Unearthly Adventure Comics #251 - Red Knight Over Port Henry

With a cover-date of February 1958 and on newsstands in December of 1957, Unearthly Adventure Comics #251 is regarded as that title's first Silver Age entry. Generally considered to have been written in reaction to the recent Sputnik space launch, it featured exciting new characters such as a robot space probe and an atomic man. As a reminder to the mystical tales it was best known for in the 30s and 40s it also featured a mystical sorceress and an immortal descendant of Greek Titans.




Cast of Characters

  • Robert Builder/The Atomizer - Reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, nuclear man granted powers by Trinity nuclear test.
  • Susan Samiel - Widowed reporter for the Port Henry Times-Herald, sorceress. Specializes in binding magic.
  • Heiro Silver Wave/The Cardiff Giant - immortal child of a Delaware Indians and Greek Titan. Able to grow in size and drain energy.
  • US-Polaris 1 - Robot space probe invented by Jack Parsons. Altered by aliens and now possessing telekinetic abilities. 

Capsule Summary

Our heroes had recently met each other - Builder and Samiel both being reporters at the Times-Herald, Silver Wave being a collector of oddities had found his way to US-Polaris 1 (in hiding from the government), and the reporters had had previous contact with Heiro. One evening in December of 1957 they were meeting in one of Silver Wave's houses when they heard reports of a crisis at the nuclear power plant, in the final phases of being made ready for being brought online.

Investigating, they discovered plant workers, security, and police had been forced out of the plant by experimental robots. Though Port Henry had not seen costumed heroes since the days of the [misnamed] Asgard Invasion led by America's first superhero, Thor,  and the unmasking of Captain Eternity as a Communist sympathizer, Port Henry again needed heroes.

Making their way into the power plant they discovered the robots had been taken over by a Communist superagent known as "The Red Knight", a nuclear man much like the Atomizer though with a finer control of his powers, able to harness radio waves to control the robots. The Red Knight had set the reactor to go critical. Though the explosion would not be of the city-leveling kind, it would render Port Henry uninhabitable for decades and likely kill thousands, if not millions. Working their way through the robots (throwing many down an obligatory bottomless shaft) they were able to take the Red Knight prisoner and restore the cooling rods to the reactor, saving the city!

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