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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
Ka-Zar: World’s Manliest Cat Lover. From the Letters Page.
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!
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.