[Bill_in_fl]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

You guys talking about the 'other' storylines in the popular comic books have jarred something loose in my memory...We all remember Green Arrow and Green Lantern but does anyone else remember (from Detective Comics I think) the shape-changing alien known as the "Manhunter From Mars" or the race of super-advanced simians [gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans etc] that lived in super-cities underground and traveled in atomic powered cars through continent wide tunnels??? I don't recall the names of the two series but the storylines appeared occasionally in the 'regular' comic books...

I remember a D.C. character called the Martian Manhunter, is that who you're talking about? If I recall correctly, he had a bald head, was green all over, and as part of his costume he had two red (I think) straps that went across his chest in an X bandolero style. The Martian Manhunter was a member of the Justice League Of America and friends with Superman, Batman, WonderWoman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash and all the rest of the D.C. hero's. Things got a bit foggy though when the D.C. authors created that parallel earth thing and we got a similar but slightly different set of hero's for the parallel earth called the Justice Society Of America. I remember there was a parallel earth Flash, who wore a WW1 doughboy looking helmet with tiny wings on it (Like Hermes in Greek mythology) or were the tiny wings on his feet? I can't recall clearly, and in the parallel earth Justice Society there was a hot female called Black Canary along with Captain Midnight and lots of other super heroes from that parallel earth. I don't recall the advanced simians who lived underground and drove atomic cars though.

Does anyone remember "Magnus Robot Fighter"? He was a mortal who had incredible strength and fought robots in the future. A typical cover would show him severing a robot's head with a karate chop.

Originally Posted by sheepherder

I do remember "The Haunted Tank" series.

Yep, the ghost of civil war general Jeb Stuart, haunting/protecting the Stuart tank (named after him) and its crew. What's funny is sometimes we'd see the thin wispy figure of the ghostly general on his horse. So I guess his horse was a ghost too! Lol. If I remember correctly, I think the tank commander was a direct descendant of Gen Jeb Stuart and that's one reason his ghost haunted/protected the tank and crew and frequently warned them of danger.

Originally Posted by sheepherder

On TV, there were a couple good comedies to watch. "The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis" was great; everybody loved Maynard G. Krebs. "Our Miss Brooks" was another, Art Linkletter had a talk show; "Kukla, Fran, & Ollie"; "Wild Bill Hickock", "The Bob Cummings Show"... My favorite was "Science Fiction Theater"...There was an episode about a widow and her son living way out in the desert, no phone or electricity, and visited by a mysterious stranger with a suitcase, telling wild stories to the kid about trains running in the sky...The widow was woken up in the morning to find the stranger gone and the son playing with his electric train set which was plugged into the strangers suitcase/duplex receptacle...Cool stuff for the 50's...

I remember all of those Sheepherder, but don't remember that specific episode about the widow and son in the desert with the stranger and trains. Sounds like a good one though. I also remember the old "One Step Beyond", which was a show about eerie things and circumstances. It was hosted by a Rod Serling (Twilight Zone) type of host. I particularly remember one episode that took place in Germany during the 1930's with a group of teenagers who were flying gliders. One male German teenager was jealous of another male teenager because a girl teenager liked him better. So as the one teenager was about to take off behind the tow plane, unknown to anyone else in the group, he stabbed and killed him and closed the cockpit's top, and the tow plane took off dragging the glider and its dead teenage pilot behind it, the glider was released and never seen again. Fast forward to years later after the end of WW2, and the now much older former teenagers met at the old glider field again for a post war reunion. What happens? Of course the by now ragged old glider from years ago appears and makes a perfect landing on the field. The teenagers open the cockpit and find the skeleton of their dead former teenage comrade with the bad guys knife still stuck in his ribs. They identified the knife and then knew who killed him and then why the glider had never returned with him. Fade to eerie music and host who asks: "how did the glider get there? Was it stuck in a tree for many years and a gust of wind blew it out at just the right time to blow it to a perfect landing at their old field? Who knows what strange things happen in the realm of One Step Beyond". The manner that the host spoke in was perfectly creepy for the series. Never forgot that episode.