Do You Dare Enter? Part Twenty: January 1972

The DC Mystery Anthologies 1968-1976

by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook

Nick Cardy

The House of Secrets 95

"Creature..."
Story by John Albano
Art by Don Heck

"And Things That Go Bump in the Night!"
Story by Len Wein
Art by Jack Sparling and George Tuska

"The Day After Doomsday..."
Story by Len Wein
Art by Jack Sparling

"The Last Sorcerer"
Story Uncredited
Art by Bernard Bailey
(reprinted from House of Mystery #69, December 1957)

"The Phantom of the Flames!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Joe Maneely
(reprinted from House of Mystery #71, February 1958)

"The Bride of Death"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Nestor Redondo

"Creature..."

Peter: Little Johann is worrying his upscale parents with his insistence that his fantasy friend, a "Creature" named Bobo, is real so they give their friend Corey, a psychiatrist, a call. Corey comes to stay and, one night, he follows Johann out to the beach house to find that Bobo may be real after all. Here's a wacky one, a story line we've read dozens of times but with a nasty twist thrown in. It's only hinted at but Johann's father, Martin, is some kind of a scientist or doctor and has a laboratory in the basement (where Johann catches spiders for Bobo!), "fully stocked with numerous parts of the human anatomy." Johann, a very bright boy, has been stealing in to the lab and watching his father perform "anatomy transplant experiments," all in order to build his own playmate. The final panel (see below), even after some really silly expository, is very creepy and effective. But why does Bobo eat spiders?

Jack: Because flies are too hard to catch! This story is a lot of fun and Don Heck's art is just right for it. I still can't get over the visiting doctor's offhand comment: "Incidentally--your basement laboratory is fully stocked with numerous parts of the human anatomy, is it not?" As if that's a normal thing! Why would a surgeon, other than Dr Frankenstein, keep spare human body parts in the cellar? It boggles the mind.

"And Things That Go Bump in the Night!"

Peter: In "And Things That Go Bump in the Night!", Martha and Henry move into their dream house only to find that it's haunted by a poltergeist. Realizing they can't solve the problem on their own, they enlist the aid of Addison Bell of the Bell, Book, and Kandle Spirit Exterminators. Agent Bell holds a quick seance and lickety split, no more evil spirit. This is a harmless bit of fluff with a fun reveal. Jack Sparling's art goes perfectly with a story that seems torn from a 1950s DC comic.

Jack: Another fun story! The ending caught me by surprise, but it wasn't a big shock--more like what one would expect in this situation. I liked it when Henry flipped through the Yellow Pages for a Ghost Breaker. Do they still take out ads? I'd check my Yellow Pages if I knew where they were. I just Googled "Ghost Breakers" in my local area but nothing useful popped up.

"The Day After Doomsday"

Peter: "The Day After Doomsday," Adam and Gertrude sift through the wreckage looking for food and reserves. Eve stumbles upon a music box but she can't get it to work. As she walks away, it begins to play. And that's it. I have no idea why these little two pagers ran so far apart (the last one appeared in The Witching Hour #9, July 1970) nor if Len Wein had a complete story in mind when he began writing it. If the story is lacking (and what story fragment isn't lacking?), at least we find out that Jack Sparling knows his way around the female anatomy.

Jack: This again? Can it possibly be unintentional when Adam asks for "a hand with these cans" and the word balloon is right beneath Gertrude's ample bosom?

