Dinosaur Astronauts!
What an image. Goofy and awesome at the same time. In other words, typical Jack Kirby. This is from THE FANTASTIC FOUR# 10, way back in January 1963, admittedly a few years ago. This sequence comes as Dr Doom (having switched bodies with Reed Richards) is slyly trying to talk the other members of the Four into stepping into his trap.
When I first saw this page, it produced that "Whoa!" response so common in young readers of fantasy and science fiction. I thought, "Of COURSE! This all makes sense." Of course, I was also at the age where I figured our universe is just a grain of sand on some unimaginably huge macrocosmic super-universe, which itself was only a grain of sand on still another even more unimaginably huger macro- *mind blows up!* Such are the joys of a hyper young imagination.
But, looking at this now, Doom's proposal seems to have more than a few holes in it. The dinosaurs were not all giants like the usually pictured T Rex and Triceratops, many (perhaps most) were the size of chickens or pigeons. And they did not go extinct because they grew until their bodies were too big for their brains to manage.. at least, not entirely. I'm not sure that some of the big grazing herbivores weren't a bit lack in intellectual capacity. But I don't think that, if dinosaurs had stayed human-sized, they would have developed human-like intelligence. I suppose it would have been possible, but they developed in an environment very different from the one where our ancestors developed.
Increased intelligence may not have offer any noticeable advantage to make the body resources needed to nourish a bigger brain worth it.
If archaeologists ever start a dig in some previously untapped area, and if they find buried pyramids with incscriptions showing five-foot tall allosaurs whipping small stegosaurs to haul blocks of stone up, though.. well, Dr Doom will be vindicated.
When I first saw this page, it produced that "Whoa!" response so common in young readers of fantasy and science fiction. I thought, "Of COURSE! This all makes sense." Of course, I was also at the age where I figured our universe is just a grain of sand on some unimaginably huge macrocosmic super-universe, which itself was only a grain of sand on still another even more unimaginably huger macro- *mind blows up!* Such are the joys of a hyper young imagination.
But, looking at this now, Doom's proposal seems to have more than a few holes in it. The dinosaurs were not all giants like the usually pictured T Rex and Triceratops, many (perhaps most) were the size of chickens or pigeons. And they did not go extinct because they grew until their bodies were too big for their brains to manage.. at least, not entirely. I'm not sure that some of the big grazing herbivores weren't a bit lack in intellectual capacity. But I don't think that, if dinosaurs had stayed human-sized, they would have developed human-like intelligence. I suppose it would have been possible, but they developed in an environment very different from the one where our ancestors developed.
Increased intelligence may not have offer any noticeable advantage to make the body resources needed to nourish a bigger brain worth it.
If archaeologists ever start a dig in some previously untapped area, and if they find buried pyramids with incscriptions showing five-foot tall allosaurs whipping small stegosaurs to haul blocks of stone up, though.. well, Dr Doom will be vindicated.