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Tales to Astonish #46

Aug 1963
Ernie Hart, Don Heck

Tales to Astonish #46 cover

Story Name:

..When Cyclops Walks the Earth


Synopsis

Tales to Astonish #46 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 4 stars

The city is in a lull with no crime for Ant-Man and Wasp to smash. Janet is in a snitty moody through boredom so Hank suggests a vacation. Janet immediately proposes they go to Greece and so they go….

But once in Greece, Hank detects something ominous in the air. No boats will go out because a giant monster has been seizing crafts with their crew. While Hank and Janet are hearing of this, another report comes in of a boat lost, only this time someone manages to radio the word, “Cyclops!” Deciding to investigate, Hank and Janet purchase a boat and head out to where the boats have been vanishing and shrink to Ant-Man and Wasp. Then an actual giant cyclops appears, picks up their boat, and walks off with it, wading through the sea. Pursuing via wings (Hank on an ant, Janet with her own), the heroes find the missing sailors and their craft but also discover spaceships and a band of aliens from the planet A-Chiltar III. The A-Chiltarians have built a giant robot based on a monster from Earth mythology to abduct sailors to conduct tests on their brains to learn whether or not they would be easy to conquer. But the electronic impulses cause mental pain to Ant-Man and Wasp until Hank can find a frequency in his helmet that counteracts the aliens thought patters. Once he does, Ant-Man can understand the aliens’ speech. The aliens spy the tiny heroes and one tries to step on them but a sting from Wasp knocks him off his feet. Wasp then summons the local wasps to attack the aliens so she can free the captors, while Ant-Man enters the cyclops robot and finds the frequency to control it mentally. Ant-Man has the cyclops attack the A-Chiltarians who flee for their ships, believing that humans have much greater mental powers than they and they take off for their home planet. Hank has cyclops put the boats back in the water so the kidnapped sailors can go home; lastly, he orders the giant robot to go sit on the ocean floor until it rusts and falls apart.

Once home, Janet decides she wants no more vacations as she couldn’t stand the excitement….

“Ride to the Future”
Writer: Unknown. Art: Unknown.     
Synopsis: Poor unimaginative Poker is mocked by the other kids when he wants to enter a comic strip contest and win a much-needed bicycle. A kid who is a secret scout from Outer Space tells Poker of his people and culture so that his comic strip can prepare Earth for a visit—and Poker wins the bicycle and the admiration of the other kids!

“The Secret of the Swamp!”
Writer: Larry Lieber. Plot: Stan Lee. Art: Paul Reinman. Colors: ? Letters: Artie Simek.
Synopsis: An unattractive spinster moves to a desolate swampland in Louisiana; she meets a man and they are married with the magic of the swamp allowing the two homely people to see each other as beautiful!

“The Most Dangerous Weapon!”
Writer: Stan Lee. Art: Steve Ditko. Colors: ? Letters: Artie Simek.
Synopsis: In the utopia of 2050, a crook named Kowl Korgan breaks into a museum to steal the last weapon on Earth; he confronts the World President intending to seize power but when he fires the gun, it is Korgan who is vaporized!


 

Review / Commentaries


Tales to Astonish #46 Review by (October 26, 2022)

Review: Two weeks without crime? I thought these people lived in New York City? Anyway, this is a halfway decent story, reminiscent of the pre-superhero fare of this title. Weird phenomena revealed to be the work of aliens; clever human figures out a way to scare the invaders off. And that’s that. Only this one has the absurd detail of having a pair of tiny heroes defeat the giant monster in a story that would not have worked as well with Giant-Man. And Janet is herein defined by negative, stereotypical female traits: self-centered, childish, snitty, shallow, and this isn’t even her at her worst. It’ll be a few years before Marvel writers turn her into a real person—but then the same goes for many of the male characters too.

As for the final story, this one sets some sort of record for dumb in a back-up tale: why would they even have a gun like that?

Comments: Ant-Man story: First appearance of the A-Chiltarians; representatives of the race have brief appearances in THOR #335, QUASAR #26, and ALL-NEW GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1. The radio shack in the tale is a literal shack with a radio in it and not a reference to the American technology chain store. Writer Ernie Hart is credited as E.H. Huntley. Second story: Text story with one illustration, reprinted from ASTONISHING #52.



> Tales to Astonish comic book info and issue index

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Don Heck
Don Heck
Unknown
Jack Kirby (Cover Penciler)
Dick Ayers (Cover Inker)
Stan Goldberg (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Plot: . Letterer: Sam Rosen.

Characters

Listed in alphabetical order. All stories.

Ant-Man
Ant-Man

(Hank Pym)
Wasp
Wasp

(Janet Van Dyne)


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