Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 192: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 177

January 1961

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #64

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Dared to Battle... Rorgg, King of the Spider-Men!!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Fear #3)

"I Found the Lair of... the Lizard Men" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces # 6)

"I Must Find Korumbu!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Fear #3)

"Who is the Ape Man?" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

Fourteen-year-old Tim wastes all his time reading those awful Atlas post-code funny books--y'know, the ones about giant termites and three-eyed cyclops and all that rot? His Pop has had enough of Tim's lollygagging and Tim's girlfriend, Ann, is about to give him the boot when a strange phenomenon hits their "small New Mexican town." The entire burg is covered in a thick, impenetrable spider's web. Soon after emerges its creator, Rorgg, King of the Spider-Men!

Rorgg explains that Plaintown is a test site for invaders from a distant galaxy. Rorgg and his spider-men have traveled on a long, long, really long spider-web stretching from planet Rorrgo to Earth. They will determine if the human race is easy to conquer and then radio the next armada to finish the job. But Tim, the brightest in his class thanks to reading all those Atlas comics, puts the invasion to a halt by spraying Rorgg with a stream of DDT. The giant spider keels over dead and the other spiders head home with their thoraxes tucked between their legs. The men ruffle Tim's hair and wonder how they couldn't see the obvious defense from the get-go. Tim goes back to reading Tales of Suspense #15 with Ann impatiently awaiting her turn. I love the goofiness of "Rorgg, the Giant Spider Who Had Eyebrows"; just the fact that DDT works on beings from a dimension or galaxy trillions of light years away gives one hope for our future, no?

Hardened criminal Eric Kane busts out of an African prison camp and ducks into the jungle, looking for shelter. He finds it in a deep mountainside cave. With nothing to lose (and no flashlight!) he heads deep down into the abyss, finally stopping when he lays hands on something slimy in the dark. Eric screams "I Found the Lair of (pregnant pause) the Lizard Men!" Soon, Eric finds the lizard chaps are actually pretty friendly (and also very stupid and gullible) and they show him their principle source of light, a huge diamond! Knowing he'll be king of the heap up on the surface world, the con grabs the rock and hoofs it. Alas, it isn't long before he learns the secret of the lizard dudes: the diamond itself is what transforms a man into a lizard! Now Eric sits alone, alienated from his scaly brethren, wondering if his curse will ever be lifted. So were the other lizard men actually humans from the surface world who had been changed just like Eric or... what? Don't look for answers, my friend.

He might be wealthy, but Hugo Barge (get it? big as a barge!) is also morbidly obese and cruel. After a series of chest pains, Hugo visits the doctor and receives the bad news: he has to stop eating so much! Diets won't help, pills and solutions won't help, and after he visits Europe for "miracle cures," Hugo throws up his fat arms and screams, "Arrrrgh! There must be an easier way to lose weight than giving up my Doritos Nacho Chips and Coke!" A gypsy overhears the fat man whining and tells him there is a foolproof solution: he must visit Korumbu in the swamp. 

Hugo makes his way through the figs and reeds to Korumbu's wagon and confronts the gypsy witch doctor, informing him that if he doesn't fork over the magic potion, he'll tell the cops where the gypsies are hiding. With one gulp, Hugo downs the liquid and heads back to the village, where he begins losing pounds by the minute. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that, should Hugo Barge stop eating, he will waste away to nothing. Suddenly, Hugo is screaming "I Must Find Korumbu!" Written in decidedly un-PC times, "I Must..." is a perfect example of what comic book scripters could get away with in 1960 as opposed to now. Today, no editor would green light a script with prose as "insensitive" as No two ways about it--Hugo Barge was just plain fat! But unlike most fat people, he was also the meanest man in town! Everyone knows how jolly fat people were back in those days. Fabulous Ditko art (as always).

In the finale, strongman Bruno Storme delights in torturing Kazar, the circus gorilla, for no apparent reason other than Bruno's not a good guy. But Kazar's trainer has got a little something in store for Bruno. By 1961, these comics were safer than TV sitcoms, with no one perishing or suffering much more than bruises. At one point, Bruno picks up Kazar's trainer and tosses him like a rag doll at a nearby metal cage. In the pre-code era, that trainer would have been dead, but here he just shakes it off and thinks, "Why, I'll get that son of a gun one of these days!" Paul Reinman's work, once a pleasure to look at, now stands out like a sore thumb from the art of the other three regulars. It's old fashioned and sketchy.-Peter

Strange Tales #80

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"What? What? What Was Gargantus!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Creatures on the Loose #17)

"The Things from Dimension X!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Creatures on the Loose #17)

"The Door They Dare Not Open!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

"Trapped in the Room of Shadows" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #22)

A deep sea explorer takes a bathysphere down further than anyone has gone before and is surprised to find that his son Billy stowed away onboard. Suddenly, they encounter a humongous creature that appears to be half human and half reptile! The monster is curious about where the bathysphere came from, so it rises to the surface, where it walks onto shore, talking to itself and remarking about its surprise that anything lives above the water.

