Annual Publication
The Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Giant Size Special Issue #1, cover-dated simply 1976, contained the original stories "Journey's End", by writer Bruce Jones and artist Alex Niño; "The Forest for the Trees", by Jones and artist Vicente Alcazar; "Preservation of the Species", by Jones and the mononyn credit "Redondo" (either Virgilio Redondo or his brother and frequent Marvel contributor Nestor Redondo is uncertain); "Clete", by writer-artist Jones; "Sinner", by writer-artist Archie Goodwin, reprinted from witzend #1 (July 1966); and "Threads", by Mat Warrick and Gonzales. Glut and Yandoc adapted Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey". Don Newton painted the cover. The annual also featured an interview with Theodore Sturgeon, and a reprint, from Worlds Unknown #4, of Conway and John Buscema's adaptation of Fredric Brown's "Arena".
Historian Arndt believes "Threads", credited to writer Mat Warrick, "may actually be by Mal Warrick, a fanzine & science fiction writer of the time." A writer named Mat Warwick published comic-book SF in this mid-1970s timeframe in Star Reach. Additionally, "Threads" was reprinted in the Marvel UK title Star Wars Weekly #3 (Feb. 1978), credited under yet another variant of the name, Matt Warrick.
Editor Roy Thomas, in an editorial on page 4, dated September 1976, wrote that the series "didn't quite succeed in selling the magic number of copies needed to sustain it. No, it didn't lose money ... it didn't make quite enough profit to allow it to be continued. ... Still, in the meantime we had enough material on hand for two or three issues, counting a couple of finished scripts, as yet unillustrated, plus a couple of stories already totally completed. So, after many conferences ... I received the go-ahead to put out a giant one-shot special."
A column on page 95 of the special explains that that story "Man-Gods", planned for this issue and promoted on Marvel Bullpen Bulletins pages and elsewhere, had become lost by the U.S. Postal Service. The story, with art by Niño, is unrelated to "Man-God", an adaptation of Philip Wylie's Übermensch novel Gladiator, by Thomas and Tony DeZuniga, that appeared in the Marvel/Curtis magazine Marvel Preview #9 (Winter 1976). However, a 37-page story titled "Man-Gods from Beyond the Stars", by co-plotter Thomas, writer Doug Moench and artist Niño, had by this time seen print in Marvel Preview #1 (1975). The column stated that the replacement for "Man-Gods" was the four-page Goodwin story and the 15-page "Arena" reprint.
Read more about this topic: Unknown Worlds Of Science Fiction, Publication History
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