Dimension X: "The Outer Limit" 4/8/50
A test pilot takes up a new ship for a quick trip into outer space and back. He only has ten minutes of fuel. But then he and the ship disappear for ten hours, only for the pilot to then return with inside information on how the world will come to an end.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Here's a bonus for today. Test pilots are not the only people who contribute to man's conquest of space. It turns out that Abbott and Costello tested equipment as well:
We continue our journey through the pages of Superman Family #182 (March-April 1977) with a Lois Lane story. "Crime Takes a Fall" is written by Bill Kunkel and drawn by Jose Delbo.
Lois and Clark are checking out the local wrestling arena. It's supposed to be for a fluff piece on the popular sport, but Lois (being Lois) soon begins to dig up some dirt.
A rookie named Jaws Jackson is winning match after match. This is despite the fact that during workouts, he is easily tossed around by the veteran wrestlers. But when they get in the ring with him, their "muscles turn to jelly" and they are easily defeated.
It's doesn't take a brilliant deductive leap to figure out something is going on. Fortunately, Lois then demonstrates that investigating reporting is the easiest job in the world. You just have to accidentally overhear two thugs explaining the entire evil plan.
The premise of this tale is perfectly sound for a short 8-pager. And, as we'll see in a moment, I like the way it ends. But the above panels are a weak point. Even conceeding that the story has to move along quickly and the writer might be forced to use a contrivance to keep up this pace, having Lois almost immediately spot two men she recognizes as criminal and hear them share information that both of them already would have known is pretty lame.
But I do like what happens next. Realizing that Jaws Jackson doesn't know he's being used as a patsy by the mob, she tells him and asks him to follow her to the roof, where a crook with a dart gun is waiting to plug Jaws' next opponent at the right time. (By the way, it's mentioned that the darts are self-dissolving, so the plot makes perfect Comic Book Science sense.)
At first, it seems like Jaws has not followed her and Lois soon finds herself cornered by the bad guy. But Jaws does show up. And he's angry. Angry enough to tackle the bad guy and send them both plummeting off the roof.
Fortunately, Superman is nearby to catch them. No one dies and villainy is foiled.
I complained a few weeks ago about the Jimmy Olsen story ending with Superman saving the day while Jimmy is unconscious. I still think that's a valid criticism. But here, Lois figures everything out and sets up a solution for catching the bad guy. Superman does show up to catch the two men after they fall off the roof, but Lois remains proactive and responsible for solving the case. Despite that painful contrivance in the middle of the story, Lois' adventure works a lot better than did Jimmy's.
Next week, we'll visit with Captain America as he fights a monster that might not be a monster. In two weeks, we'll return to Superman Family and learn something about ancient Krypton.
Suspense: "Drive-in" 1/11/45
A waitress at a drive-in restaurant makes the mistake of accepting the offer of a ride to the bus stop from a customer. In fact, that's probably even more of a mistake on a Suspense episode than it is in real life.
Click HERE to listen or download.
In 1971, during Gunsmoke's 17th season, a three-part episode titled "The Bullet" (written by veteran TV scribe Jim Byrnes) aired. It is a superbly written and acted story arc in many ways, but today I'd like to stress one particular moment.
It comes during the story's second part (which aired on December 6, 1971). The context of the scene I'm sharing below is as follows. Outlaws have taken over a train that is carrying a fortune in gold. But the bad guys don't know that a badly wounded Matt Dillon is also hidden aboard the train. The gang leader is missing a hand and it was Matt's bullet that took that hand off. So if Matt is discovered aboard, he's dead.
A pretty young criminal--a femme fatale in the making--is also aboard. She knows about Matt and is considering ratting him out to the bad guys in exchange for being taken along with them after they've finished loading the gold onto a wagon. But Kitty Russell--who's perpetually undeclared love for Matt has always been obvious to pretty much any fan of the show--isn't going to allow that to happen.
DO NOT threaten Miss Kitty's man if she's in a position to to do anything about it.
This is a great scene from an always excellent TV series.
Fantastic Comics, published by Fox Publications from 1939 to 1943, was a bizarre and entertaining book. It was full of stories that barely made story sense, even when taking Comic Book Logic into account, but were fast-paced and graced with imaginative art.
It was an anthology book, but did include a number of regularly appearing characters--an Arthurian knight, Samson (a descendent of the Biblical Samson and also given superstrength), a spy and several science fiction heroes.
Today, we'll look at an adventure of one of the science fiction guys as recounted in Fantastic Comics #3 (February 1940).
Space Smith and his pretty companion Dianna have spent the first two issues battling the Great Central Brain of Mars, who wants to destroy Earth. In this issue, they are heading back to Mars to finish off the Central Brain. But on the way, they pass near Venus. (Which I think might be possible. What if Mars was currently near the opposite side of the sun from Earth? A route to Mars that goes past the sun might come close to Venus, right? I know I'm giving the story too much credit for thinking this through, but what the hey.)
Anyway, they get jumped by Leopard Women from Venus who are flying atop giant reptiles and blasting away with "comet fire" from their helmets. My wife makes fun of my lack of fashion sense, but even I can see the leapard women are destined to be trendsetters.
The blasts immobilize the Earth ship and the Leopard Women board through... open portholes. Okay, I have no justification for that. But I don't care. Sometimes, realism and logic simply don't matter.
Space and Dianna soon find themselve prisoners on Venus, guarded by robots. When Dianna is taken off to be surgically altered into a Leopard Woman (I'm not sure what that consists of, since the Venusian women appear to be normal humans who simply wear unusual clothes.) This makes Space angry. And apparently, you won't like Space when he's angry. He snaps his chains and goes on a rampage, fighting his way past robots and reptiles to resuce Dianna.
The epic fight continues until a robot is knocked into a tank of Superluner Star Gas, which carpets the area. This allows Space and Dianna, after a swim through an underground river and the judicious use of a flying belt, to reach their ship and get away.
The story was written and drawn by Fletcher Hanks (using the name Hank Christy) and it is the lightning-fast pacing of the story plus his eccentric, colorful art and weird character/creature designs that make it work. As I said, there are times when story logic means very little and, in fact, this particular story probably wouldn't have been half as fun if Hanks had tried to make any real sense of it.
You can find this issue online HERE.
Next week, we return to our look at Superman Family #182 to see what Lois Lane is up to.
A selection of DC covers that remind us approximately 60% of all PT Boat combat operations carried out during the Second World War involved dinosaurs.
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