'Science is KIlling Your Love LIfe!'

Just for a change, instead of brutal Nazis torturing semi-clad buxom young women, this November 1961 Man's Action cover gives us brutal Cuban commies torturing semi-clad buxom young women.  It was a sign of the times that the 'Red Menace' was beginning to encroach on the previous monopoly Nazis had enjoyed for this sort of cover illustration.  As the sixties progressed, the location of this menace shifted from Cuba to Vietnam and China, (with occasional forays into Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe).  Indeed - assuming that this cover does illustrate the story 'The Commando Raid on Castro's Torture Fortress!' - it is interesting that, despite the story's Cuban setting, the scene has a definite Oriental feel to it, with the girl tied to a gong and the Far Eastern look of the torturers.  It might well be that this was a recycled cover, perhaps originally illustrating a similar story about Japanese tortures of young women during World War Two, but with some retouching to add the red star to one soldier's cap and the hammer and sickle in the background.  This sort of thing was quite common with pulp and men's magazines - those cover painting cost money, after all, and these publications were run on tight budgets, so opportunities to cut costs couldn't be passed over.

Otherwise, it seems to be the usual mix of adolescent male fantasies being catered to in this issue.  For once, notably, science isn't offering to increase your potency through new miracle pills, but rather is 'killing your love life'.  There's the usual World War Two heroics 'The "Battle Babies"! Combat Story of the 99th Division', along with the promise of riches: '$200,000 in Undiscovered Treasure!'  Plus the promise of sex with 'The Lustful Ladies of L'Esperance! Orgy at Prisoner's Bay'.  Ah, the allure of those sex-starved banged up bad girls, eh? Finally, let's not forget the photo feature promising readers 'The Most Beautiful Girls in the World'.  Man's Action was one of the longer lived men's magazines - it was still putting out issues until at least 1971, still using cover paintings rather than photo covers, as was becoming the norm by then.  That said, by then, the covers were using multiple recycled paintings, a couple would typically be used, reduced in size, on each cover.  The mix of stories, though, was much the same: commie torturers, juvenile delinquents, sunken treasure, wild animals and lots of sex and violence. The only difference being that the titles were more lurid as ever as the magazines struggled to attract readers.