Other than the old EC horror titles, I have little interest in reading comics from the 1950s. I've never been into superheroes, I never liked stories that treated their readers like children (even if they were children), and, well, the 1950s just don't particularly interest me. The 1940s? Now that was a decade, awful and interesting. And lots of adventure in the 1930s. But the '50s were mostly boring.However, when I saw that DC had published a DC Showcase collection of 1950s science fiction title Strange Adventures, I bought it with the hope that I could at least enjoy some cheesy space opera. I also figured it would be nice to take a break from time to time from the mammoth history book I'm reading (waaay too much about the Prussian "Fredericks," frankly).
So, a couple Strange Adventures stories before I turn off the light and go to sleep. It was a good plan.
There's no nice way to say this: The stories are terrible. Though the art is actually quite nice, the stories show an absolute ignorance of science, bad plotting, silly motivations, and an eight-year-old's view that every antagonist has to be out to take over the world. (That laboratory ape that just gained super intelligence? He's out to take over the earth. Those Martians who just landed? Wanna take over the earth.) Frankly, it's rather painful to read. Thank goodness James Warren came along and realized he could escape the comics code by publishing magazines instead of comic books.
Sheesh. Seriously, just "sheesh." This book sort of saps your love for life.
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