Voyage to the Deep
Entry updated 5 August 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1962-1963). 4 issues. Dell Publishing Co. Inc. Artists include John McDermott and Sam Glanzman. Script writers include Paul Newman. Each issue contains a 32-page story about the US submarine Proteus, usually book-ended by two one-page non-fiction pieces, often related to the subject of the main story. For instance, in #1 these concern the biblical flood (see Religion), the text informing us that the "upper waters" referred to in that account "are said to have rushed down from two holes that originated in consequence of two stars having been temporarily removed from the constellation Pleiades", which seems to suggest stars are cosmic bath plugs.
The Proteus is the world's largest atomic submarine (see Nuclear Energy; Transportation; Under the Sea), commanded by Admiral Jonathan Leigh, whose qualities include "that spark of difference, that note of extra Intelligence, that piece of superiority". The submarine's design allows it to automatically change shape to suit its surroundings: "it can expand to 400 feet or contract to sixty feet ... like an eel", enabling it to race through narrow oceanic caverns. It is essentially a sub covered in a second skin of epoxy aluminium, shaped by a skeleton of interlocking tubes – "a 'geodesic' construction, the tubes responded electronically to all objects in the immediate vicinity of the sub as well as to all variations of oceanic pressure" (see Technology).
In #1 the Admiral and his crew are investigating the Mariana Trench "to discover what forces cut that gash in the Earth's body" and what creatures live there. However this is put to one side when they learn "The Enemy ... has managed to tilt the entire planet out of orbit" thus shifting the whole Atlantic Ocean westwards, "a catastrophe threatening to put the entire nation under hundreds and perhaps, thousands of feet of water within three days" (see Disaster). The Enemy has done this by moving the Earth's molten core, accessing it via – by fortunate coincidence – the Mariana Trench: furthermore, Scientists fear that "with the Earth out of gear, the entire planetary galaxy [sic] circling the Sun" (see Solar System) will either fly off into outer space or be swallowed by the Sun. Leigh decides the only hope is to suck out the helium the Enemy pumped into the centre of the Earth by using the Proteus's outer skin as a tube: though this would mean the molten core would erupt onto the surface, he hopes it will cool before it can destroy the Earth, whilst the planet's orbit stabilizes, returning to "its natural groove in the galaxy". Despite a hostile 300-foot lamprey and a near mutiny, the plan works.
#2 has the Enemy responding by starting a new Ice Age (see Climate Change). They warm the Norwegian Sea by breaching the underwater barrier that usually hinders the warm Gulf Stream from entering those waters. Despite the attentions of a giant sting ray, civilization is saved by using Proteus as a "huge shovel" to fill the gap with silt and mud. In #3 the Enemy's next attack involves "creating a field of anti-matter that could envelop the Earth", meaning that "the world, as we know it, would cease to exist". The Enemy's Antimatter generator is located in a tributary of the Amazon: the Proteus travels upriver and destroys the generator with an atomic torpedo (as they do so, they are attacked by a giant fish – but it swims too close to the antimatter field and disappears). We learn in #4, after concern over fallout is voiced, that the atomic torpedo "gave a clean explosion". That issue's story has volcanoes rising out of the sea near the Pacific's coastal cities: the Proteus goes to investigate, and after the now inevitable Monster attack – this time a giant lobster – they discover the cause is a sound machine in the Mindanao Trench (aka Philippine Trench) whose vibrations are making the sea floor unstable and whose effect eventually spreads to the Atlantic. Unfortunately the Enemy device is so deep that the torpedo fired to destroy it is crushed by the pressure, but by rapidly expanding and contracting the Proteus's outer hull the submarine creates its own "sound shock waves" that destroy the sound machine.
"The Enemy" does not appear to be a polite way of saying Russia (see Cold War), as Leigh states in #3 that he does not know who or what they are; aside from their advanced technology we learn nothing about them. The artwork by McDermott (covers) and Glanzman (main strips) is often good, whilst the stories – with many Scientific Errors – are agreeably preposterous. The strip lengths allow Infodumps and digressions, the latter including nine pages in #1 where Leigh imagines the destruction of his home town New York by the oncoming Atlantic, should he be unable to stop it. Voyage to the Deep's main problem is the law of diminishing returns from such a limited setting, #1 being the best story and #4 the weakest. Presumably the film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) was an inspiration. [SP]
further reading
- Classic Adventure Comics: Volume Four (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2021) [graph: collects all four issues of Voyage to the Deep and #1 of Escape From Devil's Island comics: in the publisher's PS Artworks series: illus/various: hb/John McDermott]
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