ISSUE SIX: INTER-GALACTIC: THE ULTIMATE TRIP

Colored by George Roussos

     The attacking aliens contact Harvey’s ship, but the earthmen can’t decipher the language.  It is obvious, though, that the alien leader is making a demand of some sort.  With his love of comic book adventure going full out, Harvey is sure that the aliens want the princess, and that they trailed her here by fixing on her capsule.

     As the aliens fire on the earth ship again, Harvey gets in the capsule with the princess and launches them both into space to draw the attackers away from his shipmates.

     Once in space, the princess outruns the violent beings on her trail using a star drive that takes her and Harvey out of the galaxy to what the earthman believes is a fort.  Before the princess can land the ship, though, the aliens catch up with them and shoot the craft down.  Using a gun the princess shoves into his hand, Harvey guns down the attackers and carries his alien charge into the fort, which actually contains a matter transfer device.  The princess motions for Harvey to join her as she steps into the device and teleports away.  But the enemy has regrouped and destroys the building and is teleporter with Harvey inside.

     The aliens leave with Harvey’s battered body in the building’s wreckage, but a monolith appears, transports Harvey into a dream world where he is the superhero Captain Cosmic.

     Sagging into a chair, Harvey/Captain Cosmic ages rapidly and, through the power of the monolith, is transformed into yet another New Seed that “gazes enigmatically from its radiant pod.  There is deep wisdom in its eyes—and the forming of vital decisions.  When they are made, it will be gone…”

     Thus ends the existence of Harvey Norton in a story that really is a bit childish compared to what the series has offered before.  One gets the feeling that Kirby was really reaching for this one, perhaps wondering where to take the book now, how to get someone to the point of resurrection as a “New Seed”.  The next, natural question, though, is “What then?”  The next issue gave at least a partial answer and returned, albeit briefly, to the promise of those first few stories.