Into the Archives: Matthew Looney and the Invasion of Earth

 

Matthew Looney and the Invasion of Earth, by Jerome Beatty Jr. Illustrations by Gahan Wilson. (Avon/Camelot 1965; this 4^th Printing 1972)

“The Moon People realize there is life on Earth because the Earth has bombed the Moon! The expeditionary force sent to invade Earth is successful this time in finding living creatures. Terrified by what they interpret as water bullets hurled at them from the sky, the spacemen flee in such haste that they leave Matthew behind. So, to Matthew alone belongs the glory of finally meeting the EARTH people and bringing a dangerous specimen back to the Moon.” – from the back of the book. ‘Matthew Looney combines the ingenuity of Buck Rogers with the charm of Charlie Brown.’ – The New York Times.

          A piece of space junk (a probe?) crashes on the Moon just as Matthew Looney, now a Spaceman First Class, is prepared for a second journey to Earth with his space-hero Uncle Lucky. They are to be joined by Hector Hornblower, Matthew’s frenemy and rival, who will be Cabin Boy this time. Not exactly evil, but he's proud and envious, sort of the Eddie Haskell of outer space.  The sudden ‘attack’ on the Moon indicates that there is far more advanced life on Earth than they knew.

This changes their mission: it becomes first, to make contact and secure a peace treaty and second, failing that, to use powerful ‘Lava-Four’ bombs to destroy the Earth. The ship is refitted for the new mission.

They have traced the trajectory of the ‘bomb’ to Florida, so they head there accordingly. This place is unfortunately surrounded and soaked with the theoretically deadly substance ‘water’. They land, and when Matthew and his Uncle separate to do some scouting, they encounter flamingos and alligators, which are taken to be possible Earthlings. A sudden rain is interpreted as an attack, and in the commotion to return to the ship and escape, Matthew (partly through the malice of Hector) is left behind. There is not enough fuel to land and take off again, so Uncle Lucky and crew are reluctantly forced to return to the Moon and leave Matthew stranded.

Things look pretty bad when Matthew is captured by Wiley Kalmuck, a grumpy security official at Cape Canaveral, who locks him up as a childish prankster on government property. But Dr. Leonard O. Davinchy is soon convinced of his story when Matthew demonstrates some of his high tech, melting his prison door with a ray gun and using his anti-gravity device to float up to the ceiling.

It is decided that, with the help of this device, they will secretly speed up their own proposed launch to the Moon and return Matthew home. Matthew only agrees after the government has signed a non-aggression pact with the Moon. He, Kalmuck, and Davinchy blast off.

Once there, however, Kalmuck reveals that the treaty has been secretly altered and is not worth the paper it is written on. The Earth ship is equipped with a nuclear warhead which he threatens to use if the Moon does not surrender. But, not being used to the lighter gravity, he accidentally launches himself upward, and is soon subdued.

Davinchy, being a much more peaceable man (how old is this trope of the gung-ho war hawk as opposed to the reasonable scientist?) agrees to return to the Earth to procure a proper treaty with all the nations of the Earth, as opposed to being Lava-Four bombed into oblivion.  

To Matthew’s delight, as it is a three-man rocket, Hector is shanghaied into being the third ‘man’ and is soon winging his way unwillingly back to Earth. And here the book ends.

Well, that settles that point: I have no memory of this volume, so Journey is the only Matthew Looney book I ever read. This copy of Invasion is much smaller than the reprint of Journey and is in pretty good shape for a 52-year-old paperback kid’s book. I am enjoying this trip to an Alternate Childhood, and can hardly wait to get the next in the series, Matthew Looney in the Outback (put a shrimp on the barbie!); after that I can finally read Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates (‘you know, pirates … but in space!’) which I’ve had for years.