If Not Superheroes, What? Part II - Fantasy and Science Fiction Comics

Science fiction comics represented a reliable staple of the medium for many years. They never completely left us, though the dedicated and self-contained science fiction comic per se no longer exists. Instead, science fiction comics became one of the contributing elements of the superhero genre that crowded out all rival forms by the end of the sixties.

Unlike the monster comics (a phenomenon mostly centered at Atlas Comics) and superhero comics (a form widely, though never universally, spread across publishers even today), the science fiction comic sprung up everywhere. EC excelled in the form, but DC did not do too badly, thanks to the influence of stalwarts like Julius Schwartz; Atlas and Marvel pursued the form; and generic publishers too numerous to count contributed their own versions here.

The Format

The modern editorial model of comics more or less precludes the classical science fiction comic. In a genre dominated (or monopolized) by long, interconnected ongoing stories formulated under a continuity model and contained within an interconnected, shared universe, the classic science fiction comic would either smother under the burdens of continuity or quickly create new burdens. This represents a flaw more in the continuity model than in the conceptually sound science fiction comic.

Take five to ten pages, tell the story, and wrap it up in the end, and tweak the reader's fears, conscience, and imagination in the process - this represented the definition of a classic science fiction comic story.

Beginning with this agenda, the science fiction comic typically worked from a kind of formula, though specific stories didn't necessarily comply in all particulars - rather, this formula provided the key elements writers might choose to use to spice up their tales. With the exception of paraphernalia and scenery, writers and artists generally could opt for a "one from column A, two from column B" philosophy.

Paraphernalia and Scenery

Bizarre landscapes, elaborate rocket ships, absurd monsters, intricate gadgets, and unlikely aliens recur as the stage dressing of science fiction comics. These elements represent mostly necessary but not sufficient conditions of these books - without such trappings, after all, one might have a difficult time distinguishing the pieces from similar tales in romance or western comics.

These elements play a great role in the aesthetic importance of the science fiction comic form, particularly in the context of EC's role. Artists like the late, great, and lamented Wally Wood turned out pages that pushed the envelope of comics from "piece work" to Art (with the capital 'A' understood. Much of the opportunity inherent in the form related to this aspect - perhaps only in this form did artists manage to unleash their imaginations to such an extent.

A Dash of Silliness

Frequently the science fiction book pursued a kind of bizarre humor of juxtaposition. Turning people into monsters and monsters into people became a time-honored convention of the form. Note, for instance, in the example below, the absurdity of a giant ant wearing a jurist's wig.

As many approaches to silliness in science fiction comics existed as talents to think them up. Consider the giant crania, the scaly creatures dressed in outlandish, but unprotective, space suits, the physics-defying aspects of many anatomical and architectural designs. While some science fiction comics took a solemn-as-a-funeral approach to the subject matter, nothing but taste compelled them to do so. Comedy of great subtlety or of outlandish crassness remained respectable possibilities within the science fiction comic.

A Touch of Doom

Mankind and even the earth itself faced doom and lost many times in science fiction comics. Humanity could die more than once in the pages of a single such book, when editors chose to look the other way. To someone not well versed in the defining features of twentieth century history, this could seem morbid. However, living in what some could call the Century of Death - between wars, the dubious benefits of totalitarian rule, and new and horrible weaponry - gives this a plausible context.

In this aspect, science fiction comics combined the normal human concerns with mortality with the heightened anxieties that attended the new role technology took in the twentieth century. In this period, it became plausible for human effort to destroy all life in the world, a kind of destruction generally reserved for deities in the centuries before World War I (and its sequel) revealed new aspects of the human capacity for destruction.

Therefore a variety of ends met humanity. Self-destruction remained a favorite of writers (and odds makers) of that period, though other things - such as natural catastrophe - could step in, if the story demanded an end that did not necessarily implicate the victim.

A Little Bit of Moralizing

Particularly in stories where humanity (or some other sentient race) met an untimely doom, the resolution tended to implicate some great moral failure. Frequently mankind (or its proxies) died because it deserved to.

Mankind, nonetheless, did not need to expire in a story for its salient failings to appear in detail. Frequently, the situation itself implied mankind's failings, either its violence, its arrogance, or the dangers inherent in its potentials.

Or, as in the story that produced the panel above, mankind barely misses a well-deserved doom based on a stroke of luck - in this case, said stroke represented by an alien spy accidentally blowing up his home world by lighting a cigarette (no, really - he picked up the vice in order to enhance his masquerade and forgot that he lived on a world with an oxygen-methane atmosphere that, in the real world, would blow up on the first available sunny day).

Nonetheless, one can attribute to such stories at least the beginnings of the kind of critical self-awareness that can lead to uprightness, if used properly, or morbid self-hatred if misapplied. The improvement of the human character must, either way, begin with an accurate self-diagnosis.

