Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror Issue 36

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 21

June 1952 Part I

Heath

 Journey Into Mystery #1

"One Foot in the Grave" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★
(r: Monsters Unleashed #1)
"The Clutching Hands" (a: Cal Massey) ★★★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #21)
"Haunted!" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #21)
"It Can't Miss" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★
(r: Chamber of Chills #5)
"Iron-Head" (a: Dick Ayers) ★★★1/2
(r: Tales of the Zombie #1)

Journey Into Mystery is most famous, of course, for being the birthplace of the Mighty Thor (who will arrive from Asgard in exactly 82 issues), but before that it was also one of the only survivors of the "Atlas Implosion" of 1957 (well, if you want to get technical, the title did go on a 15-month hiatus before being relaunched in 1958) and one of Marvel's longest-running horror/sf titles. Take a look to your right and see if you can spot the difference between the cover for JIM #1 and those on any of the other Atlas titles. (I'll give you a few seconds) Yep, good spot. For some reason, Stan decided to forego the mountains of text and "Also in This Issue" banners he loved to stream across otherwise-gorgeous covers and let Russ Heath's illustration sell the zine on its own merits.

In "One Foot in the Grave," a heartless florist pays hoboes to steal floral arrangements from graves and then sells them at a premium. One night, the dead come back for their flowers. A very elementary story idea, the plot of which has been used before, but the art by DiPreta (again, very Colan-esque) is nicely done. Much better is "The Clutching Hands," about Ted Wayne, a hack novelist, who murders a rival writer and steals his unfinished manuscript, hoping to land a best-seller. That night, he awakens to find the dead man's hands at the typewriter, finishing the novel. Not one to look a gift hand in the palm, Wayne takes the now-finished book to his editor but is low-balled on the advance money. Just then, the hands appear and strangle the editor and his secretary enters in time to see Wayne flee. The writer is arrested and sentenced to death by hanging, but is granted a last-second stay while he stands on the gallows, noose around his neck. As the Governor's message is read, the clutching hands pull the lever and Wayne falls to his death. Russ Heath's brilliant artwork on "The Clutching Hands" is about as close as you're going to get to the look of EC Comics. The splash is brutal, but gorgeous.

"Haunted"

The next two tales are pretty bad. "Haunted" is about a ghost who tries his best to dissuade buyers from purchasing his haunted house. Some of Carrabotta's work here is nice (his spectre is pretty creepy) but the story has almost as much dust on it as the haunted house. Worse is "It Can't Miss," which can't even work up much enthusiasm for its art (Jay Scott Pike almost seems to be going for an Eisner vibe with his doodlings). Murderer and general tough guy Frankie Arno is on the lam and is mistaken for a respectable businessman who looks just like him. Unfortunately, the guy’s been committed to an asylum. Why? Who knows?

The last story of the issue is very definitely the best. Bronson, a really really bad guy steals an undersea treasure while in a diver’s suit and blows up the ship and its crew to prevent any witnesses. He surfaces on a nearby island of natives who worship him as the god "Iron-Head." As long as he doesn’t remove his helmet, he’s okay. Obviously he can’t eat, so he starves. The final panel, of a native saying “Him no God! Axe make-em Iron-Head come off... just like chicken head!” and hefting a bloody hatchet, is a gem of dark humor! Dick Ayers comes through with a fabulous set of visuals, very reminiscent of fellow Atlas artist, Bill Everett.

"Iron-Head"

Everett & Burgos

 Adventures Into Terror #10

"When the Vampire Calls!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★★
(r: Dracula Lives #4)
"The Dark Passage" (a: Ogden Whitney) ★★
(r: Monsters Unleashed #5)
"What Walter Saw" (a: Ed Goldfarb) ★
"The Snake!" (a: George Roussos) ★
"The Old Hag" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★

The superstitious villagers believe the beautiful Lyra is a vampire, draining all the locals of their life blood, but Pierce is so in love with Lyra that he can't believe the stories. He follows the girl to her castle and discovers that she lures the young men to her home so that her vampire brother can sup. The finale sees the villagers, in grand old Universal style, burning the castle and its occupants to ashes. Not terribly original, but something about the whole package ticked al the right boxes for me. Joe Maneely's art here is the best we've seen in the Atlas horror titles so far (and the closest to the detailed magic he performed on The Black Knight). "When the Vampire Calls" could have fit into the Universal chronology somewhere between Dracula's Daughter and Ghost of Frankenstein (brother vamp actually looks more like "the Monster" and Lyra is the prototypical Gale Sondergaard eerie beauty).

"The Dark Passage"

Nick Raftis waits on death row but his nights are filled with torturous nightmares of hooded demons. Convinced he'll be rid of the night spirits if he breaks out, Nick steals an ambulance and smashes through the gate but doesn't get far before he runs out of gas. Fearful he'll be caught, he enters a house filled with hooded figures. Too late, he learns he's already dead and the figures lead him into "The Dark Passage." Nice ghoulies courtesy of Ogden Whitney, but the finish is a bit too cloudy (did Nick die in the chair or in his cell during the escape?) and reeks of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." "What Walter Saw" is a really silly short-short about a boardwalk telescope operator who can't make money with his weak lenses, so he steals a batch of powerful glasses and ends up seeing an invasion of aliens. Worse is "The Snake!," about a sailor who boasts of having a snakeskin in his knapsack and then has to sneak off to a deserted island in the night to search for one in order to save face.

"The Old Hag"

The issue ends on a high note with "The Old Hag." Tired of being homely and poor, a man asks an old hag to make him different. She does, by making his entire body elastic. TV shows and personal appearances make him rich and he pays the old witch every month, but he forgets to visit her one month and she dies of starvation. His powers of "normalcy" wear off and his body becomes a rubbery mess. He's forced to get a carnival job. Creepy art and a nasty bite in the tail elevate this one to "keeper" status. That final panel, of the hopelessly rubberized dope, is pretty freaky.

