Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 80: Atlas/ Marvel Horror

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 65

May 1954 Part I

by Peter Enfantino

Adventures into Terror 31 

“Slave Ship” (a: Bill Benulis) ★★

“Dear Valentine!” (a: Al Hartley) ★1/2

“It Happened in the Morgue” (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

“The Suitcase!” (a: John Rosenberger) ★★★

“Crazy, Man!” (a: Dick Ayers) ★

A bloodthirsty “Slave Ship” captain puts salvaging above life-saving and that practice comes back to bite him in two when his ship goes down in shark-infested waters. There’s nothing new here, but the Bill Benulis art is dazzling and there’s an odd final panel that transforms the natural events into supernatural (see below).

Mimi is married to the old, but filthy rich, Frank Terris, but stepping out with clever con-man, Ed. The lovers decide to off Frank, so Ed takes the old man to the graveyard on Valentine’s Day, where he ventilates him. Later, that day, Mimi receives a heart-shaped box special delivery and opens it to find a human heart! Thinking this is an odd present for Ed to give her, she heads over to his apartment to find him dead, his chest a mangled mess. The ghost of Frank materializes to inform her that he really wanted to give his wife something special for Valentine’s Day. The ghost lunges (with an invisible dagger!). “Dear Valentine!” is a really dumb story, with two very cliched central characters and an obvious nod to EC’s classic “Poetic Justice.” Hilarious how Mimi recovers so quickly from her discovery of the heart in the box, as if this kind of thing happens to her all the time.

In “It Happened in the Morgue,” crooked coroner Caleb Crockett takes kickbacks from mobsters to falsify death certificates. When a gas leak leaves Crockett in a death-like state, the new coroner similarly cuts corners to save time and puts Crockett in the deep freeze. 

A career con-man finds an abandoned suitcase at the train station and takes it home. When he opens it, he’s shocked to see row upon rows of shrunken heads. More shocking is that the heads then instruct him to whip up a witch’s potion and drink it. Within minutes the thief’s head is as small as those in the case and he’s ordered to grab a knife. The next day, the case is on the street. Wild and goofy, “The Suitcase!” is just what the doctor ordered after so many bland tales of adulterous wives and vengeful copses. The finale raises lots of questions (Who owns the case? How does the thief physically cut off his own head and then get the noggin into the case? Does he have help from the little guys? Who transported the case?) that I don’t really need answers to. 

It’s too bad the final story in the final issue of Adventures Into Terror wasn’t “The Suitcase!,” but rather the mediocre “Crazy, Man!” After Colin Sentry suffers a nervous breakdown, he spends several months in “a padded cell.” Upon release, Colin finds he’s not adjusting to outside life very well and decides to go hunting with one of his pals. There, he runs into the same aliens that caused his first breakdown. Bad Ayers art and an unfocused, boring script doom “Crazy, Man!” to a fate worse than a padded cell.

Adventures into Weird Worlds 29

“The Two-Timer” (a: John Tartaglione) ★★★

“Eternal Life!” (a: Bill Savage) ★1/2

“The Locked Door” (a: Al Eadah) ★

“Bone Dry” (a: Myron Fass) ★★

“Indestructible!” (a: Hy Rosen) ★★1/2

Eddie’s a penny-pincher who won’t even give his wife the six bucks to keep the heating on. That’s because Eddie is a “Two-Timer,” stepping out with dance hall girl, Dolly, who has very expensive tastes. All of Eddie’s wages (as a cemetery caretaker) go right to Dolly’s frillies. When the tart demands a real mink coat, Eddie starts shaving even more off the wife’s budget. When the little woman protests, Eddie kills her and stages her death to make it look as though she committed suicide by gas stove. When the cops come to arrest Eddie for murder, he feigns surprise, but the real surprise comes when the officers tell him the gas company had shut the gas off for failure to pay. I’ve had enough of “husband kills wife for the other woman” stories but, I’ll tell you what, if they all had clever twists like “Two-Timer,” I’d say “bring ‘em on!” John Tartaglione’s art is fabulously sleazy; Eddie is an unshaven, obese slob and Dolly has all the right equipment in all the right places.

Mars offers the people of Earth “Eternal Life!” All we have to do is migrate to Mars (a really big planet with lots of room) and Earthlings will be granted immortality. The hitch, of course, is one that wasn’t in the fine print. The Martians are actually on their way to Earth and there’s a “shooting star” streaking towards their own planet. 

