Forbidden Worlds #66 (1958)

Dr. Robert Thurston is abruptly kidnapped from his home under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a dummy in his bed and sparking a frantic search by military and government officials. Taken aboard a rocket bound for the desolate planet Morponta, he discovers a hidden, life-sustaining dome beneath a radioactive wasteland—home to a civilization that plans to conquer Earth. As he confronts the alien leaders’ demands, Thurston must grapple with the terrifying reality of their intentions and his own helplessness.

In a 1958 issue of *Forbidden Worlds*, a team of scientists discovers a perfectly preserved dinosaur in a drained California asphalt pit, its body pierced by a mysterious object. As they uncover the ancient weapon, they realize it couldn’t have been made by any known prehistoric human—leading to the startling conclusion that it came from an alien source.

In 1957, reporter Mike Hall and photographer Abby are sent to Central Europe to cover a political uprising, where they become entangled in a decades-old mystery surrounding the sudden replacement of Slovenia’s beloved king with a look-alike impostor. As they uncover clues hidden in old portraits and archival records, they trace the deception to a theatrical manager with a talent for disguise and a web of noble betrayal. The deeper they dig, the more the past begins to echo in unsettling ways—leading them to a forgotten tomb and a secret that may hold the key to the truth.

Big Jim Maitland, a ruthless ivory hunter, dismisses the local tribe’s warnings of the Ivory Curse—until a series of eerie events, beginning with the sudden appearance of thousands of turtles at dawn, begin to unsettle him. As he and his partner Simpson grow increasingly paranoid, strange transformations begin to unfold, leaving Maitland shrinking to just five inches tall and haunted by the belief that the curse has taken hold.