No wonder the plot of the film Passengers with Jennifer Lawrence sounds so familiar! A similar premise was used way back when in a 1953 issue (#20, cover dated July/August 1953) of EC Comics’ Weird Science. The latter tale is now available from the Library in a recent collection of EC comic stories illustrated by the late great Al Williamson in the amusingly titled 50 Girls 50 And Other Stories Illustrated by Al Williamson.
50 Girls 50 (pages 113-119), illustrated by Williamson with assistance by the equally late great artists Frank Frazetta and Roy G. Krenkel, from a script by Al Feldstein, chronicles the plight of space traveler Sid, who’s among 50 men and 50 women selected to undertake a voyage to colonize an inhabitable planet sometime in the remote future. Problem is, that journey will take 100 years for the space colonizers to reach that planet. So Sid and his fellow travelers must be frozen in a state of suspended animation during the journey. However, it seems Sid and another crewmember, Wendy, have ideas on who should run the colony when the ship lands. Meanwhile, according to their plan, Sid awakens early and decides he wants company. And not necessarily Wendy’s company…
It’s a fun tale, with not one but two twists in the end. The Williamson/Frazatta/Krenkel art is great to look at, despite occasionally being overwhelmed by Feldstein’s prose-heavy captions and word balloons. (Was Feldstein paid by the word?) Think of it as a much darker take on Passengers.
This is just one of 34 tales drawn by Williamson. Others of note include “Homesick!” (a love triangle in space goes very wrong…), “A Sound Of Thunder” (an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic about time-traveling hunters going after dinosaurs), and the haunted house thriller “Take Care”. If you want to read good solid and well-illustrated little tales in the science fiction and horror genre, 50 Girls 50 is for you!
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