Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 123: Atlas/Marvel Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 108

June 1956 Part II

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Mystery Tales #42

Cover by Sol Brodsky

"The Darkroom" (a: John Forte) ★

"The Captive" (a: Jerry Robinson) ★1/2

"The Man who Was Nowhere!" (a: Jack Abel) ★

"The Trap!" (a: Bob Bean) ★1/2

"We Claim This Planet!" 

(a: Lou Morales & Christopher Rule) ★

"The Hidden One!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★★1/2

Donald Short is an amateur photographer and, as we zoom into his darkroom one evening, we overhear him whining out loud about his wife. If only she would be like other wives and adopt an interest in his hobby. "Oh well," moans the big baby, "might as well get these photos developed." Just then, an Atlas lightning bolt zigzags its way in through the window of Donny's darkroom and zaps the tray of developing liquid. The shot Don had taken, of soldiers marching in a parade, comes to life!

Experimenting, Don discovers that he can blow up the photos and enlarge the uniformed men. As a bonus, the soldiers seem to ignore the fact that Don is a big sissy who mewls about girls who won't play in his sandbox and follow his orders. Like any accidental Atlas genius, Don decides world domination is in the cards. But first, he's sleepy, so he grabs some warm milk and goes to bed. The next morning, the new emperor of the universe awakens and heads to his darkroom, only to discover it's been tidied up. His wife enters and explains that, for Don's birthday, she took the plunge and became an amateur photographer. Her first duty was to clean up "The Darkroom." Well, he wanted a photo pal, he got one. Poor Don wishes it was still 1954 so he could bury the hatchet in his wife's head. It certainly would have given this strip a much-needed kick in the ass.

Screenwriter Brad French has his panties in a bunch when an exploitation director wants to turn his script about a screwed-up Richard the Lion-Hearted into a noble epic. Brad harrumphs off set only to find himself in some sort of 14th-Century time warp. What gives? Well, actually, Brad discovers he's "The Captive" of some aliens dressed as knights, ready to conquer Earth. When Brad tells them they're not dressed for the day, they jump in their spaceship and fly away, vowing to return when they get it right. Nothing about "The Captive"  makes sense except the striking Jerry Robinson art.

Don's the test pilot for an incredibly fast jet (how about 100,000 feet altitude in five seconds flat?) but, as so many Atlas test pilots before him can testify, going really fast can be detrimental to your time/space continuum. Before he knows it, Don has gone back in time and landed in some 15th-Century kingdom populated by unfriendly villagers. They chase the pilot around the town a few times but he manages to get back to his jet and fly off back to our time. If he'd only stuck around a couple more panels, Don would have found out that it wasn't the past he was visiting!

These accidental time warp travel stories are beginning to stack up on top of each other and the writers (in this case, pulp hack Carl Wessler) aren't finding original ways to get their characters into these situations. It doesn't even seem like Wessler did any research for "The Man Who Was Nowhere!" (yeah, I know, they were only getting a buck a page or some ungodly wage, so research was definitely not in the cards) on jet planes. No jet has ever hit 100,000 feet (never mind in five seconds) and then at 100,000 feet, he's got Don "leveling off at five miles," which is roughly 26,000 feet. That's quite a leveling off. Never mind all my muttering, this story is nowhere.

Mind reader Julius Keaton is in the middle of his show when the thoughts from a foreign agent spill into his brain. He announces to the crowd that there are three men in the audience who will be selling government secrets to the scumbag commies and, sure enough, three guys get up and run for the exit. Afraid the mind reader will spill the beans to the cops, the trio attempt to hunt him down, but to no avail. The only solution is to hire another mind reader to find the Great Keaton! "The Trap!" is so dumb it's almost enjoyable. The three stooges, after being fingered at the auditorium, forgo hiding out somewhere and, instead, wait at the back exit for Keaton to leave, but the illusionist is two steps ahead of the dolts and heads out the front with the crowd! I said almost enjoyable.