Sloppy script and sub-par Eadah art sink “The Locked Door,” a four-pager about a grave robber who accidentally locks himself into a crypt, too stupid to remember he removed the lock before he entered. The script for “Bone Dry” is a bit better but Myron Fass’s art is almost unbearable, sadly par for the course when it comes to Fass. The story goes that a tribe on a Polynesian island is dying of thirst thanks to a drought. The strong, but stupid, muscleman known as Karna discovers a stream of fresh water at the top of a mountain and uses the liquid as a way of stealing the chief’s pretty daughter away. The chief refuses and Karna is, inevitably, punished by the gods.

Professor Charles Cobart suddenly finds his hand is acting against his will, scribbling little notes that make no sense: “Find what can break plexi-thorium glass.” Well, as everyone knows, you can’t make glass out of thorium so what’s the deal? Chuck soon finds out when a swirling gust of wind leaves a big plexi-thorium glass tube in his front yard. Inside stands Cobart’s Great (x20) Grandfather from the future with a tale of utter dismal doom. In that future, humans will become prey to a species of black bug that multiplies at an alarming rate. The only solution was to go back into the past and… something. Cobart Sr. seems to indicate that he’s on the lam, not looking for a cure or any of that jazz. Problem is, nothing on Earth can crack plexi-thorium glass and… time is running out? Suddenly, a couple of the nasty critters pop up in the tube (signifying that the elder Cobart is still somehow in the future even though he’s in the past… arrrggggh, my head hurts!) and present-time Cobart heads off to find help. When he comes back with a couple of eggheads, lugging a “nuclear-vibrator,” Cobart discovers the tube is gone. Alas, the bugs are still here! “Indestructible!” has holes you could easily maneuver a battleship through but it’s got a goofy, dopey story and enough WTF? twists to remind you that this stuff isn’t supposed to be taken seriously anyway.

Journey into Unknown Worlds 27

“Somewhere Waits the Vampire!” (a: Paul Reinman) ★★★

(r: Vampire Tales #4)

“Man Alone” (a: Edmond Good) ★★1/2

“Man in the Wall!” (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

“So Long, Sam!” (a: John Rosenberger) ★★

“Who Am I?” (a: Sid Check) ★★

Herr Von Heinif has spent most of his adult life hunting and killing vampires, ever since a pack of the creatures nearly wiped out his entire family, leaving only him and his daughter, Sophia, alive. But Sophia has fallen in love with a vampire named Kraska and she’ll do anything to keep her papa from putting an end to the bloodsucker, even standing in the way of a silver-tipped arrow. But, alas, Herr Von Heinif discovers too late that Kraska has made Sophia his bride and the girl dies from silver poisoning. Though “Somewhere Waits the Vampire!” has soap opera elements, it’s a surprisingly engaging little yarn, with a sympathetic lead character and some great vampire graphics from Paul Reinman. Kraska is a white-faced, frightening monster who’ll stop at nothing to make Sophia his bride.

Space explorers Kal and Nort land on Uranus to find the remains of what once was a city, and one green-skinned, one-eyed survivor, buried in the ruins. After they dig the creature out, it explains that the city was invaded by aliens from a planet “opposite the sun.” Kal offers his new friend a ride to Earth, promising a welcoming committee, but when they get there, they discover that Earth has already fallen to the same “monster invaders.” The script for “Man Alone” isn’t much in the way of ground-breaking, and the climax is way too predictable, but the art by Edmond Good (in his only Atlas/Marvel appearance) is pleasing and perfectly suited to space opera.

Fugitive Pete Paley is minding his own business, reading a good book and hiding out from the law, when a man comes through his wall! Turns out “The Man in the Wall!” is from the future and Paley decides he should probably head into that future to escape the cops. Predictably (and I do mean predictably) it doesn’t go well for Pete. In “So Long, Sam!,” a postal worker grows tired of working so hard for little money, so he whips up a scheme to steal parcels by relabeling them to his house. The first batch of parcels he opens nets him hundreds of dollars worth of pawnable items but the final box to open was originally sent from one mobster to another. BOOM! Very funny twist ending makes up for the long, slow build-up.

Just the opposite is true of “Who Am I?” which benefits from a very intriguing build-up (a man falling through some kind of psychedelic nightmare world, without ever knowing his own identity, with an ominous bell ringing in the background) but disappoints with its unimaginative pay-off (he’s dreaming and is awakened by his alarm clock). At least we have the evocative visuals of Sid Check to gaze at throughout.