"The Last Sorcerer"

Peter: Both reprints this time out are nice little slices of nostalgia: "The Last Sorcerer" is The Great Manfrey, a magician who views his gift as a curse and can't wait to become a regular citizen sans magical powers. Bernard Bailey, who helped create The Spectre and Hourman in 1940, makes you forget that the story you're reading isn't so special even though the art is delivered in a very elementary style (the majority of pages are divvied up into six panels dominated by the central character and not much else). My favorite Golden Age artist, Joe Maneely, helps tell the story of "The Phantom of the Flames." After no-gooder Jess Hargrove saves the life of a medicine man in the jungle, the witch doctor feels indebted to Jess and gives him the power of calling up the Genie of the Flames, a creature who dwells within a cloud of smoke. Of course, Jess uses the genie for nefarious deeds but, thanks to a meddling housekeeper, the con man is left defenseless during a robbery and gets sent up the river. If I didn't know better, I would have thought this was actually taken from one of the pre-Thor Journey Into Mystery comics Joe contributed to. Pay attention to the intricate detail in Maneely's work and explain to me how he could pump these things out so fast.

"The Phantom of the Flames"

Jack: What a weird little story "The Last Sorcerer" is! Manfrey decides he has too much power and so wills it away. The end! I love Bailey but his art on "Martian Boy" (see House of Mystery this month, below) is even better. I am right there with you on Joe Maneely. I thoroughly enjoyed the story of the smoke monster! I am going to take down those magic words and try it out the next time we have a fire in the fireplace. I think that all of these war and horror comics are making it hard for me to distinguish reality from fantasy. Oh, Gertrude---!

Peter: As his life comes to an end and he wants youth and beauty again, the Marquis Luis Da Costa makes a bargain with Satan for one more century of youth and a beautiful bride. Da Costa gets his youth but, as is always the case when one makes a deal with the devil, not quite the beauty he'd hoped for. Another cliched plot line but "The Bride of Death" is served up with exquisite artwork by Nestor Redondo, who somehow found the time and patience to intricately detail each and every panel despite being saddled with an average script. In many panels, Redondo's work reminds me of that of Reed Crandall, one of EC's finest artists.

Jack: Arrgh! What a great story right up to the ending, which was a dud! The art is just gorgeous. It reminds me of Classic Comics I read when I was a kid. I'm not sure if it was Redondo or another artist like him who drew those books but they sure were great!

"The Bride of Death"

Nick Cardy

The House of Mystery 198

"Two Lives to Live!"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Mike Sekowsky and Nick Cardy

"He Adopted a Martian Boy"
Story Uncredited
Art by Bernard Bailey
(reprinted from Tales of the Unexpected #28, August 1958)

"Brief Visit"
Story and Art by Sam Glanzman

"The Day of the Demon!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Mike Sekowsky and Carl Anderson

"The Thing in the Telescope"
Story Uncredited
Art by Mort Meskin
(reprinted from House of Mystery #60, March 1957)

Peter: This is the first House of Mystery I ever bought new off the stands (and I've still got its coverless corpse around here somewhere) after dipping my toes in the water with DC Special #11: The Monsters Are Coming Here. I must not have thought too much of #198 because 16 issues would pass before I bought another one. It might have been the exorbitant price tag.

"Two Lives To Live"

Ian Lerner, famous painter and party man, can't seem to find enough time in the day for his two passions. One night he exclaims "I would sell my soul to the devil to be twins!" and faster than you can say "Two bargain with the devil stories for Jack Oleck in one month!" he has "Two Lives to Live." Ian1 goes out partying while Ian2 stays at home and paints, but Ian1 becomes jealous when the work of Ian2 draws the attention of the same critics who ignored Ian1 all these years. Could his twin actually be better than he? In an effort to see, he commands Ian2 to party all the time while he himself does the painting. Ian1 finds that the grass is always greener and decides that he doesn't want to be twins anymore but when he tries to strangle Ian2 he discovers that they are simply two of the one. If one dies, the other dies. For some silly reason (right after finding out how attached the two are), Ian1 locks Ian2 in a basement cell, marries a beautiful girl and goes on a cruise. There he dies of starvation because Ian2 was left to rot in his cell. It's too bad the climax is a "d'oh" because the build-up is actually pretty good, despite the overload on Satan Bargain Stories this month.

Jack: Nick Cardy's inks overwhelm Mike Sekowsky's pencils in most panels, though there are some real Sekowskyish close-ups of faces in a few spots. The funniest bit of dialogue comes when one twin asks the other, "'Having fun, me?'" This is not a very good story to start the issue with.