In "We Claim This Planet," Mars and Venus happen to send advance scout teams at the same time in anticipation of a full-scale invasion of Earth. A huge blast sends them running for their ships. Yep, both parties landed in White Sands during A-Bomb testing. Not one to be left out, it turns out that the planet Mercury has been visiting Earth as well. One alien child has been entrusted to a foster family in Mayville to grow up as an Earthling (Mercury is "no place to bring up a boy these days!"). The only way to distinguish Mercurian kids from our own is that the aliens have a green-toned band of skin around their chests. 

Town bigot Bull Morgan does not like it one bit; in fact, he's staging rallies to incite his neighbors to toss this alien out (in this case, a wall will do no good, I suppose) and, once his anger has caught fire with the other ding-dongs of Mayville, he demands that every male child in town be brought to the square and forced to take their shirts off to display their chests. That way, the alien will be outed. But the joke's on Bull since the Mercurian lad has a lot of friends in Mayville and every child who disrobes has a green band.

"The Hidden One!" is an effective but subtle anti-racism tale that doesn't outstay its welcome with a lot of preachiness. I'd call it an equally powerful anti-Blacklist commentary, but we all know Stan was about as anti-Commie as anyone in the 1950s. If you squint just right and picture Bull with orange hair, you could also make the claim that this Atlas cautionary tale is timely. The story arrives just in time to save Mystery Tales #42 (and the Atlas output of 1956, frankly) from being totally awful.-Peter

Mystic #48

Cover by Carl Burgos

"He Changed at Midnight" (a: Hy Fleishman) ★

"Across the Threshold" (a: Bill Benulis) ★★★

"The Strange Switch!" (a: Lou Morales) ★

"Out of the Storm" (a: Tony Mortellaro) ★1/2

"The Matter with Harry!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★★

"The World That Vanished!" (a: Pete Morisi) ★★1/2

Another of those pesky Mercurians has landed on Earth, this time in the small town of Thornton, and is witnessed by Denny Robbins, the local couch potato. Once the creature exits its ship it morphs into human form, but Denny can ID the thing. He just won't until a large enough reward is posted. The alien gets the last laugh in "He Changed at Midnight." The art is just barely at average level and the script is lazy. The Mercurians were busy cats in the 1950s and, oddly, none of them seemed to be made of fire.

Fred buys an old estate cheap at auction but his buddy, Milt, claims the house has an "air of the unknown" about it and Fred should take care not to piss off any supernatural beings. Fred scoffs and gets to work cleaning up. That night, after Fred hits the sheets, a group of alien thingies from another dimension pop up out of the well in the basement and have a look around. Observing Fred in bed, sawing logs, the creatures determine this would be a great world to invade.

They head back down the well, vowing to venture back "Across the Threshold" soon, but that ain't happenin' since, the next day, Fred unknowingly staves off the end of mankind by capping the well. It's hard for me not to like any story that Bill Benulis illustrates. So much care and style go into each panel, as if Benulis had months to work on each page instead of hours. It's high time for a book-length study on the artist. Can you hear me, Fantagraphics?

In the forgettable "The Strange Switch," it turns out the new kid helping the scientists at the observatory is from Pluto. He just wanted some good shots of his home planet and then hoofed it, without even mopping the floor! Bob has (literally) reached a crossroads in his life, the doctors saying he has something in his brain that's too small to diagnose. Bob falls into a pit of self-pity and depression until he comes to that literal fork in the road while out walking one night. A scream forces him to investigate a house by the side of the road. A man with a gun is threatening a group of party-goers until Bob gives the thug a firm right cross. The crowd react as if they know Bob, one woman identifying herself as his wife. The vision disappears and Bob realizes he's seen into the future. There's a lot of haziness in "Out of the Storm" and it's not all because of the rough Mortellaro art. The maudlin finish, where Bob ponders the frailty of mankind and the whims of the universe, made me want to guffaw rather than contemplate.

