The Marvel/Atlas
Horror Comics
Horror Comics
Part 180
April 1961
by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook
Cover by Steve Ditko
"Gruto! The Creature from Nowhere!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #11)
"The Black Clock!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #12)
"The Last Voyage of Captain Kragg" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #12)
Newspaper reporter Dan Mitchell has been told by his editor that his features (his articles not his face) lately stink and Dan needs a new angle or he's history at The Daily Bugle. Later that afternoon, he and his girlfriend Laura are out driving through the country when a UFO crashes right before their eyes!
The police head to where Dan has stashed Gruto to destroy the invader but the creature pleads its case and, miraculously, the authorities believe it. All the while, Laura tells Dan he should be ashamed of himself, but the reporter is dazzled by the limelight and will not listen. Laura tells Gruto that Dan will not stop until he is king of the world and even now he is trying to convince the government that the innocent giant is the apocalypse.
Heeding Laura's pleas, Gruto fires up his ship (using the handy dematerializer button to make it invisible) and heads off to space but, before he can clear the airspace, he is attacked by fighter jets. Gruto lands his vehicle and announces that the barrage of missiles has cleared his foggy brain and he can now remember his mission here on Earth. He was sent by his fellow Grutos to teach earthlings how to live forever, make peace with their neighbors, and possibly lay the groundwork for a baseball game that lasts less than four hours. Obviously, Earth is not ready for those secrets, so Gruto blasts off, never to be seen again. Dan is left pondering if Page 17 fashion is the place to be after Laura tells him to grab a hunk of highway.
"The Black Clock!" is a dismissible fantasy about an ex-con who steals the titular antique and discovers he is quickly aging. There's no sense to this one so I won't try to make any of it. And yet... once again, Don Heck proves to be a much better penciler than Mr. Ellison gave him credit for. Space pilot Captain Kragg is a stinkin' yellow-bellied coward and, in the midst of a terrible space battle, he turns tail and deserts his men. He crash lands on a planet that resembles Earth in the 15th century and overhears a conversation concerning a man named Kumbus, who intends to sail the world to prove it isn't flat. Smelling a situation he can use to make himself a richer man, Kragg busts Kumbos upside the head and takes his place on board the ship. Problem is, this world is flat! You can tell that twist is on the horizon but it's still a fun read and Ditko does what he can with a bunch of talking heads.-Peter
Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
"From Out of the Black Pit Came... Grogg!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★1/2
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #27)
"Masquerade Party" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2
(r: Chamber of Chills #16)
"The Menace of Shandu!" (a: Don Heck) ★
(r: Crypt of Shadows #17)
Just before he is executed as a freedom fighter by a firing squad of stinkin' red commies, Miklos Kozlov is given a reprieve. But what happens afterwards makes Kozlov wish a bullet had ended his misery! The Russian government wants Kozlov to oversee a series of underground nuclear tests, bombs that will soon be dropped on the filthy swine of America! Kozlov agrees... what choice does he have?
Once the Russkies get to the "remote Asian province" where the bombs will be tested, they are warned by the locals that a giant monster lives under the ice, a fire-breathing dragon known as... Grogg!!! The Russians ask Kozlov what he makes of the natives' warnings and he tells them the locals are all fools. "Let's see some mushroom clouds!" Sure enough, minutes after the first bomb goes off, a gigantic serpentine head raises itself from the melting ice. Grogg exists!
A heck of a lot of fun, "Then Came... Grogzilla!" sets up a cool mythology and paves the way for Fin Fang Foom, king of all Marvel/Atlas dragons (coming in Strange Tales #89). After Grogg is gassed, the narrative turns toward Kozlov and his revelation, a twist I applaud. The Kirby/Ayers work is solid, especially the "flashback" scenes of multiple dragons attacking the Great Wall. Why in the world did we never get a savvy writer like Kurt Busiek (who has to be my favorite comics writer of the 1990s) or Peter David to pen a saga about why all these monsters are clad in swimming trunks despite the fact that they've been buried underneath the earth (or ice) for hundreds of years?
Teenager Tommy Jones walks into a bookshop looking for a good read and finds an old book of magic spells. What the heck, thinks the moppet, and after buying the book he heads to a quiet part of the forest and tries out a spell to conjure up a genie. Sure enough, Tommy soon faces "The Menace of Shandu!" The giant genie gives Tommy one wish but adds the proviso that, once the wish has been granted, the kid must die. How does Tommy get out of this one? Very easily.-Peter
Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
"The Thing Called Metallo!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #26)
"Nightmare!" (a: Don Heck) ★ 1/2
"The Hands of Hogarr!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★
After escaping from prison, Mike Fallon sees a notice in the paper that inventors are looking for someone to volunteer to test a new metal suit that can withstand radiation from a nuclear explosion. Mike volunteers under a fake name and climbs into the large, metal suit of armor; he quickly learns to use the controls to make it walk.
