Tales to Astonish #43
In "The Mad Master of Time!", a disillusioned technician finds himself trapped in a sterile, high-tech facility where his replacement is a cold, calculating machine. With only fifteen minutes of oxygen to complete his repairs, he devises a desperate plan to sabotage the system—only to realize too late that his actions have sealed his fate. Written by Stan Lee and illustrated with eerie precision by Steve Ditko, this 1963 tale of man versus machine crackles with tension, all framed by Jack Kirby’s striking cover and Sol Brodsky’s sharp inks.
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A man is bitter because he has been replaced by a computer and must take a job servicing it. It is ensconced in an air-tight clean room with a door that is opened after fifteen minutes allotted for servicing purposes. When the man enters the room, he gets the idea to sabotage the machine so that it will make mistakes and he can get his old job back, but he damages the circuits that allow the machine to open the door after the fifteen minutes of oxygen are used up.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).