"Brief Visit"

Peter: "Brief Visit" is a four-pager beautifully drawn by Sam Glanzman but, unfortunately, also written by Sam Glanzman. It's not horrible, it's just not much in the way of a narrative and what's there doesn't make much sense. Satan decides to go up top to see what's been going on but he can't decide which of his three junior demons to leave in charge. Should it be Nilats, Itepal, or Reltih? Well, this time Reltih wins the lottery and Beelzebub takes his trip just in time to witness Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He's a pleased man. Why use anagrams for the three demons (Stalin, Pilate, and Hitler) when you could just as effectively call them by their real names? The final panel (of a mushroom cloud over Nagasaki) is chilling but the story goes nowhere. We're introduced to the three juniors but that's all. They're not an integral piece of this puzzle. Is it Glanzman's graphic representation of "Sympathy for the Devil?"

Jack: I was so happy to have used my DC Zatanna training to decode "Reltih" that I never thought to stray from the strict code of backwards names in order to decode "Itepal." The story is cliched but the art has a nice, Alex Toth-like vibe to it. Glanzman is better at drawing demons than people.

"The Day of the Demon"

Peter: Archie Goodwin taps into the Cthulhu Mythos for "The Day of the Demon," an early contender for Best Story of 1972 (yes, I know we're only one month in!). The followers of Modok, a beast who waits to be freed from his dimension into ours, have kidnapped a villager's son and are ready to serve him up to their master. They're just waiting for the right time, a sign that tells them Modok is ready. They believe the sign arrives in the form of a robed man, carrying a book of spells, who agrees to follow them to their black church and proceeds to conjure up the demon. Just as Modok is about to feast, the stranger alters his incantations and the giant red being goes up in flames. As he walks back to the village with the boy and his father, it's revealed that the stranger is a priest. Suspenseful and very adult, "The Day of the Demon" hits all the right notes. I never saw the finale coming (even after having read it 40 years ago) and though the art is sketchy and exaggerated (if I hadn't seen the credits, I'd swear this was Jerry Grandenetti), it seems to work perfectly here. The only hiccup is that giant tentacle in the middle of Modok's face. It just looks silly. That panel of the worshippers sitting in the rotted church is a classic. Three demon-themed stories in one issue and The Exorcist hadn't even been released yet!

Jack: Compare Mike Sekowsky's art here, inked by Carl Anderson, to his work on "Two Lives to Live," which is heavily inked by Nick Cardy. Sekowsky did Goodwin no favors with this one. I did not care for this story at all. I had a feeling that the mysterious stranger would turn out to be a good guy, so the big reveal that he was a priest did not surprise me. This reminded me of one of those confusing Dr. Strange stories from around 1972 with all of the Lovecraftian stuff. I just didn't think this one worked.

"He Adopted a Martian Boy"

Peter: "He Adopted a Martian Boy" indeed! But what to do afterwards? Well, you can teach him the English language in one afternoon, or watch as he freezes gorillas with the beams from his eyes, or thrill to the spectacle of the boy becoming a giant and destroying a hurricane. I prefer to just forget this one. There's not much to recommend in "The Thing in the Telescope" either. A group of thugs dig up their deceased boss's stash box, rumored to be full of priceless gems. Instead, they find a telescope and as each thug takes his turn looking into the lens, madness befalls him. Turns out the boss had known he was being two-timed and coated the focus with a fast-acting poison. Please don't ask how the boss rigged the poison and buried the box if he was on death row. It's the kind of faux supernatural melodrama that DC "excelled" at in the 50s, harmless stuff you can forget about minutes after ingesting. Which is what I've done yet again.

