Number 846
The World Saver comes through again
I'm an old science fiction reader but I shouldn't assume that everyone knows about Edmond Hamilton. He began his writing career in 1926 with a story, "The Monster-God of Mamurth" in Weird Tales, and was one of the most prolific and successful writers of science fiction up until his death in 1977. Hamilton, through his connections with DC editors Mort Weisinger and Julius Schwartz, wrote many comic book stories, most anonymously.
Hamilton was known amongst science fiction fans variously as World Saver, World Wrecker, Universe Saver, etc., for his plots, which often involved Earth being threatened with total destruction, with a hero saving the whole planet. So it is with "The Comet Peril!" from Mystery In Space #2, 1951, a story that gives Hamilton a byline. (He has another story in the issue, too, under the pen-name Robert Starr.) It's one of the future-in-the-past stories I've mentioned before: stories that were written years before the future date in the story, which we are now reading years after the date has passed. It's pretty obvious our planet didn't get hauled out of orbit by Halley's Comet's in 1986.
Artwork is by Murphy Anderson.
2 comments:
OMG, when I was a kid this would have given me nightmares for weeks! Lately there are some times when the thought of an asteroid or comet plowing into the Earth is unsettling so I either try not to think about it or I try to turn it into a horror story. On the other hand, there are days when I say "why couldn't today be the day when that damn asteroid hammers this rock into oblivion?"
Ilsa, I'm not discounting your asteroid fears, because it's always a possibility. To get your mind off it, consider the risks you take driving a car, or of disease. I've been involved in a bad wreck and I've had cancer, but meteors and asteroids, no. Car accidents and disease are a lot scarier than the remote possibility of a large body hitting the earth.
Hmmm. Now that I've talked about it, think I'll stay in bed today. Why risk going out?
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