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So here's the scoop, Crivs! Martians crash-land on Earth, but remain undiscovered, leaving the populace nervous and frightened about what their purpose might be. A month passes, and we see two human-looking individuals, male and female (apparently husband and wife), in a house, with wifey fretting over hubby having to go out somewhere. After he's gone, wifey discovers she's out of coffee and goes out to buy some. Then the scene switches to hubby arriving home and discovering wifey absent, whereupon he rushes to the 'phone, presumably to call the police. Then it's revealed that hubby and wifey are the Martians, but that creates a little problem, story-wise.
What's the problem, you ask. Simple! Who exactly is hubby calling? It can't be the police, as he's effectively revealing he and his wife are Martians (who like Earth coffee), and surely he wouldn't blow the gaff that he and his missus are the ones the police are searching for. Wait, I know! His 'phone is really a disguised Martian communicator and he's calling the Martian mothership for assistance. Yeah, hardly likely - and notice that hubby has four arms, whereas there's no indication from what she was wearing earlier (trust me) that wifey was similarly equipped.
It doesn't really make much sense - Stan must've had far too much to do that month to think things out properly before he began scripting the yarn. (And who made the four-armed clothes?) Any of you Crivvies got an explanation for the lack of logic in the plot, or am I just expecting too much from a 5-page back-up tale in Amazing Fantasy #15? Do tell.
15 comments:
H'm, I guess no one could quite figure out exactly what point I was making. Ah, well - you win some, you lose some.
I love those old horror/sci-fi comics from Marvel ( Atlas?). I assumed the phone was a Martian comms system designed to look like an Earth item. The clothes yep that's less easy to explain. But thea&e strips were geat fun when you were a kid
I suppose if they were on a pre-planned mission to Earth and had to have a disguise, they could have prepared the clothes in advance, McS, but the truth is the reader is deliberately led along the wrong track so that the denouement is all the more surprising. The story is from Amazing Fantasy #15, Spidey's debut issue.
Perhaps on Mars only the males have four arms.
That had already occurred to me, CJ, but I rejected it simply because 'why'? (As in why would only the males have four arms?)
Because they are aliens and aliens are supposed to be weird?
But that would mean the female Martians weren't weird, CJ. That's a bit sexist towards men.
But the female Martians ARE weird, Kid, because they don't have four arms like the males.
But that's an arbitrary distinction, CJ. Female Martians aren't weird by human standards, and that's how we're judging them. And they'd be normal by Martian standards 'cos that's just how they are. That means they're normal by both human and Martian standards. Now kindly have the courtesy to be amazed by my unassailable logic.
I'm amazed by your unassailable logic, Kid!
Good lad, I knew you would be. (Yeah, I know - you're only humouring the nutter.)
I had thought that only the males have four arms (possibly because they are the ones that go out to work on Mars - Ooooh sexist! Or maybe he had advanced Martian surgery so that he could pilot the ship better, although not in this case!) As for who he was calling - how do we know that there were only 2 occupants in the ship? There could have been 3 or more and the man was calling his Martian mate.
If there were more than two it must've been a tight squeeze in their spaceship, though you couldn't be expected to know that as I didn't show it. Maybe the men had four arms and the women had four breasts, eh? Of course, maybe the woman DID have four arms, but Steve Ditko deliberately didn't make it obvious so as not to give the game away too early.
I never encountered this particular tale before. It feels like whichever creator was responsible for the end-scene thought that part up first and then tried to write a story with that finish. Some other Lee-Ditko stories have weak endings but this one has a weak setup, maybe the weakest in all their collaborations.
It wouldn't surprise me if you were spot on with that analysis, GP. If the Martian had just been talking to himself and then started waving his four arms in despair, that might've worked better, but talking into the 'phone and asking for help reveals how contrived the plot is.
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