children to violence. A subsequent Senate subcommittee hearing led to a backlash against comics, and the publishers dropped titles in response. The financial impact spread to pulp magazines, since often a publisher would publish both. A 1955 strike by American News Corporation, the main distributor in the U.S., meant that magazines remained in warehouses and never made it to the newsstands; the unsold copies represented a significant financial blow and contributed to publishers' decisions to cancel magazines. Startling was one of the casualties. The schedule had already returned from monthly to bimonthly in 1953, and it became a quarterly in early 1954. Thrilling Wonder published its last issue in early 1955, and was then merged with Startling, as was Fantastic Story Magazine, another companion publication, but the combined magazine lasted only three more issues. Mines left the magazine at the end of 1954; he was succeeded for two issues by Theron Raines, who was followed by Herbert D. Kastle for the last two. The final issue was dated Fall 1955. Contents and reception War years From the beginning, every issue of Startling contained a complete novel, along with one or two short stories; long stories did not appear since the publisher's policy was to avoid serials. When Standard Magazines had bought Wonder Stories in 1936, they had also acquired rights to reprint the stories that had appeared in it and in its predecessor magazines, Air Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Stories, and so Startling also included a "Hall of Fame" reprint from one of these magazines in every issue. The first lead novel was The Black Flame, a revised version of "Dawn of Flame", a story by Stanley Weinbaum that had previously appeared only in an edition limited to 250 copies. There was also a tribute to Weinbaum, written by Otto Binder; Weinbaum had died in 1935 and was well regarded, so even though the story was not one of his best, it was excellent publicity for the magazine. Otto and his brother, Earl, also contributed a story, "Science Island", under their joint pseudonym Eando Binder. The "Hall of Fame" reprint was D.D. Sharp's "The Eternal Man", from 1929. Other features included a pictorial article on Albert Einstein, and a set of biographical sketches of scientists, titled "Thrills in Science". The letter column was called "The Ether Vibrates", and there was a regular fanzine review column, providing contact information so