The Marvel/Atlas
Horror Comics
Horror Comics
Part 107
June 1956 Part I
by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook
Cover by Carl Burgos
"Buried Forever" (a: Don Heck) ★★
"The Fantastic City!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★
"Waldo's Wonderland!" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★1/2
"The Missing Man" (a: John Tartaglione) ★★1/2
"Decision!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★1/2
"The Conquest of Saturn!" (a: Lou Cameron) ★1/2
I can imagine all the Atlas writers and artists sitting in the bullpen/breakroom with a giant chalkboard in front of them, Stan's words in big bold font: "Work in a time machine or a time warp!" What I did get from "Buried Forever" is that Don Heck could come up with interesting, evocative artwork when he applied himself. I'm not a fan of Heck's Iron Man work in the mid-60s but here his stuff is just fine.
Elmer hasn't had a day off in ten years so he hires young buck Andy Miller to run things for a day while he blows off some steam. The bewildered Elmer looks in awe at the skyscrapers that have popped up in the last decade and runs right into a gorgeous gal named Lucy. They end up on a sort of date at a carnival and the day is going swell for Elmer until, while the couple are riding a roller coaster, they begin to float. 
Fallon helps his future pals with their research into man-made solar energy and saves the world. He then heads back to the present where he's looked on as a quack. "Oh well," he sighs, "let them think." Yet another "time warp" fantasy where the main protagonist's vocation just happens to come in handy to the Earth of the future. More intriguing would have been if Fallon were working on a refrigerator that made ice cubes.
Detective Sam Kirby is tasked with solving the case of "Missing Persons" on the East Side. All the "victims" were seen talking to a fat man before they disappeared. Turns out the obese gentleman is from another dimension and is transporting our population through a "time flaw" over to a parallel world. Kirby is sent to the world himself but figures out how to get everyone back and the world is saved. I was hoping this might be a satiric send-up of the hard boiled genre (Kirby is dressed in a gaudy yellow trench coat) but my interest quickly dissipated thanks to the insipid script.
Ambrose manages to escape and get back to present day Parker University but he's still late for his date. Helen won't believe his cockamamie story about ancient games until she sees the olive wreath on her beau's head. Time warp stories are really starting to bring me down and this one doesn't even have a decent climax. Helen must be one of Parker Uni's poorest students since she never once thought Ambrose could easily have made an olive wreath to fend off her female rage. 1950s women!
Journey Into Unknown Worlds #46
Good Lord. The best thing about "The Specimen!" is the gorilla with the eyes that look like the ping pong ball eyes on Muppets. How many Atlas stories have suddenly ended with the brotherhood of planets agreeing that it's time for Earth to join? What the heck happened? I'd like to head to Saturn for a burger.
Bart is the last of a family of test pilots and his two brothers disappeared without a trace when they took a new plane model up for a spin. Instead of finding a new career, Bart heads up in the same model and poof! his plane disappears. "Three Were Lost!" He lands and meets his brothers; they've all passed through the time barrier into the future, where everything is peachy. A wise man asks them not to say anything when they return to 1956, since mankind needs more time to bake before folks can handle such a wonderful world. The trio return to the '50s and mum's the word.
Greedy old Ellery Kidd has been searching for the lost family treasure all his life, shirking the love of his relatives and spending every last dollar on... you guessed it!... a time machine! With the gizmo, Ellery hopes to travel back to when and where the treasure done got lost and, sure enough, he finds success.
Turns out Ellery's ancestor was Captain Kidd and Ellery witnesses the pirate's acquisition of the chest of gold doubloons. The elder Kidd buries his booty on a deserted island and Ellery makes a copy of the map. Back in the present day, our protagonist spends his last dime buying a boat big enough to haul the treasure and heads out to the little piece of land. Unfortunately for our soulless miser, the little island is marked for A-bomb testing and Ellery Kidd watches as all his dreams go up in a mushroom cloud.