Everett

 Journey Into Unknown Worlds #11

"Frankie Was Afraid!" (a: Bil Everett) ★★
"Kiss of Death" (a: Bernie Krigstein)  ★★
"Once Upon a Corpse" (a: Marty Elkin & Gil Kane) ★
"I Can't Stop Screaming" (a: Dick Ayers) ★1/2
"The Neat Trick" (a: Harry Lazarus & George Klein) ★★1/2

Dr. Le Doux specializes in treating patients of their fears -- doesn't matter what kind of fears, he's your man at fifty dollars a session. So when Frankie shows up to the Doc's office and claims he's afraid of midnight, Le Dous sees dollar signs and tells the poor schmoe it will take thirty sessions to cure midnightaphobia. After the 29th visit, Frankie approaches the head-shrinker and reminds him he only has one session left, and he's still terrifies of the witching hour. Le Doux grabs his patient and drags him out to a graveyard, thinking that will do the trick. Unfortunately for the dim-witted therapist, Frankie reveals why he's afraid of midnight... by sprouting fangs and wings. Any surprise in the climax of "Frankie Was Afraid!" is muted by the fact that the exact scene plays itself out on the cover! Bill Everett's LeDoux is a dead ringer for the joker and his winged vampire is a delight but there are way too many crowded panels for my tastes.

"Frankie Was Afraid!"

Dede, the heroine of "Kiss of Death" falls in love with a statue in the park, much to the dismay of her boyfriend. The legend goes that, two thousand years before, Hemus and Xanthia were lovers in Greece but Hemus had a wandering eye, and when he stepped out one too many time, Xanthia buried a blade in his back and then killed herself as well. Now, Dede can't seem to take her mind off the stone Adonis and heads out to the park late at night for another look. Hemus, having bottled up two thousand years of libido, drops a line or two on the bewildered young lady and then follows it up with a smooch. Xanthia, still the jealous woman, dispatches Dede with her blade and the two statues return to their perch, none the wiser. A decent enough fantasy, but the Krigstein art is low-grade Bernie, one of his sketchier jobs. There's also a bit of 1950s risqué cheesecake, when Dede hops out of bed in lingerie to go on her midnight walk.

In "Once Upon a Corpse," Monk Bennett tries to kidnap a little boy outside a cemetery but it turns out the kid is from the other side, looking for some fun. The climax is murky (we're not really sure what the kid's motives and powers are), but not nearly as murky as the truly awful art (Gil Kane inked over Marty Elkin but there's not a trace of Kane to these untrained eyes). Mr. Green, importer of rare silks and cloth has a meeting with a strange hunchbacked chap who shows Green the most beautiful material he's ever seen. The two strike a bargain and Green promises to pay the oddball upon delivery. When Green opts to stiff his new partner, the hunchback pays a visit to Green's office and spins a web around the shyster. You guessed it! The fabulous material is silk spun from the man's bulbous abdomen. He's a giant spider! And one who can hide that enormous thorax and eight legs nicely under a trench coat! Dick Ayers' art for "I Can't Stop Screaming"... ouch!

The best, again, is saved for last with "The Neat Trick," a humorous yarn about big-mouthed heckler, Harry Bogan, and the night he decided to accuse Lokar, the Magician of being a phony. The public spectacle tarnishes the good name of Lokar and he finds himself with out a job but that's neither here nor there to Brogan, who laughs the whole thing off. Later, that night, the two men stumble into each other in the woods and Bogan is anything but apologetic. Regardless, Lokar is kind enough to show Bogan his most famous trick: making his own head disappear. Astonished, but calling it a parlor trick, Brogan asks Lokar to teach him how the stunt is performed and the magician is only too happy to oblige.

Everett

 Marvel Tales #107

"The Thing in the Sewer" (a: Fred Kida) ★
"The Man With the Whip" (a: Ogden Whitney) ★★
"Going My Way?" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★1/2
"The Glass Eye" (a: Allen Bellman) ★1/2
"Trapped By the Dead!" (a: Gene Colan) ★★★

In a dark cemetery, a robber/murderer has set his sights on his latest victim, a graveside mourner, but from nowhere his mark is set upon by another man. After forcing both men to accompany him into his subterranean lair (which comes complete with picked-clean skulls), the murderer is about to dispatch the interloper, the man sprouts wings and fangs. Didn't we just read this story in another title?

A child is kept locked in a basement, the only exposure to the outside world is his guardian, "The Man With the Whip." One day, the man forgets to lock the door and the child ascends the stairs and kills his torturer. As he heads out the front door, he wonders why the man kept him hidden from others. The final panel, of the monstrous child, is far from a surprise since the kid's face is kept in shadows throughout the story's five pages. This type of story would probably have worked better as a prose feature but it's really not that bad, and Ogden Whitney delivers some stirring visuals (though the grotesque tusks sticking out of the boy's mouth make you wonder how he couldn't notice he was different from his guardian) and a creepy atmosphere. How this tyke became so malformed is just one of those questions we best not ask.

A traveling salesman kisses his wife and hits the road in a terrible storm, promising her he'll be safe. He stops for a hitchhiker but is shocked when he sees the man is wearing a skull mask. "Going My Way?" is all the spectre says. The traveler speeds off but can't escape the ghostly apparition at every stop he makes. Running low on gas, he finds a farm house and tries to steal some petrol from a vehicle, but the farmer catches him and almost gives him both barrels until his wife talks him out of it. Explaining he's just a traveling salesman who's almost out of gas, our hero phones his wife on the farmer's telephone but receives quite the shock when a nurse answers the phone and explains that his wife is in a state of shock after receiving the news that her husband died in a road wreck. The salesman heads back out on the road, resigned to the fact that, the next time he sees his new friend, he'll give him a ride since he's going that way. A few head-scratchers here (why does the farm couple see our traveler if he's a ghost? Are they ghosts too?), but for a variation on a well-traveled road, "Going My Way" is an entertaining yarn and Bernie Krigstein's art here is about as close as we're going to come (so far, at least) to the quality he brought to EC.

