Unusual Tales #30

A Small Matter of Time

by Joe Gill [?] and Rocco “Rocke” Mastroserio

Release: October 1961
Format: Comic Book
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: YA and Up
Content: Debatable Time Travel
Original Language: English

The title suggests that Professor Amos Shute’s intrepid travelers are going back in time to four planets that are identical in every way to our own, but then again, perhaps those four planets were merely at earlier times to begin with. We won’t say one way or another, but we are glad that the Spanish Flu pandemic, World War I, World War II, and World War III were all averted on some Earth.

— Michael Main

In what time period will you find yourselves when you land at your particular destinatoin!

DEBUT

“A Small Matter of Time,” Unusual Tales #30 (Charlton Comics, October 1961).

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 1900 to 1929: 1914 on alternate world #2 and 1918 on alternate world #3
Circa AD 1930 to 1939: 1939 on alternate world #1
Circa AD 1960 to 1969: 1963 on alternate world #4
Circa AD 1970 to 1999: 1985 on the professor’s world

Time Travel Methods

Time Ships: The spaceships may also be time ships.

Themes

Fix History!: four different events
Kill Hitler
Save the Bigwig (excluding JFK and Lincoln)!: Franz Ferdinand
Technology and Science from the Future: an influenza serem
Time Corps: If they are time travelers, then Shute’s band of heroes is certainly a kind of time corps.

Real-World Tags

Groupings

Charlton Comics (franchise)

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From Professor Amos Shute’s Earth, 1985 ⋙ to Nazi Germany on Earth #1, August 1939. Round trip. Note: Marl stopped World War II [. . .].
From Professor Amos Shute’s Earth, 1985 ⋙ to an unknown location on Earth #2, November 1918. Round trip. Note: Kasden blocked the spread of influenza [. . .].
From Professor Amos Shute’s Earth, 1985 ⋙ to Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary on Earth #3, June 1914. Round trip. Note: Shimco saved an archduke [. . .].
From Professor Amos Shute’s Earth, 1985 ⋙ to Moscow on Earth #4, 1963. Note: Here another of Professor Shute’s traveling men . . . In the year 1963 . . .