Weird Fantasy #17

In the future, a space crew stumbles through a time rift and crash-lands on a prehistoric twin Earth, where they're ambushed by ape men. After capturing three of them, they return to their own time, imprisoning the creatures for study. When one of the captives—a female—falls ill, a scientist warns that failing to return her to her time could unravel the course of human evolution. The captain refuses to risk another journey through the rift, and the decision is made to let her die. The consequences ripple through time, setting off a chain of events that rewrite the very foundation of mankind.

In "Ahead of the Game!", a string of seemingly random beheadings baffles the police until a detective uncovers a chilling pattern linking the victims to a controversial scientist. When the trail leads to a reclusive professor known for his radical work on mechanical brains, the investigation takes a terrifying turn—revealing that the killer’s next target might already be among them.

In "The Aliens," a group of extraterrestrial visitors, sent to share knowledge about atomic power, arrive to find Earth reduced to a smoldering ruin. Landing on a fragment of the planet, they stumble upon a tattered copy of Weird Fantasy #17 and begin to decipher its contents, trying to understand the fate of a civilization that once created such a strange, vivid world. As they turn the pages, the story loops back on itself—each image reflecting the next, a mirror of their own confusion and curiosity.

In "There Will Come Soft Rains...", a silent, self-sustaining house carries on its daily routines—cooking meals, reciting poetry, cleaning—long after its human inhabitants have been erased by a nuclear blast. The house, unaware of its solitude, continues its rituals, a haunting echo of a world that no longer exists.