"The Thing in the Telescope"

Jack: I loved Bernard Bailey's art on "Martian Boy" and I enjoyed the story, though those Martians are awfully fish-faced. "Telescope" suffers once again from Mort Meskin's unfocused art. Usually I think his work looks like that of Kirby, but here he reminds me of Ditko. One thing I have not seen yet in the Meskin reprints is an individual style. "Martian Boy" is more SF than horror and "Telescope" ends up being a crime tale. The problem with the DC "horror" reprints is that DC didn't really do "horror" in the '50s.

Peter: Letter writer Ernie Saxton of Pennsylvania tells "Cain" that he thinks "the old E.C. line has influenced you and that is wonderful. Unfortunately, you are limited by the Comics Code Authority. Still, your stories are of a very high calibre. Did you ever think of experimenting with a little sci-fi/horror?" Bizarrely, "Cain" takes the opportunity to get in a dig at Warren: "If some of my stories are a bit reminiscent of the E.C. days, it could be because the editor I hired [Joe Orlando] used to work in that old MADhouse. Comics Code or no, I am limited only by the range of my ingenuity. As far as sci-fi goes, I do some occasionally. But as for horror, I wouldn't stoop to doing that CREEPY, EERIE stuff. My tales are masterpieces of macabre mystery."

Nick Cardy

Unexpected 131

"Run for Your Death!"
Story by Jack Phillips (George Kashdan)
Art by Bob Brown and Frank Giacoia

"The Beast of Bristol"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jim Mooney
(reprinted from House of Mystery #20, November 1953)

"If Time Runs Out!"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Dick Dillin and Mike Esposito

"We Cruised Into the Supernatural!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Nick Cardy
(reprinted from My Greatest Adventure #30, April 1959)

"The Upside Down World of Harry Updyke"
Story by Bill Dennehy (Murray Boltinoff)
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

This photo of Peter was taken right
after he read another issue of Unexpected.

Jack: Lance Ervin traveled from America to Paris to join the International Sportsmen's Club, little knowing that it would result in him being told to "Run for Your Death!" It seems that, rather than being welcomed as a fellow hunter, Lance is seen as prey, and he is chased all over France before an unintended avalanche on a snowy mountain buries the hunters and saves Lance. Not a bad little tale, with standard 1972 DC art by Bob Brown. I did not see the end coming, which makes it UNEXPECTED!

Peter: Here's something Unexpected: a decent story in Unexpected. I'm not sure if this variation on The Most Dangerous Game is actually any good or if it's just not as bad as the usual Unexpected tripe. It's got a nice twist in its climax.

Jack: Ian Cheevers has wanted that grandfather clock for 26 years now, ever since wealthy Mr. Cavendish outbid him for it at an auction. Now Cavendish is dead, and Cheevers enters his house to take the clock. A servant warns him that the clock is cursed and "If Time Runs Out!" and the clock stops, it's owner will die! Undaunted, Cheevers shoves the servant down a flight of stairs and absconds with the clock. Eventually, his crime is found out, and the villagers take potshots at his house with their rifles. By this time Cheevers is convinced that the curse is for real, since he nearly died a few times in a storm. UNEXPECTEDLY, the clock stops and he drops dead! I just about keeled over myself reading this one. This idea was done much better on The Twilight Zone as "Ninety Years Without Slumbering."

Spoiler alert--he dies.

Peter: It's inexplicable to me that Carl Wessler, a guy who'd been writing comic books (including a stint at EC) for thirty years, leaned back in his chair, considered this a perfectly readable story, and turned it in to editor Murray Boltinoff. Of course, having read over a dozen issues of this title, it's not Unexpected that Boltinoff happily accepted this bilge. "If Time Runs Out" has no flow, no suspense, and no real climax. Characters flit in and out with no consequence.

Jack: Poor Harry Updyke. His wife is a shrew and his boss is a jerk. He's only happy when he's dreaming of wealth or of beautiful women. He suffocates his wife with a pillow and stabs his boss with a letter opener, but when he goes home to slip back into dreamland he develops insomnia. He goes to the police to confess, thinking that clearing his conscience will let him sleep. But in "The Upside Down World of Harry Updyke," it turns out that he confessed to a crime he imagined (killing his boss) and as a result he was convicted of a crime he really committed (killing his wife). He is sentenced to death and electrocuted. This story was hard to follow but at least we had Jerry G's bizarre art to keep us entertained.

