Creepy Worlds #118

A brilliant but troubled physicist working on classified atomic research grapples with his conscience—until the Atomic Energy Commission sends him on forced leave to Sun Valley, where a charming agent from behind the Iron Curtain offers him a chance to escape. Ronald Lear's defection seems complete when the Soviets unveil a signed confession to the world, but Dr. Harry Casper suspects the truth is far stranger than propaganda.

When Earth and Venus both dispatch pilots to survey Mars as a potential colony world, Captain Carveth and a Venusian explorer each believe they've found an uninhabited planet ripe for settlement—until they're attacked by the planet's true inhabitants and forced into an uneasy alliance. Their newfound trust leads both explorers to report back home with glowing recommendations for peaceful colonization, unaware of the monstrous native life watching from the shadows with sinister patience.

A brilliant but embittered scientist, Proctor Rogg, has been imprisoned in an isolated mansion by the U.S. Government, which refuses to weaponize his ultimate destructive invention. Seeking revenge, Rogg develops a sinister transmitter that warps animals into vicious, hostile creatures—first testing it on his own pets, then aiming it across the country to terrorize a Nebraska farm community. As the authorities close in, Rogg's experiment spirals toward a reckoning neither he nor his captors anticipated.

Trapped inside a malfunctioning atomic rocket, a scientist is transformed into the powerful Captain Atom. Now wielding incredible energy-based abilities, he races to stop enemy agents sabotaging a Jupiter-bound rocket, defending Earth from a threat that reaches into the stars.

Bart Denby has spent twenty grueling years mining asteroids in the far reaches of space, and he's finally made his fortune—now he just wants to go home to Earth and build the dream house he's imagined all those lonely years. When he arrives expecting a hero's welcome, he discovers that fear and superstition have turned the entire human race against him, and no colony in the solar system will have him. Desperate and out of options, Denby must find a new place to call home and a new dream to chase.

In "The World Outside!", a lone criminal stumbles through a silent, empty New York City, only to return home and wake up as if nothing happened—only to find himself back in the same eerie, deserted streets. The city's unnatural stillness and his own disoriented return create a haunting loop of isolation and uncertainty.

When the terrifying Kukons invade the human outpost on planet Amicus in 2064, Space Marshal Blount realizes that a direct confrontation will be costly—and proposes a dangerous gamble instead. As the aliens inexplicably begin towing the entire planet away through space toward their distant realm, Blount ventures to the surface of the Kukons' world to discover the shocking truth about his captors and find a way to turn the tables. What he learns about the nature of the Kukons and their masters sets the stage for an unexpected revolution that could change everything.