Article #68!
April
26, 2015
Getting
High with Little Green Men! (Part 2)
OR…
Space, the Final Frontier... Far Out
Man... No, Really!!! (Part 2)
So here it is, the second new entry of 2015, and the first new entry in quite a while. Continuing with the trend introduced with the last entry we will continue to explore the pros and cons of mixing space travel and illicit drug use. So far ACG has shown us that if you actually travel in outer space and meet aliens and live to tell the tale, everyone will simply assume that you're tripping balls. So for today, let's look at what happens when you're actually tripping balls while traveling in space.
For your pleasure, we turn to an anthology title from the 1960s, Forbidden Worlds #100 by ACG. It's certainly has a striking cover, with what appears to be a man hell bent on giving a dinosaur a massive hug, to the point he'd walk through walls to do so.
Is it just me, or does the dinosaur look scared out of
its mind - like the dude's about to give the biggest rape hug ever.
We'll skip over some of the set-up in our story of interest, here's just a brief rundown instead. It's your standard goofy sci-fi story. Joe Ferrari is a nobody working as a freight handler or something at a big time space agency, daydreaming of bigger and better things. There's a girl he likes and dates, but at the end of the day Joe just wants to be more than he is. He promptly sneaks into a test rocket, falls asleep (that's some nice work ethic there Joe) and gets shot into space, unknown to EVERYONE below.
Naturally, his rocket lands safe and sound on an alien world. The King of said world thinks Joe is some sort of spy sent to discern their military might and locks him up and subjects him to a truth serum. The truth serum then has a remarkable affect on Joe, making him nigh invulnerable and high as a kite (literally, that's what the author wrote, check out panel 1 of the following page), leading to the following...
Don't you hate it when, after a night of wild drinking,
you wake up with a strange, blue giant starring you down? I know I do.
Especially when the giant originally started out as flesh colored, not blue, in the previous panel.
Inexplicably, the aliens, after seeing Joe wreck their entire invasion force single handedly, let him keep the truth serum (it's the tiny, blue bottle on his hip above). Joe, being perfectly sober now, puts two and two together and gets shitfaced again, just in time to KO the giant.
As you can imagine, the King isn't thrilled by this turn of events.
Seriously, what is it with the color changing monsters?
First the dinosaur is red, then green. Then in the last panel Joe turns blue.
Is the issue's colorist drinking the same stuff as Joe?
So Joe is now spitting toxic flame (we've all been there, right fellows?) and manages to reign in the giant thunder lizard. It's at this point the King's had enough. He essentially offers Joe absolute rule of the planet, basically it's Joe's dream come true, but he declines. Instead he gets a promise that the aliens will leave Earth alone and promptly gets in his rocket and flies back to Earth.
He's just mesmerized by her ability to suck cotton candy
like some bizarre, mutant creature.
So, I guess the moral of the story is that true love conquers all as Joe realizes all he's ever wanted is waiting for him on Earth. And this being a happy ending, naturally the space agency never figures out that he was the one who launched, piloted and landed the rogue rocket. Either that, or NASA just can't afford any better security after decades of having their budget slashed.
Or maybe the true moral of this story (combined with our previous entry) is that if you're going to wind up in space, being absolutely shitfaced is a must - as being sober will get you jailed and doom the Earth. So, to all you future astronauts out there, don't be an irresponsible jerk - get DRUNK!