Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Fresh Out of Flesh!

Sometimes it's hard to believe that I've been chuggin' this blog along since 2007, and as we are sure to finally reach 2,000 posts sometime in the upcoming year, the inevitable question I occasionally get asked is, "When does THOIA finally run fresh out of stories to post?" and to be honest, I really have no answer for that question. It seems that every time I turn to my collection I discover more gems that I have somehow overlooked in the past. But I do know of someone who is seriously fresh out of flesh-- AIEEEEEE! --as we continue chugging' along on our Stan Lee Tribute Fest! From the Sept. '53 issue of Menace #7, artwork by Syd Shores!















10 comments:

JBM said...

Nice twist Stan. Thank you Mr. K.. Oh yeah, I've enjoyed everyone of your THOIA posts. Thanks again!

Brian Barnes said...

It's pretty well know (at least to me, and I've been wrong before!) that Stan came up with the titles first, which is why a lot of the covers have completely different pictures to illustrate the story (must have missed the tombstones and zombies in the story!) Turning it into a sci-fi story is fun, and Stan gets a lot of story stuffed in those few pages.

Knowing Stan, it's hard not to think this is a "red menace" metaphor!

This very much reads as a real man's adventure type story until the twist ending, with some good art by Shores. I of course knew our hero was a robot, what real human wants boiled ham???

Mestiere said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BTX said...

So... Deckard really was a Replicant....

JMR777 said...

I could almost hear the conspiracy theorists posting their theories concerning this comic if it were written today.

Today, robots are already taking over, from assembly line robots to self driving cars to artificial intelligence.
The difference between the Mark IV's and modern robots: Modern robots wouldn't try to take over the world by force, but would become so important to maintaining daily life that without them human beings would become virtually helpless-
-then again, with so many humans so dependent on their smart phones it might be happening already! Again, que the conspiracy theorists on this one.

As for Bill Maher's comment concerning Stan Lee, Bill Maher is a Z lister in my opinion. Speaking ill of someone after they have passed shows Bill Maher not only has no class, he has a deficit of class larger than the national debt of the U.S.

Glowworm said...

"It's pretty well know (at least to me, and I've been wrong before!) that Stan came up with the titles first, which is why a lot of the covers have completely different pictures to illustrate the story (must have missed the tombstones and zombies in the story!)"
Thanks, I've been wondering about that for a while now--what's up with the title pictures not always matching up with the actual story it's eluding to in these Atlas comics?

Of course, Glenn never wore his tie pin at home and with so many robots around, it would be difficult for him to realize that one of the buzzes was actually directed towards him.
I love page 3, panel 2 where the big metal bar perfectly covers up the human looking robot's privates. I wonder if they were made atomically correct...

Eric said...

"I love page 3, panel 2 where the big metal bar perfectly covers up the human looking robot's privates. I wonder if they were made anatomically correct...?"

Pretty sure that would've tipped Norma off. At least, I'd hope so.

Dr. Theda said...

good one !! (nice "twist" ending)... a pleasant Thanksgiving weekend to you good Mr. Karswell

Mr. Cavin said...

I quite enjoyed the parallels between this and the Terminator (heck, the first Mark IV even looks a lot like Arnold), and feel like Stan's progression of events was much more realistic than the one from the movies. Of course the R&D for for making these machines indistinct from real people was all about subverting labor organizations and worker protections. And of course the market boomed, couldn't keep 'em on the shelf. And of course the robots turned on us in a bid to control their asset futures. Had Stan just realized that that real robots in this situation would have immediately masterminded production on the powerful Mark V line, well, then we would have had Cameron's end-of-the world scenario.

Mr. Karswell said...

Great comments everyone, thanks for the continued love for this Stan Lee Tribute! Lots more still on the way too, so stay tombed...