Planet Comics #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freePlanet Comics #1 holds a singular place in comics history as the first comic book devoted entirely to science fiction, arriving on newsstands with a January 1940 cover date and inaugurating a genre that would reshape the medium for decades. The issue introduced three of the title's only enduring long-running strips — Flint Baker, Auro Lord of Jupiter, and the Red Comet — all of which debuted together in these pages and nowhere else. Beyond its debut function, the title it launched ran 73 issues across thirteen years and served as the primary proving ground for space-opera storytelling conventions: ray-gun heroics, interplanetary adventure, and ensemble anthology structure that later publishers would repeatedly imitate. Fiction House's decision to commit an entire periodical to the genre, at a moment when science fiction was exploding in popularity thanks to the 1939 World's Fair and the pulp boom, transformed what had been a sub-genre scattered across anthology titles into a dedicated four-color universe of its own.
Planet Comics #1 is an anthology featuring multiple science fiction stories set across the solar system. The cover story, "Flint Baker and the One-Eyed Monsters of Mars," depicts a conflict where an antagonist attempts to enslave a spaceship crew and commandeer their vessel to rule Neptune. Another featured story, "Women Warriors of the Moon," involves a character named Sandra who encounters giant sea spiders and must be rescued; the narrative concludes with a reference to following Buzz Crandall's adventures in the next issue. The issue also includes stories titled "Auro—Lord of Jupiter," "Spurt Hammond—Planet Flyer," and "Capt. Nelson Cole—The Red Comet—Planet Ranger."
In "The One-Eyed Monster Men from Mars," Flint—driven by his father’s unfinished dream—launches a rocket to the red planet, bringing along three freed convicts as crew. After landing, they discover the lifeless remains of a past explorer, who left a chilling warning: stay away from the dark side of Mars.
In a forgotten corner of the solar system, Auro—raised by a saber-tooth tiger after a rocket crash claimed his parents—finds his quiet life upended when a young woman named Martha seeks his help. She pleads with him to rescue her friends, enslaved by the tyrannical ruler of Neptune, drawing him into a perilous journey beyond the stars.
In the vast reaches of space, Captain Cole leads a desperate mission after the mysterious disappearance of Solar Ships, only to be captured by the ruthless alien dictator Zan, who plans to transform the crew into soulless machines. This 1940 science fiction tale from Planet Comics #1 delivers high-stakes space adventure with a chilling twist on humanity’s fate.
In "The War Lords of the Moon," Spurt and his companions find themselves caught in a deadly standoff with the ruthless Luzerons, a warlike faction controlling the Moon’s frozen poles and preying on passing interplanetary transports. With the lunar landscape a treacherous stage of ice and shadow, they must outwit their enemies before the next convoy arrives.
In "null," Buzz and his crew confront the Sharkmen—semi-intelligent beings dwelling in Neptune’s murky depths—after they seize Dr. Curan and other members of his underwater expedition. Written by ? [as Bob Jordan], this 1940 science fiction tale plunges into the unknown with a tense showdown beneath the ocean’s surface.
In "The Man Who Stole a World!", a disgraced Earth scientist, exiled to a distant planetoid, unleashes his infra-red ray to pull Pluto from its orbit—threatening to unravel the cosmos. With a mind bent on domination and a weapon that bends planetary forces, he sets his sights beyond the solar system, leaving the universe hanging in the balance.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 20 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Planet Comics was conceived as the comic-book arm of Fiction House's own science fiction pulp, Planet Stories, with both publications reportedly planned simultaneously in 1939 — a period when Fiction House, despite having no real prior science fiction publishing experience, recognized a cultural moment and moved quickly to capitalize on it. The debut issue was shepherded editorially by Malcolm Reiss as editor, Will Eisner (credited as William E. Eisner) as art director, and S. M. Iger as feature editor — the Eisner-Iger shop being the primary production studio supplying content to Fiction House at the time. Interior art on the lead Flint Baker story was provided by Dick Briefer, with the Auro origin chapter credited to Malcolm Kildale, and the cover itself — depicting Flint Baker pursued by the one-eyed monsters of Mars — rendered by Lou Fine, a confirmation established by the original art's later owner and corroborated by Will Eisner himself. The title debuted monthly before sliding to a bimonthly schedule with issue #8 in September 1940, a cadence it maintained through the end of the decade.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Planet Comics #1 (cover date January 1940) was the first comic book dedicated entirely to science fiction, with every story in its pages belonging to the genre.
- The issue contains the first appearance and origin of Auro, Lord of Jupiter — the son of Professor John Hardwich, who is orphaned when his parents' rocket crashes on Jupiter and grows up super-strong, befriended by a saber-toothed tiger named Tara, in a deliberate outer-space riff on the Tarzan archetype.
- Professor John Hardwich (and Mrs. Hardwich), Auro's doomed parents, also make their sole appearances here, introduced and killed in the same issue that launches their son's strip.
- Flint Baker's debut story, 'The Planetary Adventures of Flint Baker and the One-Eyed Monster Men of Mars,' was the issue's lead feature and was illustrated by Dick Briefer; Baker's origin establishes him as the son of a deceased scientist who completes his father's rocket and recruits three condemned prisoners as crew, with reporter Mimi Wilson stowing away.
- The Red Comet also makes his first appearance in this issue, described as a 'mystery man of the universe' operating in the year 2040 — one of only three strips from issue #1 that became long-running features of the series.
- The cover was penciled and inked by Lou Fine, a fact confirmed by the original art's one-time owner Roger Hill via a conversation with Will Eisner; early sources sometimes attribute the cover to Eisner himself, reflecting the close collaboration of the Eisner-Iger studio.
- The issue was produced under editor Malcolm Reiss, art director Will Eisner, and feature editor S. M. Iger, representing Fiction House's use of the Eisner-Iger shop as its primary content studio.
- Stories from this issue have been reprinted numerous times, including in Pacific Comics' Planet Comics #1 (1984), Avalon Communications' Planet Comics #1 (2000), the Roy Thomas Presents Planet Comics hardcover series from PS Artbooks (Volume 1, 2012/2013 — collecting issues #1–4 with an introduction by Carmine Infantino), and multiple Gwandanaland Comics trade editions.
Cast · 3 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in The Golden Age of Comic Books #[nn] (1977), Planet Comics #1 (1984), The Comic Book in America: An Illustrated History #[nn] (1989), Planet Comics #1 (2000), Roy Thomas Presents Planet Comics #1 (2012), Men of Mystery Comics #92 (2014), Gwandanaland Comics #761 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #357 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #2126 (2018), O Guri Comico #1, Planet Comics #1, Showcase #[nn]
Key issues in Planet Comics
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.