| abstract | - The story told of another Earth, in the same orbit as our planet but on the opposite side of the sun, whose scientifically advanced civilization visits us in flying saucers. Comics historian Stephen Donnelly noted: The main characters of the daily strip, which began June 16, 1952, were Vana, a Terran spy living on Earth to keep tabs on our technology so the Terrans could be sure we and our war-like ways didn't pose a menace to them; and Garry Verth, an FBI agent to whom Vana revealed herself in the opening sequence. The first few months of story continuity involved a few exciting moments with Commie spies (out to get their hands on Terra's technology, of course), but mostly consisted of travelog-like views of Terran life—for example, the fact that in their liberated society, women, who constituted 92% of the population, ran things. The Sunday version began March 1 of the following year. Instead of tying in directly with the daily, or delivering a second track of story involving the same characters, this series explored a completely separate aspect of the "twin earths" scenario. It started with a young Texan named Punch sneaking aboard a Terran saucer just before it took off for home. After about three months, he was joined by Prince Torro, one of the relatively few Terran males, and the two boys continued as stars for the duration of the Sunday Twin Earths. While semi-retired, Lebeck teamed with McWilliams (who had illustrated some of Lebeck's past books and had done work for him at Dell Comics) to launch Twin Earths. It made use of the duplicate earth concept and tapped into the growing interest during the period in Flying saucers. In 1957, Lebeck retired and McWilliams assumed scripting duties for the strip. The Twin Earths Sunday strip ended December 28, 1958, while the daily strip continued until May 25, 1963.
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