| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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.) |
| 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). |
| 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] |