January 1960: Big Purple Beasts and the Borg

I wonder if the purple simian-ish creature in I Was a Bodyguard to a Beast (My Greatest Adventure 39) counted toward DC’s monthly maximum quota on gorilla covers?

I’m guessing not.

Meanwhile, in the Space Ranger story in Tales of the Unexpected 45, artist Jim Mooney shows us a criminal’s “army of specially trained interplanetary beasts” that might have made appropriate foes for the Legion of Super-Pets a couple of years later.

Come to think of it, Space Ranger’s Cryll and Chameleon Boy’s Proty were a lot alike. Cryll and the Martian Manhunter’s Zook might have fit right in with the Legion of Super Pets.

Such are the kinds of thoughts that jolt me awake at night.

Strange Adventures 112 includes a Gardner Fox/Mike Sekowsky cover story and a Space Museum story, Revolt of the Spaceships!

“The Space Museum tales center on a 25th Century museum filled with objects commemorating heroic deeds leading to the conquest of space,” noted comics historian Michael E. Grost. “Each tale would involve a visit by Howard Parker and his young son Tommy Parker. Howard would tell Tommy the story behind one of the objects in the museum.

“The Space Museum tales sometimes contained science fiction mysteries; near the end of each tale, Howard would pause, and urge Tommy to find a clue that would solve the mystery. The effect is similar to Ellery Queen’s Challenge to the Reader.”

The issue also includes a John Broome/Sid Greene story intended to underline editor’s Julius Schwartz’s running theme about celebrating the intellect. 

In Tomorrow’s Hero, mutant Ral Grayson has the ability to understand things instantly by just seeing a portion of the process, a power he employs to stop an alien invasion.

The invaders’ name? The Borg.