Welcome to Worlds Unknown

In these pages we have previously spoken warmly about Marvel B&W “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction”, Roy Thomas’ six issue (plus one Annual) attempt in 1975 to publish a mature Science Fiction comic magazine that broke the mould of SF in comics. It was only very recently that I came to realize that in fact the Marvel B&W comic was in its second incarnation, and in fact was the continuation of a previous Marvel colour comic Worlds Unknown, incubated and developed under the aegis of Roy Thomas in eight issues, cover dated May 1973 to August 1974.

The reason for our (i.e. British comic fans) lack of knowledge of the existence of Worlds Unknown is that it was not distributed in the UK, its publication falling into that period when the cost of paper had risen dramatically, and Marvel cut back drastically on which comics they printed and sent to the UK via World Distributors.

According to Duncan McAlpine in the Comic Book Price Guide for Great Britain, Worlds Unknown was : “A nice little series with the emphasis on science fiction and fantasy. #1-7 were Non Distributed in the UK at the time with only #8 being Distributed and available as a UK [price] Variant.”

In fact, only issues 1-6 contained hard Science Fiction content, with the last two issues being repurposed as an adaptation of the Sinbad movie, then in cinemas. Those UK readers exposed to the final issue would have easily assumed that Worlds Unknown was a Sword & Sorcery comic due to the blurb “In the Conan tradition” on the front page of issue #8, as well as being perplexed that issue #8 was part two of a story not to be found on spinner racks in the UK.

In fact, the same month (cover Aug 1974) that Worlds Unknown was cancelled as a colour comic, Roy Thomas announced in the lead editorial of US Marvel B&W Planet of the Apes #1 that Worlds Unknown would soon be returning as a Black & White comic. The issue contains a teaser ad for a B&W version of Worlds Unknown, before the decision was made to retitle the magazine “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction”. (Presumably the ‘Science Fiction’ was added to distinguish the book from the ACG Horror/Mystery comic Unknown Worlds that ran from 1960-1967. ) Again, as the first issue of the US Planet of the Apes B&W was not distributed in the UK, British readers would not have been aware of Roy’s editorial and intentions.

Looking through back issues of fanzine Comic Media and Comic Reader Newsletter from this period (as hosted on David Hathaway-Prices wonderful Fanzine Archive site), there is precious little in the way of information about the intentions for the comic in the Marvel News supplied to Richard Burton by US fan Paul Levitz, which perhaps reflected the contemporary comic readers’ preference for superhero and sword & sorcery fare. Other than a few one-line items highlighting upcoming adaptations of classic SF stories, and a later mention of Worlds Unknown’s cancellation, there was no in-depth recognition of a comic that was trying to buck the trend of relegating SF comics as “50s reprints only”.

I was lucky enough to pick up a mostly-complete run of Worlds Unknown recently for around $4 per issue, so let’s take a closer look at those first six issues, starting with issue #1, where Roy Thomas lays out his reasoning for producing the comic.

"If you’re 'into' science fiction…, it will come as no real shock when I announce that WORLDS UNKNOWN is intended to be primarily a comic-magazine devoted to tales of that long-neglected genre. 

"It’s been my dream for several years[…..] to put out a comic-mag in which all the stories are adaptations (not swipes)of works by the very best talents the field has to offer.

"No, we didn’t shout out on our cover, 'Hey gang! Here’s an s-f comic book!' Reason: Many incognizant souls are frightened off by the very name 'science-fiction'. They associate it with nothing but old re-runs of Space Patrol […….]Rockets and ray-guns[…..], which turn off certain segments of the comic-buying population, and thus which have notoriously failed to sell to mass market from the 1950’s onwards. So, no emblazed [sic] word 'science fiction' on our covers, gang. At least for now."

© Marvel.

The opening story in issue #1 “The Day After The Martians Came” was (in Roy’s words) a “1967 gem from Harlan Ellison’s famed Dangerous Visions“ written by Frederick Pohl, scripted by Gerry Conway with artwork by Ralph Reese, a little-known comics artist who had been one of Wally Wood's assistants, and had also done work for Topp's trading cards.  I was not familiar with Reese’s artwork, which has a rather unsettling Underground Comics vibe, totally suited to the piece.

The other new story was "He that Hath Wings", adapted by writer-penciler Gil Kane from a 1934 Edmond Hamilton story published in the pulp magazine Popular Fiction. It was refreshing to see Kane’s artwork on a lyrical piece, rather than superhero antics.

© Marvel. 

The lettercol two months later was universally full of praise for the concept of a 'Science Fiction' comic, as well as the quality of the adaptations.

© Marvel

Issue #2 contained two new adaptations: L. Sprague de Camp's 1956 "A Gun for Dinosaur", scripted by Roy Thomas and penciled by Val Mayerik; and “Doorstep” - a 1960 story by Keith Laumer, scripted by Gerry Conway, drawn by Gil Kane, with Tom Sutton on inks. 

© Marvel.

© Marvel

“A Gun for Dinosaur” is a solid, involving story with some interesting time-travel considerations. “Doorstep” is also solidly told, but ends with a twist that is reminiscent of lesser horror comic tropes - I suspect the kind of thing that Roy Thomas was hoping to avoid. There is no editorial commentary in this issue on the rationale for the choices of story for adaptation.

