If you missed the last one…
Here is the first in a series on forgotten comics, starting with “Space Voyagers” by Robert Kanigher and Alex Nino. Many of these “forgotten” series are back-up comics as in this case. DC Comics did this far more often than Marvel, giving you eighteen pages of the main attraction, then a six pager at the back to fill out the issue. Sometimes the series progressed to their own comics, more often they had their own comics that failed. Or they were new.
“Space Voyagers” was such a comic. Conceived by Robert Kanigher (and mistakenly attributed to Jack Oleck on the first page), the series was five installments appearing in the back of Rima the Jungle Girl #1-5 (April-May 1974-December 1974-January 1975). Rima was unusual in that it was a mini-series before such things were common. It ran for seven issues, adapting the novel Green Mansions (1904) by W. H. Hudson. “Space Voyagers” were in the first five issues.
The Space Voyagers are a group of young people: Barrt, Melong, Nolan and Armando. As characters we don’t get a lot of their personalities, not in five pages an episode. We do learn that Melong, the female of the party, wishes for real food, that Barrt is in charge. The rest are largely anonymous.
“Four Tombs” (April-May 1974) has the team explore an uncharted planet. There they find an old man who is being attacked by a weird bug-like monster. The atomic blasts of their guns do no damage. The old man takes them to a weird temple that has four tombs, each bearing a body that looks like the Space Voyagers! The episode ends there. This is the only two-part story in the series. Next time we will find out what’s going on….
“The Delta Brain” (June-July 1974) continues the tale with the old man, tombs and the bug monster proving to be an illusion. These were created by the Master, a computer program that controls all the machines on the planet. The one-eyed brain-thing uses the humans’ traits to fix the machines. Unfortunately this includes their stubbornness and will to rebel. The Master is destroyed by his slaves and the Space Voyagers move on.
“The Hot Spot” (August-September 1974) goes back in time for a bit of an origin story. The parents of the Space Voyagers had fled an Earth that was rife with pollution and war. The children of the refugees can not stay on their peaceful planetoid but must seek their own world. Cut to the future and the Space Voyagers receiving an SOS. An ice world is being warmed up by a large green cap, which the space travelers destroy. The Arctusians, ice beings, thank them but can’t shake their hands since they are so cold it would be lethal. Read the whole comic here.
“The Four Faces of Death” (October-November 1974) has the crew land on a world where there are statues of them. They are captured by the locals, who also look just like them. The Voyagers figure they are on a parallel world, once exactly like Earth. (They even have a ruin of Yankee Stadium.) The planet had been devastated by nuclear attacks from Outer Galactian invaders. The crew of the ship had left the world to search for a new home world, then to return. When they did not return those left behind became angry, changing their faces to resemble the Space Voyagers so they would never forget their crimes. The Voyagers blast their way out of the nets, accidentally killing the poor wretches. Some one says: “It’s obvious our parallel ‘twins’ never found a safe haven!” Another asks: “I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened to them?” To answer that in one word: no. (This story doesn’t really jive with the last one. I thought they grew up on a planetoid, not Earth….) Full comic here. (Thanks Lloyd!)
“The Queen Ant” (December 1974-January 1975) has the crew taking a walk on a planet. They fall into a pit where ant-like monsters are hatching. The Voyagers use ice fire to freeze them. The queen ant attacks, chasing them into a weird tunnel. They come to a dead end. They blast into the wall, spilling a strange liquid. When Barrt realizes it is oil, he has the team use flame jets to ignite it and kill the ants. They flee the planet, realizing their narrow escape.
Kanigher and Nino were concurrently doing a back-up feature about Korak for Tarzan (Issues #230-235). The writing for “Space Voyagers” is cut from the same bolt, with the group traveling from place to place and encountering new problems each time. Kanigher’s writing here is less interesting than what he did for the Korak series. The format reminds me of what Charlton would do with Space 1999 a year later. Since Kanigher has only five pages, his short adventures don’t drag like some of those Moonbase Alpha stories.
Alex’s artwork is wilder than what he did on Tarzan. He got to create stranger beings, to experiment more on how to place his panels. This would evolve over time until his black-and-white stuff for 1984 would be eye-popping. If you dig up “Space Voyagers”, it will be Alex’s work that makes the effort worth the bother.
Next time…Beyond the Farthest Star!
