Race for the Moon #2
The artwork in this book is good enough. The colouring could have been better. The last story is especially good, and holds most of the book's worth and entertainment value for me. The others seem to be only scenarios, with almost no plot development.
The Thing on Sputnik 4
This is an American comic book. This story shows soldiers leaving satellite Sputnik 4, ostensibly a Soviet craft (installation), given its name. I suppose the soldiers are supposed to be Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, and /or other Soviet Union nationals, rather than Americans. The Space Alien is a four-legged, highly-sentient being (an unusual combination in Human experience to this date). The ending, with an exchange of technologies is unexpected, and interesting. But, it is a very provocative and exciting premise, worthy of a much longer story in which the reader would get to learn much more about the alien, his planet, the society from which he comes, and its place on that planet, and their attitude towards discovering The Earthmen. This is the type of plot that deserves, at the very least, most of the 36 pages of the normal-sized 10¢ comic books of the late 1950s (if not most of the pages of a giant, 100-page 25¢ book).
The Heavens - Educational Informational Page
Here is another problem lack of proper research in creating comic book features. As far as I learned, even back in the mid 1950s, Polis crashed into Jupiter (4.57 years ago), near the beginning of when our Solar System was created, about 4.6 billion years ago. Current theory AND todays more refined estimates say that life (one celled plant life) didn't even start forming until about 3.7 billion years ago (estimated at about 4 billion in 1958). So, no life existed on Earth , and so also none on Polis, when Polis crashed into Jupiter. So, dinosaurs (started 250 million years ago, but those shown one this page started about 200 to 100 million years ago), and primitive humanoids appeared first around 3 million. So no dinosaurs, flying reptiles or Humans could have existed on Polis, given the statement that appears on this page, that "Life on Polis resembled that on Earth", given that no life at all existed on Polis or Earth for the first 7 tenths of a billion years of our Earth's existence. Furthermore, life would have likely developed at a slower rate on Polis than on Earth, because many more different forms of life were possible on Earth than on Jupiter, because Earth is and was much closer to The Sun. So, life would likely have developed with more changes, and thus, more chances to advance faster Earth than on Polis. So advanced multi-celled life would likely have started earlier on Earth than on Polis, and during most of the era of life on Earth, life was one-celled. So even if Polis had crashed into Jupiter after life had started on it, it is not likely that there would have been life as advanced as reptiles, dinosaurs and mammals. Stating that "it is unknown whether or not Human beings existed somewhere in the 'tangled vegetation' (green algae?) is ridiculous, based on current or 1958 theories.
The Golden Rocket
Is this supposed to be a one-page story??? Or is it (I hope,) a prequel to the next story:
Lunar Trap
Unfortunately, this story doesn't seem to be connected with "The Golden Rocket". Interesting idea that US Astronauts run into a Soviet Cosmonaut installation, and The Cold War continues away from Earth. This story calls everything to do with The Soviets "Russian". Russia and The Soviet Union were different entities, as are and were England and Great Britain. The Soviet Lunar base's commandant was rude, speaking to their American captive, while looking elsewhere, despite standing face-to-face opposite him. It must be an error. She is looking to her right, where no one is standing, and nothing is going on in the background. These ultra-short stories are more like a headline is to a long, detailed newspaper article. It barely starts providing the characters without developing them, and a bare-bones setting, and is over before the plot even starts developing. VERY unsatisfying for a person who loves to be entertained by reading or watching stories. It does have the age-old plot of two enemies joining forces to fight a greater danger to them both.
Island In The Sky
The Astronauts in this story wonder what "The Big Red Spot" on Jupiter is. I thought I had already known that current theory in the mid 1950s was already that it was a big anticyclonic storm of gas clouds. More intensive study occurred throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as telescopes improved. In 1958, they already knew it was made of clouds above the planets' outer contiguous layer (of gases). The Astronauts even state that very fact. It was seen from telescopic viewing that the "spot's" border gases were constantly moving in an anticyclonic motion. So why wouldn't the writer of this story assume they were weather clouds, even if he didn't research the scientific details? An interesting Idea that the beings, that live inside the gas clouds above Jupiter, have the technology to bring a Human back to life, and can insert a foreign mechanism into his brain that will allow him to live another 1000 years. Too bad that interesting story and concept can't continue to develop in the same story where we are presented the idea. Let another miniscule 5-page so-called story, which is barely a scenario.
Four On Planet X - Text Story
Four men travelled to an alien planet, and failed to encounter alien beings who tampered with their spacecraft. Now we can assume that the authorities of their space programme will send another expedition there to meet those alien beings. Not much of a story. Basically another scenario left undeveloped. I suppose the people who only bother to read newspaper headlines would like these "stories".
Why Mars? - Educational Information Page
This explains why Mars is the best planet, other than Earth, in our Solar System, to support life, and why we should look for other life there, first. Not interesting, because most, if not all of us would have known all that at the age of 8 or 9, when we might have bought this book.
The Face On Mars
This strategically follows the Mars information page, and is based upon the theory of the 1940s and 1950s that the blueish/greenish lines, viewed on Mars through telescopes, could well be water canals, and therefore, sentient, intelligent life must exist there. The giant face on Mars was also a theory going round during The 1950s, as I remember, later found to have been an illusion formed by shadows of mountains giving the impression that a giant structure in the shape of a face existed on Mars' surface.
This is BY FAR the best story in this book, and the only one worthy of the label, "Story". It espouses a theory that The Asteroids (actually remnants of a planet that crashed into Jupiter about 4.6 billion years ago) was destroyed by Martians, whose planets' life was destroyed by beings from that other planet. Interesting that this story connects several of the current theories from back then, to form an entertains tale. Still and all, this plot is much too interesting and large in scope to be cramped into a mere 5 pages. You've probably all guessed that I would have wanted to stretch this plot out with added action and suspense, and character development, taking up this entire book, a bigger size inside a 25¢ Giant Comic.
Thanks Panther, for your link to the current (2017) theory on The Asteroids' formation. I hadn't known about that one.
Author
Topic: Reading Group #289 - Race for the Moon #2; Space Adventures #43; Am. Astronauts (Read 2403 times)
