« If anything, I consider myself non-violent. I’m from the hippy era, peace, love, groovy. » — Rick James
1968 wasn’t exactly a banner year for Harry Shorten and Wally Wood‘s Tower Comics (1965-69); Wood’s flagship title, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, was down to running a mixture of reprints and inventory, and a mere two issues were cover-dated 1968. A final number, the 20th, limped onto newsstands a full year after its predecessor.
So it’s understandable that Wood started casting around for plan B. He gave Archie a try. It didn’t take… surely his fellow Tower editor and Archie refugee Samm Schwartz must have tried to warn him. Oh well.
As far as I know, this was the only story Wood drew for Archie Comics, at least in their usual humorous mode. In the ’70’s, he would provide finishes over Jack Abel‘s pencils on one story (« Devil Rider », Red Circle Sorcery no. 10, Dec. 1974) for the interesting but short-lived, Gray Morrow-directed Red Circle Comics Group, a more ‘mature’ Archie offshoot… and that’s it.
-RG
Who's Out There? 
As a Wally Wood fan, this is one of his efforts that I prefer to remember as never having been drawn let alone published.
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Ah, but it’s such a good-natured bit of fun! And it’s funnier and makes more sense than 90% of what ran in Archie’s Madhouse… not every cartoonist has the talent and sense of pacing and setup to be funny, but Woody sure did.
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Wood also wrote and illustrated “The Ultimate Power” for Archie: a 6-page fantasy story apparently intended for (but never published in) “Red Circle Sorcery.” It eventually saw print in 1979 in “Archie’s Super Hero Comic Digest Magazine” #2.
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Ah, thanks, Daryl. “We don’t *need* magic, Nimrod”… I remember that one. Boy, that Super Hero digest sure gave one tonal whiplash, between the Kirby Shield, the high camp Archie heroes of the mid-60s, and that depressingly fascistic “Death Wish” Black Hood.
“Life’s Not Like a Comic Book”, Neal? Apparently, it’s more like a bad action film. 😉
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Uh-oh! Did I say “Life’s Not Like a Comic Book” somewhere?
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You can read it here for free. But first, make sure you have your ad blocker on… it’s a bit of a dodgy site. I keep expecting The Man to take it down. 😉 https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Archie-s-Super-Hero-Special/Issue-2?id=202334
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