Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror! Issue 31

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 16

March 1952 Part I

 Amazing Detective #11

"The Black Shadow" (a: Fred Kida) ★★★
"The Weird Woman!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★
"Murder in the Morgue!" (a: George Klein) ★
"A Voice from the Grave" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★
"It's Time to Go, Higgins!" (a: Bill Walton) ★1/2

The 12th title to be added to our discussion, Amazing Detective took its time to get to our station. AD has one of the goofiest origins I've ever heard. See if you can follow this: Atlas published two issues of Suspense and decides to split it into two different titles, one devoted to crime (which was probably the most popular funny book genre at the time) and one concentrating on horror (which was just taking off in early 1950). But Atlas opted to continue the numbering for both titles, which is why there's no such animals as Amazing Detective Cases #1 or #2 and AD began life with #3. The stories in AD from #3 through #10 continued to be pulled from "the files of crime investigators," but perhaps crime wasn't paying for Atlas as the book was switched over to the horror genre with #11. All this change certainly doesn't seem to have been worth the hassle since the title will only last another four issues before shutting its case file in September.

Cemetery worker Mike Murry loves to talk to his shadow and it's made him the laughing stock of the town, especially to that millionaire's brat, Joe Thorn, who tortures Mike and Shadow on a daily basis. So, Mike's talking to his shadow, Willie (yes, Mike has named his shadow) on day, the to Mike's surprise, Willie talks back! Willie explains the rules of being a shadow, one of which is the shadow never talks. Having broken that cardinal rule, Willie hopes that Mike won't separate himself from his shadow. When Mike admits he didn't know you could lose your shadow, Willie explains that all you have to do is sprinkle salt on a shadow and say the word Ka-Ba-Bo! However, once the shadow is separated, the host feels everything his shadow does so Mike should probably be very careful.

"The Weird Woman"

The light bulb goes on over the tortured little man's head; here's how to get back at that Thorn in Mike's side! So Mike steals Joe Thorn's shadow and tortures it until a bed-ridden Thorn agrees to pay a hefty sum to his tormentor. The stunt works so well that Mike steals six more shadows and, very soon, he's rolling in the dough. The displaced shadows, however, take their ire out on Mike's doppelgänger and, the next morning, the police find Mike hanging from the ceiling in an apparent suicide. We've had numerous horror tales centering on shadows already (with umpteen more to follow) but "The Black Shadow" gives the old warhorse an imaginative curve. Mike is a good guy at first but something goes bad in that brain and he suddenly becomes a sadist, even to his buddy, Willie. There's a very effective panel of the loony stabbing a shadow (that's tied up!) with what appears to be an icepick. Truly, we are entering a Golden Age of outre suspense stories.

George Timmins falls in love with the exotic beauty of "The Weird Woman," Gloria, and pressures her to marry him but Gloria decides that George is not the man for her. George knows that Gloria is slightly "off" (she can walk through walls, for one), but he's willing to ignore such small drawbacks if he can possess her heart and soul. When she breaks off their love affair, George goes nuts and attempts to strangle her but the police arrive and haul him off to the pokey. There, a lawyer approaches him about Gloria and after a chat session walks through George's cell wall, thanking our hapless hero for helping him find the right girl. This is one of the strips that entertain just as long as you don't stop the page-turning to think about what you've just read ("Hang on, if Gloria can disappear when she wants, why does she allow George to throttle her?") and Joe Sinnott is the next best thing to Russ Heath, who's sadly missing from this post's titles.

Mobster Ace Hench has murdered rival, Harry Otis; of that, the Sheriff is convinced. He can't get the evidence so he hires hammy actor Jim Clyde to stand in as the dead man's ghost to scare a confession out of Ace. The ghost materializes and Ace spills his guts and is hauled off to jail just as the Sheriff receives a note from Jim Clyde, apologizing for not making it to the crime scene as he'd gotten another gig. Wow, "A Voice from the Grave" ends with a twist used so many times in the 1950s DC "horror" comics that the company should have issued a title called Fake Ghost Stories, but I'm hoping Atlas didn't overuse this reveal as well. I'm also hoping that the type of old-fashioned sketchy, bare-bones art used in "A Voice..." is slowly, but surely, being phased out. Either one of the short-shorts this issue are worth more than a line or two. A crazed night watchman at the local morgue accidentally runs down a man and then sees him rise on the slab in "Murder in the Morgue." And, finally, in "It's Time to Go, Higgins!," a small-time hood guns down a cop and then sees an eerie green face floating in air, following him everywhere, until he confesses to the police and goes to the gallows. There's the green face on the executioner. Artist Bill Walton's style is not my cup of tea (too many bug-eyed characters) but there are almost Colan-esque moments here and there thanks to some nourish "lighting."

 Mystery Tales #1

"The Dark Tunnel" (a: Gene Colan) ★★
"The Little Black Box!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★1/2
"The End of the World" (a: Paul Reinman) ★
"Horror on Channel 15" (a: Pete Tumlinson) ★★1/2
"The Stroke of 12" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

Yet another 1952 addition to the horror/SF line, Mystery Tales will see a healthy 54 issue run until the giant axe fell (as it would on most of the line) in Summer 1957.

