Strange Adventures #114
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeStrange Adventures #114 marks the debut of Star Hawkins and his robot secretary Ilda — a genuinely novel mashup of hardboiled private-eye fiction and far-future science fiction that arrived just as DC's Silver Age anthology titles were establishing their distinct rotating-feature identities. The pairing of a perpetually cash-strapped gumshoe with a sardonic robot companion gave the strip a comedic, character-driven undercurrent that was unusual for anthology sci-fi of the era, and the strip's quiet running thread — Ilda's incremental push toward robot sentient rights — anticipates themes that genre fiction would spend decades exploring. The issue also sits at the opening of a deliberate editorial strategy: within three issues, Strange Adventures would introduce the Atomic Knights, and the two features would trade off with the Space Museum strip in a tightly planned rotation that turned the anthology into something closer to a serialized story magazine.
In "Secret of the Flying Buzz Saw!", Frank Barrows awakens to a mysterious voice declaring the future rests on his shoulders. With the help of an android duplicate he builds to send into the distant years, Frank must bridge time itself to stop a deadly threat from alien light-beings consuming argon and poisoning the atmosphere—using nothing but a single electron and a clever twist of science. Written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Sid Greene, with a striking cover by Gil Kane and Joe Giella, this 1960 DC classic blends time travel, alien menace, and a mind-bending twist on the power of a single atomic change.
In "Secret of the Flying Buzz Saw!", Rick Jordan finds himself at the center of an interstellar emergency when an alien work crew arrives on Earth, dismantling cities not in conquest but to prepare for a desperate defense. With a white dwarf star hurtling toward the planet, the aliens’ plan fails—and now Rick’s invention, the Graviton, may be the only hope to create a zero-gravity field that could let him plant explosives on the star itself.
In "The Man Who Created Himself!", Frank Barrows finds himself at the center of a temporal mystery when a voice declares the future depends on him. Using his own mind as a blueprint, he builds an android duplicate to journey ahead—where a race of light-beings from Aldebaran are poisoning their world with monargon—and discovers they can communicate across time. With only a single, crucial experiment to guide them, Frank must reach into the future to save a world he hasn’t yet touched.
In "The Case of the Martian Witness!" from *Strange Adventures* #114, private investigator Star takes on a high-stakes mystery when he’s hired to track a fugitive believed hiding on Vesta, a distant asteroid mining colony nestled in the eerie Red Jungle. With his wits sharp and a few clever tricks up his sleeve, Star navigates the alien terrain and its unsettling flora, all while trying to reclaim his trusty robot secretary, Ilda, from the pawn shop—before he’s forced to pawn her again.
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The Star Hawkins feature was scripted by John Broome — already central to DC's Silver Age through his work on The Flash and Green Lantern — and drawn by Mike Sekowsky, inked by Bernard Sachs, all working under editor Julius Schwartz. The lead story, 'The Case of the Martian Witness,' appeared in the third slot of the anthology, which also carried Gardner Fox-scripted science fiction tales illustrated by Russ Heath and Sid Greene, with lettering by Ira Schnapp; the cover itself was penciled by Gil Kane and inked by Joe Giella. Schwartz's editorial habit of programming genre features in rotating slots — rather than filling issues with unrelated one-shots — was the quiet structural innovation behind this issue, and it gave Star Hawkins the breathing room to develop across 21 appearances over several years.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Star Hawkins and his robot secretary Ilda (designated Robot F2324), introduced in the story 'The Case of the Martian Witness.'
- Created by writer John Broome and penciler Mike Sekowsky, inked by Bernard Sachs, under editor Julius Schwartz.
- The issue's cover is by penciler Gil Kane and inker Joe Giella, with lettering by Ira Schnapp; other stories inside were written by Gardner Fox with art by Russ Heath and Sid Greene.
- Star Hawkins is set in the late 21st century (circa 2079–2092 across the run) and blends hardboiled detective conventions — a broke PI who pawns his partner for cash — with interplanetary adventure.
- The Star Hawkins feature ran in 21 issues of Strange Adventures (#114–185), typically rotating every third issue alongside the Atomic Knights and Space Museum features.
- The series later returned in a 1981 installment that resolved Ilda's status by establishing that Star Hawkins was instrumental in winning basic rights for robots like her.
- Ilda — despite having no human face — was rendered by Sekowsky with enough visual expressiveness to convey personality, a noted artistic accomplishment remarked upon by later critics.
- The issue was physically released on January 26, 1960, though its cover date reads March 1960, and carried a 10-cent cover price.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Five-Score Plus Comic Monthly #26 (1960), Aventures Fiction #28 (1960), Titanes Planetarios #103 (1961), Big Boss #56 (1961), Big Boss #58 (1961), Justice League of America #37 (1965), The Flash #154 (1965), Green Lantern #77 (1970), Superman Presents Tip Top Comic Monthly #75 (1971), All Star Adventure Comic #68 (1971), Titanes Planetarios #376 (1972), Detective Comics #444 (1974), Super DC Giant #27 (1976), DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #14 (1981)
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