Two bumbling museum guards decide think that the rubies in a priceless statue's eye sockets will be their ticket to a big payday but the idol has other ideas. Even at a mere four pages, "The Glass Eye" feels padded and its clumsy climax will leave the reader unsatisfied. Much, much better is the grand finale this issue, "Trapped By the Dead!" Fred Konry makes a cross-country trek to murder his look-alike cousin, the very rich Hollis Konry, and assume his identity and exorbitant lifestyle. The murder goes off without a hitch (Fred chops Hollis up into little pieces and buries him in several different makeshift graves alongside the highway. The plan works even better when Fred gets home to Hollis' gorgeous wife and the dame is none the wiser. He makes grand plans to tear down the old estate and build a new mansion, but those plans go awry when the builders discover the skeleton of Hollis' old partner in the walls and the cops converge on the new millionaire. Though the "assumed identity" riff has been played a gazillion times, "Trapped By the Dead!" manages to pull it off by averting your eye from the plot long enough to throw in a surprise at the climax. I'm sure it occurred to me before but it strikes me how much Gene Colan's early, noir-ish art resembles Bernie Krigstein's work at the time. Both had that similar knack of turning the cartoon into the atmospheric.

Heath

 Adventures Into Weird Worlds #7

"The Cat's Whiskers" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★1/2
"In the Still of the Night" (a: Marty Elkin) ★1/2
"The Strange Road" (a: Ogden Whitney) ★
"The Ghost" (a: Myron Fass) ★★1/2
"The Bad Boy" (a: Jim Mooney) ★★★

We find ourselves back on the low end of the Carrabotta seesaw with the opener, "The Cat's Whiskers," about Amos White, a nightwatchman framed and executed for a murder he didn't commit. Turns out Amos rode the lightning for mob boss Rocc, and the framer is none other than renowned lawyer, George Henly. But, after the execution, the counselor can't shake the stalking Blackie, Amos' faithful feline, a creepy little vixen who manages to steal his way into George's bedroom one night and leave the terrified lawyer speechless. As noted, this is not one of Vic's better jobs but, as noted above in the review of "Haunted," even at his worst, Carrabotta could still evoke the chills now and then. Here, it comes with the final frames of the story, where Blackie gets his revenge and George is left holding his tongue... or where his tongue used to be.

"In the Still of the Night," a stranger comes into town, looking for companionship, and finds himself attracted to a beautiful girl in a restaurant. She finds him attractive too, and they arrange a meeting in the park. As the sun goes down, the man turns into a werewolf and tells the girl he's in town looking for his next victim... and then the woman bares her fangs and tells the dope the same thing. How many times can these guys trot this one out? They don't even try variations anymore; just pass the same script over to another artist every six months and the reader won't remember the last time. A shame too, since the first half of the story build legitimate suspense.

"The Strange Road" is an illogical and just plain dumb story about a bus driver on a new route who picks up very pale and lifeless riders and then gets stuck behind a funeral procession. Impatient, he jumps the line and when he pulls alongside the hearse, he notices the driver is a skeleton. Losing control, the bus tumbles down the side of the mountain and the last thing the driver sees is himself... a skeleton... in the rear-view mirror. So what deep meaning does this hold? Is the driver death? Is he the bus driver to hell? You tell me.

A bit better is the other quickie this issue, "The Ghost," about a woman who's getting tired of her husband's supernatural obsession with his dead wife. He sees seers in hopes of resurrecting his old flame, but the current Mrs. is carrying on an affair with her hubby's business partner and the two of them have something planned. The crafty adulterer gives the old boy a wrench to the skull and runs his car off a cliff but, once she gets home, she realizes there might just be something to this "other world" nonsense after all. A nicely atmospheric little chiller with great art from Myron Fass, who could pull an ace from his hat now and then. Fass is better known for the Eerie Publications line of horror comics of the 1960s and 1970s; Fass would grab strips from the 1950s and have them gussied up with blood and guts and garish covers. Fass' rags would rot the minds of thousands of impressionable youngsters (this old fan included) and are widely collected and revered to this day (don't be surprised to see a blog dedicated to Tales from the Tomb and its sisters some day, right here in this space).

Stan saves the best for last this issue, with the creepy "The Bad Boy." Young Peter Hemsley is bored of living in the country without any friends to play with, so mom suggests to her son conjuring up an imaginary pal. So Peter whips up an invisible body, names him "Bad Peter," and seemingly becomes enchanted with his new BFF. But when tobacco is spilled and rugs ripped up, dad finds his patience wearing thin. When a dart goes sailing past his face one night, Mr. Hemsley decides something has to be done so he tells Peter that he's going to strangle "Bad Peter" and they'll be done-and-dusted of imaginary playmates. To Pop's surprise, Peter agrees that his evil counterpart must be done away with and gives his dad the thumbs-up sign. After a good imaginary throttling of air, Dad declares "Bad Peter" dead but his little tyke, now sporting fangs and green skin, turns and reveals that he "killed the wrong one!"

The "invisible friend who's really there" plot has been used several times before (and, of course, the king of them all would have to be Ray Bradbury's "Zero Hour," which was adapted by Al Feldstein for Weird Fantasy #18) but "The Bad Boy" gives the tired horse a kick in the ribs and a neat twist in the tail. I love Joe Sinnott's art, which is equally stylish and garish (his panel of little Peter warning his dad that "Bad Peter gets awfully mad when he's scolded" is even creepier than the final panel reveal!

