The Time Tunnel #1 and #2 Review: Gold Key Goes Full Temporal Mayhem!

WEPA! Now this is how you do old-school science fiction comics. The Time Tunnel #1 and #2 come flying off the spinner rack with assassins, gladiators, volcanoes, rockets, future Nazis, cavalry battles, and two scientists who cannot catch a break anywhere in recorded history. Tony Newman and Doug Phillips are trapped in time, Project Tic-Toc cannot bring them home, and every attempted rescue drops them into another hot mess. Yo, this machine has worse service than the G train at three in the morning!

Writer Paul S. Newman wastes no time getting busy. Issue #1 packs three complete adventures into one book, beginning with “The Assassins,” where Tony and Doug land in the middle of a plot against Abraham Lincoln. They know history is in danger, but they cannot run around announcing they are scientists from the future. That will get you locked up immediately, even in 1861. The story delivers conspiracy, kidnappings, escapes, secret meetings, and enough fisticuffs to keep the history lesson from feeling like homework. It is fast, clear, and entertaining, even when the dialogue gets wordier than your uncle explaining why everything was better before the internet.

Then “The Lion or the Volcano?” sends the boys to Pompeii shortly before Mount Vesuvius erupts. This is easily one of the most enjoyable stories in the pair of issues because the danger keeps escalating. Tony and Doug have to survive Roman captivity, angry officials, gladiatorial trouble, a hungry lion, and an entire city refusing to believe that the smoking mountain above them is about to wild out. The readers know what is coming. Tony and Doug know what is coming. Pompeii? Nah, everybody thinks they have plenty of time. Famous last words, fam.

Tom Gill has a lot of fun with this chapter. The Roman streets, costumes, underground chambers, animal attacks, collapsing buildings, smoke, and volcanic destruction give the book some real visual flavor. Gill’s work is not overly detailed or flashy, but it tells the story cleanly. You always know where the characters are, what danger is approaching, and which direction the action is moving. That kind of clarity matters, especially when the script is throwing dialogue boxes all over the joint.

“Mars Countdown” switches from ancient history to outer space, trapping Tony and Doug aboard an out-of-control rocket headed toward Mars. Because why survive a volcano when you can immediately go suffocate in space? This story leans harder into the scientific side of the series with failing equipment, course calculations, fuel problems, and frantic communication with Project Tic-Toc. It is not as visually explosive as Pompeii, and some of the technical dialogue slows the pace, but the tight setting creates legitimate tension. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and one wrong move turns everybody into interplanetary debris.

Issue #2 steps up with “The Conquerors,” the strongest story of the entire run. Tony and Doug land in 2068 and discover that a futuristic Nazi regime wants to send advanced weapons backward through time to destroy the Allied invasion on D-Day. These fools lost World War II and stayed bitter for more than a century. They mastered futuristic weapons and time travel, yet their grand plan is still asking history for a rematch. Take the L already!

The concept is ridiculous in exactly the right comic book way. Tony and Doug must escape, sabotage the operation, and stop missiles from reaching Normandy before history gets permanently cooked. Newman keeps the story moving through captures, escapes, explosions, firefights, and last-second saves. The Project Tic-Toc scenes work especially well here because the scientists are not just watching Tony and Doug get chased around. Their decisions directly affect whether D-Day survives. The stakes feel enormous without the story becoming confusing.

“The Captives” brings Tony and Doug into the conflict surrounding General George Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Gill delivers horses, cavalry charges, open landscapes, gunfire, escapes, and close combat with the same straightforward storytelling that carries both issues. The Western atmosphere looks good, and the story moves at a steady clip.

However, this is where the comic shows its age the hardest. The Indigenous characters are written through the broad, stereotypical lens common in 1960s Western entertainment. The Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho were nations defending their land and families, not background obstacles in somebody else’s adventure. A modern version would need far more cultural detail, historical context, and Indigenous perspective. The action remains readable, but the portrayal is dated. No tap dancing around it.

Across both issues, Newman understands that the premise works best when Tony and Doug never feel comfortable. The second they figure out where they are, something starts exploding, collapsing, launching, or trying to kill them. The pacing is quick, the threats are varied, and every story feels different. The downside is that characters sometimes explain things the artwork already made obvious. A rocket can be falling apart in six places, and somebody will still announce, “The rocket is breaking apart!” Yeah, bro. We noticed.

Gill’s art holds everything together. His likenesses of James Darren and Robert Colbert are recognizable without looking stiff. Tony and Doug run, fight, climb, panic, and get knocked around like actual adventure heroes. Gill is not trying to reinvent the comic page. He uses traditional layouts, strong establishing shots, expressive close-ups, and clear action. Nothing fancy. Nothing confusing. Just solid comic book craftsmanship.

The original colors also give these stories serious pop. Strong reds, blues, greens, yellows, and purples separate each historical period and keep the crowded panels readable. The uncredited lettering team deserves props because these books contain a whole lot of words. Captions, dialogue, sound effects, scientific explanations, historical information, you name it. The pages get busy, but they rarely become impossible to follow.

Then we have George Wilson’s painted covers. Ay, bendito! These covers are pure spinner-rack sorcery. Wilson crams history, science fiction, danger, and full temporal chaos into images that demand attention. Dinosaurs, astronauts, soldiers, futuristic weapons, terrified heroes, and the swirling Time Tunnel all fighting for space. You see those covers, and your twelve cents is already gone. No debate. Are these books dated? Of course. The dialogue gets stiff, the exposition can pile up, and “The Captives” badly needs a more responsible historical viewpoint. Tony and Doug are also straightforward heroes without much emotional complexity. They show up, assess the danger, throw hands, save history, and get launched somewhere else. That is pretty much the job description.

Still, The Time Tunnel #1 and #2 deliver the goods. Five complete adventures. Multiple historical periods. Outer space. Future warfare. No filler. No twelve-part event. No pile of tie-ins required to understand why somebody is punching a Nazi. Paul S. Newman keeps the stories moving, Tom Gill makes every era readable and exciting, and George Wilson’s covers bring that premium Gold Key heat. These two issues capture the wild imagination of the television series while offering enough action to stand on their own as comics.

History is busted. The machine is unreliable. Tony and Doug are definitely not making it home tonight.

Send them through again!

CRUSADERS SCORE:
4/5

Writer: Paul S. Newman
Artist: Tom Gill
Cover Artist: George Wilson
Interior colors and lettering: Uncredited
Publisher: Gold Key Comics

Based on the television series created and produced by Irwin Allen