The DC Mystery Line 1968-1976
by Jack Seabrook,
John Scoleri,
John Scoleri,
& Peter Enfantino
Neal Adams |
"The Haunting!"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Jerry Grandenetti
"The Dead Can Kill!"
Story by Marv Wolfman
Art by Bernie Wrightson
"Secret of the Whale's Vengeance"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jerry Grandenetti and Wally Wood
Peter: In "The Haunting," Frank and Peggy Abel find themselves wandering through the cemetery down the road from their house one night for no apparent reason. Frightened by their apparent temporary amnesia, the couple nonetheless find their way back to their estate. Once there, they discover a light showing through their attic window and enter the house timidly. Once inside, they are terrified to find a ghostly apparition walking the halls. Before long, a second spectre shows and spills the beans: it is, in fact, Frank and Peggy who are the haunts. They had died the year before and are witnessing the new tenants. Not a very original concept but Grandenetti's cartoony style perfectly fits in this instance and there's an almost Scooby Doo-ish atmosphere where we don't, for one second, expect this to end in violence. Writer Oleck seamlessly converted this to prose for the first volume of Warner's paperback collection, House of Mystery (1973).
John: I think it's pretty clear what's going on within a few panels, which makes for an uneventful slog through several pages awaiting the surprise revelation.
"The Haunting" |
Peter: Marv Wolfman's "The Dead Can Kill" is little more than a filler, albeit one with Bernie Wrightson artwork. Unfortunately, Bernie's not given much to work with here so there are no trademarked ghoulish Wrightson nightmares. In fact, there's only one panel that screams "Bernie was here!" (reprinted below). The story's just a quickie about a pair of explorers who come across a creepy apparition and discover two corpses deep in the recesses of the cavern. Was the creature the ghost of the murderer or that of one of the victims? Who knows? And, once again, Marv won't clue us in. Frustrating these uncompleted scripts.
"The Dead Can Kill" |
Jack: I think my brain is starting to go. Half the time I can't follow these stories. I get to the end, having read every word, and don't really know what's just happened. Fortunately, they have pretty pictures. By the way, can someone explain that cover to me? Is the whale's tooth a light switch on the wall?
Peter: In "Secret of the Whale's Vengeance," Jeremy and Austin Bridges, two maniacally sadistic whalers, hunt the sea more for the thrill of the kill than for monetary gain. These two really really like to kill whales (we know because Kanigher reminds us every couple of panels). One day, Jeremy picks the wrong whale to harpoon and it drags him to the bottom of the ocean where a magical ring of whales convenes and transforms him into one of their own (albeit an albino version). All this is unbeknownst to Austin, who believes his bro has been dragged to Davy Jones' Locker. That makes him really really really want to kill whales. When he finally nails one of the monsters who stole his brother, Jeremy's corpse rises to the surface. Robert Kanigher wrote brilliant war tales but he hasn't seemed, as of 1969, to get the hang of mystery. This one has that "Native American Legend" vibe to it but it's not well-told and it's confusing (why is Jeremy transformed into an albino whale? Does he know he's a whale? Is this the first time this has happened?). To add insult to injury, we get Wally Wood on inks and there's not one trace of the master showing through Jerry Grandenetti. Perhaps not the best match? I'm puzzled as to why the story is split into two chapters. A bathroom break after 6 pages? The biggest disappointment of the month in both story and art.
Jack: P-U! as we used to say in grade school. This was a real stinker. This issue seems like it was slapped together with lots of filler and some weak stories. I had to laugh when Part Two was labeled "The Searing Conclusion"! Searing conclusion my eye. This tale, like "The Haunting" that opened this issue, goes over material we've seen before in better hands.
John: I agree with my cohorts. This is a whale of a disappointment. On the bright side, this unnecessary two-parter didn't tarnish two separate issues of the book.
Gray Morrow |
"The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of"
Story by Marv Wolfman
Art by Alex Toth
"Bigger Than a Breadbox"
Story uncredited
Art by Art Saaf
"The House of Endless Years"
Story by Gerard Conway
Art by Bill Draut
Jack: Is this cover the first we've seen of Gray Morrow? If so, he's a welcome addition to the stable of DC mystery artists. I always liked Morrow's work and did not realize he had been around since the 1950s.
Peter: I love Gray Morrow. We just talked about his fabulous pencil work on the premiere of Man-Thing in Savage Tales #1 over at Marvel University. His work, for me, is right up there with Wrightson and Jeff Jones when the discussion rolls around to favorite horror artists of the 1970s.
John: That's certainly an enticing cover. Let's see if anything inside lives up to its promise!
"The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" |
"Bigger Than A Breadbox" |
John: I found this one to be the stuff bad dreams are made of—both in story AND art. Granted, I'm reading these in black and white; perhaps in color it's got some redeeming qualities.
Jack: In "Bigger Than a Bread Box," lonely old Elmira finds a metal box in the attic after her inventor brother Abner dies. She puts it out as a mailbox and begins to exchange love letters with a mysterious admirer. She thinks it's the postman but she gets the fright of her life when a scaly alien shows up at her door with a bunch of flowers. Abel informs us that the box was an "interdimensional teleporter." I think Joe Orlando realized that the story didn't make much sense and so had to do a little explaining in the frame. The art is pretty poor and the GCD credits it to Art Saaf, who had been around since the Golden Age.
Peter: I would mildly disagree with you on this one, Jack. Yeah, the ending is weak but Elmira's mailman is so creepy I naturally assumed suspicion would turn towards him as some sort of monster but the climactic panel, though cliched, actually surprised me. This actually looks like it might be a "file" story (uncredited story and art by an old-timer) and would have fit nicely in one of those early to mid-sixties DC science fiction titles that I hated so much.
