The Mighty Doc Stalwart Issue 77 (August, 1969)
When Comes... Ro the Ravager
Summary: While working in his Secret Lab, Doc captures an alien distress signal; the Nuaru cry out for help. Doc travels to their planet where he battles an alien monster and encounters Ro the Ravager. Ro is going to destroy the Nuaru home world, since the Nuaru have been polluting their own planet - the monster Doc fought was created through their carelessness. Doc makes the case that they can change, and he will help them. Ro agrees to give them one century to fix their planet; Doc helps them to set up a system to reduce pollution on their world.
First Appearances: The Nuara (alien species); Nuara War Beast; Nua (here called 'the Nuara home world); Doc's Cosmic Platform (a device that allows travel across space)
Historical Notes: The design for the Nuara was based on Lee Stanford's suggestion to Kirby Jackson that he wanted the Nuara 'to be kinda like those Army Ants guys'. Jackson, frustrated at Stanford's regular critique of his art and design, intentionally made the Nuara weak and frail, but also 'like the army ants' in their basic appearance, as a dig at his co-collaborator. This is the first of the Doc Stalwart comics to tackle some of the ecological themes that would become more frequent a decade later. Doc's Cosmic Platform would only make one more appearance before being dropped from the comic altogether. Lee Stanford later reflected that this was 'lazy writing' on his part, since the platform allowed immediate travel to any part of the galaxy, which ultimately created more plot problems than it solved.
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