Not so fine is "The Fantastic City," about an arrogant tiger hunter who happens upon a hidden city made of gold and diamonds. He begins constructing his fortune in his mind until he encounters the rulers of the city, who have no time for greedy white men. The Stallman art here looks rushed, lacking the usual pizzazz Manny can bring to a funny book strip. At least Bob McCarthy's work is easy on the eyes in "Waldo's Wonderland," an otherwise inane affair about a toymaker who invents a set of glasses that make everything more colorful (think one of those wonderful Christmas color wheels from the 1960s that used to catch the tree on fire). He inadvertently puts them on in the middle of an alien invasion. The final panel, where the aliens are frightened by Waldo and hightail it back to outer space, shows how far the quality has slipped on these scripts.
Elmer says his goodbyes and floats back to work where he fires Andy (who's fallen asleep on the job) and starts the gravity machine back up. Yes, Elmer keeps the world a' spinnin'. "The Missing Man" is a cute little strip that reminded me of the 1930s screwball comedies, with a clever finish and some really nice Tartaglione art. The final two stories, both achingly insipid, involve the planet Saturn. In "Decision," Grjg's spaceship crash-lands in the Ozarks. The only survivor, he's adopted by a hillbilly family and falls in love with beautiful Esme. After making Earth his home and settlin' down with Esme, the newly-christened George is dismayed to see a rescue ship arrive from his home planet. After a quick word, he convinces the crew that he'd rather stay and raise rugrats with Esme.
In the even dopier "The Conquest of Saturn," movie producer Sam Mosby discovers his latest epic is bringing in millions but he can't figure out from where. Turns out his biggest draw is on Saturn! I really wanted to see the extra panels where the details are spilled about the FedEx bill from shipping prints to another planet and how Saturnian bucks are traded in at the border for greenbacks. Grooooooan.-Peter
Journey Into Mystery #35
Cover by Carl Burgos
"Fallon's Folly!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2
"The Unexpected Voyagers!" (a: Lou Cameron) ★★
"Missing Persons" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★1/2
"Turn Back the Clock!" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★
"The Mysterious Mr. Peebles" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★★
"The Green Fires of Mars" (a: John Forte) ★★1/2
Professor Fallon works hard on his "Man-Made Solar Energy Machine"™ but he's become the butt of jokes around the university. His snot-nosed colleagues refer to the professor's life's work as "Fallon's Folly!" The money man at the uni is cutting off all funding to the prof, explaining that dough is hard to come by and must be allocated to "practical" research. "Bushwah!" exclaims our hero and heads out into the afternoon sun, only to find himself transported through some kind of rare time warp to a future that has no sun. Talk about coincidence!
When they are denied funding for their rocket ship to Pluto, two scientists will do anything they can to see their dream come true. So, when a skid row bum approaches them, asks to see their ship's blueprints, and then claims he'll be back the next day with a million bucks to get the project going, they shrug and go with the flow.
Sure enough, the money comes through and the strange man insists that he and a few of his friends be on board for the historic flight. Once they land, the source of instant income becomes apparent: the men are from Pluto and crash landed years before. They've been selling their hair, which is made of pure gold, to pay for their trip home. A cute and harmless fantasy with some sharp Lou Cameron art. A few years after this issue appeared, Cameron would leave comics and begin a successful career as a crime novelist.
Worse is the half-baked "Turn Back the Clock," wherein star athlete and all-around nice college kid, Ambrose McAllister, is late for his date with Helen, so he does what every male caught in a similar situation would do: he climbs to the top of the town's steeple and sets the giant clock back two hours. Suddenly, he's caught in a time vortex and sent back to ancient Greece. where he must participate in several (non-violent) sporting activities.
The world's rudest neighbors pull hurtful pranks on "The Mysterious Mr. Peebles." When the mousy Peebles doesn't get angry, the band of losers hire a magician to up the ante but their playtime is ruined when the climax reveals that Mr. Peebles is the greatest magician on Mercury. You would think it odd that Mercury is selected as planet of origin until you discover the writer responsible is Carl Wessler, the king of random. At least the art by Bob McCarthy is fetching.
