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"I leave you with my Pandora's Box, gentlemen! Ha ha ha!" Morelian, a descendent of Merlin, gestures and fades from view - the perfect host. "I don't like the way he laughed," says Prof. Rocky returns, "He gave it to us straight. This won't be a picnic!" The guys map a battle plan. Ace figures, "One or all of these chambers might hold something unearthly - deadly!" Prof agrees. "We may release some sort of plague. This job must be done in an isolated spot. I suggest we treat this like an atom bomb test. We'll choose an atoll in the Pacific Ocean - and then let 'er rip!" (That's twice the A-bomb has been mentioned. Is this the 1950s or what?) |
The Challs pull together equipment and rent a charter plane. And they're off! Ace pilots. The guys "never heard of this Aku Island." Ace "flew across it during the Korean fracas." According to Ace, it's north of the Bikini Atoll, so about here:  Bikini, of course, is where they tested the atom bomb. "In the blue vastness of the Pacific, Aku Island is but a tiny dot. However, it seems big enough for 'Project X.'" |
Rocky "can't wait to get at that box." Ace holds up four straws of grass. Rocky says, "I'll pick it! I feel lucky today!" They make him pick last, but "I get first crack at the box!" Ace insists on protective equipment. "If one of us uses up his borrowed time, the others have a chance to take over!" A fence of steel plates goes up. In the center of the arena goes the box. "Only the sound of the sea can be heard as Rocky approaches what could be - his doom!" "Well, here goes nothing -" |
"Rocky studies the chambers for a split-second. Then he moves swiftly, cat-like," and yanks open a chamber.  "Shades of Uncle Zeke's chicken roost! It's a giant egg!" |
An egg with an inscription in Ancient Greek. Prof puzzles out, "Dragon's Seed!" Red, of all people, asks, like "the old legend of Cadmus? The guy who planted a field of seeds and grew a crop of fighting men?" (And how do you inscribe an egg anyway?) Ace advises, "Let's not jump to conclusions... Take the rest of the day off." Prof will work on the inscription. Rocky could "use some chow." |
That night, while the Challs sack in a tent, the egg begins to hatch. (So they really don't whale on it with a sledge hammer, as seen on the cover.) Come morning... "It's hatched! Whatever was inside - is gone!" Prof solved the inscription: Born of Poseidon, (Note that, in keeping with the Greek inscription, the giant wears a Greek helmet.) |
Especially when they find, "Giant footprints - with three toes!"  "Great day in the morning!" |
A giant red hand from the ocean "seizes Red in its mighty grasp!" "Jumping Jupiter! Look at that thing!" The Dragon Seed Giant calmly studies Red a while, then walks off with him - despite Rocky blasting it with a bazooka shell. Ace and Prof jump in the plane to pursue. Rocky gets left behind. "Why me?" Because "someone's go to guard the box. You're best fitted for the job." Meanwhile, in the shipping lanes, a Navy ship sails in the path of the striding giant. The skipper yells, "Abandon ship!" The crew takes to boats just in time. "The giant is a mindless, mischievous thing." It shoves the ship aside and keeps going. |
Ace and Prof catch up, buzzing around the giant like a gnat.  |
Prof peppers the giant with machine gun fire.  "He's roaring like a salvo of sixteen-inch guns!" The giant drops Red, who gets picked up by a lifeboat. "Do you realize what will happen if he reaches the mainland?" Prof groans. "The cities! The people! That giant must be stopped!" |
Meanwhile, on Aku Island... "Rocky has a problem of his own - how to stay away from the box!" Feeling reckless, he tosses caution to the wind. "Why not? I really didn't get my chance at the first chamber!" "As one menace roams unchecked across the face of the planet, Pandora's Box is about to yield another, an even stranger creature from the unknown, completely alien and dangerous!" |
Pull a lever and crash into Chapter 3! |
Comments The Challengers open one chamber and get more than they can handle. Despite their precautions, a stone giant threatens the population, and so far nothing stops it. And Rocky's ready to spring another menace, with three chambers to go! |
For another dose of education, the Public Service Announcement reminds real books are cool too. This is Buzzy's page, he being DC's answer to Archie. The quiz asks, "In what story did a cabin boy become captain of a large schooner after a mutiny?" and "What little girl drew a picture of a horse on the schoolroom floor?"  The answers are TREASURE ISLAND and PIPPI LONGSTOCKING. Other books cited are THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, THE BLACK STALLION, and LITTLE WOMEN. |
And Moolah the Mystic visits. This is just the punch line, but the cartoon takes up a full page. Imagine filling a full page with fluff in a modern comic?  |