Astonishing #14

"Under Glass" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★
"The Man Who Jumped!" (a: Cal Massey) ★★
"The Man Who Changed Bodies!" (a: E.J. Smalls) ★
"Silence!" (a: Don Rico & Dick Ayers) ★★1/2
"The Clean-Up!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★1/2

Pa can't seem to keep his two sons from fighting; his aunt complains every time he tells her to make lunch; and his wife is getting some on the side from the new boarder. What's a slob to do? Well, Pa grabs a blade and sticks it to the new guy and everyone just stands around and stares... including the giant bugs who "overran Earth after the atomic war of 1993," and captured the lot of them to put on display in their human being zoo!

The first four-and-a-half pages of "Under Glass" is like some deranged variation of Streetcar Named Desire; a cringe-worthy peek into the lower depths of humanity. It's a hellish vision, and Bernie Krigstein's art is the perfect art to carry this narrative over the line of decency and good taste. And then there's the climax, one I didn't see coming and, now that I've seen it, wish I could un-see it. It smacks of going for the easy wrap-up rather than building on the events we've witnessed previously and it's also a twist been done to death. This might have been a full four-star gem had the writer (I think this is way too nasty for Stan "The Man," but what do I know?) conjured up a more grueling finish.

Chauffeur Conrad has his eyes on the boss's daughter but the old crow gets wise and fires him. Before the will can be changed, Conrad stages an accident and moneybags ends up at the bottom of a cliff. Conrad becomes Mr. Inherited Moneybags but has constant nightmares of the boss coming back for him. Unable to take the terror anymore, Conrad steps out onto a ledge and prepares to jump but gets cold feet and breathes a sigh of relief as hands reach out to pull him back in the window. But as the would-be suicide opens his eyes, he realizes the hands belong to his late father-in-law and they're pulling him downward! "The Man Who Jumped!" is no great shakes in the script department but Cal Massey's art is energetic (almost like a cross-breeding of Everett and Heath!) and keeps the attention even when the words don't.

With a title like "The Man Who Changed Bodies!," there's no real need for synopsis, is there? I'll just say that the only smile that crossed my face during this snoozer, about a millionaire who discovers a way to switch bodies with his handsome gardener, is the "eerie chant" the old guy must repeat:

"I command your mind and ego to leave your body and enter mine! And my mind and ego will inhabit your body!"

That took some thinking on the part of our intrepid funny book writer.

Depending on how you look at it, "Silence" is either an interesting experiment in (for the most part) wordless panels or the easiest assignment of the day for the Atlas horror comic writer. A man wakes up and runs through his deserted city, looking for signs of life. The subway is deserted, the streets are filled with empty cars, and all the buildings stand quiet. He finally finds a lone figure sitting behind a desk, writing in a ledger, and when the stranger raises his head, we see it is death. Not a bad little chiller and the final panels, with Mr. Death holding his reaper, provide the desired effect. We are left wondering what happened here that there aren't even bodies in the streets. All trace of humankind vanished but for this one poor soul.

The final story, "The Clean-Up!," is some nasty business about Lucy,  a little girl adopted from an orphanage and put to work cleaning the house of a chemist who manufactures disinfectants. He's got this poor little kid sponging the toilets and scraping the food off plates 24/7, while he lords over her with his whip. When the little moppet accidentally spills garbage on the tyrant, he orders her to fix him a bath and she "mistakenly" fills the tub with acid! There's a (delightfully) mean streak running through "The Clean-Up!" that you (as a horror story reader, that is) can't help but enjoy. The chemist boasts that he makes the strongest disinfectants in the land, but seemingly has nothing better to do with his day than supervise Little Orphan Lucy while she goes about her chores. The art by Tony DiPreta is primitive and rushed (Lucy's face seems to have the exact same look and the exact same angle in every panel) but then the scratchiness of the visuals seems perfectly matched with the grimy narrative.

In Two Weeks...
It's Uncanny how the Atlas horror line
continues to grow!

Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror Issue 35

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 20

May 1952 

 Suspense #18

"The Cozy Coffin!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★1/2
"The Joke" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★★
"Creep, Hands, Creep" (a: George Roussos) ★
"The Man I'm Gonna Kill" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★
"Escape From Death" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★
"Stay Away! (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★
"The River!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★

Neil can't wait for his rich old uncle to drop dead and leave him loaded down with millions of bucks (gee, where have we heard that before?) and a telegram bidding him to visit said uncle has Neil hopping a plane for the French Riviera. When he arrives at his uncle's castle, he finds the old coot sleeping in a coffin. The old man allows how it's the most comfortable way to sleep and he insists Neil should try it. Wanting to please the old man, Neil relaxes in "the Cozy Coffin!" and promptly falls asleep. When he awakens the next morning, he discovers he can't move. In fact, his uncle tells him, he's dead! Nice Joe Maneely art can't save this puzzler and its nonsensical climax.

When his friends play a really nasty joke on him, Eddie keeps it festering inside for ten years until it finally comes out in a blaze of violence. Jay Scott Pike has a very rough, very amateurish style that I'm sure I won't warm up to in the near future but there are a couple of standout panels in "The Joke" that keep the tale from tanking. Eddie wallops one of his friend in the head with a big rock and you can almost feel the blow through the page.

Nifty Mead has two very clumsy hands and they've landed him in the stir for a long visit. If only he could have a pair of hands that didn't fumble and bumble, he'd be a force to reckon with, he reckons. Luckily for Nifty, Big Boy Angus, the world's craftiest pickpocket (and owner of the steadiest hands in the biz) is due to be fried and Nifty has been given a job in the jail morgue. Once Big Boy has his shot of voltage and is wheeled into the morgue, Nifty skins the corpse's hands and slides them on like gloves. Suddenly, the bumbler can do anything, including busting out of the pokey. Our dopey hero is winged on the way out but his hands drag him free and Nifty soon finds himself in the prison cemetery, where Big Boy is waiting to reclaim his hands. "Creep, Hands, Creep" doesn't seem to know what to do with its premise, which is a variation on an old theme: the hands with life of their own. Oddly, Nifty's new gloves seem to last even though a layer of skin would probably dry up in a matter of days, if not several hours. It's also unclear whether Nifty is always earring his new skin or if he keeps it hidden in his pocket and takes it out for special occasions. George Roussos's art is very noir-ish here and cartoony there, but it does the job well enough.

