I've been surprised, however, to see very little online criticism of "The Inferiors," a Feldstein-Wally Wood story which conveys a similar club-the-reader-over-the-head message, yet actually grounds the morality in a deeper level of symbolism.
On the first page, the story's title seems to apply to a mysterious race of vanished aliens. Exploratory forces from planet Earth have found the ruins of the unnamed aliens' culture on many planets, but there remain no clues as to why these beings committed what one authority calls "race suicide."
Functionally there are only two characters in the story: "spit-and-polish" young lieutenant Robert Saunders and his unnamed captain, whose baldness connotes greater age and experience. Both serve on a spaceship that has discovered another Earth-type world, but the monotony of the frequent discoveries causes one low-ranking space-navy soldier to remark, "Who cares why a bunch of hairy goons with tails committed suicide, anyway?" Lt. Saunders upbraids the underling, but in his conversation with his commander, it's evident that Saunders shares the opinion that the scientific advancement of the "hairy goons" doesn't matter, for they clearly were cowards who couldn't face life's demands, as Earth-people can. The captain is not quite as sure about things as his junior officer, and even admits to a little fear himself, when their expedition comes across one edifice that seems undamaged by the forces unleashed by the mass suicides.
Since "Inferiors" is only an eight-page story, it will surprise no reader to find that the Earthmen uncover the answer to their mystery on this planet, thanks to a recording in the form of a "three dimensional projection," wherein one of the aliens gives a lecture about the fate his people plan to undergo. Thanks to the use of an "automatic translator," the humans can listen to one of the "hairy goons" explain things-- though the captain first listens to the recording alone.
Later, having built the requisite suspense, the captain allows Saunders to hear the translated recording as well. Saunders, a confirmed xenophone, remarks on how "nauseating" the image of the alien is, though Wood draws it as a bipedal lizard-creature with a tail and none of the hair Feldstein's script specifies. Saunders also can't help expressing contempt once again for the aliens' cowardice: "and these are the things some people thought were superior to man!"
Naturally, this being an EC story, "Inferiors" has a "gotcha" ending. The recording reveals that the widespread lizard-people, having endured in peace for centuries, suddenly became aware that some of their people were using violence against one another. The aliens concluded that their race has evolved as much as was possible, and that now it is doomed to devolving into mere beasts. Almost all of the aliens choose mass suicide through the use of their advanced technology, except for a small contingent of creatures who don't care about their "moral decay," wanting only to live at all costs. The aliens use brain-draining machines to erase the mentalities of the decayed lizard-people, and allow them to survive as "brainless hulks" on an obscure planet. Saunders continues to heap scorn on the "hairy goons" until the alien lecturer just happens to add a warning to any listeners: showing what they think their decayed relations will turn out like. Surprise, surprise, the hairy goons with tails are the fathers of Man.
Like "Judgment Day," "The Inferiors" is all about shattering any illusions the readership may have about the innate superiority of their culture. However, even though the "Inferiors" ending was hoary even back in the 1950s-- "And the name of the planet was EARTH!"-- Feldstein's story is grounded in the twentieth century's intellectual debates over evolution. Since the Earthmen never say anything about their own evolution from lower creatures, the broad implication is that a terminally upright type like Saunders sees his entire race as having been given the Keys to Creation from the get-go, which approximates the position of the religonists who viewed human beings as separate from Darwin's apes. Or perhaps one should say "monkeys," since Darwin's theory was so often parodied by association not with the tail-less apes, but with the various tailed species of monkeys-- hence, the "Scopes Monkey Trial," not "Ape Trial." Artist Wally Wood didn't really translate Feldstein's scripted image of the Great Wise Race as "hairy goons with tails," but this is probably fortunate, since making them look in any way like primates would have given the game away too early. By using reptilian aliens, Wood and Feldstein also conjure, however briefly, with the associations of serpents and wisdom. This proves more than a little appropriate to the story, which rewrites the Garden of Eden, the foundation of man's special destiny, into a bucolic forest where a bunch of brainless, bipedal rejects got dumped.
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