April 1954: Thinking Outside the Boxer



Captain Comet’s friend Prof. Zackro takes center stage as a stand-in for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Prof. George Edward Challenger in The Phantom Prize Fighter (Strange Adventures 43, April 1954).
Just as Challenger was mocked by London scientists for claiming to have found a “Lost World” of dinosaurs in Doyle’s 1912 novel of that name, Zackro faces rueful researchers who claim that Captain Comet’s alleged mutant telekinetic abilities are impossible.
The Man of Destiny agrees to fight the heavyweight champion of the world to prove what he can do, but during the bout something happens that even Comet finds weird—the champ’s fist sails harmlessly right through him.
Comet discovers that the anomaly was the result of an assassination attempt because a one-eyed, slug-like alien, disguised as an electrical technician, had tried to disperse his atomic structure.
And once again, Captain Comet proved to be a precursor for the Silver Age. The cover image, of a prize fighter’s fist slipping through his opponent’s ghostly body, was compelling enough to be repeated a decade later on the cover of The Brave and the Bold 47 (April-May 1963) during the tryout run for Strange Sports Stories. Even the story’s title was the same.

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