"The Man I'm Gonna Kill"

"The Man I'm Gonna Kill" is a cliched (and not very well-illustrated) tale of a man who kills his identical twin and then steps into his place in life, only to find that the brother's wife had plans to kill her husband. The outcome is obvious from the get-go. Elk Diamond, murderer and "one of New York's most notorious criminals," is put to death by electric chair but, later that night, his corpse is resurrected as a"human torch." His new boss, Dr. Orgesky, has given Elk a second chance at life and has promised that, if Orgesky can use Diamond's new body as a tool to rob banks for one month, he'll give Diamond a human form once again. Diamond goes on a holdup spree, using his unique incendiary powers to gain access to anything the Doc desires, and amasses millions in loot. The Doc isn't satisfied though and Elk overhears his master explaining that he won't fulfill his end of the bargain until Elk has made him the richest man in the world. Elk loses his temper and reduces the Doc to ashes but, ironically, finds the same fate when he's struck by lightning.

"Escape From Death"

I wanted to like "Escape From Death" a whole lot more than I did. It's a unique kind of story for the Atlas mags but it's also a bit of a throwback (the most obvious nod being Marvel's own Human Torch of the Golden Age); unfortunately, it's just too short; there's barely enough time to set the plot up before it's time to burn everything to the ground. What, ferinstance, is the Doc's master plan, only hinted at? An army of super torch-soldiers? The conquest of Earth by fire? All we gather from what we're given is that the professor is a nut and he likes money. I've got a feeling this is a Stan Lee creation. Stallman's art, further, makes this look just like a hero strip. A near-miss.

Nelson, a washed-up has-been archeologist will do anything to discover the fabled City of the Dead in the Valley of Tuzo... even murder! Once the bone-digger gets a helpful clue as to the whereabouts (see the panel to the left), he discovers a strange old man who promises to lead him to the City... for a price! Nelson agrees to whatever the man is asking and is led into a fabulous treasure-filled cave hidden behind a few well-placed boulders. Unfortunately for Nelson, the old man reveals he is one of the residents of the City of the Dead and his price for the discovery is... Nelson's life. "Stay Away" is a fun little bit of nonsense, with some giggle-inducing dialogue (when a colleague questions why an old man like Nelson should be allowed on the trip, our hero chimes in: "I can still take notes!") and one of Bernie Krigstein's more cartoony art jobs. And, in the final story this issue, "The River," murderer Cain Denis flees from the hounds and forces a ferryman to take him across an eerie river. Of course, the ferryman turns out to be Charon, Hell's most famous skipper. Yes, it's a bit on the obvious side, but Many Stallman's feisty art for the reveal raises my rating at least a half-star.

Everett

 Adventures Into Weird Worlds #6

"My Brother... The Ghoul" (a: George Roussos) ★
(r: Dead of Night #1)
"Step Right into the... House of Horror" 
(a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2
(r: Dead of Night #1)
"The Wooden Man" ★★
(r: Tomb of Darkness #10)
"The Ghost Still Walks" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★
(r: Dead of Night #1)
"He Dwells in a Dungeon"★
(r: Dead of Night #1)

Hugo is technically not a ghoul (he doesn't eat corpses), but he's not a very nice guy either. He digs up freshly dug graves to steal valuables and has no attack of conscience for the deed. His brother, identical twin Julius, however is appalled when he finds out what Hugo has been up to. It's very easy to figure out when Hugo accidentally puts a pickaxe into his foot while digging one night and the pain is felt clear across town in Julius's toes as well. You see, what one feels, so does the other. When the cops chase Hugo back to the flat, he frames Julius for the crime and and smiles while the trial unfolds. Found guilty, Julius is sentenced to the electric chair but, when the switch is pulled, it's Hugo who fries and Julius walks away a free man. Identical twins were as common as scheming husbands in the 1950s and "M Brother... the Ghoul" is not one of the best documents of the phenomena. No one explains why Julius survives the voltage since both brothers felt the pickaxe in the intro. His final proclamation, after riding the lightning and living to tell the story, is laugh-out-loud funny:

"Release me, gentlemen! The guilty one is dead...My Brother, the Ghoul!"

Yeah, right, Bob. Give him another zap!

"Step Right Into..."

"Step Right Into the... House of Horror" and meet a debunker who visits a "haunted house" to uncover the reasons why the house won't sell and then becomes part of the house of horror. Purely predictable with a bit of a luster added thanks to Jim Mooney's nice visuals. Nut job Laura falls in love with a ventriloquist named Ventro but the guy won't put aside his dummy for two seconds to give her a squeeze. The poor girl is getting frustrated so she (literally) takes matters in her own hands and discovers the horrible truth about "The Wooden Man." Well, it's a surprise to Laura but we horror buffs saw it coming a mile away because most of us have seen "The Glass Eye," an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Based on the John Keir Cross story of the same name, published in the 1940s, and obviously read by Stan and the gang. Still, I give points for the sheer creep factor of the art.

"The Ghost Still Walks"

It's that exact creep factor that elevates "The Ghost Still Walks" (a quite nonsensical title, no?), a goofy tale of a fraternity hazing gone deadly. Joe Sinnott knows his way around a rotting corpse and he delights in offering up proof here and there. The story itself has been told several times before, but we're not here to read this one. Just look at the panels! Last up is"He Dwells in a Dungeon," wherein a scheming babe marries into money but then discovers she must take care of her brother-in-law, a hunchbacked half-wit her husband keeps locked in the cellar. No freak's gonna steal this wench's inheritance, so she grabs a gun and slips down into the basement to thin out the family tree. Unfortunately, she doesn't think to turn on the lights and she kills her husband instead. Strictly by-the-numbers with average, unspectacular visuals.

