Today in Comics (Alternate) History: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Aquaman.

Hey, remember thirty years ago, when the world ended? That thirty years has flown by so fast it feels like the world ended only last week. Anyway, flash-forward four years to a post-apocalypse world of Thanksgiving Day, 1990! When I check the "Today in Regular History" website, it tells me that the strange, mutated people of Thanksgiving 1990 had made "Love Takes Time" by Mariah Carey the #1 hit! Well, you've always got to expect some radioactive horror after the bombs fall.


Panel from "Thanksgiving Day — 1990!" in Strange Adventures #132 (September 1961), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson, letters by Gaspar Saladino
Wow, that sure is a lot more exciting than my Thanksgiving day, which mainly consists of stuffing myself with stuffing (of the non-stuffed bull variety) and then lying on the couch for the rest of the day burping along to the songs in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. But in the scary atomic world of the future past, just gathering enough food to even survive is a challenge! Why, even Saturn Girl and G.I. Joe's Duke only got seed, sods, fruits and grasses! Say...is corn grass?


Later, the last dregs of humanity have a Thanksgiving picnic! It's all vegetarian (booooo!), because if you remember your basic Atomic Knights mythology, all the animals were mutated into monstrous forms. So not so much any turkey steaming on the table, more like turkeys looming on the horizon ready to stomp your house while gobbling menacingly.


Suddenly, distant relatives you don't care for that much arrive for Thanksgiving dinner! In this case, the interlopers are the armies of Atlantis, and they're brandishing their "8"s at us! Quick, put in the extending leaf and get out the card table for the kids!


So just where did this horde of the Undersea Kingdom come from? If you can trust the ads on the very next page of this here comic book, they came from Rockville Center, New York, and they're monochromatically armed for battle at a low, low price!


No, actually, the Atlantean attackers were blasted from the distant past into their hellish post-nuclear future by the power of the atomic bomb! Golly, is there anything it can't do?!?


SCIENCE!:


Luckily, the Atomic Knights fight right back! Keep in mind these tactics for when your cousins from a mythical land of millennia ago show up and there's not enough green bean casserole!


So, just like many Thanksgiving stories before it, the Atomic Knights' 1990 Thanksgiving ends with exterminating the native people. Enjoy your pumpkin pie, suckers!

Today in Comics History: Jeff picked the wrong week to give up LSD

Panels from "The Star Oscar" in Strange Adventures #220 (September-October 1969), script by Sid Gerson, pencils and inks by Frank Giacoia

Today in Halloween Comics History: Mole People are proven to be rock stupid

Panels from "When the Earth Blacked Out!" in Strange Adventures #144 (September 1962), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson

Today in Comics History: Blame It on Mister Mole

Hey, remember when everybody an' his brother were trying to figger out who blew up Earth? When after all it was the Mole People?



Panels from "When the Earth Blacked Out!" in Strange Adventures #144 (September 1962), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson
Well...that'll happen.

Today in Comics History: Christopher Columbus and Napoleon Bonaparte get into an argument about which one of them is more popular so they time-travel to the 20th century to find out if…look, I don't write these comics, I just post about them

Panels from "Across the Ages!" in Strange Adventures #60 (September 1955), script by John Broome, pencils by Jerry Grandenetti, inks by Joe Giella
I included the indicia and the header in these scans so I could prove I'm not just makin' this stuff up.

Today in Comics History: The world's greatest detectives ignore an obvious clue that the Riddler did it

Panels from "When the Earth Blacked Out!" in Strange Adventures #144 (September 1962), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson

Comics News for March 31, 2015

Top: from "Savage Animal Fury!" in Cartoon Network Presents #4 (November 1997), script by Michael Kupperman,
pencils and inks by Bill Alger, colors by Dave Tanguay, letters by Phil Felix
Middle: from "Rosie and Red Russia!" in Incredible Hulk (1968 series) #210 (April 1977), script by Len Wein,
breakdowns by Sal Buscema, finishes by Ernie Chan, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by John Costanza
Bottom: from "Amazing Ratios" in Strange Adventures #60 (September 1955), script by Julius Schwartz, artist uncredited

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 322: Unbelievable or fantastic? (Either.)

