1950: THE NEXUS OF MARVEL "REALISM" PT. 2

 As I said in Part 1, in this and succeeding installments I'm examining Atlas' first SF-anthology, JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS, for examples of SF-stories that display at least as much characterization as the SF-stories in EC's WEIRD SCIENCE. The WEIRD SCIENCE tales are not masterpieces of "thinking man's SF" any more than are the stories of the Atlas title, but in the first three issues-- numbered 36-38-- there's a mix of both simplistic "gosh-wow" space opera and somewhat more reflective storylines. After those three issues, JIUW began new numbering in 1951, starting with issue 4 and concluding with issue 59 in 1957.       

JIUW 36

 "The Strange Car" (art Russ Heath) -- car thief steals wrong car; "gets religion" after he saves Earth.

"Prisoner of Time" (art Sol Brodsky) -- space-conqueror meets ironic fate due to misunderstanding how time works.

"The End of the Earth" (art Vern Henkel) -- two alien races intend to rescue the people of Earth, Through a misunderstanding, both rescuers abjure giving aid, but the story ends on a message of self-reliance.

JIUW #38

"The Last Man" (Don Rico/Dave Berg) -- man dreams that he's destined to be the last survivor of devastating atomic war.

"The Metal Monsters" (art Pete Tumlinson) -- rebellious apostate correctly predicts that Earth will suffer for becoming too dependent on their robot protectors.

My tentative conclusion is that these reflective tropes anticipate many of those that would appear sporadically throughout 1950s SF comics from Atlas, particularly those of the late fifties that Marvel tended to reprint in the 1960s and 1970s.