“Yesterday’s” Comic> Space Adventures #37

Nathaniel’s speed dating event didn’t go as planned.

Space Adventures volume 3 #37

Charlton Comic Group (December, 1960)

Two Captain Atom stories and four stories history has shown are probably not going to be very good. I’m looking forward to our hero getting his own book so I can stop reading this, and unlike Mystery Men Comics during the Blue Beetle reviews and current Golden Age reading, I won’t be coming back to it. The Captain Atom stories have good historic value and the rest just isn’t worth reading so far, but I’m hoping we get at least one good one this issue.

I’m not holding my breath.

[Read along with me here]

Captain Atom: “The Space Prowlers” by Steve Ditko

Aliens try to steal US Government secrets…for some reason. It’s never explained why or what their end goal is or how they’d profit. Also, that’s one big telescope at the White House, and I’m not sure how our hero’s nuclear blasts were able to destroy a giant space ship because of it. I’m not sure they really defined his powers and limits at this point. The blurb talks about how powerful he is, and yet he isn’t so indestructible in action. That’s good for the drama, but I would like to know what his actual powers and limits are. We’ll be back to him later.

Flight 101 To Nowhere

Aliens kidnap a passenger rocket, only to find these small, germ-ridden creatures make the planet uninhabitable for human giants like them so they leave. That’s the problem with this series. The stories are so generic it hurts.

The Super-Men From Space

Somebody at Charlton was in a race to see who could come up with the most bland take on the way the aliens were defeated in The War Of The Worlds. This time, we have robot aliens prepared for every Earth defense…except rust, and they rust really fast. Maybe the geologist they captured for no good reason should have asked why they even wanted to conquer Earth and how they never heard of a rainstorm with lightning while they were busy showing off their “mental” powers.

Enemy Overhead

If “no known planet” was shown to have life, then where are all these alien invasions in this series coming from? A mechanical moon-sized object shows up between Earth and the moon, causing havoc we don’t see on the planet. The Chinese actually send a spaceship to go after it, as does the Americans, who need to save the Chinese who they know would have betrayed them until they were grateful to the Americans for saving them. This story meant well, and tried harder than most of the stories I’ve read from this book, but it still suffers from not really filling out its story.

Captain Atom: “A Victory For Venus”

Turns out I wasn’t too far off with the “speed dating” gag. Earth sends a missile to observe Venus, but the women of Venus aren’t happy about it. Still, the attack was to draw Captain Atom out, stun him, and then claim the next time they met would be as friends before destroying the probe. That…was a story that was written, and not an interesting one.

overall

I’m starting to wonder if this is worth it. The stories are not interesting whether Captain Atom is there or not, but they’re usually slightly worse without him. Would you guys blame me if I didn’t bother with the rest of these looking for important elements like supporting cast or recurring villains and move on from this?