porkpie hats on the earthly bad guys. However some of those traits were shared by Charles Nicholas, and the backgrounds and props certainly show more Nicholas than Ditko. All things considered I'd side with JVJ and credit Nicholas with the pencils while acknowledging someone else may have been involved. Not Ditko, though.

The rest of the comic has nothing to do with rocketships or with X. Looks more like a slush pile job. A tutorial on reading military maps? The comet story recalls B. Kliban's epic poem (remembered only approximately): "There goes that rotten Halley's comet. It makes me sick, I want to vomet!"

"The Ivy Invasion" is a so-so monster tale starring remarkably stupid humans. The art goes to hell after the first couple of pages. It brings to mind something Harry Harrison said in an interview. When he and Wallace Wood worked for Fox they noticed that when they turned in their art Fox would only look at the first couple of pages before filing it away. So they knocked themselves out on the first three pages of each story and crapped out the rest. (Fox was noted for paying lousy rates==when he paid at all.)

"Robot Rebellion" is rather a downer. Its fatal flaw is the clunky device of having the time travellers land in a spaceship where they just happen to look like futurians who even have similar names. It's amusing that the hero starts out as Pat Ryan from "Terry and the Pirates." Not the Caniff version, though. This is the early George Wunder Pat Ryan. He starts to lose his identity after he changes out of civvies. The artist isn't that bad. I'm not sure why he felt the need to swipe the hero's face. I notice he didn't swipe one of Wunder's women; he drew his own. I also notice he drew lots of faces turned away from the reader. By the way, that undressing shot on our page 27 was lifted from Alex Raymond.

Finally, the two-page "fact" feature presents every single point of the pro-nuclear rubbish they fed us as kids. I especially remember the "too cheap to meter" claim. Tell that to the rate-payers here in California who are still paying off a decommissioned private nuclear plant.

[narfstar]

I like Crashryan's way of putting it "But that's part of the story's charming irrationality" I guess that is why I actually liked the story even though the story lacked a lot of sense.

[SuperScrounge]

Out of This World - Not bad.

Halley's Comet - Okay factoid page.

Map Reading - Not much of a plot but it gets you where you're going. ;-)

The Ivy Invasion - Okay.

The World Waits - Ehhh, could have been much better written.

Robot Rebellion - Is that John Forte doing the art? So why did RS know Tod & Vivian's initials and assume Tod was his own grandson? And that lousy ending where the scientist basically just goes 'Ehh, the future's screwed, whatcha gonna do?' Yeesh!

Our Atomic Future - Oh, what optimism...

[MarkWarner]

This book has a really cool cover, and despite frequent disappointments, I strongly believe that this time the contents will be on a par!

Oh my, was I right. Look at these quotes!

ANSWER ME BEFORE I REALIGN YOUR BASIC ATOMIC STRUCTURE!

Dr Stefan plans to make an example out of you! HE IS GOING TO TRANSFORM YOU INTO A BASE METAL AND SEND YOU --- LIFELESS --- BACK TO EARTH

KEEP THEM AWAY JOCK! If they get close enough they'll flow around us and we'll be absorbed right into their gelatinous masses!

After finishing this book the one thing that struck me was, considering Von Braun and the Apollo mission this is a quite remarkable story. It certainly would not have printed during the mid to late Space Race years!

The Ivy Invasion carries on with the eccentric dialogue!

Get rid of it ... it's carnivorous. I ... I don't feel well I'm going home!

Next we have:

Two nights pass Pearson and Anderson turn away in failure after the 2340th experiment.

Blimey, that sounded so many that I (very sadly) just had to do some number crunching.

Firstly: 24 hours x 60 minutes = 1440 (minutes in a day)

So to squeeze that many experiments in
a) two days would be: (1440 x 2) / 2340  = one experiment every 1.23 minutes
b) thres days would be: (1440 x 3) / 2340 = one experiment every 1.85 minutes
No wonder one of then walked into the ivy!

The text story has man traveling in a rocket to Mars in 1993. Journey time less than a day. Also, I prefer the term (new to me) of Earthite to Earthling.

Robot Rebellion (which confused me a bit) features even more bizarre dialogue. We end with a two page look at "Our Atomic Future".

Verdict: A BIG hit! The art is good, but the main reason for the "BIG" status is what fills the speech bubbles!

[betaraybdw]

I'll ID myself as the "apparition" Though I did not travel to Britain to appear at Mark's window.

I just love the whole crazy Sci-fi vibe of this book, Starting with the title, Rocket Ship X  just brings to mind all those crazy sci-fi B movies from the 50's.

I don't care if things make sense when it comes to campy sci-fi and horror books. You know it is not the "real world" being portrayed, so any craziness goes.

For Romance and crime/spy stories though I prefer things at least mostly make sense since they are ostensibly portraying the "Real world"

so naturally Rocket Ship X is a big thumbs up for me