TRULY GONE&FORGOTTEN: WHAM-O GIANT COMICS PRESENTS KALEIDOSCOPE OF FEAR

Kaleidoscope of Fear
(w/a Ernie Colon)

How absolutely terrific to come across a piece of Ernie Colon art which I hadn't seen before. It's odd that, despite The Grim Ghost and Amethyst, plus a healthy portfolio of assorted adventure and horror stories which leaked from his pen, he's still most closely associated with the Harvey Comics stable. Colon's Richie Rich popped, that's for sure, but it's hard to argue that the man found his stride in other genres.

Such as sci-fi, particularly sci-fi which features dumb-as-hell space-FBI men from the future!

Young Jason Jones is testing his new radio-controlled toy airplane down by the power lines. I write that sentence hoping that the inherently unwise decision would be obvious on the face of things, but there's always gonna be some guy who says "Power lines? Listen, in my day, we played around the power lines all day and it didn't do me a lick of harm. I am magnetic and can attract metal objects from a thousand feet away at bullet-like speed, but I'm fine. And speaking of which, whatever happened to Lawn Darts? Nothing wrong with a lawn dart! I haven't seen one of those since I had my pancreas badly punctured by one. Didn't do me a lick of harm! Damn our PC culture..."

N ... no, obviously not, Jason.

Anyway, Jason drives his RC Plane right into the power lines, causing an explosion which allows the glassine and vicious Kaleids into our universe. Dedicated to the destruction of mankind, the Kaleids have come back in time to kill important human beings before they achieve their greatness. Luckily, in hot pursuit are the frankly-not-that-bright Evard and Nor, agents of the futuristic equivalent of the FBI. They have super-strength and laser guns, two things I personally would rather that the FBI did not have. What they do not have is a working time ship, since theirs crashed when it landed on our Earth. And it needs some sort of copper wire to effect repairs. OH WHOA WHERE CAN WE GET COPPER WI oh what's that Jason, you know where there's a Hobby Lobby? We're saved!

During his errand, Jason is nearly shot by a sniper. The bullet claims the life of Officer Kelly, while Jason is saved by a futuristic device loaned to him by Nor and Evard: The Time-Static Inducer! I know, it means nothing to me, either.

The "gag" was he just fired a rifle at him.

Much of the subsequent thousand panels of this strip (the Wham-O series tended for density) is spent re-writing time and space in order to save Kelly, only to find out that Kelly wasn't actually all that important in the grand scheme of things and easn't likely the Kaleids' target! Who is? Probably the only other human being in the strip, but Nor and Evard take some time before Future Googling "Jason Jones," and finding out that he was destined to be an important astronaut. I mean, not so important that Nor and Evard recognized his name, but important enough I guess ...

The last caption promises great things for young Jason. "More great days are in store for Jason Jones -- chosen by fate to play a major part in the future of the world -- and beyond!" Still waitin', Jason, put your foot on it.