Number 1619: Joy buzzers in space

We begin another theme week. Our three postings this week will be what I call Spacey Stories. That is, stories which take place in space, and also have a degree of spaciness (as in off-the-wall) in the storytelling, deliberately or not.

Gardner Fox wrote and Fred Guardineer drew this spacey tale of Space Ace, from the ME one-shot, Space Ace #5 (1952). The stories are all reprints from Manhunt. This particular story is originally from Manhunt #6 (1948). Space Ace (Jet Black) and his young crew member, Jak Tal are in orbit doing their Space Patrol duties when they encounter an alien spaceship. The story’s title calls the aliens men, but they look more like something out of H. P. Lovecraft. That isn’t enough to make it oddball...it’s the use of a common novelty item, a joy buzzer, called a handshake buzzer here, to help defeat the invasion-minded aliens.

Here is another posting with Space Ace. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1379: Ace of Space, meet Space Ace

With a comment in Pappy's #1346, reader Darci sent me on a hunt for the character, Ace of Space. Ace Egan is considered to be a precursor to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. The story is from Feature Comics #38 (1940), and crams a lot into an origin story, but whether it inspired editor Julius Schwartz or writer John Broome, who knows? It’s an interesting thought. The writing on this five-page origin story is clumsy, especially as Ace discovers his powers. After putting on the power belt bequeathed him by the dying alien he says, “I seem to know the answer to all problems!” Despite growing to be nine-feet tall, jumping a quarter mile or having super vision, I’d think just having answers to all problems would be power enough. Harry Francis Campbell did the artwork, and H. Weston Taylor the writing.

I’ve included the Space Ace story by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer from Manhunt #4 (1948). Here Space Ace is Jet Black, a “space patrolman” (space would be a mighty big patrol area). The Space Ace character from the four issues of Jet (Jet Powers, not Jet Black) a couple of years later, also published by ME, is more of a pirate.