One usually thinks of the late 1950s as the beginning of the Silver Age, but many things ended in that changing comics climate as well. It's ironic that Silver students focus on the "second heroic era," as costumed characters again became the dominant comic book genre, while often failing to take much note of the disappearance of almost everything but the long underwear crowd.

     Among the first to fall were two of the science fiction titles that had helped start the Atlas revival. World Of Fantasy was one of the titles from the mid-1950's Atlas fantasy expansion, as they took up some of the slack in that genre that the demise of many publishers had created. It was also one of the few titles to continue through the post "implosion" days following a massive distribution crisis. World Of Fantasy #19 (August 1959) is the last issue. (Strange Worlds #6 was dated the same month and ended that title.) There would be less of an SF emphasis in the four fantasy titles Atlas continued.

     The cover is a classic "Kirby monster" prototype. Inside, Don Heck illustrates "The Gargoyle from the Fifth Galaxy," a first contact story we've seen before, but it's compactly told and still enjoyable. "Deluge" is a run-of-the-mill disaster yarn that profits from Steve Ditko's richness of effect in the drawing.

     The other memorable story in this ish is "The Iron Hulk," a sentimental robot tale wherein a little boy's automated companion saves the child's life and earns the respect and good-feeling of the father, who had not understood the bond between the boy and the machine. Elegant rendering by Joe Sinnott makes a good story even better.

     The space race had gotten hot with Sputnik's launch in 1957, and this was a big factor in the SF boom that followed and was godfather - at least - to the Silver Age. The happiest result of this surge of four-color fantasy was surely Archie's Cosmo the Merry Martian. Cosmo #5 (August 1959) was on the stands at the same time as the Atlas book; it's the next-to-last issue and a good example of the zany charm the title offered. Cosmo, Orbi, Astra, and Professor Thimk (plus "two moonlings, one gillywump, and a small dog named Jo-Jo") voyage by rocket to Saturn where they discover that the natives look like vegetables and have names like Cabbage Head, Tomato Face, and Carrot Top.

     The story is a complete four-part novel, and the issues in the series are even linked by a loose continuity. Most of the Saturn adventure is taken up with young Omi's misguided antics: he eats a magic gum drop that makes him shrink to a speck and then drifts off into space until he eats another candy and grows giant-sized, trapped out on Saturn's rings.

     Order is restored in Chapter Four; the 22 pages whiz by rather irresistibly. Bob White's art is simple yet rewarding; the "Saturnians" are wonderfully whimsical creations. And bizarre as the Cosmo series was, it was sound comic book business: a combination of the two hottest genres of the time, sci-fi and humor.

     Although they would last through 1961, newspaper strip reprint comics were fading. Harvey Hits #26 (November 1959) packaged up a Phantom daily strip story into a 23-page novel, "The Adventure of the Wild Girl." A young woman from Missouri whose career as an animal trainer ends when the circus she's with folds, moves to the jungle with her pet lion and sets up shop as a bandit. When the Phantom investigates, Dara, the "Wild Girl," captures him and takes him to her hideaway. She keeps him prisoner there, hoping he'll come around to her idea that they would make a good couple.

     To complicate matters, the young man she'd captured earlier is head-over-heels for her, but Dara regards him as a "boy." Her feminine logic resolves that the solution to the triangle is to go out and capture a girlfriend for Jeny. Of course it is Diana Palmer, the Phantom's fiancee, who Dara apprehends and takes to her den. This new triangle leads to a bout between Dara and Diana that's a beaut!

     It's not one of the heavier Phantom yarns, there are plenty of those, but it's fun, and the characters are nicely drawn. Lee Falk and Wilson McCoy were handling the strip in grand style; the stories they produced have become worldwide favorites and are constantly reprinted, everywhere but in the good old USA. Harvey did a really fine job on these books, printing the art eight panels per page-big enough to appreciate the pictures but with enough story to keep the narrative drive strong.

     The newspaper strips themselves were changing. They were no longer integral to sales and, hence, not so much of a prestige market. Gag-a-day strips were replacing extended adventures so that casual readers wouldn't be left out. But the Phantom kept its high quality. Harvey would publish three more Phantom issues; and although rarely noted as such, they-and this one-are some of the most adult-oriented comics of the Silver Age.

     The late 1950's comics scene still had a hint of the post-War and pre-Code "all ages" approach, but even that was fading as niche marketing triumphed and turned comic books... into kid's stuff.

Pat Calhoun has been collecting, researching and appreciating comic books since the early 1960s, and is a nationally recognized comic book historian. Pat resides in Santa Rosa, California.