The mutant superhero Captain Comet
returned in Strange Adventures 11 (Aug.
1951) for his third appearance, but second adventure.
Titled The Day the Past Came Back, this story by writer John Broome and
artist Carmine Infantino starts by pitting this transitional superhero figure against
one of my favorite foes, a Tyrannosaurus rex (this one revived from a skeleton
in the Midwest City Museum Hall of Fossils).
Luckily, librarian Adam Blake is
nearby. Wading into the action while museum patrons panic, the Man of Destiny
uses superhuman strength to handily hurl away the dinosaur. But he learns that
Capitol City (apparently Washington, D.C.) is overrun by brontosauruses,
pterodactyls, devolved humans and other prehistoric menaces, thanks to an evolution
reverser ray invented by Dr. Alex Philador, who has decided humanity is evil
and requires a reboot.
The tale anticipates DC’s Silver
Age gorilla fetish as Comet himself is devolved into an ape. But the simian
superhero, retaining his advanced intelligence, surprises Philador and saves the
day. The exploit ends with the humble librarian asking his coworker Miss
Torrence to tell jim just how wonderful Captain Comet is.
The increasingly streamlined art
and the science fictional themes pointed directly at the superheroic ingredients
that would converge to spark the Silver Age of Comics five years later, in Showcase 4 (Sept.-Oct. 1956).
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