Marvel Comics' science fiction anthology Worlds Unknown ran eight issues, cover-dated May 1973 to August 1974. The title was one of four launched by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Roy Thomas to form a line of science fiction and horroranthologies with more thematic cohesiveness than the company's earlier attempts that decade,[1] which had included such series as Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows. Whereas those titles generally presented original stories, these new books would instead adapt genre classics and other works.
The final two issues changed direction and featured an adaptation of the contemporaneous film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), based on the screenplay by Brian Clemens and the story by Clemens and Ray Harryhausen. Titled The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: Land of the Lost, it was by writer Len Wein and penciler George Tuska.[2] Although Marvel had announced plans to follow the Sinbad adaptation with a new, original lead feature titled "Cyborg",[5] it instead cancelled the comic and ran the feature in Astonishing Tales as "Deathlok".
Five months after the title's cancellation, Marvel would revisit the idea of science fiction story adaptations with the black-and-white comics magazine Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction, which ran for six issues plus an annual from 1975 to 1976.
Critical assessment
Critic David A. Roach wrote of the series: "[T]he best issues are those featuring Gil Kane or Ralph Reese.... The first Worlds Unknown manages this with stunning Reese art on Fred Pohl's "The Day After the Day the Martians Came!" (adapted by Gerry Conway) and lyrical Kane drawings for Ed Hamilton's "He That Hath Wings", which the artist also scripted".[1]
↑"Far-Out Fanfare and Infoomation!", FOOM, November 1973, p. 18
External links
Worlds Unknown at The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators. Archived from the original June 18, 2025.
Christiansen, Jeff (March 5, 2025). "Killdozer". Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