Marvel Tales 123

“The Lonely Road” (a: Bob Correa) ★★1/2

“The Vampire’s Victim” (a: Mannie Banks) ★

“George!” (a: Louis Ravielli) ★★

“Defense Witness”  ★★★

“No Way Out” (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★1/2

On the run from the law, Danny picks up a hitch-hiker along a lonely mountain road and asks where the man has been. “Mars,” the stranger answers and Danny knows he’s in for an interesting ride. An epiphany comes to the fugitive: he’ll kill the stranger and wreck the car; the cops will think the body is his. While Danny looks for a good place to park on “The Lonely Road,” the man tells him that he can take him to Mars too if he wants to go. Danny laughs and says sure just before he drives the car over a cliff. Danny rolls away from the cliff edge and then realizes that everything around him is red. The hitch-hiker was telling the truth! 

In “The Vampire’s Victim,” a man thinks he’s been bitten by a blood-sucker and is transforming into one himself. He’s not. Amateurish script and art, with a very silly reveal. After an electric shock leaves “George!” a conduit for electricity, he does what every would-be villain in the Atlas Universe does: he starts robbing banks. But when a gorgeous gal refuses to return his affection, he blasts her boyfriend and learns that his powers have been drained. George is put on trial, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death in the electric chair. These 1950s judges weren’t too bright. George is executed but shortly after he’s buried, the lights go out. Is George back? 

“Defense Witness” is a rarity in the pre-code horror titles: a good old-fashioned western horror story! Greedy Gadson will do anything to take hold of the oil-rich Indian lands and that includes murder. He shoots the judge and frames Indian warrior, Tu-Ma-Ni, but the Indian God of Justice shows up at the trial to put things right. A solid twist and some sharp artwork makes “Defense Witness” this issue’s best story. “No Way Out,” our final story this issue is no winner. A Russkie spy attempts to infect the United States with “Virus X” but only manages to spill it on himself. In the end, the dope dies of fright, unaware that the potion he spilled on himself was not potent. The Carrabotta art is extremely hard to look at.

Menace 11 

“I, The Robot” (a: John Romita) ★★1/2

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #5)

“A Fate Worse Than Death” (a: Seymour Moskowitz) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #29)

“Only a Beast” (a: Al Eadah) ★

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #30)

“My Other Body!” (a: Jack Katz) ★

(r: Vault of Evil #17)

“Locked In!” (a: Bob Powell) ★★1/2

(r: Vault of Evil #12)

A good-hearted inventor is murdered by his business manager when the egghead refuses to speed up production of his incredible new robot. Turns out there’s a flaw in the tinpot and it comes back to haunt the murderer in a very funny twist at the climax of “I, the Robot.” Matt Jordan, space traveler, crashes on Mars and searches for food and water to no avail. Luckily, he’s approached by a very ugly alien female who protects him from the elements and feeds him some Martian flapjacks (!). The only drawback is that the big snarly demon is falling hard for the space trucker and he’s not taking it well. Rather than “A Fate Worse Than Death,” Jordan downs some cyanide just before the big reveal: the alien sheds her snake-like skin and emerges as a gorgeous redhead. Matt Jordan groans his last breath and thinks about what might have been. Another big guffaw of a twist ending and Seymour Moscowitz proves that if you can’t have Basil Wolverton, a good imitation will suffice.

A bed-ridden millionaire uses mind control to force his hunchbacked nurse to kill the greedy relatives who wait for the old man to die. Alas, once the evil deeds are complete, the hunchback grows a mind of his own (and some fangs to seal the deal) and he turns tables on his master. Another very confused narrative (how has this old miser gained his hypnotic abilities?) and some sub-par graphics make “Only a Beast” another nail in the Menace coffin.

Atlas meets existentialism in “My Other Body!,” wherein a macho man lets his girlfriend talk him into looting a jewelry store and then has to contend with his conscience. All that’s missing is Brando. Very early, very sketchy Jack Katz, an artist that would get so much better with practice.

Jennifer Marlowe has become quite a success publishing her articles on reclusive millionaires; everyone loves a freak. But it turns out that Jennifer’s vocation masks a dark secret: she’s actually searching for her husband, Bill, who helped her steal a million bucks from the Crandell Family and then slaughtered the clan for good measure. When she finds him, Jennifer plugs Bill with six bullets and prepares to load her riches in the car when the ghosts of the Crandells arrive to mete out a little otherworldly justice. Jennifer and Bill are reunited… yet again. “Locked In!” is an odd package; a script that seems to be setting Jennifer up as a damsel-in-distress morphs into a vengeful ghost thriller to the reader’s benefit. 

And so ends Stan Lee’s grand experiment after a mere 11 issues and 48 stories, most written by “The Man” himself. Ignoring the final three issues (which showcased an evident downward spiral in the quality department), Menace emerges as an above-average title thanks mostly to the talents of Maneely, Heath, Romita, and Everett.

In Two Weeks!
Thrill to two bonafide classics
illustrated by Tony DiPreta!