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dantastic's review against another edition
5.0
Spawn of Mars and Other Stories collects 25 of Wally Wood's EC stories, plus five more featuring Wood and Harry Harrison.
In stories written by Al Feldstein, Harry Harrison, and Wood himself, this volume tackles topics like time travel, androids, nuclear war, overpopulation, prejudice, racism, and the Wood specialty, space travel.
The black and white artwork lays bare Wood's artwork, showcasing his talent. Wally Wood's cramped spacecraft and clunky equipment give his subjects a harder edge than a lot of science fiction tales. Wood could draw anything and draw it well, and he does in this volume. In Spawn of Mars, we get sexy women, mutants, monsters, and dashing heroes. As good as he is as a penciller, I have to say Wally Wood is probably the best inker comics have ever had. The black and white format emphasizes his inking skill. His use of black is unparalleled.
The stories are a lot of fun, in and of themselves, but the Wood artwork is what really sells them. There are some great tales in here, like Enemies of The Colony, The Black Arts, The Two Century Journey, The Sinking of the Titanic, hell, most of them are really. The reversal of fortune endings are in full effect.
Wallace Wood was a comic legend and Spawn of Mars and Other Tales is a great example of that. Five out of five ray guns.
In stories written by Al Feldstein, Harry Harrison, and Wood himself, this volume tackles topics like time travel, androids, nuclear war, overpopulation, prejudice, racism, and the Wood specialty, space travel.
The black and white artwork lays bare Wood's artwork, showcasing his talent. Wally Wood's cramped spacecraft and clunky equipment give his subjects a harder edge than a lot of science fiction tales. Wood could draw anything and draw it well, and he does in this volume. In Spawn of Mars, we get sexy women, mutants, monsters, and dashing heroes. As good as he is as a penciller, I have to say Wally Wood is probably the best inker comics have ever had. The black and white format emphasizes his inking skill. His use of black is unparalleled.
The stories are a lot of fun, in and of themselves, but the Wood artwork is what really sells them. There are some great tales in here, like Enemies of The Colony, The Black Arts, The Two Century Journey, The Sinking of the Titanic, hell, most of them are really. The reversal of fortune endings are in full effect.
Wallace Wood was a comic legend and Spawn of Mars and Other Tales is a great example of that. Five out of five ray guns.
eat_a_tron's review against another edition
5.0
OUTRAGEOUSLY GOOD. This is everything I want from pulp science fiction stories. So, so, so good. I'm now on a mission to gather all of Fantagraphics EC comics collections.
AWESOME.
AWESOME.
abdiel47's review against another edition
3.0
I’m not a huge comic book fan, but I love Cold War history. My main reason in reading this book was to get a contemporary view at a world immersed in Cold War paranoia. All these stories were written in 1950 and 1951, and some of the stories were pretty good. One, called “Deadlocked!” as I recall, was about a human spaceship coming across an alien spaceship for the first time. Both ships had peaceful intentions, but feared the other didn’t. And even though neither wanted to fight, they ended up destroying each other.
A similar one has people exploring a new planet where they come across a strange and violent people. The explorers rush home to their own planet to make plans to go to war with the people of this new planet. It is then revealed that the explorers are from Venus and they were exploring Earth where they met belligerent explorers from Mars. The Martians thought the Venusians were Earthlings and also plan to attack Earth.
Another was about a group of spacefarers coming back to the planet their ancestors had left millennia ago in order to avoid imminent nuclear war. When they arrive they find our Earth on the brink of nuclear war. The scientists they meet decide that they too need to flee Earth to avoid annihilation.
An interesting change of pace story is about a scientist who develops sex change drugs. He’s also very possessive of his daughter, and when she brings home a fiance he secretly injects him with sex change drugs. Eventually the marriage is broken off and the fiance moves away for mysterious reasons. The daughter ends up reading her father’s lab notes and leaves him to find her fiance. In the end the scientist is invited to the wedding where he finds his daughter has taken his sex change drugs to turn herself into a man in order to marry her/his now female fiance. Seems pretty edgy for 1950.
Most of the stories have surprise endings. The book is front loaded with the best stories and they get silly toward the end. But as a window into how people viewed the world back then, it’s a great read.
A similar one has people exploring a new planet where they come across a strange and violent people. The explorers rush home to their own planet to make plans to go to war with the people of this new planet. It is then revealed that the explorers are from Venus and they were exploring Earth where they met belligerent explorers from Mars. The Martians thought the Venusians were Earthlings and also plan to attack Earth.
Another was about a group of spacefarers coming back to the planet their ancestors had left millennia ago in order to avoid imminent nuclear war. When they arrive they find our Earth on the brink of nuclear war. The scientists they meet decide that they too need to flee Earth to avoid annihilation.
An interesting change of pace story is about a scientist who develops sex change drugs. He’s also very possessive of his daughter, and when she brings home a fiance he secretly injects him with sex change drugs. Eventually the marriage is broken off and the fiance moves away for mysterious reasons. The daughter ends up reading her father’s lab notes and leaves him to find her fiance. In the end the scientist is invited to the wedding where he finds his daughter has taken his sex change drugs to turn herself into a man in order to marry her/his now female fiance. Seems pretty edgy for 1950.
Most of the stories have surprise endings. The book is front loaded with the best stories and they get silly toward the end. But as a window into how people viewed the world back then, it’s a great read.
jameseckman's review
3.0
Cheesy, sexist SF and horror comics without a single minority present. Also included free, horrible puns, snap, ironic or cynical endings and in some cases, better artwork than many of today's comics. A fun read once, though since it's not printed on rotting pulp, not a total nostalgia trip.
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