 Amazing Detective #12

"The Man Who Shrunk" (a: Martin Rosenthal) ★★
"Harrigan's Wake!" (a: George Roussos) ★
"The Eerie Escape" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★
"What in the World" (a: Jim Mooney) ★★
"The Cat's Meow!" (a: Mike Sekowsky) ★

Detective Jim Kirby is enjoying an off-night in front of the tube, watching a variety show featuring The Great Moru and his "living dolls." Suddenly, Kirby recognizes a couple of the dolls from Missing Persons reports as members of an acrobatic troop. Realizing his story would be greeted with derision, Kirby begins an investigation into the mysterious Moru, discovering that the showman is actually the disgraced scientist, Dr. Marcus, who was thrown out of his Scientist Country Club for working on a serum to shrink human beings. Ransacking the professor's estate, Kirby is startled by the wacky Prof., who pulls a gun on the cop and injects him with little people juice.

Kirby gets off a firm right cross and the dopey doc goes down; the flatfoot shrinks down to the size of a flea and takes shelter in the egghead's beard. Shrinking even smaller, Kirby finds himself slipping into Moru's bloodstream but is delighted to find out the serum only lasts a few minutes. He grows right back up to Big Boy size and leaves his former hideout a bloody mess. Though nothing that will pop up on the annual Best-Of list, "The Man Who Shrunk" is an amiable bit of gibberish, with some distracting art from Martin Rosenthal, who had a brief association with Wally Wood (working on romance comics published by Fox) in the late 1940s.

Two awful shorts follow. In "Harrigan's Wake!," a mob boss decides the only way to find out who his true friends are is to fake his own death and see who comes to his service, but the only attendees are the unfortunates he's rubbed out over the years. "The Eerie Escape" sees con, Slimey, dreaming about transforming into a rodent and escaping from the stir. A fellow inmate grants him the wish but, once he's a little rat instead of a big rat, he discovers why the stranger granted him his wish: the guy's really a large cat! No, seriously! "The Eerie Escape" is not only one incredibly ludicrous read, but it also contains the worst Krigstein art I've ever seen; as if Bernie thought "Why bother?"

Three  "criminal czars" plot the takeover of Earth by stealing large quantities of A-Bombs and "germ-bombs" and hiding them in a remote, camouflaged area. At that very moment, coincidentally, three aliens, cast out of their world for heinous crimes, speed in their spaceship towards Earth. Even though the mob bosses consider their plan foolproof, the Feds surprise them and haul them off to the pokey. En route, the bad guys get free and head for their secret stash. But, ho ho, the G-Men were playing possum and had arranged for the escape so that they could track the Dons back to their ammo dump. Coincidentally, at that moment, the three aliens arrive just outside the armory and happen upon their three Earthling counterparts. They zap there three astonished mafia hoods and assume their identities just in time for the Feds to show up and blast them. Well, of course, with a lot of these funny book horror/SF tales, you have to throw logic out with the first panel or you're going to be in trouble. "What in the World" almost seems to have been written with tongue firmly in cheek so it's a lot easier to accept the Holy-Toledo! coincidences that riddle the text. Jim Mooney gives us classic one-eyed frog aliens to keep our mind off the silly plot (the Feds sure are taking a leap of faith that the three hoods won't gun them down when they "escape"), but the finale doesn't so much surprise as fizzle.

Last, and in a race to be least, is "The Cat's Meow!," about a woman who believes her husband, a dabbler in black magic, is changing into a mouse to give her a heart attack. Her therapist is, to say the least, skeptical until the husband is found with a broken neck and the only clue is a sprung mouse trap. Mike Sekowsky's fans are legion (his DC work is highly-regarded) but I am not among those legion, I'm sorry to say. Sekowsky's art is just too cartoony and average for my tastes. There are no flares nor moments of inspiration to be found here. Just your average (or perhaps below-average) 1950s funny book art.

Low-grade Krigstein

Heath

 Spellbound #3

"The Thing Behind the Wall" (a: Ogden Whitney) ★★1/2
"The Worm" (a: Fred Kida) ★1/2
"The Flat Man" ★★
"Crazy Glass" (a: Manny Stallman) ★
"X" (a: Cal Massey) ★★

With World War II approaching, the dying Mrs. Miles makes Nana promise she'll hide her little Johnny from the war department. Never mind that Johnny is a pre-teen; Mrs. Miles is convinced this war will last forever. So, with the death of Mrs. Miles and the promise of a fortune laid out before her in the will, Nana takes Johnny into the basement and bricks him up, leaving just enough space for air and food. Johnny wants meat but Nana insists that she doesn't have the budget for anything more than carrots. Years pass, the war ends, and Nana tears down the brick wall to free Johnny and is shocked to see he's turned into a ghostly beast, more hungry for meat than ever before. Here's a weird one for you. "The Thing Behind the Wall" has got a very sleazy vibe to it, and that's not even taking into account that Johnny had no sanitary facilities behind that wall. Ogden Whitney's art is just fine here, adding even more unease to the proceedings. We're never told exactly how Johnny came about his transformation (obviously, his hair and nails are longer but he's also grown fangs ) but the story is such a short one, it doesn't matter anyway.

Poor, meek Casper has to put up with his older brother, Hugo, and his mockery. Since Hugo is the elder, he inherited the family fortune and now rules over Casper like a slave-driver. Tired of being "The Worm," Casper conspires with Hugo's wife, Violet, and buys rat poison for his brother's nightly rum-drinking ritual. Hugo drops dead immediately after drinking the laced rum and Violent pulls a gun, informing Casper she's going to call the police and inherit the fortune herself but Casper has other ideas. He strangles Violet but a bullet grazes his forehead, knocking him out. The poor schlepp awakens to a couple of cops pouring rum down his throat to resuscitate him. Casper only gets a taste but that's enough to paralyze him and he's buried alive. Boy, oh boy, funeral arrangements were made so much easier back in the 1950s. Even though he gets a mere smidgen of the poison, Casper maintains his shroud all through the autopsy, the embalming, the funeral service, and the burial without making a sound. And, sure, this stuff will paralyze you but nothing is said about it masking the breathing. Well, anyway... this here's a Stan Lee script (we know cuz he signed it), not one of his better ones I hasten to add, and I suspect Stan whipped it up on a lunch break while scripting the adventures of Hedy Hollywood and Kid Colt Outlaw.