The gorgeous art of John Forte is the main ingredient of "The Green Fires of Mars" but there's also a melancholy tone to the script concerning the occupants of an outpost on Mars. The men are warned to stay away from the deadly green flames but Jan is visited in his dreams by a gorgeous Martian redhead, a babe who tells him to go to the green flames. His C.O. watches helplessly as Jan walks into the fire, unaware that on the other side awaits sexual gratification. I can't help imagining a 1953 script for this story where the babalicious redhead has three rows of sharp teeth when she goes to kiss her new conquest.-Peter
Cover by Carl Burgos
"The Specimen!" (a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2
"Three Were Lost!" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★1/2
"If Worlds Collide" (a: John Forte) ★★1/2
"Rain from Nowhere!" (a: Bob Bean) ★★
"Falling Star!" (a: Kurt Schaffenberger) ★1/2
"The Giants" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) ★★
Scientists just can't figure out how to build a spaceship! Meanwhile, Norman wastes his education as an engineer by taking a job looking after animals at the zoo. One of the creatures is the first of its kind ever found and resembles a gorilla with big eyes that stare straight ahead. Norman becomes tortured by the eyes, even when he sleeps. He picks up a stray newspaper and reads about the problem with building a spaceship. When he gets home, the gorilla creature enters his house by passing through the wall, stares into his brain, and departs. Norman wakes up, quickly solves the spaceship problem, and vows to tell the scientists. The creature hops in its spaceship and takes off, sending a message that he has shown mankind the key to space travel and they will now "reach the stars and join hands across the universe."
Boy, the future sure looked rosy in 1956, didn't it? Imagine being so optimistic in the wake of the Red Scare, the Korean War, Ed Wood films, etc. Kind of makes me think we need to cheer up in 2024. It's not so bad.
A flip of the switch and ta da! The Earth starts moving closer to the sun. Months later, a grateful world gives Drummond a check for $2,000,000. The reporter who asked the dumb question never hears the end of it. And, on Mars, we see that the planet has attached a giant rubber band to a satellite that keeps it from being pulled closer to Earth by the magnetic force.
This story is truly bonkers. They must have decided to heck with it, the kids don't pay attention either way and we're probably selling ten copies of this issue, so we may as well throw everything in the pot. It starts out with the professor returning from space in his rocket ship. Never mind that in the first story in this issue, Earth scientists couldn't figure out space travel. Then Drummond comes up with his bright idea and a caption tells us that "Nobody had a better idea," so everyone pitches in the build a magnet. Or a Magneto. After a panel with Japanese stereotypes we move on to the reporter's dumb question and the Prof's snotty response. The plan works and Drummond is handed $2M! But nuttiest of all is the last panel, where we see Mars tethered to a satellite that looks like a miniature Saturn. I think it's allowing it to avoid being pulled closer to the Earth because of the magnet. Easily one of the most bizarre stories I've read.
Ted and Larry fly a cargo jet back and forth from New York to London twice a week and are getting bored when suddenly they encounter "Rain From Nowhere!" The rain is so heavy that they can't see where they're going. An hour later they land and are jailed for causing it to rain. It seems the pumps have stopped working. Larry is handy and repairs them, so he and Ted are hailed as heroes and allowed to fly home. On the way back, their plane emerges from the ocean and on its side is a banner reading "Good luck to the heroes who saved the undersea continent of Atlantis."
I admit I didn't see that one coming. But then I didn't expect to see a rubber band around Mars, either. Bob Bean's art is not bad--the first panel sure looks like a swipe from a newspaper cartoon by someone much better at drawing faces, since the rest of the panels don't measure up.
A green-skinned, pointy-eared fellow named Jklywr Ngm is dropped off by spaceship after a planetoid conference, only to realize that nothing looks familiar. He breaks down the door of a farmhouse and runs in confusion when he sees the frightened human family inside. He runs up a hill and his ride returns to take him back to space. His companions confess that they dropped him off on the wrong planet and he tells them of the weird sights he saw.
"Falling Star!" is another example of Kurt Shaffenberger's skill at cartooning. His characters all look cute and I can't see his art without thinking of Captain Marvel or the Superman Family.
Captain John scoffs at a radio broadcast from the Society for the Moderation of Space Exploration, which argues that the cherished family unit will disappear if man continues his relentless probes into the cosmos. His ship happens upon an uncharted planet and lands, only to discover that the planet is really a massive spaceship transporting "The Giants." An enormous alien picks up John and his crew in the palm of his hand and thinks that they will make a good museum exhibit.
Fortunately, John can hear their thoughts with the help of a machine, so he and his fellow crewmen blast the aliens with tiny ray guns. Thinking he's been stung, the alien drops John and his crew and the humans blast off into space as quickly as they can. Back on the giant spaceship, the aliens commend themselves for arranging the chance meeting with the humans, certain that the visitors will have a better understanding of what their space exploration will yield. On the ship, Captain John applies for membership to the Society, having had enough with discovering the wonders of space.
