Weird Science #17

Credits:
Cover dated January/February 1953
Cover by Wally Wood

"Plucked" - Art by Wally Wood/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Island Monster" - Art by Al Williamson/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Off Day!" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Long Years!" - Art by Joe Orlando/Story by Al Feldstein (Ray Bradbury adaption)

"Plucked" - Professor Sidney Hunton gets together with his publisher, James Farnsworth for Thanksgiving along with their wives as they do each year. Sidney discusses his research and the fact that every 200 years it appears that the population of certain parts of Earth decline tremendously despite birth and death rates remaining the same. James comes up with a theory that perhaps Earth is being used as a sort of turkey farm for alien creatures, that come to Earth every 200 years, snatch up a large number of people from the most powerful part of human society in order to eat them, and use techniques to both cover their appearance and make it seem as though those who were taken were never missing. While Sidney thinks the theory is ridiculous, the aliens do infact come to Earth and seize numerous people, including both their wives. A strong story to start off the issue, with arguably the scariest looking alien creatures to appear in an EC sci-fi comic.

"The Island Monster" - A group of men head to a remote island in order to capture a monster rumored to live on the island. The men come across the monster, which is of a gigantic size and are able to knock it out with Anesthetic bombs. The creature knocked out; the men bring it to the United States and plan to show it off at Madison Square Garden in New York. The first time they do so however, the crowd and the flash photography taking place scare the creature, which bursts out of its chains and crashes through much of New York City, eventually being killed by many jets following it. Months later, an investigative team discovers a large rocket on the island and a log which reveals that the creature had come to Earth as a peaceful ambassador. This story is pretty much a sci-fi retelling of King Kong, with the alien twist thrown in at the end.

"Off Day!" - Professor Stanley Dingle steps into his lecture hall one day and is shocked to find only one out of the approximate four hundred students in his class. Dingle thinks that the law of averages has broken down, and that this could lead to the destruction of the human race. The student gets up and says he is simply the janitor, and that the professor came in on Sunday. The Professor from this story was used as a letter page host, "Dr. deRange" in the EC comic reprints that came out in the 1990s. Much of the story is the Professor explaining the law of averages (which leads to the short summary here), and as a result this is not the most interesting story, although it is a funny ending.

"The Long Years!" - An old man, Hathaway, lives on Mars with his wife and three grown children, all that remain on the planet after war broke out and everyone else on the planet departed. One night Hathaway spots a rocket in the sky. He lights the nearby New New York on fire as a beacon and the rocket lands nearby. Out come some crewmembers who were familiar with him from 20 years ago including Captain Wilder and Williams, a crewmember. They eat dinner with Hathaway and his family and soon realize that something is odd, as Hathaway's family has not aged at all in the past 20 years. Williams finds a graveyard nearby containing grave markers for all of Hathaway's family, meaning that those living with him are artificial creations. Hathaway soon dies of a heart attack and is buried with the rest of his family. Wilder and Williams find themselves unable to shoot Hathaway's artificial family since they are so much like real people and depart, leaving them there. This story is the first of many authorized Ray Bradbury adaptions that appeared in EC's science-fiction comics. The story came from the Martian Chronicles and as a result was one of many such adaptions that took place on Mars.