Data courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under Creative Commons license.

Issue Details

Issue #78
Published March 1962
Frequency monthly
Cover Price 0.12 USD
Pages 36
Editing Stan Lee
Notes Distributed to newstands January 2, 1962 (according to Joseph Marek's Marvel Comics Group history website and December 21, 1961 according to Bob Bailey. This issue includes 10 pages of paid advertisements.

Cover Details - "The Sorcerer!"

Characters Lucy Scott; Aaron
Genre occult
Pencils Jack Kirby
Inks Dick Ayers
Notes Inking credit added by Nick Caputo via the GCD Errors list, December 2008.

7 page story "Kragoom! The Creature Who Caught an Astronaut!"

Characters Kraggoom; Derek Wolfington
Synopsis An exiled gaseous alien criminal named Kragoom waits in Earth orbit for the first human astronaut in order to enter his body and possess his mind, returning to Earth as a conqueror. However, the first astronaut turns out to be a wealthy cheat who paid a safecracker to obtain the test results from NASA's selection process and altered them so that he would be chosen as the first astronaut. He is unable to cope with space travel and develops amnesia under the stress. Kragoom, trapped in the human's mind, suffers the same fate as the spacecraft returns to Earth.
Genre science fiction
Script Larry Lieber ? (script); Stan Lee ? (plot)
Pencils Jack Kirby
Inks Steve Ditko
Notes Script added by Bob Bailey, 12 August 2005 (Per Sandell ed.)
Reprinted in Monsters on the Prowl (Marvel, 1971 series) #9 (February 1971)

2 page text story "Time Machine"

Synopsis A man's fascination with history leads him to build a time machine and travel to the past, but when he sees the dangers of time travel he destroys the machine and blueprints.
Genre science fiction
Letters typeset
Notes Text story with illustration. Sequence added by Bob Bailey, 12 August 2005 (Per Sandell ed.)
Reprinted from Mystic (Marvel, 1951 series) #57 (March 1957)

6 page story "The Sorceror"

Characters Lucy Scott; Aaron
Synopsis A stranger appears at a gas station and asks for a job. He has mysterious powers, and is eventually attacked by supernatural beings. They agree to leave him alone, but only if he gives up his powers.
Genre occult
Script Stan Lee ? (plot); Larry Lieber ? (script)
Pencils Jack Kirby
Inks Dick Ayers
Notes Job number from Tom Lammers and Ger Apeldoorn via the Atlas/Timely discussion group. Script and inks added by Bob Bailey, 12 August 2005 (Per Sandell ed.)

5 page story "The Clutching Hand"

Characters Charlie; Mike
Synopsis The producers of an oddities exhibit strike it rich when a suspended hand appears in their booth. The more honest one discovers that the hand is part of a stranded extra-dimensional being and frees it, enraging his crooked partner, who takes the profits and leaves, leaving his partner to collect a reward in gold from the being.
Genre science fiction
Script Stan Lee ? (plot); Larry Lieber ? (script)
Pencils Joe Sinnott
Inks Joe Sinnott
Notes Script added by Bob Bailey, 12 August 2005 (Per Sandell ed.). The last page includes an advertisements for the Fantastic Four (Marvel, 1961 series).

5 page story "Monsters on Mercury!"

Characters Ben
Synopsis On Christmas eve, the first group of astronauts to land on Mercury encounter a group of friendly telepathic aliens who make them a Christmas tree.
Genre science fiction
Script Stan Lee (signed)
Pencils Steve Ditko (signed)
Inks Steve Ditko (signed)
Notes This book came around Christmas 1961 and this is science fiction Christmas story. (Bob Bailey, 12 August 2005). The last page includes an advertisement for Amazing Adult Fantasy (Marvel, 1961 series), also by Lee and Ditko.
Reprinted in Fantasy Masterpieces (Marvel, 1966 series) #7 (February 1967); in Crazy Magazine (Marvel, 1973 series) #79 (October 1981) [as "Mistake on Mercury!", new dialogue and lettering]