Strange Adventures #124 (1961)
“The Face-Hunter from Saturn”
by Gardner Fox & Mike Sekowsky
Here’s an oddball request from the comments from a while back.
We begin with a spaceship stealing the faces of Mount Rushmore, so we’re starting at a high level of insanity. It’s only going to get worse.
Case in point, we immediately move to the aliens stealing other monuments that feature giant faces. THIS IS STILL THE FIRST PAGE.
Don’t worry though, they’re immediately returned.
Meet our main character, who shows himself to a couple of highway patrol officers to explain his completely bonkers origin.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept of “a world revolving within an atom on the planet Saturn”. These are all words that individually make sense, but together?
Sooo… if one day on your world is a million years on Earth… WTF do you mean by “three days ago”!?
The guy providing exposition is not the bad guy. That would be Chan Yull (later renamed Chun Yull); I don’t think it’s racist to say all these people look exactly the same, right?
At least Yull was smart enough to hide his bomb on another planet. It sure has SOME firepower if it’s going to destroy the whole solar system!
The dialogue in this scene got a chuckle out of me. Can you imagine this kind of conversation between regular humans? Like, if you had a doctor saying “A cardiac arrest is fatal to our kind”?
I still can’t get over the fact that these people live on “a world revolving within an atom on the planet Saturn”. Why not one of Saturn’s moons, or heck even on Saturn itself considering the scientific absurdities?
Maybe it’s because time moving differently there is a key component of the plot, but still, wasn’t there a way to do this in a less confusing way?
The vault that houses the bomb can only be accessed by a key shaped like a stone face, and that’s the reason why the aliens are on Earth in the first place.
They better pick up the pace, because there’s a literal ticking bomb involved…
…a very, very slow ticking bomb!
The bomb was created three million years ago, which are 3 million “alien days”, and it’s going to detonate in 1 “alien second”.
So the bomb is going to detonate in 1 million seconds… which translates to 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds.
Okay up to this point the story has been your regular Silver Age craziness, both nothing too absurd. But then it jumps to the fact that the “big stone face” is THE SURFACE OF THE MOON.
To be fair, there WAS a scientific theory (now discredited) that considered the Moon was formed this way… but as far as I know nobody suggested this happened ONLY three million years ago!!!
And then the aliens CARVE THE FACE ON THE MOON.
Mare Serenitatis is a real place on the Moon, by the way.
People seeing images on the Moon is a phenomenon called Lunar Pareidolia. I’m very into astronomy but honestly this has always baffled me… am I the only one who just sees the Moon!?
You might have guessed that the aliens know about faces from looking at humans (or other species), but they DID use to have faces!
From a science fiction perspective, this is BY FAR the most fascinating part of the story.
The idea that they eat and smell from their skin and see from their ears (???) is amazing! Though I’m a bit baffled by the concept that seeing from the ears is superior… they’re still located at the sides of the head, so it’s not like they have 360° vision.
Then again, I’m not going to question a story that depicts Saturn as a rocky planet.
So the “face on the Moon” is lowered on Saturn… where it’s blasted into dust!!!
Okay I get why these people don’t know what plastic surgery is…
…but it’s not like they’re fixing an actual face here. What, they can master interplanetary travel but the concept of REPAIRING THINGS is beyond them!?!?
My best guess is that the “face” on the Moon was too damaged by the years to work as a key the first time… but if it’s being rebuilt based on Earth’s astronomy books, why does it work just fine on the second try!?
Look I love the Moon like any astronomy buff, but YOU COULD’VE ASKED FOR ANYTHING!!!
Historical significance: 0/10
Can you believe this is ALMOST in continuity? More below!
Silver Age-ness: 1,000,000/10
The science in this is, uhm, A BIT questionable?
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
This is charming and all… but good luck making sense of this one!!!
How close is this to the modern character? What modern character?
Despite technically dying in this issue, the Faceless Hunter has such a memorable design that he returned the following year in issue #142 AND again in 1963 om issue #153.
He would be rescued from obscurity by Marv Wolfman in 1985 on DC Comics Presents #77, in a team-up between Superman and the Forgotten Heroes (who you might remember as a team from Crisis and basically nothing else).
Appropriately enough, they fight the Forgotten Villains in this one, one of which is the Faceless Hunter.
He was re-introduced in 2014 as a Green Lantern villain. He’s a bounty hunter from what I gather, so I don’t really consider him the same character. Still, it’s nice they didn’t abandon such a strong design!
Not a bad match, though I’m disappointed he doesn’t look fuzzy anymore.
Bonus round! The “Space Museum” was a regular feature of the book, and this one is really a snapshot of the times.
“Earth victory – by a hair!”
by Gardner Fox & Carmine Infantino
The framing device is a father explaining to his son why there’s a strand of human hair in the Space Museum. You know, if one of the visitors has to do all the explaining, that’s a bad museum!!!
So he narrates a story about a general fighting in a war and asking the help of a general…
…but the Admiral is *gasp* a woman!
The Space Museum is set in the 25th century. So at least the 60s thought that women would be able to join the military in the 24th century.
Dude, I get it for 1961, but she just said this has been happening for a hundred years from your perspective!!!
Okay the story is kind of forgettable, but man is Infantino on fire in this one.
And the Admiral turns out to be a badass, so at least the General recognizes he was being a jackass.
Their mission requires them to attack an alien base by using the X-Ray Snooper Scope™…
…which gets blown up.
And that’s where the hair turns up, because it’s going to be used a cross-sight!!!
Which apparently is NOT something made up for this comic!!! I’m going to give Gardner Fox the benefit of the doubt here, because he tends to be reliable in these things.
So the mission is a success, and the humans sign a peace treaty with the aliens (something you don’t see very often in 60s sci-fi).
And we close with the revelation that the General is the dad from the beginning of the story, later married to the Admiral. Incredibly for the 60s, there is NO mention of the Admiral needing to retire to get married (granted the son doesn’t know she was an Admiral, but he also didn’t know his father was a General so I guess soldiers retire quite early in the future).
A cute little story, even if I never want to read the word “gollywobbles” in my life ever again.
