Jack Kirby's Original Flying Chair

Before Jack Kirby created the star-hopping Metron in his intergalactic chair, the King of Comics made a similar seat for Alarming Tales in 1957. Harvey Comics' mixed bag of science fiction and near screwball comedy anthology was like a less-eerie Twilight Zone to which Donnegan's Daffy Chair fits in just right, especially from the eye-catching cover art of a schmuck on flying furniture. Timothy Donnegan is an Irish janitor cleaning in a patent office briefly asked to watch over a new fangled invention an impatient scientist left while he went to go to spend a penny. The Irishman thinks the gizmo looks like an ordinary office chair when he sits in it to activate a retractable switchboard along with a pair of sci-fi specs. Donnegan hits the launch button and he's on a rocket-powered rocker soaring through the busy city skyline. This gets the attention of the air force as Donnegan flies by one of their top guns even though they ignore it as its too foolish to follow up on. Donnegan's recliner then goes into hyperspace as it soars into the inky void leaving most of the world thinking that he is now deceased. Five years later he returns in the middle of downtown where a cop asks him why he is holding up traffic only to be answered in alien gobbledygook. While exploring strange new worlds Donnegan had to learn different languages since his hi-tech high chair didn't come equipped with a universal translator. A perfectly stupid tale for the Silver Age showcases Kirby's phenomenal talent and how it would influence his future works in a sprawling space opera.