Tales to Astonish 25

In this issue:

The Creature from Krogarr
7 pages :: Jack Kirby/Dick Ayers
reprinted in Creatures on the Loose 13, Weird Wonder Tales 17

Behold Him! He is the Martian
6 pages :: Jack Kirby/Dick Ayers
reprinted in Where Creatures Roam 8, Weird Wonder Tales 15

A flaky, deadbeat husband gets the shock of his life as he's dragged off to certain death on the planet Krogarr!

Joe Hanson describes himself as a “happy-go-lucky guy” who's beleaguered wife has to tolerate his “carefree ways”.

After she storms out of the house in one of her many bouts of frustration, Joe tuned the T.V. in to the face of a big ugly toad.

“This joker is really talking to me!!!” exclaims our shocked hero as the alien face talks directly to Joe, promising him fame and fortune if he only follows the alien's instructions. “Wow, would Clara be happy!”

I swear, this story is a thinly veiled satire of the get rich quick schemes that have polluted television since the dawn of broadcasting.

Holy Hannah! He's stepping right out of the television set!!

Shock of shockers, it turns out Joe was duped! had! hoodwinked! downright fooled!

The big ape-like monster is actually a monstrous scientist out to prove interstellar space travel is possible — and Joe is his evidence of success.

As the other aliens get called over, Joe suddenly begins to disappear, escaping home again!

The other aliens are really pissed when there's no Joe to see, kill the scientist-monster and destroy all of his equipment.

Joe's fading form sees all of this before returning. “Now they'll never invade earth… We're safe! Safe!”

So it turns out the power company cut the juice to Joe and Clara's pad due to unpaid bills, thus saving Joe's — and all mankind's — behind.

I love how clueless our astonished hero is! Here, his wife is ready to club him and divorce his sorry corpse, and he's patting himself on the back for saving the world. The nerve of some guys!

Take a look at “Behold Him! He is a Martian!” page 5, it looks like the martian was holding an object in his hand and later the man may have been holding an object and hitting the martian with it. Another instance of the comics code at work?

I bought this comic book off the rack on the ride back from church when I was a kid. I had earned a dollar from yard work, so I bought TTA#25 & nine other comic books that day. I don't remember the other books, but I'm sure that a lot of them were pre-superhero Marvels. My dad was furious when I exited the market with a stack of comic books, as he always thought that those kind of magazines were trash. I got a lecture all the way home, but it didn't bother me at all, as it was just one of many speeches that my father gave me about reading comic books. He never understood my comic book fever, and it only got worse as I grew up, and my bedroom was still filled with stacks of comic books. After my two tours in the Marine Corps had ended, I lived with my parents for a few months. One day, the postal carrier delivered a box of old comic books to our house, and my dad stood at the mail box and told her that his son was a crazy adult that still read comic books. She just laughed at my dad, telling him that it was normal for a young guy to have a hobby. He shook his head in disbelief & dismissed the postal carrier as a weird person. I never let my dad's attitude about comic books influence me as I got older, and although he's not around any longer, I still feel that he's looking over my shoulder, scratching his head, as I read an old comic book. I still own a copy of TTA#25, and every time that I look at it, I remember that fateful day when I first purchased it as a kid.

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