I Love Atlas Comics #6: "The First Rocket!"

There was a freedom to be found in the type of stories told by Atlas Comics in the 1950s that, good or ill, you just didn't see again. Perhaps a good example of this is "The First Rocket!," a story told in Journey into Unknown Worlds#37 (1950) by one of the finest artists of the 50s, Bill Everett.

"The First Rocket!" looks to the future, to man's first landing on the moon. In 1950, this was still in the confines of science fiction. Therefore, by this story it was not until the far-off year of 1963 that man finally set out to the moon. However, our story does not begin there - it starts in 1964 as an unidentified rocket crashes on the Earth.

Surveyors of the crash are startled to find Nazi markings on the rocket. Within the wreck they find the remains of Tex Reynolds, one of the astronauts from the 1963 mission. Tex brought a diary with him and it is from this that we learn the tale. Tex relates his time in World War II and his recruitment into the space program, finally joining the crew who visit the moon.

However, something is wrong on the moon. The local Moon Men have been enslaved by humans...by NAZIS!

Far-fetched? Hey, it's not as though Hitler is alive...

I take it back. Hitler is alive! And on the moon! Yes, Hitler escaped the fall of the Nazi regime by establishing a new empire on the moon, using drugs to bend the Moon Men to his will.

This may seem ridiculous on the face of it, but even today there are certain facts about World War II that some people do not accept; Hitler's possible survival was popular with conspiracy theorists of the day, until something new came along to grab their attention.

Tex manages to escape on a Nazi rocket with his diary, but as previously related he wasn't that good at landing. Having absorbed this missive, the people of Earth react in the only reasonable fashion. BOMB THE MOON!

Yes, if you didn't believe Hitler committed suicide in his bunker then you'll certainly believe he was bombed to death on the surface of the moon.

On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first man to step upon the surface of the moon. He found no trace of Adolf Hitler.