Out of This World [comic]
Entry updated 21 August 2023. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1956-1959). Charlton Comics. 16 issues. Artists include Steve Ditko, Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio, Bill Molno and Charles Nicholas. Most of the scripts were by Joe Gill. Usually 4-6 comic strips per issue (save for the double-length #7 and #8) and a two page text short-story (but two in #7 and #8, none in #12), mainly sf and supernatural horror.
In the first issue's opening story a journalist discovers an Alien who is collecting humanity's works for their Scientists to study, whilst keeping his presence secret – their previous visits having caused the flying saucer panic (see UFOs); when the journalist returns with his skeptical editor the entire house has vanished. In "Defection" a twenty-fourth-century astronaut departs Earth in the first Faster Than Light Spaceship, only to discover our universe was created a century ago by alien scientists (though to us millions of years have passed) and will continue for a further five hundred of their years (see Pocket Universe). In "Take Warning" a man argues the channelling of resources to meet the obsession with conquering space will lead to social collapse and poverty, but the authorities do not listen; it is revealed that he is from Earth, where this happened, and his audience were Martians (see Mars). "The Supermen" has workers at a military nuclear research laboratory glowing, their brains increasing in size, until they become pure energy and disappear, to "merge with infinity": we learn of this from the account left by the last to achieve Transcendence, a laboratory monkey. An atheistic teacher of Evolution aches for the simple life of our ancestors: acquiring a Time Machine he travels to the past and finds a paradise: we learn his name is Adam (see Adam and Eve; Clichés). Not wanting to wait to collect his inheritance, a man Time Travels five years into the future using an untested time machine – but a side-effect is to speed up ageing, which continues even after he leaves the device. Though it goes in a different direction, "The Hammer of Thor" has some echoes of Marvel Comics' Thor: here the human is a sensitive but weak Viking. A scientist discovers ants are biding their time, waiting to overthrow the human race. A time traveller arrives at the time of the Dinosaurs: despite instructions not to do so, he leaves his device and treads on a lizard – returning to the present he finds humanity transformed (presumably inspired by Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" (28 June 1952 Collier's Weekly). Other stories have Parallel Worlds, Telepathy, Immortality serums, Robot uprisings and Lost Races).
The Ditko-drawn stories – such as "The Supermen" – tend to be the most interesting; even the relatively silly "From All Our Darkrooms", about people from another Dimension crossing to ours as photographic negatives, impresses due to its look and gives #4 a striking cover (Ditko's cover for #11 is also noteworthy). There is also good work by Mastroserio and Molno. The earlier issues are the best; but #7 and #8, which are double-length, are padded with minor stories: a recovery followed, but then another decline in quality for the last few issues. [SP]
further reading
- Out of This World, Volume 1 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2017) [graph: collects issues #1-#6: publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Steve Ditko]
- Out of This World, Volume 2 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2017) [graph: collects issues #7-#10: publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Maurice Whitman]
- Out of This World, Volume 3 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2017) [graph: collects issues #11-#16: publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Steve Ditko as J Kodti]
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