“Yesterday’s” Comic> Captain Atom #78

According to the Grand Comics Database and the indicta, Captain Atom continues the numbering from Strange Suspense Stories, a comic that started back in 1955. It’s that weird mailing issue again that causes new comics to take over old comics’ numbering for some dumb reason. The US Government, ladies and gentlemen. The comic actually ended by reprinting some of the Space Adventures stories, but I’m not going through that again.

Alternate title: “Da-ba-di da-ba-DIE!”

Captain Atom #78 (technically #1)

Charlton Comics Group (December, 1965)

“The Gremlins From Planet Blue”

WRITER: Joe Gill

PENCILER: Steve Ditko

INKER: Rocke Mastriano

COLORIST: not credited along with the editor, though the comic is in color, the credits given in a paragraph so maybe they forgot him/her

LETTERER: Jon D’Agostino

“The Vast Unknown”

Bache (that’s the only credit)

[Read along with me here]

In the main story, Captain Adam is watching over a scientist and his daughter, the scientists rocket tests being sabotaged by aliens from planet Blue. The aliens brainwash the scientist into helping destroy the world, while Captain Atom rescues astronauts kidnapped during a previous sabotage, then goes to a volcano on Earth to rescue the scientist and his daughter, chasing off the Blue aliens hopefully for good.

The back-up story is just about how many mysteries of our planet they uncovered by the 1960s and what was left to learn.

What they got right: The planet Blue aliens come off as a serious threat even to Captain Atom. We have a general who doesn’t know Adam’s secret superhero identity (nobody even seems to know Captain Atom exists), so we get to see how he handles that situation.

What they got wrong: It just leads to him getting yelled at a lot, though. Science in this comic is quite questionable, but nobody comes to this comic for scientific accuracy.

What I think overall: I’ve said one of the problems with Space Adventures was that stories often didn’t have the page count to give us anything more than a bare plot. This comic proves me right. With more space we got a good Captain Atom tale instead of trying to shove three stories into one comic with a fourth unrelated one. If this continues, it should be a better read.