26 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted in science fiction
Marvel’s adaptation of Thongor in Creatures on the Loose starts off strong, then limps along. A new artist near the end of the series makes it fun again but… We like to skip right to the cool part where we get Dragon King action! Bring on the babes in bikinis and the hideously mutated reptile gods, already!
Bonus: the Watcher Marvel Value Stamp!
Collector’s Guide: From Creatures on the Loose #29 ; Marvel, 1974.
24 Monday Dec 2012
Tags
Blood of Satanus, dinosaur, dinosaur comics, Judge Dredd, Lizard Men, Pat Mills, Ron Smith, Satanus, science fiction, tyrannosaurus
Sometimes it’s hard to tell a good idea from a bad idea. Let’s say you had a totally evil tyrannosaurus that died in the Cretaceous but was brought back to life through cloning. Then, after being set loose by atomic weapons, he killed and maimed his way through the future before vanishing into the wild. As a scientist, at what point do you think it would be a good idea to drink that tyrannosaur’s blood?
Collector’s Guide: From Judge Dredd #17; Eagle, 1985.
Satanus first appeared in the Judge Dredd storyline The Cursed Earth. You can find that in the Cursed Earth TPB. But, be warned that due to being sued by fast food fast chains from America, the publishers of 2000 AD did not include four chapters of the 25-episode story (episodes 11-12 and 17-18.) So, go pawn some family heirlooms, and you can pick up the original Cursed Earth stories in 2000 AD, #61-85.
Satanus also appeared in a story gorgeously illustrated by Colin Macneil called Satanus Unchained in 2000 AD #1241-1246. Satanus fans will also enjoy Judge Dredd #7, which reprints the Satanus chapters of Cursed Earth with a cool Brian Bolland cover.
If you like Satanus, check out our gallery of Flesh from 2000 AD, featuring the mother of Satanus, Old One Eye.
02 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in superhero
Tags
Bill Mantlo, Curt Connors, Frank Springer, iguana, Jim Mooney, lizard, Lizard Men, Night of the Iguana, Spider-man
We couldn’t help but snag this one from the back issue bin. With the title on the cover “The Rage of the Reptile,” it seemed right up our alley. Here, Spider-man meets up with his pal Dr. Curt Connors, better (or worse?) known as The Lizard. Something’s not right about Dr. Connors and a little iguana he’s got in his lab. Well, guess what? The cute little vegetarian reptile turns into a hideous villain ready to kick Spidey’s butt! Not the greatest Spidey issue ever produced, but you can’t argue with this splash panel at the end. They even used Spider-man’s often-forgotten Spidey spotlight in his utility belt!
Collector’s Guide: From Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #32; Marvel Comics, July 1979. Script by Bill Mantlo, art by Jim Mooney and Frank Springer.
26 Thursday Jul 2012
Posted in first issue, golden age, occult, science fiction
Tags
first issue, golden age, Lizard Men, man-eating lizards, Out of This World, Out of This World Adventures
As Bert and Mikey stand bound before the totally bitchin’ temple of the Lizard Men, they speak of the things that truly matter to men.
Bert: “A Giant Lizard! What is this obsession with lizards? I can’t understand it –“
Mikey: “Lizards? Who cares about lizards? Get a load of them babes!”
Collector’s Guide: From Out of This World Adventures #1. 1950, Avon Publications.
Out of This World Adventures ran only two issues in 1950.
17 Saturday Dec 2011
Posted in jungle, science fiction
Tags
An Eye for an Eye, Angelo Torres, EC Comics, EC Comics reprints, Gemstone, Incredible Science Fiction, Lizard Men
Here it is, Martians: the complete EC Comics story “An Eye for an Eye” by Angelo Torres. You can skip the exposition and go straight for the story below, but we would like a chance to set the record straight. Why? Because we noticed that one of the top-ten searches leading people to Mars in 2011 was “EC Comics Eye for an Eye.” So, enjoying a research challenge, we set out to find it for you.
And no wonder you Martians are having a hard time finding it! Comics Alliance mistakenly identified it as the “story about a black astronaut.” Wrong! That story is “Judgment Day.” Our friends at Wikipedia currently say the story was first rejected, but don’t give you any clue where it was actually printed. They mysteriously say “1971” — but in what book? Next up, The Horrors of It All has a cool story from 1952 by the same name — but it’s not this one! PencilInk earns big props for identifying the actual publication — but even they got it wrong until a savvy commenter spoke up!
So here’s the real deal: “An Eye for an Eye” was rejected for publication in Incredible Science Fiction #33 in 1956. Instead, that magazine contained “Judgment Day.” When Gemstone reprinted the issue in 1995 as Incredible Science Fiction #11, they restored “An Eye for an Eye” to the magazine.
