Avon's "Flying Saucers (No#)"
Having only flipped through this book, but never read the stories, I'm hoping there will be a reasonable amount of logic to the "science" based on what the average high school student knew about The Universe and World in 1949. Some science fiction comic books from the 1950s met that standard, but some didn't, as often, the stories were not well thought out due to low pay and heavy deadlines.
All in all, this book had good art and decently entertaining stories (despite that they could have been made significantly better, in my opinion).
This book had a very interesting front cover, which made me want to open it and give a look at the artwork, and start reading a story (despite the the winged ends of the Space Aliens' upper limbs, which don't look aerodynamic, in the slightest, and only appeared to make it harder for them to hold objects, or perform manipulative tasks. The artwork on the cover, by Gene Fawcette, is good (although I prefer the complete drawing as printed on the cover of the original, 1950 issue. And that of the first story, by Wally Wood is quite good, as well, although I don't like the seemingly random colouring. The clue that the Aliens may be masquerading as benefactors of Mankind, is interesting.
(1) Spawn Of Terror - Part One
The placename, Quhaltec sounds like a Nahuatl (Aztec) word. It needs a vowel after the letter "u". Why would a mountain in South America have a native North American name? (Not very good research). Why don't the natives of that tropical South American rainforest have dark skin, like the natives of those areas? And why do some shave their heads. I doubt that they would like that tropical sun beating down on their heads when they didn't have shade. Why does a wizened ancient Shaman have jet-black hair? Shouldn't it be white, or, at least gray? From the look of the 7th (final) panel of Page 3, it appears that the protagonist (Ross Lanning) has been tossed AT LEAST 30 feet downward to that point (possibly mid-point of his fall), but also much farther, horizontally, out into the crater (did they shoot him out of a cannon?. I would guess he would, at least have many bones broken upon his landing, if he'd somehow survive it, by avoiding having an impact to his head. The author tells us that the "crater" is conical, narrowing to a tiny "head of a cone", and that is why he miraculously remained unhurt. But, I rather think that the landing of such a long fall would have a hard impact on one or the other sides of a crater with such a large opening, above. And he probably would have bounced a few times. I'm certain he'd have been rendered unconscious, and died. But the second panel after he's shown as landed, he is already RUNNING, and has neither scratches on his skin, nor dirt on his clothing.
Aside from the lack of research, and not-well-thought-out logic errors, the basic idea of Space Aliens having come to Earth, and are hidden beneath the ground, and his finding them by chance, only because he was tossed into a crater near their hiding place's opening, is basically a good one. The author uses the scenario that Ross thinks he is dreaming because this experience is too unbelievable, to make it seem reasonable that he could make the fateful, potentially dangerous decision to revive one of the Aliens. Of course, the agitated Human holds his weapon on an Alien, threatening to harm him, and tries to warn them, through speaking English to them, as if they could understand his foreign language (perhaps by telepathy?). This episode ends with the Aliens flying away in their spaceships, and Ross trying to escape the cavern, to warn Humanity about them. Good suspense. I am intrigued to read on.
(2) First Contact - Part Two
After walking from the jungles of Eastern Peru, across The Andes Mountains, and reaching Peru's coast, Ross slowly recovers from his jungle fever. Upon returning to USA, no one believes his story, thinking him a madman. But The US military leaders see that his description of the space ships (saucers) is, by far, the most detailed, and so, want to talk with him. But a foreign espionage ring,operating in New York also wants his information, and kidnap him to their headquarters to force him to reveal what he knows. Just as they start to torture him to make him talk, The Aliens arrive, and rescue him. Another great suspense-point cliff-hanger, to carry the reader to the next Episode.
(3) Final Objective - Part Three
In this episode, the aliens reveal their history of evolving on Earth and saving themselves from destruction by atomic bombs for future intelligent beings to revive. The Aliens give Lanning "damper rays" to stop atomic bombs from activating. One man to plant enough of them to prevent Earth's destruction. But they had 12 men to do that millions of years ago. Why didn't they do that back then to avoid the destruction of their own civilisation? The Aliens leave to start over in another galaxy, and Lanning is to explain the situation to US scientists and government officials, and give them the scientific documentation and machines left in the crater hideout, they can use to improve Humankind's future. The idea for the story is basically a good one, but it has some logic errors. It was entertaining and certainly worth reading. The artwork is very good. But the colouring is not to my taste.
(4) Goofy Ghost - 2-Page Gag
This is a nice bit of comedy relief from the heavy mood built up by The Sci-Fi "Flying Saucers" story. The artwork is good, and the brightly-hued, random colourisation isn't a problem, due to its comedy theme. But, as I stated in the last Sci-Fi book review, - this ghost story would work better in a Horror comic book, and used a short comedy Sci-Fi filler with comedic scientists or inventors.
(5) The Eyes Of The Tiger
This is the classic horror story about the crazy man trying to "fool mother nature" by changing the character of an animal, and it backfiring on him. In the end, the Human finds that a wild animal's "wildness" and its nature can't be changed. i assume that the crooked cat lover got his just desserts for trying to change the nature of a deadly meat-eating best, using his pet animals to intimidate other humans, and trying to force the insurance agent to sell him a policy when he knew he would die soon. He got his just desserts by dying of a heart attack from thinking he killed his pet tiger, and running into his stuffed tiger in the dark of night, thinking it was the ghost of his tiger, popping up everywhere, to haunt him.Wood gave his art in this story a bizarre look, adding to the haunting mood.
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Topic: Reading Group #309 - Flying Saucer No# & SpaceMan 2 (Read 1458 times)
