Comic: "Worlds Unknown #6"
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Gerry Conway
Artist: Dick Ayers

Reviewer: Max Burbank
Posted: 9/14/2008

Plot: Tom Jaeger and his crew of rugged construction workers arrive on an uninhabited island with a good deal of heavy earth moving equipment, hell bent on building some big modern thing we never find out about for people we never hear about. None of that’s important, because millions of years ago, on this very island, a brutal war took place between human beings and sentient robots! Soon after the crew demolishes an ancient temple, robot ghosts posses a huge D-7 Bulldozer, which goes on a two mile an hour killing spree until the resourceful Jaeger… short circuits it, or something. It’s hard to tell because reading the first three quarters of this comic book induces a stroke.

Review: Like the cover? Too bad, nothing even remotely like that happens in the book. Killdozer doesn’t have fangs, or eyes, and it can’t talk. What a rip-off! Also, the cleavage heavy damsel in distress on the cover is the only time you see a woman in the whole damn man on machine sausage fest of a comic.

For collectors of comic oddities, this book is well worth owning. Note, I said owning, not reading. You’d think a comic book about a possessed bulldozer out for human flesh might be stupid, but could hardly be boring. You’d be wrong. This is a comic book to ponder the existence of, not read.

If it were one fiftieth as interesting as it’s pedigree it would be about five times as good as it is. It’s based on a very nearly unwatchable made-for-TV movie of the same title starring a pre-‘Spencer for Hire’ Robert Urich (The poor man’s Jonathan Frakes) that finished behind that evening’s episode of “Love American Style”.

The TV movie is an adaptation of a Science fiction pulp story of the same name, written by Sci-fi Grandmaster Theodore Sturgeon. In addition to penning the classic novel “More than Human”, Sturgeon wrote the screenplays for Star Trek episodes “Shore Leave” and “Amok Time”, the only episode of the original series featuring Spock hurling a bowl of soup at Nurse Chapel. He also wrote lots and lots of great short stories. Killdozer was not one of them. It was the only thing Sturgeon wrote in a terrible four year period of depression and writer’s block, and let me be the very first to theorize wildly that it was not so much a story as a slam at the bizarre religious beliefs of fellow Science Fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. I have nothing to base that on, but you have to admit, the whole possession by long dead sentient robot souls sounds a lot like some of the central beliefs of Scientology. Did Sturgeon and Hubbard even know each other? I have not one damn clue and I refuse to do any research on the matter, as having just thought this up and my gut (full as it is of thick, rich cough syrup) tells me it is true.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)