Issue #3 (Cover date Sept 1973) contains arguably the best adaptation in the series - “Farewell to the Master”, adapting the story by Harry Bates, the creator and first editor of Astounding, the seminal pulp magazine. 

[Updated Nov 29 2022: The issue has a powerful cover, credited to Rich Buckler with inks by Wayne Howard. However, a posting over the original artwork over at the Comicartfans site shows that John Romita Sr also had a hand in the artwork, correcting a number of items, as you can see below].

© Marvel. Original art Worlds Unknown #3. Credited to Buckler, Howard and Romita Sr.

© Marvel. Splash page to Worlds Unknown #3.

Anticipation for this story had been teased in Comic Media and Comic Reader Newsletter #5 in April of that year. Scripted by Roy Thomas, and drawn by Ross Andru and Wayne Howard, the story had formed the basis of the 1950s film “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. This was the first that the original story was followed, differing in many respects from both versions of the cinema film.

Issue #4 adapts the Frederic Brown story “Arena”,  which had already been adapted for television as an episode of Star Trek in 1967. Gerry Conway (himself a science fiction writer of some success) scripted this adaptation, with artwork chores falling to John Buscema, inked by Dick Giordano. 

Dick Giordano’s inking style so dominates the artwork that for me, the delicate pencils of Buscema are lost. As Giordano was generally so sympathetic to whose art he was inking, I wonder if Buscema did little more than layouts. The story was reprinted in B&W in the Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Giant Size Special at the start of 1976.  

©Marvel. Sample page of Arena from Worlds Unknown #4

©Marvel. Page from Arena as re-printed in Unknown Worlds of SF Special

A comparison of the colour story and the B&W reprint shows a couple of changes to make the story conform more to the format established for the B&W magazine format:

• The artwork has been treated with a grey wash in place of the original colour
• The hand-drawn speech bubbles have been replaced by a computer font within square boxes.  

Issue #5 adapts A.E. Van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer” his first published SF story in 1939. Scripted by Thomas and penciled by Dan Adkins, completed by Jim Mooney. The production of the story had been complicated by Adkins’ unavailability part way through the co-creation of the story with Thomas, resulting in a confused ending that Thomas regarded as unsatisfactory, but had no time to rework before the issue went to print. The letters page is given over to an essay by Don & Maggie Thompson explaining the science behind the ending of the story, and clarifying the denouement.

Interestingly, Van Vogt later sued the makers of "Alien" for plagiarizing this story, settling out of court.

Issue #5 also teases that Gerry Conway is working on an adaptation of John Wyndham’s “Day of the Triffids”, which would finally see publication in 1975 within the pages of “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction”.

Issue #6 adapts “Killdozer” by Theodore Sturgeon. Ted Sturgeon's 1944 "Killdozer" was adapted by Conway and penciler Dick Ayers. This story was thought to be a popular choice, as the story was in process of being adapted as a TV Movie, which premiered Feb 9th 1974.

Sturgeon had already had success on television with his story "Amok Time" on Star Trek.

With issue #7, the magazine was abruptly given over to part one of an adaptation of the Sinbad movie, with no editorial explanation.  The letters page is truncated, giving over half the space to explain the straits of publishing comics considering escalating costs and prices.

Similarly, issue #8 runs letters about Killdozer, but there is no indication of the comic-book’s imminent cancellation, which had already been reported in Comic Media News in March 1974.

And so the experiment of an adult-oriented SF 4-colour comic was put to bed for a while, only to be resurrected by Roy Thomas in the Marvel B&W magazine “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction” in January 1975.

In his editorial for Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #1, Thomas clarified what had happened.

“Marvel Comics nearly made it….with a 36-page color comic-book titled WORLDS UNKNOWN. Some issues of the title sold well; some didn’t. We all felt constricted by the size, though. For, with so few pages, we could only concentrate on a story or two, per issue - and, if the casual reader didn’t happen to like that particular theme, it was a no go for the entire package - and no sale on the next ish, in all probability.

"We knew that, for us at least, the real answer lay in a 75c of $1 black-and-white magazine which could spotlight a number of stories, reaching out in a multiplicity of directions”.

Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction lasted a further year, never picking up the broad readership that Thomas believed it deserved. As Thomas commented many years later in Comic Book Artist #13: 

"The only trouble is, Marvel can't reprint any of it, because nobody knows where the little contracts we had people sign are, so nobody could ever be sure if we could reprint any of the stories! Those are always wonderful stories from that period, like "It" and so forth, and they couldn't be reprinted even if there was a market for it, because they wouldn't know if they had the rights!"

Roy's comments not withstanding, Marvel UK had no qualms about reprinting the run of stories from Worlds Unknown as backup tales in the UK Planet of the Apes weekly in early 1975. According to the Marvel fandom database, these stories can be found as follows:

• "Arena" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #14
• "Farewell To The Master" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #18  - Feb 22 75
• "The day after the martians came" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #16
• "He That Hath Wings" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #unknown
• "Black Destroyer" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #20 - March 8 1975
• "Killdozer" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #21 - March 15 1975
• "A Gun for Dinosaur" -  Planet of the Apes Weekly #26 and #29

I haven't been able to do a direct comparison between the UK printings of these stories and the Worlds Unknown versions - it would be interesting to identify any differences.

Note: For those interested, blog Dark Worlds Quarterly examines the contents of the run of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction in some detail.