Adam Strange foreshadowed Gold Key’s Magnus, Robot Fighter and echoed H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in 1961’s The Mechanical Masters of Rann.
This story from Mystery in Space 65 is something of a rarity in the sagacious spaceman’s gleamingly optimistic exploits — a cautionary tale.
This time, when Strange arrives on Rann he finds a utopia instead of a disaster. The Mechanimen, the only survivors of a nuclear war on the planet Taragal, have come to Rann to fulfill their mission of saving humanity, something they were too late to do on their own world.
The robots immediately vaporize all weapons so war becomes impossible, then set about to give the people of Rann a life of comfort, free of anxiety.
The Champion of Rann, who has a healthy skepticism of utopias, hides his raygun before holidaying with his lady love Alanna. When the couple is menaced by one of Rann’s horned tigers, the Mechanimen vaporize it.
“There was no need to be alarmed, humans!” the robots smugly reassure them. “We are always on the alert to keep you from harm!”
The Mechanimen stride about in domed, hook-handed disks mounted on long legs that inevitably call to mind the Martian invasion machines from War of the Worlds. It’s artist Carmine Infantino’s visual reference signaling that all will not be well.
“The story preaches against people relying on mechanical devices, and says that humanity should stand on its own two feet,” noted comics historian Michael E. Grost.
In 1963, that theme would become the very raison d’etre for Russ Manning’s Magnus, Robot Fighter. And it’s a theme that has even more relevance for us now than it did in the early 1960s.
“Politics aside, this is a good piece of storytelling,” Grost observed. “The tale is related to other Adam Strange tales, which are often sf mysteries, and which deal with large robots or other mechanical sf objects. These objects are often highly mobile, and move swiftly over Rann’s terrain. Sometimes these robots are from other planets; this tale’s are from Taragal, the sixth planet of Canopus. Works on these subjects include Menace of the Robot Raiders (1959), The Duel of the Two Adam Stranges (1960), World War on Earth and Rann (1963), Riddle of the Runaway Rockets (1963).”
The rigid, authoritarian Mechanimen’s comeuppance comes in the form of an invading space fleet.
Adam recalls a cache of weapons hidden during a previous exploit that Rann’s residents could use to help the Mechanimen fight the invaders, but the already-indoctrinated Alanna replies that they should report the weapons to the Mechanimen.
“No, Alanna — wait!” Strange says. “People ought to be allowed to work out their own destinies! Being protected like children isn’t good for a race! It destroys courage, initiative, resourcefulness! I say let’s get those weapons and defend ourselves with them!”
But the Mechanimen, who turn out to be telepathic, are way ahead of our avenging archaeologist. They destroy all those weapons, including Strange’s own raygun, which they knew about all along.
“Now just relax while we dispose of the invaders, who are about to launch their ‘sneak’ attack…” advise the overconfident robot overlords.
And the Mechanimen make a good job of it — until, having failed to recharge, they and their weapons run out of power. Rann is left helpless against the invading space fleet, but a bluff and a ruse by the spaceman retrieves the situation, as usual.
“With this story, the Adam Strange series becomes more than just adventure fiction,” observed author Mike W. Barr in The Silver Age Sci-Fi Companion. “However obvious the threat mission of the Mechanimen presents to free will, in 1961 such philosophizing was by no means a staple of comic book science fiction. But (writer Gardner) Fox and (editor Julius) Schwartz liked the occasional morality tale, and didn’t mind requiring their readers to think.”
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