Jerry being Jerry

Peter: There's a gem of a good idea here but it seems to have gotten lost in the confusing result. Harry's blurring of his world, real and imagined, is an interesting hook on which to hang a story. Unfortunately, Murray didn't have the hammer to knock the hook in. Grandenetti, meanwhile, is Grandenetti.

Jack: Elliot Smathers is the hottest monster movie star in England, and his agent, Alex Kent, is offered $5000 to bring him to America. Unfortunately, Smathers wants no part of the U.S.A. Kent hires another actor to dress up as some of the monsters Smathers has played and make some personal appearances around London in order to scare Smathers into going to America. It seems Smathers has been having nightmares of his roles and Kent thinks this will put him over the edge. Sadly for Kent, the personal appearances go a little bit too well, and when he discovers that Smathers is really acting out the roles himself, he becomes the latest victim of "The Beast of Bristol." This is a cool story with nice 1953 art by Jim Mooney. In "We Cruised Into the Supernatural!" a group of men who pay big money for exciting adventures takes a ride with sorcerer Maki into a supernatural land filled with mythical creatures and has to hitch a ride on a flying horse and the Loch Ness Monster to get home! This sure reads like it's part of a series but I don't know what series it was. It was a fun read, in any case.

"The Beast of Bristol"

Peter: Hate to sound like the proverbial broken record, but our reprints this issue are much more enjoyable than the stuff Murray had to pay for. "The Beast of Bristol" is goofy and it doesn't make much sense (but then, what does in this title?) but it's got a manic energy to it that makes you want to read more 1950s mystery stories. Rather than the typical Scooby-Doo climax, we get one that's vague and open-ended (is Elliott really the monster or are the monsters coming to life independent of the film star?) and, thus, refreshing. Also silly fun is "We Cruised into the Supernatural," which reads like a pilot for a Challengers of the Unknown-esque series. My Greatest Adventure (which lasted for 85 issues from 1955-1964) may be a book I'd like to delve a little deeper into. As usual with Unexpected, the star of the title is the guy who picks out the reprints.

"We Cruised Into
the Supernatural!"

Nick Cardy

The Witching Hour 18

"The Worm That Turned to Terror"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"The Diggers! (or, Dig, They Must!)"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Bob Brown and Frank Giacoia

"The Face Behind the Mask"
Story by Ed Herron
Art by Jack Kirby
(reprinted from Tales of the Unexpected #13, May 1957)

"I Was a Prisoner of the Supernatural"
Story by Fran Heron
Art by Nick Cardy
(reprinted from Tales of the Unexpected #13, May 1957)

"Hypnotic Eye"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jim Aparo

"When Satan Comes A-Creeping!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by John Calnan and Vince Colletta

"The Worm That Turned to Terror"

Jack: Milquetoast Barney dreams of killing his shrewish wife Henrietta. One night, his long-lost twin brother Keith shows up with a message--get a spine! Barney joins Keith on nighttime outings, first knocking over his mother-in-law's gravestone, then vandalizing the office where he works, as he becomes "The Worm That Turned to Terror!" Finally, when Barney and Keith try to break into the safe at his office, the police arrive and cart Barney off to the hospital. His wife tells the doctor that Barney was an only child and Keith his imaginary brother. Between this and "Harry Updyke," in this month's Unexpected, Grandenetti is becoming the poet of the repressed husband.

Peter: It's fairly obvious we're going down the Fight Club path, but that familiarity may be a result of the Monday Morning Quarterback chair I sit in and we've lived through several variations on this twist already. Readers in 1972 may have been surprised at the reveal. As is the case with all of Jerry Grandenetti's work, his "talent" depends on the story he's given more than just about any other artist. Here, I think his art works just fine.