Got all that? Is your brain reeling? Great. Now dig in to the story you’ve been searching for: “An Eye for an Eye” by Angelo Torres! It’s truly awesome!
Collector’s Guide: From Incredible Science Fiction #11; Gemstone, 1995 (EC Comics reprint).
19 Tuesday Jul 2011
Posted in superhero
Please enjoy our complete audio and visual collection of the Spider-man story: Invasion of the Dragon Men. Power Records released Invasion of the Dragon Men more than once. In 1974, they collected five Spider-man stories on a full-length album. We have all those audio files collected here for you, too. Yes, that’s .mp3 recordings of the original cracklin’ vinyl. That’s hot!
By clicking them, you can listen to the recordings in preview mode or download them. This is secure file sharing courtesy of Box.net: no request for your information, no cookies, no ads, none of that annoying crap. Just click and enjoy!
Story 1: Invasion of the Dragon Men
Story 2: Return of the Conquistador
Story 3: The Mad Hatter of Manhattan
Story 4: The Abominable Snowman
Story 5: The Bells of Doom
Now check out this gallery of the complete Invasion of the Dragon Men story illustrated for Power Records. It includes the front and back of “The Amazing Spider-man Vol. II LP” from 1974, and the complete pages of the Invasion of the Dragon Men stand-alone album.
16 Sunday Jan 2011
Posted in dinosaur, science fiction, superhero
Tags
Few things bring us as much joy as scientists mutating into reptiles and taking over the planet. Didn’t you ever just want The Lizard to win for once? Well, this is your lucky day. Let’s rock a scene from Exiles that re-imagines The Lizard’s origin — only without Spider-man to stop his evil plans!
We once thought Todd McFarlane had the last word on drawing The Lizard. But Jim Calafiore knocks it out of the park on this one. Come to think of it, the versions by Clayton Crain and Chris Bachalo also rule!
Collector’s Guide: From Exiles #17; Marvel, 2002. Reprinted in Exiles TPB Marvel Ultimate Collection #1; 2009. Reprinted in Exiles TPB #3.
07 Friday Jan 2011
Tags
dinosaur, dinosaur comics, Doug Moench, jungle, Ka-zar, Lizard Men, Marvel Comics, marvel value stamps, mole man value stamp, Russ Heath, Savage Land, Smilodon, Triceratops, tyrannosaurus rex, Wizard of Forgotten Flesh, Zabu
2022 Update: This was the first post here at Mars Will Send No More, way back in January 2011. Since then, the scans I painstakingly made for it somehow became FUBAR; so, eleven years later, I pilfered some pirate scans from the web to restore this post to its former glory. Along the way, I re-discovered that the letters page contains the Mole Man Value Stamp, which later became the avatar for our blogging buddy Paul at Longbox Graveyard — a truly historic comics coincidence!
Anyway, let’s rock this thing!
Doug Moench penned Wizard of Forgotten Flesh for the Ka-zar in 1974. Doug Moench did a huge amount of writing for Marvel in the 1970s: teaming up with Bill Sienkewicz for awesome Moon Knight stories, Gil Kane & George Perez on the Inhumans, Paul Gulacy on Shang-Chi Master of Kung Fu, and — my personal favorites — the two Six From Sirius limited series.
That being said, Russ Heath‘s dinosaur artwork in Wizard of Forgotten Flesh speaks for itself. Dig his splash panel for page one.
Here is a the five-page sequence where Ka-zar and his buddies harness a Triceratops. They ride it into a river where they wage battle against the evil cult of serpent people.
Gotta admit: I love Zabu, the sabre-tooth tiger. One of my favorite scenes in any superhero book is Zabu and Wolverine having a conversation in animal language. That was Uncanny X-Men #116, when Chris Claremont and John Byrne took the X-men to Ka-zar’s home, the Savage Land.
Anyway, these serpent cultists are up to no good and using some ancient skull to give them power to enslave the tattooed guy’s people. The good guys free the prisoners, but the serpent priestess invokes skull power. With that power, she raises the dead to life to be her unholy soldiers.
This is a fun issue. It transplants some of the best 1970s Conan and Kull cliches and male-bonding adventures into a world of dinosaurs, and the artwork makes the script come to life. Unfortunately, it was only a fill-in from Russ Heath, and he would not again grace the pages of this series.
Collector’s Guide: From Ka-Zar #12, Marvel Comics, 1974.
If you liked that, dig the rest of our Gallery of Dinosaur Comics both old and new, or our guide to Steve Bissette’s Complete History of Dinosaur Comics.
Mars Will Send No More 