House ad for Teen Titans (1966 series) #25 (January-February 1970) and Strange Adventures #222 (January-February 1970); printed in Detective Comics #395 (January 1970)
Comic cover art: Teen Titans #25: pencils and inks by Nick Cardy, letters by Gaspar Saladino
Strange Adventures #222: pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson, letters by Gaspar Saladino
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino
Hey look: in the ad, Adam Strange is fighting by day, but on the cover, it's all happening at night!


'Coz that's the way they roll on Rann.

Today in Comics History Future: The United States Postal Service has not been replaced by email, apparently

Panels from "A Letter from the Future!" in Strange Adventures #30 (March 1953), script by Sid Gerson, pencils and inks by Frank Giacoia

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 271: Proof that global warming is just a myth

House ad for Strange Adventures #233 (November-December 1971); printed in The Brave and the Bold #99 (December 1971)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino

Cover of Strange Adventures #233 (November-December 1971), pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson

Today in Comics History: First appearance, Saturn Werewolf

Splash page of "Riddle of the Random Realities!" from Strange Adventures (1999 Vertigo limited series) #1 (November 1999); script, pencils, and inks by Dave Gibbons, colors by Angus McKie

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 198: Joan Jett Attacks!

House ad for Strange Adventures #220 (October 1969); printed in Teen Titans (1966 series) #23 (September-October 1969)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino
From the era when Strange Adventures was cover-billed as Adam Strange Advemtures, here’s Allana and Mister S. versus the Beast from the Runaway World. Run away! Run away!


Cover of Strange Adventures #220 (October 1969), pencils and inks by Joe Kubert
And, since "The Beast from the Runaway World" was a reprint from Mystery in Space, that makes this not only a double-barreled cover-stravagnaza on tonight's 365 Days of DC House Ads but also a new rare sighting of a Same Story, Different Cover!


Cover of Mystery in Space #55 (November 1959), pencils by Gil Kane, wash by Jack Adler
Which is not to be confused with The Beast from the Runaways World:


Cover of Runaways (2005 series) #4 (July 2005), panted by Jo Chen
Or, indeed, The Beat from a Runaway World.

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 143

House ad for Strange Adventures v.1 #213 [Deadman] (July-August 1968); printed in Wonder Woman v.1 #177 (July-August 1968)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino

Since "one picture is worth a one thousand words," as the ad tells us, here's the full gorgeous cover for that ish:


Cover of Strange Adventures v.1 #213 [Deadman] (July-August 1968), pencils and inks by Neal Adams

And here, in the form of a double-page spread from that issue by Neal Adams, is a couple bajillion more!

Two-page spread from of Strange Adventures v.1 #213; script, pencils, and inks by Neal Adams
(Click picture to blow-your-mind-size)
Neal Adams: the man voted most likely to freak me out in the late seventies.

Science Says You Can't Spell 'You're"

This was originally going to be a post about today's strange meteor falling on Russia, bringing with it a strange visitor from another world...but I got a little hung up on the spelling instead.


Panel from "Science Says Your [sic] Wrong If You Believe That..." in Strange Adventures #23 (August 1952); script, pencils, inks and letters by Mort Drucker

Same Story, Different Cover: Lizards on a Space Station!

Left: Mystery in Space #14 (June-July 1953), pencils by Gil Kane
Right: Strange Adventures #232 (September-October 1971), pencils and inks by Joe Kubert

(Click picture to 70mm-size)

Biggest news story of the year, and they buried it on the sports page

We warned you on October 9!


Panels from Strange Adventures #117 (June 1960), script by John Broome, pencils and inks by Murphy Anderson