Space Adventures #1

In "The Mad-Man of Mars," the Space Rangers pursue Nucleo, a shape-shifting Martian who hijacks Captain Arax’s leisure cruiser, the Staritania, taking on Arax’s form to escape. The chase unfolds across the red planet’s rugged terrain, where deception and danger blend in equal measure.

When the praying mantis-like moon insects swarm Lunar Station X-32, the Space Rangers uncover a sinister plot by Halgo, leader of the Outerplanetary Circle, who’s awakening ancient creatures beneath the lunar surface to steal buried Earth weapons—destructive mirrors hidden long ago.

In "Mummers from Mercury," Boss Kipley's scheme to exploit the Mummer's Parade on December 31, 1952, takes a bizarre turn when he summons Modo, the mud man from Mercury, and his alien allies—Thark the Venusian Viper-Man, a Jupiter Jumping Jack, and a Stone Man from Saturn. As radio signals grow frantic with reports of a bank robbery and a strange parade of extraterrestrial invaders heading toward the armory, the police must confront both the criminal and the cosmic intrusion, all under the cover of a festive city celebration.

In "Visits the City of Brass," Hap Holliday, the Time Skipper, and Professor Eon Tempus journey to the year 100,001, where they encounter a desolate landscape teeming with colossal crab-like creatures and a massive octopus that traverses the dry seabed. When Hap shoots the creature, he inadvertently rescues Ula, the exiled Queen of Futuropolis, whose city has fallen to reptile-people who drove its inhabitants out. Now, Hap must return to the moment of her banishment to restore what was lost.

This half-page scientific speculation piece walks through a fascinating theory about how our moon came to be—depicting Earth in its molten youth, spinning rapidly until tidal forces from the sun created a massive bulge around the equator that eventually broke free and launched into space. The story anchors the idea with a clever geological detail: the absence of granite beneath the Pacific Ocean suggests that region is where the moon was torn away, leaving a scar on Earth's crust that persists to this day.