PLANET X

Official Name: "Planet X"

Nature: Alternate reality (Reality-60751) extraterrestrial planet, unidentified star system, unidentified galaxy

Environment: Life-sustaining biosphere

Gravity: Earth-like (or close enough that Karson did not comment on it when he was on the planet)

Atmosphere: Presumably Earth-like (mostly nitrogen and oxygen, as Karson did not have any helmet or breathing equipment; he could have taken some sort of chemical or used unseen equipment, but nothing was mentioned)

Natural Satellites: None seen

Artificial Satellites: None seen (they did not appear to use technology, and so such satellites are unlikely)

Natives: Giant arthropods

Population: Unrevealed (thousands were seen in a small region, so likely millions or billions on the planet)

Capital City: None known

Government: Presumably some sort of hive-like mentality.

Languages: Unrevealed; presumably some hive-mind-type communication +/- using pheromones

Monetary Unit: Unrevealed;
    presumably inapplicable

Planetary Defense: The natives are deadly and virtually indestructible

Major Resources: Unrevealed (beyond the natives themselves)

Places of Interest: None specified

Prominent Residents: None beyond the natives

Visitors: Ted Karson of Earth

First Appearance: Tales to Astonish I#10 (July, 1960)

History:
(Tales to Astonish I#10 - BTS) - Ted Karson, the first human to be sent into space (see comments), departed the Milky Way Galaxy, and arrived on a world he called "Planet X" in the 10th month of his voyage.

(Tales to Astonish I#10) - Karson considered the scenery to be both breath-taking and frightening, and then he heard some weird rumbling sounds that he soon found was coming from gigantic spider-like creatures. He could feel the hatred and the savageness of the creatures, and he estimated there to be thousands of the creatures. Karson fled back to his ship intending to flee, but he found that small but rapidly-growing forms of the creatures were already on the ship.

(Tales to Astonish I#10 - BTS) - Departing "Planet X," Karson progressively appreciated the danger of its natives and ultimately sacrificed his own life to prevent the creatures on his ship from reaching Earth after sending a message warning

Comments: Created by Steve Ditko and an unidentified writer.

    As Ted Karson is first human being sent into outer space, that doesn't fit with NASA or anything. Outer space is just the space outside Earth's atmosphere, but it is possible that they were referring to the space outside Earth's solar system, and Karson refers to going outside Earth's galaxy. This seemed to be a future story (with common science limits with sci-fi based on the dates the stories were written).
    While dates are not given, this does not seem to be compatible with Earth-616 history.

    I started this profile out for Planet X because the race is not named, but then after finishing it and realizing there was only a couple panels on that world, I decided to do a profile on the race, too...

    Ted Karson and his ship, as well as Earth-60751 can get their own profiles at some point. If someone wants to do those, I would strongly encourage separate profiles, rather than just adding sub-profiles on characters not from Planet X to a profile on Planet X.

Earth-10530 Astronaut Ted Karson brought giant spider-creatures of “Planet X” back to Earth. Tales to Astonish #10 (1960)

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Planet X of Reality-60751 has no known connections to:

• PLANET X (Groot, King Groot) - Home of the Flora Colossi--Tales to Astonish #13
• PLANET X (Googam, Goom, Shivoor) Home of flying people with enlarged craniums--Tales of Suspense I#15
  
• PLANET X - see XANTH (home of the Xantha)--Fantastic Four I#7
• PLANET X of Reality-5953 (Thing from Planet X) - plants have telepathic power, replicate rapidly, and generate toxic gases. sought to conquer and destroy other life--Tales of Suspense I#3
• PLANET X of Reality-54561 - opposite side of Sol from Earth, virtually identical to Earth and inhabited by humans, gravity of two worlds caused each world's moon to approach each world; Earth was destroyed first--Uncanny Tales I#20
• PLANET X of Reality-59356  - Mastered by plants who release "neural scent" to enslave humanoids to care for them.--Tales of Suspense I#2
• PLANET X of Reality-59433 - circa 2165 A.D, large and hairy Creature from Planet X put in zoo on Earth--Strange Worlds#3
• PLANET X-41 of Reality-60188 - plant-like lizards, grow from flowers--Journey into Mystery I#56
• PLANET X of Reality-????- only source of Illudium Phosdex, "the shaving cream atom"--Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century (1953)
• COUNTER-EARTH of the High Evolutionary - near duplicate of Earth created by High Evolutionary, kept opposite orbit of Earth, stolen by Sphinxor for Beyonders, who placed it in a cosmic museum, possibly destroyed by Thanos--Marvel Premiere#1
• COUNTER EARTH of Franklin Richards - created as pocket universe by Franklin Richards to save heroes from Onslaught, converted into true planet by Ashema and the other Celestials, placed on opposite side of the sun as Earth-616--[Onslaught: Marvel Universe], Fantastic Four II#1
• COUNTER-EARTH of Reality-???? - mirror-duplicate of Earth present 180 degrees opposite Earth around the sun; visited circa 2069 by NASA astronaut Col. Glenn Ross and EUROSEC astrophysicist Dr. John Kane--Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (aka Doppelganger; Universal Pictures; 1969)
  
• other "Planet" or "X" worlds, etc...
  

images: (without ads)
Tales to Astonish I#10/4, story page 2, panel 2 (environment);
             panel 4 (arthropods)

Appearances:
Tales to Astonish I#10/4 (July, 1960) "Something Lurks Inside" - unidentified writer, Steve Ditko (artist)

First posted: 09/27/2023
Last updated: 09/28/2023

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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