Zombies of the Stratosphere

Zombies of the Stratosphere was intended as the second serial featuring "new hero" Commando Cody and the third 12-chapter serial featuring the rocket-powered flying suit introduced in King of the Rocket Men . Instead, the hero is "Larry Martin", preventing Martian invaders from using a hydrogen bomb to blow Earth away from the Sun so that Mars can take its orbital place. The director was Fred C. Brannon, with screenplay by Ronald Davidson and special effects by the Lydecker brothers. The serial is remembered today mainly because Leonard Nimoy plays one of the three Martian invaders, Narab.... In 1958 a feature film called Satan's Satellites was made by re-editing footage from this serial. Mars is too far from the Sun and its ecology is dying. The Martian invaders want to swap Earth's and Mars' orbits, so Mars will be closer to the Sun and Earth can have Mars's old orbit, with a hydrogen bomb being used to blow Earth out from the Sun.
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