The creature walks to the airport, where it encounters jet planes, then to the zoo, where it picks up an elephant, then to the outskirts of the city, where the National Guard tries to blast it to Kingdom Come. Nothing works until the creature suddenly collapses, unable to breathe for long out of water.

"What? What? What Was Gargantus!" follows a familiar pattern. There is a splash page where the creature menaces the city, followed by a couple of pages of setup, followed by the creature emerging and heading toward a population center. Eventually, like the Martians in War of the Worlds, a change in atmosphere is fatal. Yawn. The art is rudimentary and the main human character never gets a name. Even the monster's name is a problem--on pages six and seven, it refers to itself as "Gigantus" and a caption on page seven calls it that, but when it keels over, the main character calls it "Gargantus" in the last two panels.

After being fired from his job at Paragon Labs for working on his Dimension Connector during business hours, Lynwood rents a small cabin in the mountains and tries to finish his project. That night, as he sleeps, warriors from Electra cross into our dimension, determined to conquer our race! They zap Lynwood and yak about their plans for world domination until they step out into the night and are confronted by giant, shadowy figures! The aliens are so scared that they scamper back to their own dimension, vowing never to return.

After destroying his machine to forestall any future invasions, Lynwood steps outside, where he sees enormous footprints that lead to nearby Mt. Rushmore. Did the giant stone figures of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt come to live and save our planet?

I must admit I did not see that one coming! "The Things From Dimension X!" benefits from decent art by Don Heck, whose aliens are green and scaly, with horns on their heads, four arms, and big, oval holes in their torsos that I guess are supposed to be their mouths. Heck's monsters are often underwhelming, but these are pretty cool. The conclusion, where the Mt. Rushmore statues come to life, seems like something from an Atlas comic of a few years' before this.

The warden at a modern European prison believes that prisoners will respond positively to fair treatment, so he has the bars removed from their cells and hopes they'll stay in place by word of honor. A tough con named Bruno Zuknik arrives and thinks this is ridiculous, so he breaks his vow and exits by "The Door They Dare Not Open!" That door leads him onto a spaceship and he is taken to another planet to serve out his sentence doing hard labor. After that, his memory will be wiped and he'll be returned to Earth. It turns out that the kindly warden is actually an alien in disguise who has come up with a clever way to supply his planet with free workmen!

It's a fairly clever story, but Paul Reinman's art isn't very interesting and his aliens have pink skin and heads that look like fish.

Sanford Kindwell, the richest man in the world, is also the most generous, and he is determined to find the fabled Wishing Stone that will let him help all mankind. He travels to Tibet, looking for the Stone, and is aided by a guide named Kroger, who secretly wants to steal some of Kindwell's fortune. After a long journey, they find the stone in a hidden cave, but Kroger grabs it away from Kindwell and a cave-in traps the rich man. Kroger escapes and wishes to be the richest man in the world. Suddenly, he feels his spirit moving into Kindwell's body, which means he's now the one who is "Trapped in the Room of Shadows."

The story is nothing new and the conclusion is no surprise, so it's Ditko's art that is the real draw here. In my opinion, he's by far the most exciting artist working at Atlas in 1961.-Jack

Tales of Suspense #13

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"Elektro! He Held a World in His Iron Grip!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #22)

"The Demon in the Dungeon!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #22)

"I Lived a Million Years!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"When the Earth Vanished!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #25)

Brilliant and really smart scientist Wilbur Poole builds the perfect computer, one that can out-think any human being. When he's finished and it's time for a beer, his personal revelry is interrupted by the computer, taking hold of Wilbur's brain and commanding him to build it a giant robot so that he can take his show on the road.

Helpless to refuse, Wilbur builds the metal behemoth and it breaks out of the lab, heading to the nearest metropolis and naming itself Elektro. There, the giant shows the population its power, atomizing entire cities with a blast from its gamma ray-filled hands. But the further Elektro gets from his creator, the less of a hold it has and Wilbur finally breaks the spell and manages to shut the monster down. Wilbur Poole contemplates the areas man was never supposed to enter and thanks God he has insurance. You gotta hand it to Stan and Jack in that they could come up with four giant monsters every month, but the novelty is beginning to wear off and each script becomes more and more formulaic. Must we have every such story end with a panel of the Earth filled with preachy word balloons?

