Secrets of the Unknown #85

In "The Astronaut and the Pirates," a stranded space traveler becomes an unlikely prisoner when his capsule crashes near the jungles of Bengala. With the help of the Wambesi chief and the Phantom, who slip aboard a pirate ship under cover of night, Colonel Nelson’s fate hangs in the balance as a daring rescue unfolds.

In "Follow the Leader," a crew of space explorers stumbles upon a planet where alien animals behave with eerie coordination—until their panic-driven attempt to defend themselves backfires in a deadly way. The truth behind the creatures’ control is far stranger than they imagined, and their escape is just the beginning of a deeper mystery.

In "Flash Gordon and the Space Pirates [Part 3]," Flash and Patch crash-land on an alien world after a meteor strike, only to face eerie hypnotic globes and a monstrous predator—fending off the threat with quick thinking and a ray gun before escaping back into the stars.

In "The Mirage," a man escapes jail on the edge of a vast desert, his only hope a canteen and a crude compass. As he staggers through the heat, he glimpses an oasis with beautiful women—too perfect to be real—and though he knows it must be a mirage, he presses on, driven by the faint hope of survival. The women, watching from afar, quietly wonder why he chose to walk away.

In "The Masked Emissary," the Phantom, tasked by the U.N. to restore order, finds himself caught between duty and justice when he captures the tyrant Bababu. With the tribal chiefs demanding trial by combat, the scholarly Dr. Luaga—overlooked and underestimated—must face his brutal foe, unaware to all but the elders that his quiet demeanor hides a mastery of judo.