John: For me, this was another instance of a WTF? ending that more than made up for the journey. I mean it's ridiculous, and completely out of left field, but for whatever reason it left me with a smile on my face (which seems to be happening less and less frequently).
"The House of Endless Years" |
Peter: Another disagreement, Jack. I thought this was a genuinely eerie tale that had me guessing right up to its downbeat ending. It has an Edgar Allan Poe vibe just bleeding off the pages. Easily the best story in any DC mystery title this month. Bill Draut's art is effective but this screams out "Draw me, Neal Adams!"
John: I actually found myself enjoying this one as well. While it might have been a better fit across town in the pages of The Witching Hour, I was particularly impressed when the old hag basically turns to dust. Sure, at the end of the day this isn't a groundbreaking piece of fiction (like "Bigger than a Bread Box"), but a solid tale nonetheless.
Nick Cardy |
"Express Train to Nowhere!"
Story by Dave Wood
Art by Art Saaf
"Steps to Disaster!"
Story uncredited
Art by Pat Boyette
"Mad to Order"
Story uncredited
Art by Murphy Anderson
"Ball of String!"
Story uncredited
Art by Bernie Wrightson
"Ashes to Ashes, Dustin to Dust?"
Story by Al Case (Murray Boltinoff)
Art by Sid Greene
"Express Train to Nowhere!" |
John: Wow. Such a promising cover, and yet they waste no time dashing your hopes with the splash page of this mess. If I want inspirational tales, I'll look outside DC's Mystery line for those...
Peter: I thought it was pretty silly and the art, in spots, is nothing more than sketches. We're never really told why these people in particular are taken on this journey of enlightenment. Does this train take a similar batch of losers every day? Who's operating the train? Saaf's art looks just as sketchy as in his previous work (way back in House of Secrets #83, above).
"Steps to Disaster!" |
John: Unlike my colleagues, this one did nothing for me.
"Ball of String!" |
John: I'm impressed you were able to find anything nice to say about the balance of the stories herein. My suggestion—ditch the Mod Witch for starters...
Nick Cardy |
"A Face in the Crowd!"
Story by Gerry Conway
Art by Mike Roy and Mike Peppe
"The Doll Man!"
Story by Marv Wolfman
Art by Jose Delbo
"Treasure Hunt"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by John Celardo and Dick Giordano
Peter: This could be the worst all-around issue we've reviewed yet. Not one of the three stories is readable, in my eyes at least. The art crew of Mikes Roy and Peppe destroys what little suspense Gerry Conway drums up in this tired tale of a concentration camp survivor who sees Bulgart, his Nazi tormentor, on the street and decides to kill him. The set-up actually works, as we get to see inside this poor soul's head, but the midsection and denouement are so poorly written, the promise quickly fades. Our protagonist imagines slapping the Nazi up against an alley wall and ventilating him, only to find it's been an illusion. He then stumbles out of the alleyway and bumps into a man on the street who also looks like his Nazi prey. But is it? Is this all in his mind or is it some kind of ironic twist that Bulgart happens to be the first guy he passes on the street after having a meltdown? I'm really getting to hate this school of "Don't give them an answer and they'll think it's cooler!" scripting. But even if the writing was on an even keel, we'd have to put up with this gadawful art. When our man confronts Bulgart (or what he thinks is Bulgart), The Mikes suddenly draw him like he's been transformed into Mr. Hyde! Bloodshot eyes and all. I'm not one to raise eyebrows at bad taste but The Mod Witch's epilogue comments that Bulgart was "a nice guy, a man after my own heart" are inappropriate in a funny book only a quarter century removed from the holocaust.
John: Didn't Rod Serling write a story like this? I didn't think Conway did anything particularly interesting with this seemingly stale piece.
"A Face in the Crowd!" |
Peter: "The Doll Man" riffs on the old "mob mentality" hook EC Comics used to hang lots of stories on (especially in Shock Suspenstories). The difference is that EC excelled at their tales. Here we have the story of Caulfield, a man who shuts himself in his boarding house room 24/7 and works on his mysterious dolls. This riles his neighbors and they light the torches and head upstairs. After the mob (which seems to grow larger each panel until, by the finale, it might just be all of New York crowded into that room) accidentally kills Caulfield, they force open his locked bedroom door and come face to face with living, demonic dolls. Why are the dolls living or demonic? Well, like quite a few of his early stories, Marv Wolfman tends to ignore important details, skipping to the really "cool twist" endings. And, when I was 9 years old, these shock finales may have worked. They don't now. At least Jose Delbo's got the stock EC crowd look down.
JS: I'd kill for a second-rate EC caliber tale right about now.
"The Doll Man!" |
Peter: The worst is saved for last. In "Treasure Hunt," a guide is hired to help an archaeologist hunt for a hidden treasure, rumored to be stashed under a waterfall somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon but the guide gets greedy and offs his customer in order to keep the booty for himself. The dead man's ghost comes back to play a game of musical waterfalls. These tales are simply too short to work up any characterizations, that's a given, but we still need a fresh plot and a genuinely surprising climax now and then.
Jack: This one wasn't even very interesting! At least it was short. In the close of the frame story, the two hags run away from Cynthia's pad, not wanting to be left alone with these "plastic horrors." Cute.
John: Okay Jack, time for you and Cynthia to get a room...
"Treasure Hunt" |
Retro-Ads!
At last, by 1969, we could live a little and have fun with the Nazis! |
Coming Next Week!
2 comments:
I have those Olek novelisations. The stories are bit adulted up and have wonderful Wrightson illustrations. Alone for that they are worth buying.
Fantastic!
Post a Comment