Race for the Moon #1

In "Asylum," a centuries-old practice of exiling the criminally insane to a distant world takes a shocking turn when Earth—once the asylum's destination—now stands as a fully realized, advanced civilization capable of turning back the mission. The story follows the unexpected confrontation between an old interstellar order and a planet that has long since outgrown its role as a prison.

In "Disc Jockey," Sam Webb, a notoriously unlistenable radio host, refuses to leave the airwaves—even as his audience dwindles to silence. When his relentless broadcasts finally draw an unexpected and utterly exasperated response from Martians, their arrival forces a confrontation no one saw coming.

In "The Invasion" from *Race for the Moon* #1, Jo and her partner huddle by the TV as a chilling news report details an alien assault on Earth—military defenses fall fast, and panic sets in. They grab what they can and flee into the countryside, convinced the horror is real, until the broadcast cuts to a laugh track and reveals the terrifying events were just a fictional drama.

In "The Thing on Sputnik 4," Captain Kelly’s routine inspection of a captured meteor takes a strange turn when she discovers a walnut-shaped object inside—just as the station’s lab is thrown into chaos by a series of beeping explosions. With Major General Holt warning against jumping to conclusions, the crew scrambles to understand the source of the disturbance, only to witness a shocking sight: a space creature clinging to an old Sputnik satellite, its signal syncing with the mysterious object. The story unfolds with quiet dread and sudden bursts of wonder, as the truth behind the meteor and its connection to the distant satellite begins to unravel.

In "The Golden Rocket," a mysterious spacecraft drifts near a space station, its origins unknown. When the crew debates whether to bring it aboard, they discover strange, unidentifiable materials inside—and a radio picking up signals from Pluto, where no life should exist.

In "Lunar Trap," Ward Stratton finds himself trapped in Lunar Crater Tycho, accused by Colonel Alexandrovna of sabotage—though he’s quick to note she’s a woman, which seems to surprise him. As she orders him to the site of the damage, the pair barely escape a sudden rock storm, only to discover the real threat is a mysterious moon creature. With the Russian rescue party arriving just in time, an uneasy truce forms between the colonel and Stratton.

In "The Face on Mars," four explorers scale a colossal alien visage on the Red Planet, only for Fisher to stumble through an eye socket into a hidden, verdant city teeming with towering Martians. When a sudden attack wipes the city from existence, the giants convene, point to a distant point on a star map, and launch a missile toward a planet long vanished between Mars and Jupiter. As the group drifts through the asteroid belt—silent remnants of that destroyed world—Fisher awakens back on Mars, gasping for air, the mystery of what he saw still echoing in the void.

In "Space Garbage," Wiley Breck—once a cold architect of cosmic punishment—finds himself stranded on an asteroid, a man condemned by his own twisted legacy. When a group of space explorers intercept him, they discover he’s not just a fugitive, but something far stranger: a prisoner adrift in a place where the silence is broken by an unexpected, impossible secret.