Timid Harry Townes would do anything to get a date with the boss's daughter, Velma, but she doesn't even know he exists. One day, two events collide at the same time: Velma announces she's going on a cruise and Harry's uncle dies, leaving him the princely sum of three hundred pounds (three hundred pounds of what is never clarified). Harry says "Screw it!" and books passage on Velma's cruise ship. 

While on board, Harry does whatever he can to spend time with Velma, including fetching her drinks and mopping her sweaty brow, but the girl won't budge on a date. While the ship is anchored in an African port, Harry visits a bazaar and buys a striking ring which, the seller claims, empowers the wearer. Suddenly, from out of the blue, a woman screams. Harry swirls and sees a girl being chased by a giant wearing a red suit. As the woman approaches him, Harry pokes the big man with his parasol and watches in amazement as the brute goes down in a heap.

The girl introduces herself to Harry as a Venusian and explains the big lug is a Martian who followed her to Earth. Her ship ready to blast off, the Venusian begs Harry to come back with her to her planet and live as royalty. Harry, remembering he's in love with Velma, politely declines and returns to the boat. There, Velma confesses she saw the entire fight and now finds Harry extremely macho and charismatic. Harry grabs her, lands a big one on her lips and releases her, realizing he never really loved her. He returns to the Venusian he rescued and they blast off into space, together forever. A truly cute and whimsical tale, "The Matter With Harry!" found this grumpy old man actually rooting for the titular pipsqueak. I even liked the primitive Stallman art, which actually fits this tale very well. 

The first successful expedition to Mars discovers that the planet was inhabited at one time and the evidence is a great, abandoned city. When the crew breaks into one of the buildings, they discover a room where a recorded voice details the evacuation of the planet but never confesses which planet the escapees came to rest on. When the crew make it back to Earth, they get their answer. "The World That Vanished!" is a clever little sci-fi yarn that makes good use of black and white in the "documentary" of the death of Mars. Overall, Mystic #47 is one of the best Atlas comics since the advent of the Code.-Peter

Mystical Tales #1

Cover by Bill Everett

"On a Lonely Planet" (a: Bill Everett) ★1/2

"Just Say the Magic Words" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★1/2

"Nomad of Outer Space!" (a: Bob Powell?) ★★1/2

"The Endless Search" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★

"The Man Who Saw Too Much!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★1/2

"Anyone Want a Jinni?" (a: Syd Shores) ★★1/2

Captain Edward Parker is both a baseball fan and an astronaut who lands his rocket ship "On a Lonely Planet," where he encounters purple aliens with big ears who don't seem to respond to his efforts to make friends. After a tense standoff, he catches a ball that comes sailing toward him from a nearby field. He tosses it to an alien and soon discovers that they play baseball and that sports are the common denominator that will link planetary races.

Bill Everett does his best with this story, but the constant positivity about humans meeting aliens is wearing thin.

Hiding out in a cheap room, an escaped convict reads a newspaper ad about a crash course in magic and sends away for it in hopes that he'll learn how to become invisible and avoid the cops. When the book comes, he says the magic words and manages to make fire spring up from a stove. He ventures out to the street and, when the police spot him, he conjures up a herd of large animals to block the fuzz. More cops arrive and he does the rope trick, climbing a rope into the sky. Suddenly, he finds himself back in prison, where his roommate admits that he wrote the magic book and it was a fraud!

"Just Say the Magic Words" is entertaining for a three-pager, but the conclusion makes no sense. If the magic book was fraudulent, why was the convict able to make magical things happen, and why did he end up back in prison? Sol Brodsky's art is barely adequate.

Simon Miller enjoys telling his young son John about his dreams that men will build space ships that will travel between planets someday. Simon's wife tell him to stop, but when John grows older he builds a rocket ship and takes off. Years go by and Simon grows older, sad that his son is gone. One day, while Simon is out walking, a whole fleet of rocket ships land in a field and John emerges, telling his father that he was a "Nomad of Outer Space!" who would not return home until he had built the fleet his father dreamed of. Simon is delighted that his dreams were not in vain.

