“Yesterday’s” Comic> Space Adventures #34

“Hurry, we must join forces and save this cover!”

Space Adventures v3 #34

Charlton Comics Group (June, 1960)

[Read along with me here]

As the anthologies I current go through go, this is only three stories and shorter than the Golden Age fare. Time is not my friend this week, and this is the wrong week for three anthology titles I have to go through, but that’s my life for you. Let’s get on with it.

No credits given again.

Captain Atom: “The Second Man In Space”

The Russians send a man into orbit, claiming he’s the first man in space. They’d be right a year later, but this is still the start of the space race when this comic came out. Only in this version the pilot is injured by the launch acceleration. Captain Atom goes to investigate, returns to Earth for a “space vaccine” that is supposed to heal the pilot’s internal injuries…somehow…and then helps him get back to Earth. What could have been a propaganda victory for the Soviets is foiled by the grateful pilot acknowledging the Americans got there first, which does fit Captain Atom’s origin. It’s a pretty good start to this trio of stories.

“Derelict Of Doom”

None of these other stories take place in the same continuity anymore than any other sci-fi anthology like this. A space patrol ship finds an alien ship slowly corroding, and it starts to affect their ship. Luckily, aliens from the same people as the other ship come by, immunize them, and restore the ship. This is more like a plot than a full story. It wants to be an interesting story at one point as one of the patrolmen questions if the aliens are friendly, and they actually are, but for the most part it’s just not a full story.

“The Insatiable Planet Monster”

Space explorers reach Alpha Centauri and find planet-sized creatures who try to eat them, and then eat their fellows when the Earth ship blows one of them up. Does every alien in this series speak telepathically? Because ones ask the humans to finish off the other planet monsters. This is better than the second story but it kind of suffers at the end. At least there’s some decent action.

overall

Two out of three stories are okay, though the third story is only barely okay. Captain Atom’s story has some questions but mostly survives in hindsight of the actual space race in the real world. Still worth a look.