Cosmo The Merry Martian!

Cosmo the Merry Martian was a vintage series from Archie Comics (formerly MLJ in the halcyon Golden Age of Comics). Published in 1958 and 1959 there are six issues of what some mistakenly call a "limited series". It does have some characteristics of a limited such as a story which continues form issue to issue reaching a finale of sorts. The series has recently been reprinted by Archie with some extras to boot.

In the debut issue we encounter Martian culture, a technically advanced society which has decided to send two emissaries to the planet Earth. The two space travellers are the tenpin-shaped Cosmo and his somewhat less brave buddy Orbi. They leave life and love behind to trek into space and sort of crash on the Moon. There they meet a horde of small round multi-colored folks all named "Oog". Later they head to Earth they use comet dust to become invisible and then seek out humans engaged in what was once upon the national pastime -- the elegant game of baseball. When the dust wears off Cosmo and Orbi and company speed away in flying saucers supplied by the Moon folks.

As their space trek continues, Cosmo and Orbi travel to the mysterious dark side of the Moon and find a legendary fearsome beast named the Gillywhump. This is a creature somewhat similar in size to the other Moon critters but with a giant nose and giant feet and a few other powers. Making friends the Gillywhump and the two Moon people along with Cosmo and Orbi return to Earth to find medicine but this time a work site and the machines therein scare them again.

In the third issue another ship from Mars arrives on the Moon with Cosmo's girlfriend Astra and Orbi's pet dog Jojo and piloted by Professor Thimk. They have a new mission to head to Venus and two of the Moon people tag along. On Venus they find enormous orange giants. As the issue closes they are being taken to the Queen of all of Venus.

The Venusian Queen selects Cosmo as her mate but of course Astra takes issue with that and the team (Professor Thimk, Astra, Orbi, JoJo, the Gillwhump and two Oogs work to free him from his unsought royal station. They succeed just barely and fly from Venus and because they cannot take time to plot a course are headed to Saturn.

On Saturn they discover the rings are made of foam rubber. The peoples of Saturn are actually enormous talking vegetables who welcome the visitors with friendship. But Orbi ends up on his own and after eating some forbidden gumdrops shrinks to a small size and later into a vast giant who rides along the rings.

Returning to Mars the expanded team (Cosmo, Orbi, Astra, Proessor Thimk, the two Oogs, Gillywhump and three Vegetable people. But their expedition over they find a general named Beatnik is bent on leading a massive invasion of Earth. Cosmo is able to fend off the threat and maintain the peace as the series comes to an end.

In addition to the original six issues of Cosmo this volume contains later appearances in the Archie universe. The issue above will be dealt with in detail tomorrow and there are three other stories after it which use Cosmo, two in which he is treated much like a popular game which has people look for icons and characters all around their neighborhood.

Finally the collection gives the reader the debut issue of a new Cosmo series, but to be honest the new character designs are not as engaging to my veteran eye as the vintage ones. A few new characters are added and there are more issues of this run.

At a mere eleven bucks this somewhat smaller tome is a bargain. I never expected to be able to read the Cosmo stories but having done so I can say heartily they are well worth the effort.

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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