Where Monster's Dwell #25: Steve Ditko's "When the Earth Vanished!"

Last Tuesday the New York Times published a story, "Far-Off Planets Like the Earth Dot the Galaxy," spotlighting a Berkeley grad student's calculation, based on data from the NASA's Kepler space probe before it malfunctioned, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-like planets in the galaxy:

Astronomers reported that there could be as many as 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets in the galaxy, based on a new analysis of data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft.

One out of every five sunlike stars in the galaxy has a planet the size of Earth circling it in the Goldilocks zone — not too hot, not too cold — where surface temperatures should be compatible with liquid water, according to a herculean three-year calculation based on data from the Kepler spacecraft by Erik Petigura, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Mr. Petigura’s analysis represents a major step toward the main goal of the Kepler mission, which was to measure what fraction of sunlike stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets. Sometimes called eta-Earth, it is an important factor in the so-called Drake equation used to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in the universe. Mr. Petigura’s paper, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, puts another smiley face on a cosmos that has gotten increasingly friendly and fecund-looking over the last 20 years. 

“It seems that the universe produces plentiful real estate for life that somehow resembles life on Earth,” Mr. Petigura said.

Maybe one of those planets is home to the martial Goloks whose tale is told in Where Monsters Dwell #25.

"When the Earth Vanished!" is unattributed in the online Marvel database. It's obviously Steve Ditko's art. And it is likely a Stan Lee story. Originally appearing in the same issue of Tales of Suspense as "Electro!" (Tales of Suspense #13, January 1961), "When the Earth Vanished!" chronicles an alien invasion of earth by futuristic barbarians eager to test a super-bomb. After their rocket lands they are amazed to discover a barren, white waste. Based on observation, earth had presented itself as a blue-green gem teeming with life. Befuddled, the Goloks decide to detonate their super-bomb immediately. The heat wave of the bomb blast ends up destroying the Goloks, who, as it turns out, are of microscopic size; the barren, white waste they found themselves in, a child's ping-pong ball.

Below are a few scans taken from Where Monsters Dwell #25: