Monthly Archives: December 2005

Two Kirby reprints in this issue. “I Was the Invisible Man” is from STRANGE TALES #67 (1959), a 7-page story inked by Christopher Rule. And there’s another one of those hands across the chin I mentioned a while back.

This story involved a young scientist coming up with a device that enables him to move at incredibly fast speeds, effectively invisible to the human eye. He craves fame, and decides to operate in secret for a while, creating a national sensation about an “Invisible Man”, before revealing himself. Unfortunately he doesn’t count on the side-effects of his untested process, which prematurely age him. A nice story, with a lot of inventive visual effects, and a nice change from the giant monster stories that dominate these reprints.

Not that I don’t loves me some giant monsters, as seen in the second Kirby reprint, the Kirby/Ayers “Goom, The Thing from Planet X”, a 13-page story from TALES OF SUSPENSE #15 (1961). A scientist mocked for his theories about life on hidden nearby worlds experiments in a secluded area, getting the attention of the monstrous Goom, who plans to conquer the Earth. The scientist returns to his lab and contacts more of Goom’s people, and is branded a traitor to humanity, only to be saved as it’s revealed Goom is an outcast from his otherwise peaceful race. Rather odd ending speech, about how humanity has nothing to fear from alien contact, since any species advanced enough will surely be peaceful, considering how many Kirby stories and essays run counter to that, in fact are based on the opposite view.

Published 1974