Can anyone help?

[LexusAussie]

Hi,

I'm just getting back into comic books and I'm looking for some help. As a kid I read many comic books but 3 comic book series stood out. One was Magnus Robot Fighter but the other 2 elude me completely as to their titles.

The first one was about martians that had invaded earth. They looked human but were bald and used teleportation. The comics that I recall were set in Washington DC and involved a lot of military battles. Circa would have been 1960's early 1970's.

The 2nd series was about humans exploring outer space and encountering aliens for the 1st time. Both the aliens and humans were concerned about returning home and revealing the location of their homeworlds. The called a truce and arrange an exchange of personnel. Aliens came with the humans and vice versa with each ship returning to it's homeworld. One of the aliens was named Zars or similar.

I realise this isn't much to go on but any help would be appreciated.

Dave

[MWGallaher]

On the contrary, it's a lot more to go on than some requests we see around here.
The comics you are remembering are:
M.A.R.S. Patrol: Total War (http://milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=list&title=49711248292&snumber=1)
Captain Johner and the Aliens (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2002-07-08)

[MWGallaher]

I should add that Dark Horse Comics at http://www.darkhorse.com/books/title.php has published collections of MARS Patrol and Magnus. One volume of MARS in trade paperback ($9.95) and three volumes of Magnus in hardcover ($49.95 each).

[dan bailey]

And I should add that the Gold Key collection of Aliens reprints isn't too hard to find or particularly costly, or at least it wasn't when I decided a couple of years ago that I needed a copy.

Didn't know till I read through Scott!'s linked article, though, about the Valiant reprints. Must see if they contain anything not in the Gold Key ish ...

(EDIT: Apparently so. The GCD doesn't list either ish, & info on the 'net is pretty much nonexistent, but a Google link that doesn't actually lead to the article referenced makes reference in the synopsis to a reprinting of 14 backups, whereas judging from Scott!'s summary the Gold Key includes only 8. Yet another *choke* addition to the Incredible Expanding Want List [that numbered 8 pages, not including TPBs, when I printed it out late last week].)

Depending on which Total War: MARS Patrol issues you read as a kid, Dave, the Dark Horse TPB might or might not include them. It encompasses only Wally Wood's 3-issue run, whereas by mid-1967 the art chores had passed over to someone with a far more generic Gold Key style. I'm pretty sure my own first issue would've been #8, cover-dated 11/68. (The last issue, #10, was cover-dated 8/69.) I found it intriguingly grim for those days, at least on the cusp of my 9th birthday.

Again, the non-Wood issues are quite easy & inexpensive to acquire. I see that Lone Star Comics is offering VG copies for $2.40 each, less than a copy of just about anything on the 'stands today, & on eBay they're probably cheaper than that. I sold, I think, 3 duplicates for maybe $2 sometime last year.

[LexusAussie]

Thank you all!!!