Ivan the Fool

Ivan the Fool ("Iwan no baka" イワンのばか) - originally titled "Secret Behind the Moon" - is a chapter of the Astro Boy manga which originally ran in Shonen magazine in February 1959.

Plot Summary
Astro Boy has found a part-time job as a steward on a space cruise ship while on school holidays. Unfortunately, the ship is taken out by a giant meteor and everybody has to escape in space lifeboats. Astro finds himself in a boat with five passengers, including a kid and a ruthless criminal. They don't have enough fuel to get back to earth, so he drives them to the moon so they can land and work out a plan.

To everybody's amazement, they discover that when day dawns on the moon, the sun's rays melt a frozen atmosphere of oxygen and plants quickly sprout up bearing delicious fruit. They are overjoyed at their good fortune and Astro decides to knock some trees down and use them to spell out a giant SOS message on the side of the moon visible to scientist's telescopes. He also discovers the wreckage of a space exploration rocket and an old antique tape recorder with a message recorded on it. The voice of Lt. Minya Mikhailov of the Soviet Union Air Force tells how she was stranded on the moon in 1965 when she crash-landed and her radio transmitter was broken beyond repair. She lived out the rest of her life on the moon with a robot named Ivan, harvesting the oxygen with a pump, digging a well for water and growing the plants for food. One day, she even discovered a mine of diamonds. They were worth nothing to herself but she gave a pair to Ivan to wear on his antenna-like ears. When she died, she instructed him to lay her to rest in a grave she had prepared for herself. When the tape ends, Ivan suddenly appears and tries to put Astro to sleep in his old friend's bed. Astro uses his jets to escape and get back to the others.

They hear that their distress signal was spotted and that a rocket is on its way to rescue them. The criminal is determined not to leave without getting his hands on some diamonds though. Pulling out a gun, he threatens to shoot the others unless Astro takes him to them. Reluctantly, Astro leads the way to Ivan with everybody following single file with their hands up. Astro says that Ivan has told him that he buried his two diamonds with his dear friend, Minya. The criminal sets himself to digging up the diamonds while Astro tells everybody they must get back for the rescue rocket's arrival. They all hold on to each other and Astro as he flies off leaving the bad man behind. He digs up the diamonds but Ivan is so delighted to have company once more that he picks him up and carries him protesting into the old wrecked rocket and forces him to go to bed while the rescue rocket blasts off without him.

Trivia

 * A sequel to this story appeared in March, 1961 as the chapter entitled, "The Hot Dog Corps".

Collected Volumes
This story has been collected in the following volumes:


 * Astro Boy, Volume 6 (Kodansha)
 * Astro Boy, Volume 4 (Dark Horse)