The GCD puts a question mark next to Bob Powell's name as artist but this is undoubtedly his work, and fine work it is. Powell is one of my favorite artists to appear frequently in Atlas comics. This story is particularly impressive, despite a thin premise.

Cedric Chalmers is a modern artist whose portraits are scorned by their subjects because they have a somewhat cubist appearance. He exhibits the portraits at an art gallery and, to his surprise, receives a check for $50,000 from the royal family, who bought all of the paintings. Cedric conducts "The Endless Search," looking all over the world for the royal family, only to learn in the end that they are on Saturn and look just like the people in his paintings!

Joe Orlando does an adequate job drawing regular people and the cubist figures in the paintings, but the end of this story is telegraphed early on. At least our old pal Carl Wessler concludes with a logical finish and not something out of left field.

When a horn-like object falls from the sky into Carl Avery's back yard, Carl picks it up, thinks it resembles a trumpet, and blows into one end. He is catapulted fifty years into the future, where he is branded a spy and chased by the authorities. He blows into the horn again, hoping to return to his own time, but is tossed further into the future, where he witnesses a terrible war of rocket ships.

Carl tries blowing into the other end and suddenly is back in 1956, where an Army colonel arrives to retrieve the horn, which is really a vital section of a new, experimental rocket. Carl decides to keep his mouth shut about what he saw.

"The Man Who Saw Too Much!" suffers from Winiarski's art, which reminds me of the kind of strips one would see filling the back of comics in the 1940s. The story isn't much of a story at all and exhibits Carl Wessler's usual confusing plotting.

A Jinni wishing for a master finds his lamp rubbed by a succession of people who don't appreciate his gifts. First, a fisherman wishes for a boatload of big fish, but the onslaught sinks his vessel. Next, a peddler wishes for a wagon full of gold, but the heavy cart crashes through a bridge. Third, a young man wishes for a sports car but soon totals it. Still thinking, "Anyone Want a Jinni?" the Jinni is summoned by a poor man who only wishes for a job and food for his children. All goes well and the Jinni settles in, happy to serve someone who thinks of others.

Syd Shores provides art that fits this morality play perfectly. The Jinni is a big, half-naked man wearing a turban, a loincloth, and slippers with toes that curl up to a point. The contrast between the greedy men and the generous man is well told and the four-page length is just right. It's not a great story, but, as Peter always says, the art is what we come for.

This is the first issue of a new title, but it is interchangeable with any of the other Atlas titles.-Jack

Spellbound #28

Cover by Bill Everett

"When Time Stood Still!" (a: John Romita) ★★

"The Forbidden Garden" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

"The Strange Guests!" (a: Bill Everett) ★1/2

"The Old Man of the Sea!" (a: Gene Colan) ★★1/2

"Farewell to the Sun!" (a: Werner Roth) ★★

"This is the Forest Primeval" (a: Joe Orlando) ★1/2

Visiting the abandoned fishing village of Bay Harbor, a young man is surprised to find a single resident: an elderly man in a shop filled with clocks who explains that each clock ticks 61 seconds per minute, thus allowing him to have saved up an extra 89 years to live in the town. The young man asks the old man to engrave his initials on his pocket watch and sees that everything the man does is invisible, including eating, driving his horse and carriage, and attending a square dance. Suddenly, a bell rings and the man rushes back to his shop, saying that today is an important day in his life. The young man follows and finds the man gone and the shop in ruins. He assumes he imagined it all, but how did the initials get engraved in his watch?