It's only a statue!

Jack: French soldier Achilles Moreau flees a doomed trench in France in 1917 moments before his comrades are blown up by mines placed by underground diggers. In the years that follow, his life is ruined by the sounds of "The Diggers," underground digging sounds that he hears whenever he is about to embark on a big change--running for mayor, getting married, signing a business deal. Desperate to solve his problem he returns to the site of his cowardice, only to be blown up by a leftover mine. This is a very interesting story! I have my doubts that Moreau's decision to flee the doomed trench was a bad one or made him a coward. To me, his action made a lot of sense. The psychological digging sounds he later hears are reminiscent of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" and the final scene, where he thinks he sees the ghosts of his comrades, is well-handled. A surprisingly good story that elevates the Brown/Giacoia art.

Peter: Bob Haney's a name that comes up quite a bit while reading for our Star-Spangled DC War portion and, much like Robert Kanigher, it's apparent that war was what Bob excelled at. In fact, we just reviewed a war story not too long ago that dealt with "diggers." This story looks like it might have been meant for one of those war titles but was gussied up a bit for The Witching Hour.

Why you should not harm kitty-kats

Jack: "Hypnotic Eye" is a one-page quickie about a duel that features the usual above-average art by Jim Aparo. "When Satan Comes A-Creeping!" features Crazy Lord Harold, who still lives in the run-down castle he inherited from his ancestors. When beautiful blonde Bedelia and her black cat Satan take shelter from a storm in his garage, he welcomes them into his home with evil intent. Bedelia turns out to be a witch and she fixes up the place, prepares a nice meal, and eventually becomes his wife. Harold takes things a step too far when he kills her cat, thinking it will take away her powers. What it takes away is her beauty, and he is stuck with a hag as a wife! I was really surprised at the quality of the Calnan/Colletta art here. Bedelia is hot stuff and when she turns ugly, she turns UGLY!

Peter: "Hypnotic Eye" is nowhere near as entertaining as the movie of the same name. "When Satan Comes..." is marred by a really dumb climax and lapses in logic (was it always Bedelia's plot to marry Lord Harold?), but almost escapes the trash bin with its nice Calnan and Colletta art.

Put the mask on now!

Jack: In "The Face Behind the Mask," wealthy Jay Hamilton falls hard for beautiful actress Zoe Ann Kerns, but when he wangles a date with her he is surprised to see that she covers her face in bandages. She later reveals it's because she's 300 years old and can only regain her youth for a short time with the help of a sorcerer's potion. When Jay's dad wants to plunk down a cool million for a supply of the potion for his own use, Zoe takes him to the sorcerer and finally admits it's all a con to get his cash. Once again, I don't see what the big deal is about Jack Kirby's art. Seems to be it's often a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. If anyone else drew this we'd be laughing at it.

"I Was a Prisoner of the Supernatural" finds actor Jasper Murdock receiving an offer from Satan to be his emissary of evil on Earth. Jasper disobeys and saves his rival for the love of a woman; all ends happily as he is lauded as a hero. Standard fare with early Cardy art that is much better than Kirby's from the same 1957 comic, if you ask me.

"I Was a Prisoner of the Supernatural"

Peter: Neither of our reprints have anything to do with witches. "Face Behind the Mask" is a so-so mainstream mystery disguising itself as fantasy with nice Kirby art. "I Was a Prisoner..." is an enjoyable little tale about a decent guy who becomes a bad guy but saves himself in the end. I thought for sure we were going to find out that Satan was all in Jasper's imagination (writer Heron introduces the Head Honcho of Hell but then ditches him midway through the yarn). Rarely do we see in these old horror stories a man go bad and then redeem himself and live a respectable life (even getting better roles!). I liked this one a lot. This and "The Beast of Bristol" prove there were a lot of good stories to be mined out of the actor who becomes identified as his characters. (A note on the story credit: though the comic itself credits Fran Heron as writer, the GCDB lists the creator as Ed Herron)