Super Science Stories Sept 1950 — Star Beast & Cracking Planet Cover
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Super Science Stories Sept 1950 — Star Beast & Cracking Planet Cover

This cover hilariously predicted that future space explorers would operate glowing control panels while wearing fashionable red jumpsuits — partially correct, since ISS crew do wear jumpsuits, though considerably less glamorous. A blonde woman in a crimson space suit aims a weapon while her helmeted male companion hunches over a dashboard of dials and buttons, both dwarfed by a massive cracked and lava-veined alien planetoid looming behind them — pure Atomic Age space opera rendered in vivid gouache drama.

Category: Magazine Cover
Source: Internet Archive
Era: Atomic Age (1945-1963)
Decade: 1950s
Country: United States
Coolness: 8/10

This is classic space opera pulp — a glamorous heroine with a weapon, a brooding male technician, and a cosmically threatening alien world filling the frame with lurid menace. The Poul Anderson and Fredric Brown bylines anchor it firmly in mid-century commercial SF at its most entertainingly overwrought.

Text in image:

25¢ SUPER SCIENCE STORIES READ IT TODAY — LIVE IT TOMORROW! A NOVEL OF TOMORROW'S DESTINY THE STAR BEAST by POUL ANDERSON KRIS NEVILLE NEIL R. JONES MANY OTHERS THE UNDYING ONES by FREDRIC BROWN SEPT. P [Popular Publications logo]

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