A best-selling author needs inspiration for his new novel, so he rents a castle in Europe just outside a town where the villagers carry torches and believe in ghoulies and vampires. Just as the writer arrives, a man spots a ten-foot "demon" prowling through the forest and a few of his fellow Vasarians chase the creature to the scribe's castle, where it enters for shelter. The writer approaches the thing and it communicates with him telepathically. Turns out the big guy is just a little alien kid who got lost and his mom and pop come in a spaceship to rescue him. That leaves our best-selling author contemplating the bigotry of mankind. Will the human race ever look up into the skies and embrace someone different? I was just talking about formula and along comes "The Demon in the Dungeon!" If man isn't tampering with nature, he's turning a blind eye to a friendly hand. Don Heck seems to have a template for his monsters.

"I Lived a Million Years!" is a really dumb story about a Chinese dictator who becomes weary of the violence and tension around him. His solution: he forces his scientists to create a suspended animation tube that will keep him alive for one million years. Surely, violence will have been abolished by then and he'll be safe. Ya think? Why one million years? Why not five hundred? One thousand? What I want to know is what gave this dope the idea the world would become more peaceful rather than more dangerous?

Last up, I'm sorry to say Stan polishes off an old chestnut (yet again) for "When the Earth Vanished!" A warring race, the Goloks arrive on Earth to destroy mankind but find nothing but an abandoned white landscape as far as the eye can see. Well, if they can't own the Earth, no one can, so they set off their Ultimate Bomb and are caught in its fiery mushroom cloud. At that second, a little boy remarks to his mother that his ping pong ball has just exploded! Yep, these Goloks were just microscopic warriors! Who'd a thunk? My two-star rating is 100% attached to Steve Ditko's graphics.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #15

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Learned the Dread Secret of the Blip!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(r: Fear #2)(r: Giant-Size Man-Thing #2)

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

(r: Fear #2)(r: Giant-Size Man-Thing #2)

"I Am the Invisible!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Chamber of Darkness #8)

"I Defied the Curse of Tut-Ah-Anka!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

(r: Fear #2)

A radar operator sees a blip on his screen and soon cries, "I Learned the Dread Secret of the Blip!" It's a great big alien creature that looks like a bolt of lightning with arms and legs and seems to be draining all the electricity in the area. The man tracks down the Blip's location and it explains that it's peaceful and detoured to our planet to recharge its strength. Of course, other humans arrive and take potshots at the Blip, who grows angry at their primitive behavior and scatters them. The Blip locates a dynamo and is able to charge up before leaving Earth to return home. The humans lament their usual bad behavior toward harmless aliens.

We're scraping the bottom of the barrel now in an effort to keep coming up with giant creatures for Kirby to draw as the first story in these comics. The Blip doesn't do much before it leaves and isn't particularly interesting visually. At least we learn a lesson.

On a hunting expedition in Africa, Derek and John find a medallion that features an engraving of a mastodon! Convinced the item holds the secret to locating the elephants' graveyard, they search the area and follow an aged elephant deep into the jungle, where Derek turns on John, shoots his partner in the leg, and goes on alone.

Derek finds a cavern where elephants go to die; it's filled with skeletons and valuable ivory. Sadly, it's also inhabited by Martians, one of whom dropped the medallion during an ill-advised excursion. The Martians explain that animals don't do well on Mars, so they bring mastodons to Earth to breed them and, when they die, the Martians take the useful ivory back to their planet. Derek is enslaved as a laborer indefinitely.

"I Dared Enter the Forbidden World!" is a bit misleading, since Derek really just enters a cavern and finds Martians and mastodons. The aliens' plan seems a bit complicated, doesn't it? They bring mastodons to Earth so they can take the ivory home? That's a lot of travel and work for not much reward. Don Heck's Martians look similar to his other semi-scary aliens and, like all good aliens, they wear pants.

Certain that discovering the secret of invisibility will allow him to dominate the world, Professor Karlos Konak visits Zuka, the witch, who gives him a pair of lenses that will cause invisibility when a ray of light is passed through them. Reversing the lenses causes reappearance. Konak returns to his workshop and successfully tests the lenses on a cat, but when he steps into the ray and vanishes, he is dismayed to discover that everything has become invisible to him and he can't find the lenses to switch them back!

"I Am the Invisible" consists of a splash page and four pages of a story that is dependent on its twist ending, which is a letdown. Ditko's art is reliably excellent.

On the run from the cops in Egypt, a crook doesn't listen to a warning about entering a certain place and is able to boast that "I Defied the Curse of Tut-Ah-Anka!" Laughing at the idea of a curse, the man succeeds in escaping from the police, wins the sweepstakes, and becomes the richest man in town after he returns to the U.S. and invests in the stock market. He moves to Europe, buys a castle, and settles into a comfortable life of leisure, not realizing that it's all a fantasy and he's really been in an Egyptian hospital ever since the ancient gas in the cursed tomb penetrated his lungs!

A clever twist is all this story has going for it. It makes one think, though--would it be so bad to be in the main character's position?-Jack

Thursday...
"It's a Hell of a Thing
Killing a Man, Kid..."

And Next Week...
The Coming of Colossus...
An Epic Three-Part... Epic!