Mysteries of Unexplained Worlds #36

 

I got this on a whim, since the cover had dinosaurs and one other prehistoric animal on it.  It was published in June of 1963, so I can forgive the cover artist for the animals.  What I really can't forgive are the rather pedestrian stories inside.  The art is serviceable.  I mean, it is a Charlton book, so one has to expect that.  The stories are all by Joe Gill (more than likely) and the artists were Dick Giordano, Charles Nicholas, Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio and possibly someone else.  Not all the stories were signed.  Charlton was obviously trying to emulate DC and Marvel's genre mags, but failing to get either the twists of a Marvel story, or the fun of the DC books.  These things just happen.Sadly, the cover story is the most disappointing.  A man is about to give up his marriage because he loves hunting so much.  He can't stop reliving his memories.  Then he sees a Tyrannosaurus rex, which fades from sight.  He suddenly finds himself back in time, and sees a Dimetrodon limbatus.  He somehow manages to kill the T rex, then an innocent Triceratops horridus before fading back to his own time.  He is done with hunting and his wife is happy.

There is a lot more to unpack in that story than I bet Joe Gill ever intended, though I would like it if he did it on purpose.  The fin backed beast on the cover is an Edaphosaurus pogonias, which was a plant eater.  Both the Edaphosaurus and the Dimetrodon were synapsids, and not dinosaurs.  They also existed long before dinosaurs.  Still, the Dimetrodon is a striking animal and often included in prehistoric play sets, so most laymen think of it as a dinosaur.