SCIENCE FICTION 555
(#205–16), following a transition to more supernatural, fantastic themes with #202.
DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint would later revive the title as a four-issue anthology
series in 1999.
In April of 1951 DC published the fi rst issue of Mystery in Space, its second sf title.
Th is title followed the pattern established by Strange Adventures, utilizing an anthology
structure, in addition to using recurring characters such as Knight of the Galaxy (from
the 30th century) and Adam Strange. It totaled 110 issues, running from 1951 to 1966,
resuming publication with #111–17 in 1980 and 1981, and fi nishing with an eight-
issue miniseries revival in 2006, featuring a revived Captain Comet (originally from
Strange Adventures) by Jim Starlin and Shane Davis.
Marvel Comics’ success is also rooted in elements of science fi ction. October
1939 saw the publication of Marvel Comics #1, the fi rst comic published by Timely
Comics (later Atlas, then fi nally Marvel), notable not only for the fi rst appearance
of the Sub-Mariner by Bill Everett, but for an early science fi ction-infl uenced super-
hero character, the Human Torch. Unlike the later version of the character it inspired
( Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four), Carl Burgos’s original was an android created
by Phineas Horton, a scientist. However, Marvel’s major contribution to science fi c-
tion in comics was the sf-inspired work of the 1960s.
Much of the company’s self-proclaimed “Marvel Age of Comics” was developed from
sf-inspired scenarios and pseudo-scientifi c causes, usually a result of the fears raised by
atomic energy in this period. Th e Fantastic Four gained their powers through their
spaceship’s exposure to a cosmic ray storm; Bruce Banner attempts to save a man who
has wandered onto the test site of a gamma ray bomb, but is victim of the explosion
which causes periodic transformations into the monstrous Hulk (inspired by Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, a work of proto-sf by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1886);
Peter Parker’s exposure to an irradiated spider causes him to develop the proportional
abilities of a spider as Spider-Man. Such early scenarios are now attributed to writer/
editor Stan Lee and the relevant artist on a given title, such as Jack Kirby and Steve
Ditko. However, the true nature of such collaborations is shrouded in decades-long
speculation and rumor.
Lee and Kirby’s work on the Fantastic Four title (issues #1–102), contains amazing
displays of sf-inspired design work, landscapes, ideas and characters, and is arguably
the most infl uential sf run in comics. Th e members of the team are not standard
superheroes: team leader Reed Richards is the world’s most intelligent scientist, and
creator of scores of inventions which would not be out of place in other genres of sf,
like the Fantasticar and the portal to the Negative Zone. Kirby’s design work portrays
space and the negative zone as visually exciting, awe-inspiring environments rooted
in a grounded sense of sf reality (as opposed to whimsical fantasy), and are examples
of sf at its most wonderful and inspiring. Characters such as Galactus, the devourer
of worlds, and his herald the Silver Surfer are born of an increasingly complex com-
bination of science and mysticism that refl ects popular interests in the period of the
1960s.
