Weird Adventures
Entry updated 24 February 2025. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1952). Ziff-Davis. One issue, numbered #10. Artists include John Celardo and Phil Marini. 36 pages, with four long strips, a two-page text story and a one-page non-fiction strip.
In the 1950s the use of "weird" in a comic's title usually meant a focus on Horror; however, despite one story referring to black Magic, Weird Adventures is best considered an sf magazine. Moderately good with fairly solid artwork, the four long strips all include some romantic elements; as there was only one issue it is not clear whether this was a coincidence or intentional.
"Dome of Death" has a Scientist recklessly covering a City with a dome-shaped Force Field to convince a doubting Government that his Invention works. Once it is turned on, gangsters kill him and take the control device; then, as law and order breaks down within the dome as resources become scarce, they blackmail the city authorities. Fairly unusually for sf, a blue-collar worker (a building's chief janitor) and his wife save the day. In "The Beautiful Robot" a middle-aged scientist's proposals are rejected by young, attractive women, the latest cruelly suggesting he builds a Robot to wed. He does, but though beautiful she initially lacks passion, remarking that having her battery charged is nicer than kissing. This changes when she meets the professor's handsome, recently-wed assistant: she kills the professor then goes to murder the assistant's bride, but is fortuitously destroyed by lightning before she can do so.
"The Seeker from Beyond" is Zada, Queen of the Planet Xedes: her treacherous lover was killed when he raised an army against her, and she travels from planet to planet seeking someone to replace him. John Grant of Earth is her choice: Zada tells her story then threatens to murder John's girlfriend if he does not return to Xedes with her. By pretending to be power-mad like her former boyfriend, John manages ot make the Queen withdraw her offer. In "The Man Who Lived Backwards!" best friends Paul Martin and David Brant toast the former's wedding, happening the next day. Shortly after Paul begins to experience Time in Reverse, now noticing David's expression when giving the toast is malicious – and realizing this explains his friend's recent inexplicable interest in "black magic" (presumably meaning alchemy, as this involved building a laboratory, wearing a lab coat and working with chemicals). Time continues to wind back for Paul, who fears he will eventually revert to a child; then he realizes the time he saved David's life is approaching. Seemingly able to will the rescue to fail (the story is vague here), Paul finds himself back at the day before the wedding, with David long dead.
The text story is "Horror of the Island" where Mad Scientist Dr Boris Raskolnikov boasts to a castaway that he has discovered "how to speed up Evolution a million times" and "turn animals into men within a week": The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) by H G Wells was doubtless an influence. Raskolnikov plans to use the recent arrival to test his new process, which reverses evolution and turns men into animals (see Devolution). "Amazing Prophecies" is a one-page strip speculating on the future, including liquid plastics to spray on your clothes if it turns cold; "probing-eye television" able to show any event in the world, via "electronic impulses"; the Sahara in bloom from Weather Control and soil restoration (see Agriculture); and "ray repellent suits impregnated with atomic lead" to protect the wearer from atomic bombs (see Nuclear Energy). [SP]
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