Race for the Moon #2

In "Island in the Sky," Bill Fenner—once a man haunted by Jupiter’s Red Spot—awakens after an accident that should have killed him, only to be returned from the gas giant’s storm in a mysterious transparent cylinder. When he stirs back to life, his body is unharmed, even enhanced, and a strange organism in his brain begins to reveal its strange power. As he grapples with the sudden changes in his strength and endurance, Bill finds himself caught between the limits of human biology and something far stranger—something that may not be human at all.

In "The Thing on Sputnik 4," Captain Kelly’s discovery of a walnut-shaped object inside a captured meteor sets off a chain of eerie events aboard a space station. As beeping sounds echo through the lab and explosions ripple through the decks, Kelly glimpses a strange creature clinging to an old Sputnik satellite—only to watch it reunite with the walnut and vanish into a triangular meteor.

In "Lunar Trap," astronaut Ward Stratton finds himself trapped in Lunar Crater Tycho, falsely accused by Colonel Alexandrovna of sabotage. As tensions rise and the moon's surface turns deadly, Stratton and his captor flee a barrage of falling rocks only to confront a mysterious lunar creature. The story unfolds with suspense and unexpected alliances, as the two must survive the hostile terrain and the unseen threat that stalks them.

In "The Face on Mars," four explorers scale a colossal statue on the Red Planet, only for Fisher to stumble through an eye socket into a hidden, verdant city teeming with giant Martians. As alien ships obliterate the paradise, the beings gather to point at a map—revealing a mysterious planet between Mars and Jupiter—before launching a missile toward it. Moments later, Fisher gasps for air and awakens on the barren surface of modern-day Mars, the crew now passing through the asteroid belt, remnants of a world long gone.

In "The Golden Rocket," a mysterious spacecraft drifts near a space station, its origins unknown. When the crew hesitates to board, they’re startled by a radio signal—coming from Pluto, where no life should exist.

In "Blue Fire!" from *Race for the Moon* #2 (1962), Bart Wallace’s casual trip to Camerillo, Mexico, takes a sudden turn when he witnesses Pedro vanish into a mysterious blue light—only to be pulled skyward himself before a passing USAF plane disrupts the phenomenon. Drawn back to the desert by the same eerie glow, Wallace tracks it down, firing at the source only to see the sky ignite over the town. What follows isn’t a spaceship, but something far stranger: a living, luminous creature from beyond, vanishing into the night. Left alone in Camerillo, Wallace remains determined to uncover the truth, the last man still searching for proof.

In "The Has-Been," a young captain—just 19—grapples with the weight of his title after a botched landing forces him to surrender control of his starship to a younger crew member. Though he’s still sharp, the realization that his time in command is over settles in as he steps away from the cockpit, knowing this was his final flight.

In "Rope Trick," a weary detective named Eric Burnside follows a cryptic clue from a fakir—up a vertical rope into the clouds—on a wild chase through a surreal landscape. What begins as a desperate manhunt for the elusive criminal Panama Pete spirals into something far stranger, where time and reality bend in unexpected ways.

In "The Man Who Never Smiled," Phil, a delivery boy under pressure, stumbles into a haunting moment when he intervenes in a tense scene in an alley—only to find himself caught between a past that refuses to stay buried and a present that won’t let go. When a desperate plea from a woman named Gladys Lloyd echoes through the shadows, Phil’s world shifts in ways he can’t explain, leaving him with a smile he never thought he’d wear again.

In "Last Man on Earth," Ken, Claire, and Edmond find themselves stranded in a suddenly overgrown jungle after an experiment meant to boost crop yields goes awry—only to discover the lush world around them might not be a time travel anomaly, but a startling shift in scale. As they navigate the dangers of giant creatures and shifting realities, old tensions and unexpected emotions surface, leaving their fates—and the true nature of their surroundings—uncertain.

In "Secret Weapon," a tense standoff unfolds when a Martian advance party lands on Earth, expecting fear and surrender. Jerad, confident in their superiority, is met instead by a defiant farmer’s wife, Mary, who scolds them for trampling her flowers and calmly reveals the entire town has been emptied—by actors who’ve just left after filming a space movie. The story’s quiet absurdity and sudden shift in perspective leave the invaders questioning everything, as the line between invasion and performance blurs.

In "The Last Enemy!" from *Race for the Moon* #2 (1962), pilot Drake is flung to the year 2514, where he discovers a world eerily silent except for the bones of tigers and a rat who claims humanity was wiped out by atomic war—now, animals rule. Taken captive by a rodent-led resistance, Drake is pressed to reveal the secret of atomic bombs, only to wake in a strange sanctuary surrounded by a dog, fox, and bear. When a general arrives and declares that only rats seek war, Drake must decide what to do with the knowledge he holds—and what kind of future might come from it.