The narrator of "The Flat Man" isn't your average hood. Nope, this guy has spent the last seven years perfecting a pill that will make him "The Flat Man!," a being so thin he'll be able to slip under bank vault doors and make away with loads of booty. There's only one catch to this miracle drug: it lasts six hours and then brain-boy must take another pill to decompress him or he'll die (of what, we're not told). So, our quasi-scientific genius pops his pill, becomes "The Flat Man," and robs the local bank of millions. He hops back into his getaway car after spending five hours in the vault and heads back to his apartment to take his antidote, only to discover his throat is too thin to swallow the pill! Incredibly dopey and yet undeniably a fun read, "The Flat Man" is the absolute definition of a guilty pleasure (but let's not confuse this with "The Flat Man," about a guy who survives a run-in with a steamroller, that appeared a few years later in Superior's Journey Into Fear #19, a story that was vastly... um, superior to this one). All the while I was wondering why this guy, smart enough to craft a pill that can change the entire structure of one's body, wouldn't think of every pitfall and concoct a liquid antidote. Also, how does his heart survive the transformation (I won't be rude enough to bring up the fate of his other organs) and wouldn't he notice the constriction of his throat when he tries to breathe? Well, don't be a worrywart like me and just enjoy some fiction that doesn't force you to think.

Two short-shorts finish off this issue. The first, "Crazy Glass" is a weak tale about a carnival worker who discovers a face looking back at him through the new distorting glass in the Hall of Mirrors. The art is average but the story is an oft-told one.  A bit better is "X," wherein a businessman blackmails his two partners by sending them letters, threatening to make secrets public and signing it "X." The two men kill themselves but our protagonist is not far behind when he gets a similar letter. Who was the sender? Perhaps the best bit about this quickie is the fact that we never find out.

 Mystic #8

"We Meet At Midnight!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★
(r: Dead of Night #4)
"Sorry... Mr. Hopkins!" (a: Bill Everett) ★1/2
(r: Fear #21)
"House for Sale" (a: Dick Ayers) ★
(r: Journey Into Mystery #11)
"The Burning Flame" (a: Gil Kane) ★
(r: Journey Into Mystery #11)
"A Monster Among Us" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★
(r: Monsters on the Prowl #29)

Hugo Blore has been avoided, mocked, and ridiculed his whole life because he’s less than handsome. After reading up on the occult, Hugo travels to Egypt to learn the secret of the Sphinx. The first half of "We Meet at Midnight" builds suspense, but it leads to a disappointing climax. Paul Reinman's art is crude but it continues to grow on me for some odd reason.

Timothy Hopkins has had enough of his overbearing wife and boss but it’s not until he meets the beautiful carnival fortune teller that he does anything about it. Bill Everett’s art is the only thing that keeps the reader turning the pages of "Sorry... Mr. Hopkins!," and the “shock” ending is given away on the splash.

"A Monster Among Us"

A pair of real groaners follow: In "House for Sale," we enter the “Old Keystone Manor,” rumored to be haunted, sitting unsold for years. Can a brave salesman get the wheels rolling by spending a night in the house? A tedious story weighed down by some of that Dick Ayers "magic" (is it just me or does Ayers' style look like it's doing it's best to crawl from the cellar of the 1940s and doing a lousy job of it?) that I can't get enough of.  In "The Burning Flame," a bum steals the candlesticks from a corpse’s viewing and then can’t get rid of the candles when the cops are on his tail. Early Gil Kane is unrecognizable from the work he’d do several years later.

The best story by default is the finale, "A Monster Among Us." Bullying fisherman, Dan Harper, is tired of the legends of a sea monster that can take the shape of anything it likes, and is determined to show his crew there’s no such thing as monsters. Not much in the way of surprise here but Sinnott’s pre-code horror work is always a plus.

 Mystery Tales #2

"This Corpse Is Mine" ★
"The Crawling Horror" (a: Ogden Whitney) ★★★
"He Went for a Train-Ride" (a: Bernie Krigstein)  ★
"The Gold Gorilla!" ★
"The Rat Race" (a: Bill Everett) ★★★

A heartless mortician won't give anyone in the village a break, not even the poorest of the poor. One night, as he's embalming the richest man in town, he hears a noise in the back room and discovers a vampire and a werewolf battling over a fresh corpse. At first, the mortician believes it's a pair of townfolk trying to scare him, but soon he discovers these creatures are the real deal. "This Corpse Is Mine" is not only deadly dumb but it's a meanderer. The mortician is so rotten and evil, he becomes a joke rather than a character and the monster showdown is tossed in almost as an after-thought when the writer couldn't come up with anything better.

Despondent after the death of his wife from a deadly virus, Dr. Frank Carson makes a vow over her casket to discover a way to destroy bacteria and other small things. In order to rid the world of microscopic bugs, Carson must first make the tiny pests larger, and that's where he fumbles the ball. The Vitamin B-1 and Caffeine shots he administers make the little monsters grow and grow and grow until they've burst their beakers and come after the mad scientist himself. Carson realizes the closer they get to him, the more sick he will become so he resolves to burn the house, the monsters, and himself to ashes. Alas, as the fire eats away at his body, he watches as the one surviving bug, now ten times the size of the house, trots away from the fire. This month's fare had been running average to below-average, so let's all thank Ogden Whitney and our nameless scripter for bringing "The Crawling Horror" to print. No, there's not much in the way of originality here; we're talking about your basic mad scientist plot (though, to be fair, this one only has good intentions in mind). What elevates "The Crawling Horror" is its fun-factor and a pretty grisly climax. Dr. Carson, knowing he's about to die, continues his narration for our benefit: My flesh crackled and cooked as the fire seared into my body! But I managed to get to the cellar window, and as I melted into death in that inferno, I... saw... a really big 1950s bug-monster!