A Twist Ending, if Available

Science fiction stories frequently dabbled in twist endings and did so before comics became a medium in which anyone might seek a science fiction story. To some extent, science fiction stories overused the twist ending - consider, if you will, science fiction stories that end with some lame twist ending from the Bible ("two stranded aliens named Adam and Eve come to earth and respawn their race anew").

However, comics have traditionally held to lower intellectual standards than, say, prose literature, at least before comics became more self-important and prose literature abandoned some of the standards that once elevated it. Furthermore, the visual context of comics allowed for a greater variety of twist endings; and frequently, if these gimmicky finishes sometimes trod on well-traveled ground, at least sometimes their readers hadn't seen the like before.

The twist ending provided considerable context for irony, a very cognitive kind of humor frequently, but inaccurately, assumed beyond the scope of commercial comics. Furthermore, in a comics form that did not rely on the next issue (and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next) to validate what happened in this one, it provided a ready resolution with a clear payoff.

The Titles

When one describes science fiction comics, EC Comics stands out as a publisher that contributed the most worthy offerings (and those most deserving of anthologization). However, that late, lamented company by no means held a monopoly on the subject matter.

Atlas (and later, Marvel) also got into the game, entering with a number of pieces. Many of the books that would later serve as hosts for Marvel's new line of superhero concepts originally did duty as science fiction comics (as well as featuring fantasy/horror and monster book material).

Furthermore, DC developed a few such titles, like Mystery in Space (which generated the recurring hero Adam Strange).

The Talent

With an earlier arrival on the comics scene, science fiction comics managed to enjoy some talents not available to the short-lived Atlas / Marvel monster comics. As early as the 1940s, Basil Wolverton would pursue space opera themes in comics, and other names attached to the history of EC Comics would work in the form in the fifties, including such genre legends as Wally Wood and Al Williamson.

By the Silver Age, many of the names familiar to those who followed the history of the restoration of superheroes to center stage would come into prominence. Julius Schwartz, John Broome, Gardner Fox, and other writers who made the new generation of DC superheroes would craft science fiction tales in the fifties and sixties. Artists like Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, and Mike Sekowsky would dabble or revel in the science fiction story.

Remnants

The great die=off of comics in the 1950s remains beyond the scope of this column. As it relates to science fiction comics, this mass extinction mainly meant that EC Comics ceased to publish most of its comics line in a preliminary and abortive attempt to refurbish its output so that public pressure would not interfere with its everyday business; but the books about pirates and doctors that it offered as successors to its more famous (and infamous) pieces did not prove worthwhile, and EC therefore went belly-up.

Many of the best science fiction comics died in the extinction of EC Comics, leaving talent either to jump ship and move to other publishers and genres or to go down with the EC ship. However, this did not extinguish science fiction comics. Even as EC faded from a comics scene that would not give it due credit until later decades, DC and Atlas moved into the remaining science fiction comics market and published titles that had life spans sometimes in the decade range. However, in the end, superheroes took over the books (as in Atlas / Marvel's case) or crowded other product out of available shelf space (as in most other cases) and the science fiction comic, as represented in its heyday, mostly ceased to exist.

In the long term, as superheroes took over the comics ecosystem, they essentially crowded out the pure science fiction book, despite occasional attempts to reintroduce the form. However, as in the case of the monster comics - and indeed more so - they left their imprint on the form that would ultimately consume their commercial shelf space.

Even as editorial decisions shifted resources from science fiction comics to the newly successful superhero pieces in the early sixties, the superhero form itself absorbed much more science fiction content. The Atom would reappear as a superhero who could change his size because of his control of a piece of white dwarf matter. Hawkman would reappear as an extraterrestrial policeman rather than as a reincarnated Egyptian wizard. Green Lantern would reappear as the agent of a galactic peace keeping force. Even superheroes whose origins didn't necessarily revolve around science fiction themes might participate in stories heavy in such concepts within the pages of Justice League of America.

DC Comics, as a consequence both of continuity and a self=awareness of the transition away from characters whose powers bore no particularly scientific scrutiny to ones with elaborately pseudo-scientific explanations, ultimately even crafted stories to explain what happened to all the magic in the DC universe, including one that tied this to the origin of the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott.

Marvel, as well, took grandly to science fiction concepts in the creation of its new generation of superheroes, most of whom owed somehow to the breaking of the atom, at least in the earliest days of that company's first generation of creations. The Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four all gained improbable powers (rather than leukemia or other cancers) from exposure to radiation via various vectors. Other heroes, such as Giant-Man or Iron Man, turned technology to their service and made their own powers in the laboratory or in the shop.

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