Two Frankenstein Stories by Dick Briefer

Frankenstein Light

Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein ran in Prize Comics from #7 (December 1940) until #68 even getting its own title (Frankenstein Comics) that ran for 17 issues from 1945 to 1947. Starting off as a serious book in line with Mary Shelly’s original version, it eventual switched to a light-hearted version once he got his own book as seen in the 1st story below.

Appropriately for Frankenstein’s monster, he was revived in March 1952 and the book ran until October 1954. This darker version (2nd story below) of the monster anticipated the mood taken in the Hammer Films of the late 50’s and early 60’s starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

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Frankenstein 'Dark'

From Frankenstein #18 (March 1952)
Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein © the current copyright holders

Harry by Jeff Jones

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© Jeff Jones. From Vampirella #85

Murphy Anderson’s “Mystery of the Asteroids”

Planet Comics #47 (March 1947)
Art by Murphy Anderson. © Fiction House

According to a new study by geologists the wealth of some minerals that lie in the rock beneath the Earth's surface may be extraterrestrial in origin.

Geologists have long speculated that four and a half billion years ago, the Earth was a cold mass of rock mixed with iron metal which was melted by the heat generated from the impact of massive planet-sized objects, allowing the iron to separate from the rock and form the Earth's core. Researchers recreated the extreme pressure and temperature of this process, subjecting a similar mixture to temperatures above 2,000 °C, and measured the composition of the resulting rock and iron.

Because the rock became void of the metal in the process, the scientists speculate that the same would have occurred when the Earth was formed, and that some sort of external source – such as a rain of extraterrestrial material – contributed to the presence of some precious metals in Earth's outer rocky portion today.

"The notion of extraterrestrial rain my also explain another mystery, which is how the rock portion of the Earth came to have hydrogen, carbon and phosphorous – the essential components for life, which were likely lost during Earth's violent beginning." link

Ref: Core formation and metal–silicate fractionation of osmium and iridium from gold. 2009. J.M. Brenan and W.F. McDonough. Nature Geoscience, published online October 18.

The Vision by Jack Kirby: "Dinosaurs at Large!"

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Marvel Mystery Comics # 16 (Feb. 1941) © Marvel Comics
Script by Simon and Kirby; Art by Kirby

Ditko: "I Took A Journey Into Fear!"

From Journey Into Mystery #63 (Dec. 1960) © Marvel Comics
Art by Steve Ditko

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Born This Day: Niels Bohr – Nazi Smasher!

Oct. 7, 1885 – Nov. 18, 1962

Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist, born in Copenhagen, who was the first to apply the quantum theory, which restricts the energy of a system to certain discrete values, to the problem of atomic and molecular structure. For this work he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.

He developed the so-called Bohr theory of the atom and liquid model of the nucleus. Bohr was of Jewish origin and when the Nazis occupied Denmark he escaped in 1943 to Sweden on a fishing boat. From there he was flown to England where he began to work on the project to make a nuclear fission bomb. After a few months he went with the British research team to Los Alamos in the USA where they continued work on the project. From Today In Science History.

Read his story:




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From: Marvels of Science #1 (Feb. 1944). © Charlton Comics. Art by Sid Greene.