Space Western Comics WILL ROT YOUR BRAINS

Every now and again, I find something so egregious in its defiance of logic, basic knowledge of physics, and the like that, well, one feels the need to share. (I already shared this one with my sister; she nearly had an aneurysm.)

So I recently read Space Western Comics, courtesy of Flashback Universe. And it was entertaining in a fairly "So Bad It's Good" kind of way. (Literal cowboys ride around in rockets, fighting Nazis and Martians and other ridiculous things.)

The "Hank Roper" story from #42, on the other hand? So bad it's... well, I'll just show you.

It starts in a relatively innocuous fashion-a black flying saucer abducts Hank Roper, The Sheriff, and their jeep.

Oh, snap, the aliens have the protagonist and his stereotypical sidekick! What now?

Possibly, they'll both die, because they're going into space, and...

...er, never mind, they've got air with them. It is not properly explained until later, but whenever any of the characters says "suction" in this story, they mean what Star Trek called a tractor beam, only with an air supply for the hapless victims. (And it still doesn't make much sense.)

So they end up on Nux (no jokes please), the black planet of the oddly dressed blue people. They open fire with their trusty revolvers, but the aliens somehow effortlessly catch the bullets. The dialogue implies it's supposed to be the planet doing this somehow.

Also note that the aliens do not in fact throw the bullets back in their faces. LAME.

So, we don't know exactly what's up with this little planet that nobody's ever heard of. How come nobody's ever seen it even though it seems to be an easy fifteen minute jaunt away from Earth, and how can it be that close without one planet or the other messing the other up?

...

...

I suppose everything's better with spinning, after all.

Moving on.

Has it occurred to you, mister alien, that your planet ought to block light from other celestial bodies, and that its presence could easily be inferred from this phenomenon, as well as the mere fact that YOU GUYS ARE SOMEHOW NOT ALL PITCH BLACK? (cough)

Moving on.

Hank Roper pretends to accede to the alien demands, giving them what they want-information on which humans should be conquered first. But he naturally pulls a fast one, pointing out a tank battalion. Guess what? The tank battalion proves pretty much unstoppable somehow once it gets there.

Eh, I'll allow it-tank guns are so much bigger than revolvers that you really can't compare them to pesky revolvers.

There's a problem, though.

...

...

...

Dang, those must be some nice tanks.

So, the aliens all escape in their flying saucers. Hank Roper, The Sheriff, the tank battalion, and even the jeep are all doomed now, right?

Not quite.

...

.........

Okay, even a five year old knows better than that. Not only is the planet radically smaller than it was, but it didn't explode. Everybody knows that planets explode when they run into each other.

Except whoever wrote this, apparently.

-Signing off.