After a week of practice, Mike is taken to a small atoll in the South Pacific, where he is left alone. An atomic bomb is set off, but the scientists miscalculated its strength and the entire island sinks! Mike finds himself underwater and discovers that the suit is not only radiation proof, it is also water tight. He survives an attack by an octopus, which he kills with a blow from his metallic hand before he is rescued.
The next test involves Mike putting on the suit and being suspended by chains from a helicopter as another atomic bomb is detonated in midair! Once again coming through with flying colors, Mike decides that he will use the powerful suit to continue his life of crime. He refuses to come out and makes his way to San Francisco, where he robs a bank and christens himself with a fearsome new name--he is now "The Thing Called Metallo!" He moves on to Alcatraz, where he announces a plan to free the prisoners and create an army of convicts.
Suddenly, Mike begins to feel sick. He visits the infirmary and is told that he suffers from a disease that can only be cured by radiation therapy! Now Mike has a choice: take off the suit and return to being a nobody or keep the suit on and maintain his power. What will he choose?
This story brings up several interesting points. First, I noticed that Atlas authors are no longer using the pronoun "I" to title all of their stories--"I Was the This, That or the Other." It was especially noticeable this time because all of the captions feature narration in the second person: "You this and you that." Second, the scientists have enormous resources and power but are really stupid. Why would they not do even the least bit of a background check on the volunteer to try out their suit? The costs must be enormous, not to mention getting permission to blow up A-bombs willy nilly.
John Larson tells his rich friend, Dunstan Kromm, about recurring nightmares. Kromm scoffs and Larson leaves in a huff, driving too fast and suffering a fatal car crash. Dunstan is consumed with guilt and collapses, only to wake up and find that John has just arrived at his house. Soon enough, the visitor once again begins to recite his "Nightmare!"
Slick artwork by Don Heck doesn't disguise the fact that this circular tale has been told too many times to remain surprising or even interesting.
After robbing and killing a diamond merchant in a large European city, Carl Gruko visits an old gypsy man named Hogarr, who is said to have the power to change a person's face with his hands. "The Hands of Hogarr!" do their work and Carl gets a new face, but when he returns to the village he is immediately accosted by an Interpol agent. Running away, Carl is fatally trampled by a horse, not realizing that he is now a double for the agent, who saw the resemblance and was intrigued.
What a stinker! The Paul Reinman stories tend to be the weakest and they're relegated to the back of the book. Too bad they weren't discarded entirely.-Jack
Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
"Gorgilla Strikes Again!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)
(r: Where Creatures Roam #5) ★ 1/2
"Monsteroso!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★ 1/2
"Robot on the Rampage!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★ 1/2
(r: Marvel Super-Heroes #31)
Once Gorgilla recovers from his fight with the T-Rex (Tales to Astonish #12), the big furry guy decides that he likes human companionship, so he sneaks aboard a cargo ship and hides in its hold until it reaches New York harbor. When it emerges, the sailors freak out, so Gorgilla dives overboard and swims into the sewers beneath the city to ponder how he can make his good intentions known. Only Scotty, the scientist who first discovered him, realizes that Gorgilla is actually a teddy bear, but no one is ready to listen.
Meanwhile a trio of stinkin' commies decide that this is a great moment to strike a blow against capitalistic imperialism. Gorgilla emerges in the middle of the field at Yankee Stadium (back when the team was actually good) and evades capture before wisely returning to his underground safe space. The commies are nearby, waiting to blow up a subway tunnel at the moment an African dignitary passes by above. Gorgilla senses that the commies are up to no good and foils their plot! He chases one of the bad guys to the statute of liberty and climbs to the top, where he is blasted off the side by a bazooka wielded by the NYPD. Gorgilla falls to his death, clutching the commie spy in one paw. This proves that the big ape had good intentions, and everyone realizes that Scotty was right all along.
A big, furry creature called "Monsteroso!" hatches from an egg and rapidly grows to enormous proportions, thinking himself master of all things. He stomps around, feeling very proud of himself, until it begins to rain and he realizes he'll drown in a flood. But wait! He's really a tiny speck in a Petri dish being rinsed off by a scientist.
How many times will we have to suffer this same twist ending! Something that seems really big is actually really small. At least Ditko can draw a big, furry monster. God forbid this story had been assigned to Don Heck!
In the near future, at a lonely lighthouse, there's a "Robot on the Rampage!" To strike the first blow in a robot rebellion against humans, this bucket of bolts wants to shut off the light at the top of the lighthouse to make ships crash. The old lighthouse keeper manages to shove the robot outside and lock the door, but soon both keeper and robot realize that the old man can't stay inside indefinitely without food or water. Eventually, the man comes out, just as the robot rusts solid from the damp, salty air.
Two Ditko stories in one issue would be a cause for celebration if the stories were any good. Sadly, they're not.-Jack
 |
| This Thursday... Walk This Way! |
 |
| And Next Monday... Get Ready for the First Magneto!!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment