Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 189: Atlas/ Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 174

October 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #61

Cover by Jack Kirby & George Klein

"I Defied Gomdulla--The Living Pharaoh!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #12)

"I Dared Enter the Haunted Forest!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #13)

"I Opened the Door to... Nowhere!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Tower of Shadows #1)(r: Where Monsters Dwell #17)

"The Curse of M'Gumbu!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Fear #7)

Thanks to a couple of young brats fooling around in an Egyptian museum, the giant mummy, Gomdulla, once again walks the earth! The gargantuan bandaged pharaoh busts out of the museum and disappears into the Egyptian desert. Getting wind that a sinister cult has arisen around the resuscitated behemoth, Interpol sends their number one agent to investigate.

Paul infiltrates the cult as they are performing one of their twisted ceremonies, with Gomdulla holding court over his tiny subjects. Believing the creature to be an inanimate statue, Paul whips out his .44 Magnum and arrests the high priest of Gomdulla. Suddenly, the giant mummy arises and begins tossing huge boulders at the astonished agent. Luckily, the high priest intervenes and shuts down the bandaged behemoth. Later, at the hospital, the high priest explains to Paul that Gomdulla was actually an ancient outer space visitor who was in hibernation. Paul, from his hospital bed exclaims "I Defied Gomdulla--the Living Pharaoh!" This is pretty juvenile stuff (yeah, I know, it all is), with not much action and some awful dialogue. The real problem is that, due to the sparse word count, by the time the action gets going, it's time to shut it all down. I suspect that this is what led Stan to authorize longer "giant monster epics." We will all be the richer. Gotta admit, as dumb as "Gomdulla" may be, the Kirby/Ayers art is striking in spots.

Bigot and snob (but very rich) Darius Zorn discovers a forest in a European valley that glows in the dark and he really must have it. The local villagers warn that if Zorn moves into the forest, the Gods will dry up their crops but the self-absorbed zillionaire won't hear of it. He pays an exorbitant price for the land and then moves in. Shortly after, he is visited by a "man in black" who warns Zorn that he faces peril if he does not move out. Scoffing, Zorn throws the man off his property but then pays the ultimate price when it turns out the man in black is, in reality, an alien from another dimension in a galaxy four quadrants south of France. The creature kidnaps Zorn and exhibits him in a zoo on another planet. "I Dared Enter the Haunted Forest!" is indicative of the vast majority of Atlas tales in 1960: no matter what it all comes down to aliens from another world. Don Heck isn't given much to work with but the art is not bad to look at.

On the run from the law, a burglar steps into a curio shop and forces the owner to open the mysterious door in the back room. Little does the criminal know that he will serve his time whether it's in the pen or it's in purgatory. Every door he opens leads to another door! "I Opened the Door to... Nowhere!" couldn't even get Steve Ditko interested this time out. We never learn what the secret of the never-ending doors is but that's about the only positive. Last up is the dull "The Curse of M'Gumbu!," about a tribe of young roughnecks in the Amazon who are tired of being reined in by their witch doctor and decide to quiet him forever. The witch doctor has something to say about that, though. "M'Gumbu" crawls along at a snail's pace and sports some very weak Reinman visuals. Another loser of an issue.-Peter

Strange Tales #77

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"The Return of Taboo!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)

"I Am the Beast-Man!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #10)

"The Strange Magic of Master Khan!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)(r: Uncanny Tales #10)

"Am I the... Unhuman?" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

Even though the menace of Taboo was seemingly eliminated thanks to a very clever scientist (see Jack's rundown on the first "Taboo" adventure back in Strange Tales #75), the big glob of mud is back! That's right, even though Taboo was blown to smithereens in outer space, the thousands of bits of the creature drifted back into Earth's atmosphere, landing in several places around the globe. Slowly but surely, the pieces began to crawl towards Central Park, where the slop began to form... to shape... to metamorphosize... into Taboo!!!

Soldier's bullets... atomic submarines... cannons... nothing can stop the great god of mud! Taboo destroys half of Manhattan but slows his progress long enough to deliver an ultimatum to the ants below him... surrender or die! But New Yorkers are tough and, to paraphrase Churchill, "We will never, never give up to a pile of s%#t like you, Taboo!" The giant laughs and begins his destructive walk through New York again when a fearful sight appears in the sky: a giant spaceship made out of mud. "Could this have something to do with Taboo?", screeches a terrified onlooker! "Hahahahaha," chortles the giant, "The ship contains the rest of the invasion party!" 

But Taboo is quite wrong, as the leader of the mud-men explains, the ship has come to take Taboo back to X-38, Third Planet from the Dimension on the Right. Turns out Taboo is an escaped mental patient (probably the bars on his cell were made of mud) and the boys are here to see that he makes it back safely. They apologize to mankind and lift off into space, leaving the onlookers to ponder our insignificance in the galaxy. "The Return of Taboo!" was just goofy enough to keep my attention. I love the panels where Taboo, his mud buddies, and even the spaceship are constantly dripping, leaving me to wonder if the army couldn't have whipped up some kind of giant Easy-Bake Oven to dry Taboo out. 

"I Am the Beast-Man!" tells the hilarious story of  a brilliant but evil genius who concocts a formula which transforms him into a dog, the best form in which to carry out a series of jewelry thefts. Our dopey amateur scientist lets us know every two or three panels that if he doesn't get back under the rays of his Dog-Man Transformer Ray™, he'll be stuck as a canine for thirty days. Just as he's pilfering the wall safe, the homeowner comes home and he's forced to flee. Unfortunately, our Man-Dog is picked up by the dog catcher and taken to the pound. Let me be the first to say that, even though this story is a dog, it got some sustained chuckles from this bored comic book reader. The title worked much better when it was used a couple months prior in Journey Into Mystery #59. Doubtless you'll remembered that beast-man, the commie who put on a bear suit and changed for the better.

