Man O'Mars & Woman Are Green

Fiction House was seriously kicking bottom with their Big 6 lineup of which Planet Comics handled most of their sci-fi material. One story that might have been intended for their space anthology was Man O'Mars drawn by Maurice Gutwirth of Timely and Quality Comics. This 10-page story was the only original in the one-shot comic of the same name as the rest was old Planet Comics filler. Possibly inspired by the works of Ray Bradbury, Man O'Mars starts in the far off future of 2036 where the merciless Martian commander Gurtil holds the entire city of New York for hostage, but not if the daring John Hunter has anything to say about it. The story then flashes back to fifteen years earlier where were informed by an old know-it-all from Mars named Khandor about how the Martian military tried to conquer Earth before, so he and his people of the Azurians rebelled against their oppressive armies, and trained a hundred male Earthlings to be a fighting force known as the Marsmen. Although one of these men was really the girl Renee pulling a Mulan by pretending to be a man, mostly to be with her lover John Hunter. Khandor then fast forwards back to the present day where the Marsmen have fought off Gurtil's fleet, so the evil commander sends his fetching agent Ylla out to pretend to be a defector. Hunter allows the sexy emerald mama onto his ship where she pulls a fast one and draws a gun on the Marsmen, although Hunter was smart enough to blow the green gunmoll out an airlock after she was dumb enough to tell them about Gurtil's secret weapon, a hydro-gun. Hunter is willing to sacrifice himself by running their ship into the huge cannon, but daring young cadet Jerry knocks out his captain so he can die a glorious death. With the meanies from Mars defeated, Hunter shakes off Jerry's act of chivalry to make out with his cross-dressing girlfriend. Not exactly a space opera, more like a pale space farce.