Professor Alan, in his infinite wisdom, has taken to sending me comic book adaptations of classic literature via the #comicbookcircleoflife. The reading results have been mixed–some of those Classics Illustrated issues were a bit of a slog to get through–but a great positive result has been the growing library of comic literature adaptations in my classroom. Granted, I haven’t been in my classroom since March and even when I’m in there, I don’t have anything to display said comics, but I like having them.

Which … sounds … like … collecting … ANYWAY, THANK YOU PROFESSOR ALAN FOR SENDING THIS ONE MY WAY. SHALL WE SEE IF IT’S ANY GOOD?

I’m not familiar with the novel Food of the Gods, which is an H.G. Wells work. I’ve read The War of the Worlds and own an anthology of a few of his novels (a birthday gift from my Required Reading co-host) and remember a couple of television and movie adaptations of some of his other works, but aside from the title seeming familiar, it’s a blind spot for me.

Written by future Batman writer Doug Moench and illustrated by Sonny Trinidad, this is a science fiction cautionary tale, the tale of ambition and experiments gone horribly wrong. Two doctors discover that their separate projects, combined, could solve one another’s problems and give them both success. That success is the ability to genetically engineer giant organisms, and surmise that if used the right way, they could help feed the world and solve hunger. However, as things do, they go completely awry and the substance gets into the food supply. Pretty soon there are giant wasps, rodents, and eventually children.

It’s the children, as they age, that cause the problem, and soon there is a battle for power within society with the adolescent and adult giants being resented by the regular people of society and then being asked to go somewhere else, live there, and never reproduce. Naturally, the giants are all, “Uh, I don’t think so” and we are left with the image that they are possibly going to rampage and take over the world.

Moench is a writer I’m familiar with, like I said, because I had read his 1990s Batman and more or less enjoyed it, and around this time he was in the trenches at Marvel working on their horror books. Sonny Trinidad was a Filipino artist who did a lot of work for Marvel and they both do a great job of visualizing Wells’ novel; it’s dynamic and action packed, and the ‘Mighty Marvel Manner” through which they tell the story gets across all of the monster movie science fiction that Wells conveys.

I’ve enjoyed each of these Marvel Classics and while I’m probably the only person who would buy a trade paperback of it, I’d love to see this in trade, or at least with some remastered color (the only drawback to the book was that it could use a touch-up because of the 1970s printing process). But it’s another great one to add to my growing collection and another series that I’ll look out for in the cheap bins.

Keep, Sell, Donate, or Trash?

Keep.