The creepy climax of "The Crawling Horror"

Neither "He Went for a Train-Ride or "The Gold Gorilla" make a whit of sense. Both have unexplained twists that lead to unsatisfactory climaxes. The former is about a man who steps onto the wrong subway train and steps out thirty years in the future. Everything is changed, including his wife, but there's no possible explanation for the phenomena. The conductor looks like a ghoul and the train itself is littered with detritus. Why? "The Gold Gorilla" follows two fortune hunters in the African jungle, who happen upon a rare golden gorilla and kidnap it from its mother. The larger gorilla falls into a trap and the hunters set off with their booty. Halfway to civilization, one bad guy does in the other bad guy and then hops a plane, where he meets a fetching babe named Maura. He asks the gorgeous dame to party with him in Miami but, once they've checked into their hotel rooms, Maura comes up to visit... and turns into a gorilla. As predictable as this outcome is, the reveal still comes from far left field since we're never let in on the fact that the mama gorilla has morphing powers.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Tompson isolates himself in an old estate with cages of rats, all in order to determine... well, something. The professor runs all sorts of sadistic experiments on the little furry creatures but one large rodent catches the egghead's eye. This one is "almost human" in its intelligence. The big rat begins sabotaging the Prof.'s tests, so Tompson decides to kill it, but can't help making one more experiment out of the execution. He pours poison on a hunk of bread and then prepares to watch the outcome through a window in another room but the rat proves to be even more intelligent than imagined. The little furry ball swipes the keys and locks the Prof. in the room and then sits on the window sill, waiting for the inevitable. There's a real nasty edge to Dr. Tompson, perhaps because we're never told exactly what these experiments will prove; they just seem to be exercises in masochism and the challenge this smart rat brings seems to elevate the nastiness. We've seen mad scientists before, but this guy gets off on the pain he puts his subjects through. Bill Everett gives the Doc a suitably insane grin (almost Joker-esque) and devises a fabulous last look at the doomed

Everett

Astonishing #13

"The Three Feathers" (a: Mike Sekowsky) ★★
"Ghoul's Gold" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★
"The Death Watch" (a: Cal Massey) ★★
"The House on the Hill" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★
"Helen's Husband" (a: Ogden Whitney) ★1/2

Albert dresses up asa demon and spooks his old grandma in order to inherit her riches but he (and his co-conspirator wife, Jane) is in for a big surprise when the will is read: the old woman has let only a "treasure box" for Albert. When the nonplussed murderers get homeland open the box, they discover it houses only a large dart adorned with three feathers. Irritated, Albert grips the dart and suddenly has the urge to murder his wife. Once he stabs Jane to death, Albert heads out into the street and confesses his crime to the first cop he stumbles into, insisting the dart made him do it. Investigating the crime scene, a skeptical detective pulls the murder weapon from Jane's back and questions Albert's sanity... just before he plunges the dart into his partner. I'm giving "The Three Feathers" an extra star for its obscure climax and nothing more (especially not for the awful art), but also recognizing the fact that the story is so poorly written that perhaps the "hows" and "whys" were left vague because writer Hank Chapman had no idea how to finish his story.

"The Three Feathers"

In "Ghoul's Gold," the police become suspicious when a morgue attendant makes repeated visits to a gold merchant. Where could this incredible source of gold be located? Characters in this story actually mutter lines like: "I wonder where he gets (the gold). Where can a morgue attendant get so much gold?"  And yes, it leads to the inevitable reveal. Nice Cal Massey art adorns "The Death Watch," about a reporter waiting for an old tycoon to die. Snooping around the rich man's mansion, the newshound runs into a startlingly beautiful girl and begs her for a kiss. The girl delivers one that literally takes his breath away. Encounters with Death (male or female version) are dime-a-dozen in the old comics but "The Death Watch" is an easy enough read and, as noted, boasts nice visuals.

"The House on the Hill" could very well be the worst Atlas horror story of 1952 -- at least I hope it is, and that I won't have to read something even worse. A noted lecturer on aspects of the human brain, Dr. Cranston is invited to the castle of a Dr. Morse to give a lecture to a small gathering of enthusiasts. When he gets there, he's greeted by two very strange people and told the lecture is off but Cranston is welcome to stay the night. After settling in, Cranston gets the creeps from the eerie paintings on the bedroom wall and decides he's going to exit stage left as soon as he can. Coming down the stairs, he's privy to a conversation between the creepy couple, detailing how they intend to dissect Cranston's brain. The terrified professor manages to escape and is rescued on the road by a hooded figure, who claims to be the real Dr. Morse, explaining that Cranston went to the wrong house! Morse takes Cranston home where he introduces him to Mrs. Morse and lifts his own hood, revealing the crazed madman who was going to carve Cranston up over at the other house! Morse explains that he and his wife are dead and they haunt the house, looking for innocent bystanders to behead. Absolute drivel, with a story that goes nowhere slowly and art that just might remind you of that sketch on your refrigerator done by sweet six-year-old Ellie Mae in Kindergarten. Oh yes, it's that bad!

Better, but not by much, is the final story this issue, "Helen's Husband," about a poor slob who marries an old woman to get her riches. The idiot murders his wife one night and prepares to bury her in the family cemetery but she rises from the bed and explains her slightly shocked husband that she's been dead for centuries but she has to rise now and then to feed on her latest husband. Ogden Whitney is rising to the mid-level of Atlas artists, not good enough to be up there with Heath and Everett but not with the dismal dregs of Sekowsky and Carrabotta.

In Two Weeks...