Captain Hawk Gormey sets his eyes on the ship belonging to Master Khan and knows he will do whatever he must to own her. First he inquires as to a price but Khan tells him "no sale" so he stoops to less legal means. Gormey drugs the entire Khan crew and then he throws the Master himself in the brig before setting sail to the sea. But it's not long before one of his men tells the Captain that Khan has gone missing. 

Just then, they see the Oriental occultist standing on the waves. He laughs and tells Gormey that since he wanted the ship so badly he can have her now. The men watch in terror as the Master disappears and an eerie fog rolls in. It appears as though the ship is now standing still on a layer of ice. In the end, we discover that Khan's ship, with Gormey and crew still aboard, is trapped in a glass bottle. Nice little twist in the end (though I swear I've seen it before) but let's not kid ourselves, this is all Ditko, prepping for Doctor Strange in just a few years. "The Strange Magic of Master Khan!" is another of those strips that remained in my brain for 55+ years, courtesy of Where Monsters Dwell.

Standing in the shadow of his father and grandfather, two men who advanced the science of robotics, Gideon Burr boasts that he has made an even greater impact: an android so human that no one would be able to tell the difference. He is his own guinea pig and, very soon, he is conversing with an exact replica of himself. This proves troublesome when robots are outlawed and the police come to Gideon's door. But which one is the real Gideon Burr? For most of the running length of "Am I the... Unhuman?," the story is involving and clever but then a happy ending is foisted on us, I assume to avoid the clash with the CCA. That's a pity; Stan would have been better off leaving the end solution hazy.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #12

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Discovered Gorgilla! The Monster of Midnight Mountain!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #9)(r: Weird Wonder Tales #21)

"My Nightmare Has No End!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #4)(r: Fear #4)(r: Tomb of Darkness #19)

"Save Me! Save Me!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

(r: Fear #3)

"A Monster Waits Outside!!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Fear #3)(r: Chamber of Chills #24)

Convinced that the Missing Link last lived in Borneo, an archaeologist named Scotty rounds up some other scientists and heads to the island where natives reveal that the Link still lives and is worshipped as a god by local headhunters! Scotty and co. make their way to Midnight Mountain, where they scale a huge wall and come face to face with Gorgilla, the giant Missing Link, half man and half ape!

Gorgilla is busy attacking the archaeologists when a T-Rex shows up and the two creatures fight. Gorgilla wins and is worn out, but Scotty decides to leave him in peace and the archaeologists fly back to the U.S.

What a load of hooey! "I Discovered Gorgilla! The Monster of Midnight Mountain!" borrows liberally from King Kong. There's the trip to the mysterious island, the great big wall, and the giant ape man. He grabs a tree that one of the men is hanging onto and then battles a T-Rex. Thank goodness Scotty and co. decide to give up--otherwise, we'd have to see Gorgilla on stage in NYC and climbing the Empire State Building.

Each night, a man's happy dreams are interrupted by the arrival of a shadowy figure. Eventually, the figure materializes and identifies itself as an alien from the planet Zendu who has crossed dimensions to change places with the dreamer. The alien explains that, on Zendu, people live for 1000 years and robots do all the work. He is bored and wants to experience the challenges of living on Earth. The dreamer agrees to change places and, once the process is underway, the alien tells him that he couldn't stand the boredom. The dreamer arrives on Zendu, in the alien's body, while the alien wakes up on Earth, in the dreamer's body. Too bad he's in a jail cell on Death Row!

Heck's art is a bit rough in "My Nightmare Has No End!," but I did not see that ending coming, which is quite an accomplishment at this point in my journey through bad Atlas comics. It's unusual that neither character is given a name.

A brilliant scientist named Albert Poole wants to steal the plans for a new national defense project, but they are on a yacht on the water. Since radar detects anything more than ten feet above the water and sonar detects anything in the water, Poole decides that the best way to approach the yacht undetected is to rearrange his body's atoms so he can walk on water. After some failed experiments he succeeds, walks to the yacht, steals the plans, and walks home. Unfortunately, he must cry "Save Me! Save Me!" because his ability to walk on water makes him sink when he steps on land!

A caption under the last panel reassures the reader that Poole will be rescued and he'll have to live the rest of his life with the guilt of his treasonous act. What I don't understand is why someone who can walk on water would sink on land. I guess it's supposed to be the principle of opposites. Reinman's art is better than usual.

Major Ford is placed in a small cylinder and launched into space in order to test a man's reaction to prolonged isolation and confinement. As the hours pass he begins to get bored, then he becomes convinced that "A Monster Waits Outside!!" The monster breaks in and suddenly Ford is back on Earth, where he is told that he hallucinated due to solitude. But why are there giant scratches on the outside of the sphere, and where did the big red claw come from?

Yet again, an Atlas story prefigures an episode of The Twilight Zone. This time it's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." In both versions, a man in flight thinks he sees a creature, is thought to have hallucinated on return to Earth, and we are left with evidence that the monster really existed. It's fun to imagine Richard Matheson poring over Tales to Astonish for story ideas.-Jack

This Thursday...
The Dude Looks to
Us For Wisdom

And Next Week...
He is Groot!