In the year 2191, a citizen of the Brooklyn portion of a smashed
Earth named Mike Flint tools around space with Tham Thmith, his lisping
metallic snake buddy from Venus, helping a succession of pretty women out of
jams. The fifties elements—the rockets, noir-ish villains, femme fatales,
atomic science—are so fifties-ish
that they seem as though they had to be created by someone looking back on the
decade with a winking eye. The weird wit is so out there that it seems to
confirm that incorrect notion. Mike and Tham tussle with a giant lobster, join
forces with a diapered boy who rides a meteor, and blast through space in the
Empire State Building as if it were a rocket. Beyond Mars is the perfect collision of fifties nostalgia and humor
that feels unmistakably contemporary. Too dreamy.
IDW's collection is the company's standard stylish package:
hardcover, ribbon bookmark, and most important of all, analog coloring. Bruce
Canwell's sixteen-page introduction is one of the most informative addendums to
an IDW title I've read, and it is illustrated with bonus uncolored Elias splash
pages from his Harvey comics and some surprisingly tasteful covers of
Williamson's pulps (well, The Green Girl
is not particularly tasteful). This is a lovely presentation of a strip that
demands rediscovery.
