"Just one more twist and the universe was his!" Ugh, friggin' child-proof prison tops!

This is the second time--at least the second time--I've bought a cheap copy of this issue. I meant to blog it before, and somehow it got filed somewhere; so I'd best do this immediately: from 1976, the Twilight Zone #68, cover by Jack Sparling and George Wilson.

"The Second Will" is an out-of-body experience number: a young man keeps having vivid reoccuring dreams, culminating in a visit to his uncle, recently deceased. The uncle says it was murder, that he had been murdered by his brother and sister (or in-laws, or some combination thereof) who withheld his heart medication. Unc tells him of a secret will, and that he should make sure it's read first: when he announces where the will was hidden at the reading, his surviving aunt and uncle snatch it up to read first, but it's a bomb, killing them both. Feels like the young man might be on the hook for some kind of homicide charge there; but he comes out rich.

"A Lease on Death" is short and slight; then the cover story, "The Wide Open Spaces." In a far-flung future, Bobb Hanry Disco has a great name but little else: he's a career criminal using robots for heists, but even a slick invisibility trick comes up short and he's nicked. Growing up in a horribly overcrowded habitat, he had been willing to do anything to get out; a story the judge is not particularly sympathetic to, sentencing him to hard labor on "max-secure camp 'Mars-19.'" Bobb is determined to escape; outwitting the robot guards, using the invisibility trick again, and getting a space suit, to bust out, to...a horribly ironic twist on the title. (And one that would've been brutally hard to pull off with the effects back then!)

"Discovery" is closer to a classic episode, as young student Barbara Miles could be a scientific prodigy, if she could be bothered to care: she was young, pretty, and rich; why would she want a career in science again? But, at an evening swim, she sees another woman floundering and about to drown, and saves her: a strangely familiar woman, who seems bored even with that. The woman disappears, and later Barbara's mom asks, what beach? There wasn't a beach down there...Barbara goes again, and this time gets caught in a riptide and nearly drowns herself. She's saved by another woman: a better version of the first, a better version of her own future self. Who also disappears, but has helped Barbara to make a choice, science over idling. Not bad, but that might have been tough to film as well. ("A Lease on Death" had art by Frank Bolle; and "The Wide Open Spaces" art by Jack Sparling; but those were the only credits the GCD had.)

Also this issue: Bugs Bunny, and Hostess Fruit Pies, help "Elmer's Love Life!" Which surprisingly doesn't involve Bugs in drag. Also, "give me a tumble" is archaic now, but still sounds filthy; despite the fact I know I've seen the phrase in other comics.