The EC Archives: Weird Science—Volume 1

Comic Info

Weird Science (1) #12

Reprints Weird Science (1) #12-15 and Weird Science (2) #5-6 (November 1950-March 1951).  From alien invaders to catastrophic, post-apocalyptic worlds, the Earth is a strange place and the science of nature is weird.  The hopes and dreams of science and time travel could be a means to escape the bounds of planet…but with every advancement, science could bring us closer to doom.

Written by Al Feldstein, Gardner Fox, Harvey Kurtzman, and Bill Gaines, The EC Archives:  Weird Science—Volume 1 is a Dark Horse Comics science fiction-horror collection of the classic EC Comics series.  The collection features art by Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Jack Kamen, Harry Harrison, and Graham Ingels and also features stories and art from artists unknown to the publishers.

EC was visually something you knew as a kid.  Long since out of print when I started collecting, the EC titles were often displayed and presented in the early years of my trips to comic book stores and thrift shops.  The Dark Horse presentations of these classic comics should not be missed.

The whole make-up of the EC can kind of be intimidating and represent a lot of what happened in comics at the time.  The collection starts with Weird Science (1) #12 and that is because Weird Science took over the western comic Saddle Romances which had previously been Saddle Justice, and even before that Happy Houlihans.  The numbering then jumps to Weird Science (2) #5…which essentially is if you took the numbering from the first four issues of volume 1 and relaunched…Weird Science eventually morphed into Weird Science-Fantasy and then Incredible Science Fiction…so change continued.

Weird Science (1) #14

EC had a lot of different titles.  There were westerns and horror comics, but this one tried to be a little more science based (though they often just fell into alien horror or science horror).  As a result, this title is good, but a little disappointing on my side.  With so much great genre writing going on in the 1940s and 1950s in the sci-fi magazines and pulp magazines, I wish that EC’s Weird Science had gone for a bit more sci-fi and even fantasy than just replacing werewolves and vampires with Martians and aliens which it feels like here.  The science fiction aspect is underplayed.

Despite wishing for more science-fiction and twists and clever turns (think The Twilight Zone which obviously came after this), The EC Archives:  Weird Science—Volume 1 is still some of the best period writing of comics from the Golden (or Atomic) age of comics.  It might have stories that you can easily predict the ending to, but it is the journey and the style they are presented with that is fun.  The EC Archives:  Weird Science—Volume 1 is followed by The EC Archives:  Weird Science—Volume 2.