Early in the story, the young man recalls that the village was thriving 84 years ago until everyone left when the fishing ran out. All I can figure is that, at the sound of the bell, the old man's time ran out, he disappeared, and his shop fell into ruin as if he'd not been there for decades. The uncredited writer of "When Time Stood Still!" doesn't provide any explanation, so the reader is left to puzzle it out. John Romita's art reminds me a little of the work of Jack Davis in spots. As we'll see in his run on Spider-Man in the '60s, he's fond of drawing gents wearing hats and smoking pipes.

When artist Frank Bond visits a large, castle-like house in Paris to see if he wants to rent it as a studio, the agent has yet to arrive, so he explores the interior and comes upon "The Forbidden Garden." He witnesses a meeting between Pierre and Marianne, lovers kept apart by her father, a duke. Three swordsmen appear and Frank leaps into action to help Pierre defeat the swordsmen. The couple make a run for it and, when Frank re-enters the house, he meets the real estate agent, who tells him about a long-ago couple who were aided by a mysterious man.

We've read this story umpteen times in Atlas comics and there's nothing new or fresh in this version. I find John Forte's art to be wooden, so it adds little to a tired narrative.

John and Isabel Gilford meet a couple at the airport who look lost, so they invite them to stay at their home. The couple introduce themselves as Osgood and Nola Whitley and, before you know it, the Gilfords and the Whitleys are fast friends. The only thing unusual about "The Strange Guests!" is that they go to bed very early. For their part, the Whitleys have a secret that they don't want to reveal to the Gilfords. Eight years pass and it's time for the Whitleys to leave. At the airfield, they board a rocket ship bound for Venus! Meanwhile, the Gilfords decide to visit the folks and also rush to the airport, where they, too, board the ship for Venus!

It makes very little sense, I know, especially the final panels where all of the Venusians suddenly have oblong faces once they board the rocket ship. At least we are treated to three decent pages by Bill Everett.

A ship sailing across the Atlantic toward Portsmouth keeps changing course every time the crew spots "The Old Man of the Sea," who is in a small rowboat and who looks like the survivor of a shipwreck. The ship barely misses destruction by an undersea eruption, a pod of whales, dangerous rocks, and a meteor. Upon finally reaching port, they observe that the old man was not a figment of their imagination but rather King Neptune, who boasts that he was happy to cheat Davy Jones out of a victim.

Seeing a new story by Gene Colan reminds me of how little we've seen of his art in recent months at Atlas. It's a shame, because no one's pages look like Colan's. His style is unmistakable and his use of shadows is great. The story is a letdown; we read along, wondering who the old man is, only to have him be revealed as Neptune. I would've preferred a ghost.

Don and Louise Todd can't afford to spend the summer in Europe like their friends, the Hitchcocks. Instead, they visit Moonbeam Amusement Park and take a trip to the sun on a flying saucer. To their surprise, the ship actually heads into space and flies to the sun; it passes through a wall of fire and lands in an idyllic spot, where the Todds are welcomed by the locals, who resemble munchkins. They work one day a week and spend the rest of their time enjoying themselves. The Todds return to their home on Earth after saying "Farewell to the Sun," but when the Hitchcocks visit and tell them all about their trip to Europe, the Todds keep mum, certain they would not be believed.

I associate Werner Roth with mediocre art on The X-Men in the '60s, but his work on this story is actually pretty good. The highlight is the sun people, who look like chubby little folk who smile a lot. I didn't mind the ending, which is not really a twist and probably more satisfying for that reason.

Henry Parker waits to hear if the board will elect him president of the world's most powerful company despite his radical ideas and his thirst for change. Suddenly, while walking to the water cooler, Henry passes through a time warp and realizes that "This is the Forest Primeval." He stomps around, trying to cause change, and returns to the present to find that giant ants have replaced humans as the dominant species! But wait, it was only a dream! Henry awakens, is made president, and vows to make no big changes, having learned his lesson.

If only Peter and I could learn our lesson and realize that Atlas comics in 1956 are not destined to reveal many hidden gems! Yet we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.-Jack

Next Week...
Four More Exciting
Batman and Robin Adventures!