Strange Adventures #77 is an issue of the series Strange Adventures (Volume 1) with a cover date of February, 1957.
Synopsis for Darwin Jones: "The World That Slipped Out of Space"
Death row inmate Dan "Lobo" Torrence is telepathically contacted by aliens on a planet in another dimension. Their planet dropped out of our dimension and solar system through a space warp thousands of years ago, and now it is in danger of destruction from a collision with a comet. The aliens transmit great powers to Lobo to empower him to help them, and he uses his new powers to escape prison. He intends to renege on his promise to help the aliens, but they are able to compel him to type up a lengthy set of plans for an anti-matter explosion that will return their planet to our dimension. The plans are found and turned over to Darwin Jones of the Department of Scientific Investigation, and he convinces the UN to implement them.
Fearing that the aliens will give him away if they return to our solar system, Lobo tries to stop the explosion, but he fails to reach it in time and is killed in the blast. The explosion succeeds in opening a dimensional rift, and the alien planet is returned to its proper place in our solar system in orbit between Earth and Mars.
Appearing in Darwin Jones: "The World That Slipped Out of Space"
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for "The Incredible Eyes of Arthur Gail"
Arthur Gail, a researcher at a big chemical company, is caught in an accidental explosion at work. As a result, his vision is affected such that he sees only organic material (people, cotton cloth, etc.) and all else (metal, plastic, etc.) is invisible to him. He makes special arrangements at home and work such as paneling his rooms with wooden walls, and is thus able to get along for a while. But when a special formula is stolen by a rival chemical company, he is accused since only he could have seen it through the metal walls of the safe it was hidden in. Fearing arrest, Gail runs, cursing his handicap. But then he realizes that his affliction can help him. He goes to the rival firm, and (since he can see through walls) he discovers that another employee of his company had used a hidden camera to photograph the formula before it was placed in the safe. In an ensuing altercation with the thief, Gail is shot, and the bullet grazes his head restoring his normal sight. The real thief is arrested, and all ends well for Arthur Gail.
Appearing in "The Incredible Eyes of Arthur Gail"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "The Paul Revere of Time"
Earth receives three warnings of danger about a close approach with a comet: a voice that travels around the world at the speed of sound, a broadcast on all Terran TV sets, and a thundering voice in a storm. These warnings allow Earth to save itself each time. Meanwhile, would-be reporter Henry Brown investigates these phenomena. He is aided by uncanny hunches, including a strong impulse to seek "the voice" in a cave at Badland Hollow where he finds the fantastic machinery that had produced the warnings.
A short circuit in one of the machines shocks Brown and floods his mind with images of a far-future age where a man named Vor Dex takes an experimental Time Car back 1,000 years to warn Earth of "The Comet Dangers." When he gets to 1957, however, he finds that time travel has affected his mind and is making his memory fade. He works frantically to set up the machinery to broadcast the warnings before his memory blanks out completely.
Recovered from his shock, Henry Brown searches outside the cave, and he finds the Time Car smashed by a landslide, but no sign of Vor Dex. Then he recalls that not long ago, he had been found wandering here in Badland Hollow, a victim of amnesia. Stunned, he realizes that he is Vor Dex, his hunches subliminal memories and the images of the future, recovered memories.
Appearing in "The Paul Revere of Time"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "The Mental Star-Rover"
For the past year, Hal Crane has periodically gone into an eighty-eight minute trance, each time inhabiting the mind of an alien in another galaxy named Jakkon, Conqueror of the Stars. He has thus been able to gather material for a wildly successful series of stories. At first, he thought his trances were just dreams, but eventually he discovered that he was experiencing astral projection into the mind of a real being.
A crisis arises when Jakkon becomes aware of Crane's brief incursions into his mind and thereby discovers that Earth has a rare resource for which he has been vainly searching: Uranium. Jakkon and his confederates hatch a plan to find out where Earth is located so they can conquer it for this resource, and so the next time Hal Crane inhabits Jakkon's mind, the aliens use a mind probe on him. A mental struggle between the two ensues, and the Earthling wins. He flees and cleverly manages to elude the aliens for the remainder of the eighty-eight minutes until his mind returns to his own body. Back on earth, Crane now realizes that he must never risk returning to the alien's body, so he announces that his exciting stories about Jakkon, Conqueror of the Stars must now end.
Appearing in "The Mental Star-Rover"
- Appearances not yet listed
Notes
- The stories in this issue are reprinted in the Showcase Presents: Strange Adventures Vol. 2 collection.
See Also
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