The story's not much, but the art by Forgione and Abel reminded me of one of Wally Wood's strips, and Wood was the master of this kind of thing, was he not?-Jack
Cover by Bill Everett
"Frozen Alive!" (a: Bob Brown) ★1/2
"The Trouble with Marcus" (a: Frank Bolle) ★
"It Happened to the Captain" (a: Jim Infantino) ★
"The Vanishing Martians" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2
"The Perilous Prize" (a: Sid Check) ★★1/2
"Voices in the Night!" (a: Bernard Bailey) ★1/2
A trio of scientists find a T-Rex "Frozen Alive!" in ice, so they start to chip away in order to release it. Once it's free and rampaging, the dimwits worry that it would destroy large cities, so they blast it with their rifles and it sinks in the Arctic waters.
What behavior did these dingbats expect from a dinosaur that somehow managed to remain alive while frozen for millennia? And how exactly would it get to the cities, anyway? The stupid scientist award goes to these three.
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| Not unlike behind the scenes at bare bones ezine, where Peter tells Jack not to slack off. |
After three years of exploring outer space, Marcus Blake tells his co-pilot Otto that he can't wait to be back on Earth and will resign from the space service. "'Once a spaceman, always a spaceman,'" says Otto. Things don't go so well on Earth for Blake, however, and "The Trouble with Marcus" is that he can't get used to the gravity, the need to wear a mask, or the way everyone stares at him. Finally, he asks to resume his career as a spaceman. Happily, Otto sent a message that he's found the perfect planet!
Another yawn-inducing Atlas story where next to nothing happens and, after four pages of humdrum art, there's an unexpectedly happy ending that doesn't make a lot of sense. This reads like page filler to me.
"It Happened to the Captain" is the worst story yet in a terrible issue of Marvel Tales. Jim Infantino was Carmine's kid brother and this story looks like he dashed it off without much care. I read a good blog post about Carmine's surprise at learning his brother briefly worked for Stan Lee.
While out looking for uranium with his Geiger counter one day, Matt Lawson witnesses a rocket ship landing and overhears the thoughts of the green-skinned creatures from Jupiter who emerge from the vessel. He steals the ship and flies to Mars, which he heard had recently been beaten in battle by Jupiter and which he assumes must be loaded with gold and diamonds taken as spoils of war. On Mars, Matt sees lots of round rocks and his Geiger counter tells him that they're loaded with uranium.
Matt brings some of the rocks back to Earth but they quickly disappear. He assumes they're stolen but, on his way to the police station to report the theft, he sees that numerous bridges and buildings have suddenly disappeared. Matt flies back to Mars, where he sees all of the missing Earth structures. It turns out that the round rocks are Martians and they inform Matt that they rebuilt their planet with the Earth buildings.
Tod Templeton is a meek young man who enters every contest but never wins. One evening while he's out fishing, a shooting star passes overhead and he finds a lottery ticket on the ground. That night, a man from Venus arrives and spirits Tod off to the second planet from the sun, where he is told that he's the lucky winner of a Ruler-for-a-Day contest. He enjoys a rocket car and a nice home before being sent back to Earth, where he is satisfied that he no longer needs to enter contests.
Sid Check provides smooth art in this simple yet effective tale.
In a San Francisco office building, Henderson whispers something to the boss, Amos Frobisher, who races for the elevator and demands to be taken at once to the fifteenth floor. Meanwhile, around the world, "Voices in the Night!" are heard coming from nowhere that prevent one close call after another. Frobisher reaches the fifteenth floor and yells at his sound engineer, who has been broadcasting the soundtrack for a TV show on the wrong frequency. You see, the lines of dialogue happen to have been heard on a ship, a plane, a truck, and a submarine and they were interpreted as orders to be followed; coincidentally, they resulted in avoiding disasters.
And so ends a terrible issue of Marvel Tales. It's not that odd that the stories are bad, but usually there is at least some half-decent art to get us through. This time, even Ditko and Baily are off their game.-Jack
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| Next Week... Has the Riddler Gone Legit? |
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