October 1953: Fantasy with a Familiar Ring
The haunting dreams of Adam
Blake’s fellow librarian Lily Torrence — now renamed Lucy — provide the
springboard for The Invaders from the Golden
Atom (Strange Adventures 37, Oct.
1953).
Finding that an old family ring
has mysteriously appeared on her finger, Torrence, while sleepwalking,
constructs a device that will permit beings from an atomic world within her
ring to invade Earth.
But Captain Comet uses the machine
to shrink himself, defeating the aliens on their home ground.
Just to be on the safe side,
Torrence throws the ring into the ocean from the Cometeer.
Adam Blake — after figuratively
giving Torrence the back of his hand for the past two years — now, bizarrely
and heavy-handedly, begins to flirt.
“Too bad you had to lose your gold
ring,” he says coyly. “But maybe someday I — er — a lucky man will place
another on your marriage finger!”
This exploit was an homage to
another story in which a subatomic world is discovered inside a golden ring — the
classic 1922 SF novel The Girl in the
Golden Atom by Ray Cummings.
Cummings’ novel concerns a chemist
who uses a super-microscope to discover a hidden atomic world inside his
mother's wedding ring, and develops a formula to change size so he can visit
that universe and the beautiful young woman he sees there.
Cummings, who was 25 years old
when the novel was published, had been a personal assistant and technical
writer with Thomas Edison from 1914 to 1919.
One sentence penned by Cummings —
that “Time … is what keeps everything from happening at once” — is often
misattributed to famous scientists such as Albert Einstein.
In 1943, Cummings adapted his 1929
story Princess of the Atom (published
in Argosy All-Story Weekly) into a two-part adventure for Timely’s Captain America Comics 25 and 26. Cap
and Bucky battle a giant cockroach before shrinking into a micro-world to
defeat the tyrant Togaro.
Shrinking was about to make a
comeback in a big way.
Three years later, in 1956, Richard
Matheson’s classic science fiction novel The
Shrinking Man would be published. And another Ray — DC’s Silver Age Atom
Ray Palmer, who also shrinks — is anticipated in this Strange Adventures tale.
"This story is one of many Broome wrote that involve dreams," noted comics historian Michael E. Grost. "It is oddly gripping throughout. Other Broome themes are also present: such as rings that have strange powers, mysterious messages from cosmic sources, woman executives, unrequited love by the hero for the same, the color gold (like the color yellow), sinister realms run by the evil, gateways between worlds, flight, the ocean, helping friends from work who are in trouble, strange events and mysterious machinery at home, shrinking down to atomic universes, and one hero taking on a large group of villains. All of these ideas reappear in Broome's classic early Green Lantern stories. They seem to form a suite of ideas, one that resonates together in Broome's story telling imagination."
ReplyDeleteBob Bailey:
ReplyDeleteCaptain Comet as portrayed by John Broome and Murphy Anderson was a step above the superheroes and sci-fi stories of the early 1950s. With detailed scripts and sensitive art, it was perfect for the time. It needs to be collected in an Archive or Omnibus like DC had promised to do. Wonderful post, Dan.
Johnny Williams:
ReplyDeleteDan, what started as a simple examination of one of the stories of a transitional-Golden Age/Silver Age (and very interesting) character turned into a ‘John Broome’ homage piece, and I’m all in for it.
John Broome, Gardner Fox and Edmond Hamilton are three of the generation of comic book writers whose work helped shape my appreciation for the medium for all times to come. I cannot overemphasize just how important their respective works/careers have been not only to my comic book fandom, but also to my personal development and growth as a writer myself. I was learning a great deal about the craft (as a child) even when sometimes I might not have been consciously aware of it, while reading Their stories over the years of my childhood and youth.
Then came Stan…. but that's a tale for another post.
Salvatore Marlow:
ReplyDeleteI’m sixty eight years old and never knew about Ray Cummings. I, like most, thought the quote about time was Einstein’s. My experience with shrinking men started with the movie, but now, wow, time for a deep dive into yet another member of Thomas Edison’s team.