Billy takes over the exterminator business when his father disappears but there's a big problem: Billy hates to kill insects. He feels sorry for the little buggers. Then one day he's called out to the old Kirby place and Mrs. Kirby directs him to the basement, where she says the cockroaches are coming from. Billy finds tons of roaches and sprays them with his specially prepared mixture (that annoys the critters rather than kills them) when he stumbles upon a huge opening in Mrs. Kirby's basement wall. Exploring "The Dark Tunnel," Billy comes across human bones, including those of his father, and then the full horror is unleashed when a giant cockroach flits out of the hole, grabs Billy in its mandibles, and drags him back into the hole. There, Billy discovers a race of giant, mind-reading roaches who debate between each other what to do with this human. Finally, they decide that since Billy was kind to their race, he can live but he must remain with them forever. After a year, poor Billy starts transforming into a giant cockroach! Gene Colan does his best to get us through the silliness but there are way to many unanswered questions (yes, even in a story about giant cockroaches, I demand lucidity); ferinstance, how is it that old Mrs. Kirby doesn't notice the exterminators never exit her cellar?

"The Dark Tunnel"

The Seven Sisters of Evil have bequeathed "The Little Black Box" to Luke Bramby for his excellent work in the field of deception, lying, and cheating. Thereafter, every time Luke lies, that lie come true so, naturally, he lies about money, a big house, killing his boss, etc. But al the goodies are still not enough for this loser, as he decides he really must discover what makes this little box tick. Bad decision. Classic Maneely horror illos and a really nasty end for Luke Bramby push this just above the "average" line. Why is it when these Bozos get their money, they dress in smoking jackets like Hefner?

Maneely's "Little Black Box!"

Larkin becomes the first small town in America to get its own television station and the boys behind Channel 15 aim to keep the ratings through the roof by putting on the scariest show on TV.  Program manager/producer/writer Bruce Baxter scours the country for ideas for his brainchild but not even haunted houses or graveyards produce results. Bruce decides he must use his imagination and sketches a monster so horrible that... well. let's just say this thing would give the Real Housewives of New Jersey a run for their money. A creature is constructed from Bruce's sketches but a catastrophe almost pulls the plug on the program when the monstrous prop falls across electrical wiring and soaks up enough juice to light up a small bowling alley.

The big show finally airs but the raves and huge audience numbers are pushed aside by the news that the two stars of the program have died from heart attacks on screen! Bruce smells a really big hairy rat and goes to the cops with the goofy theory that the monster was to blame. The police send him out onto the street with a kick in the pants but, shortly after, Bruce gets the news that the monster has escaped and murdered dozens in his path. In fact, as the giant behemoth wends his way through town, mauling and behaving, poor Bruce is found as dead as his hit show.

Starring Steven Tyler!

"Horror on Channel 15" is another of those Atlas stories where nothing really seems connected from Point A to B, as if Stan were throwing darts at a board. No explanation is made for where the monster is between the time he kills his two co-stars and when he goes on his rampage. Cafeteria maybe? "Horror on Channel 15" is almost spot-on with its prediction that local horror shows would rule the airwaves; a few years later, with Vampira and Zacherley leading the pack, no station was without its own horror host. Tumlinson's art, which could be viewed as a bit amateurish and cartoony attached to a more serious script, is perfect for the tone of this semi-humorous romp.

Like most of the three-and four-pagers, "The End of the World" and "The Stroke of 12" have little in the way of story to tell (the former is about a proclamation of doom from a fortune teller, the latter concerns a murderer who hides his loot at the cemetery and is then pulled into a grave by a pair of dead hands) but at least "The Stroke of 12" features some very nice, atmospheric work from Paul Reinman, who has become a bit of a revelation to me. I knew (through my tenure at Marvel University) that Reinman was an occasional inker with Marvel until his retirement form the field in the mid-70s, but I had no idea how powerful his visuals were in the pre-code era.

Maneely

 Adventures Into Weird Worlds #3

"A Shriek in the Night!" (a: Werner Roth) ★★
"The Thing That Waited!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★
"Nothing Can Stop Me" (a: Bill Walton) ★
"The Quiet Men" ★★
"The Empty City" (a: Bob Fujitani) ★

Whitey Kozak's good night's sleep at the Three-Fingers Flop House is disturbed by a cadaverous face and a hand that beckons him to riches beyond his wildest dreams. All he has to do is climb down into a man-hole and retrieve a small package for the ghostly figure. Turns out the come-on is a scam and Whitey falls down the hole into an underground city populated by giant creatures hell-bent on dissecting humans and finding what makes them tick, all so they can attack and conquer the surface world. Just before Whitey goes under the knife, the creatures give him the choice of death or becoming a zombie who will travel back to the upper crust and recruit more fresh bodies. Our final panel shows a zombie-fied Whitey reaching out for another skid-row bum. Much like my newly-acquired fondness for Paul Reinman, I have to admit to being a newcomer before the altar of artist Werner Roth. I'd probably seen his work in the pages of Crypt of Shadows or another of the Marvel reprint titles, but I hadn't really made a mental note of the name. Now, I smile whenever I see Roth's name attached to a terror tale.

A Korean War pilot has the wing of his plane burned off by a strange beam of light reaching out of the clouds. The ensuing crash kills the pilot but his soul rises and he is confronted by a tentacled terror that explains his situation in full. The pilot is dead and soon his inner being will be reduced to cosmic particles but, before that happens, the creature gloats about the upcoming Conquest of Earth by his home planet, Trisis. Years before, the aliens had infiltrated our society and masked themselves as humans. As our hero begins to fade away, the monster lifts the curtain and shows him a screen of marching aliens that slowly transform into stinkin' Commies in Russia! Oh, these 1950s Red-baiting funny book stories just do not hold up very well sixty-seven years on. "The Thing That Waited!" (I can't help but hold out hope for the ultimate Atlas title someday: "The Thing That Was the Man Who Couldn't Live in the House of Horrors!") is full of long, repetitive speeches made by the Lovecraftian tentacled monster and exasperated replies from the doomed pilot. Just get on with it, already! I still have yet to read in one of these "alien invasion" stories a valid reason for wanting Earth (let's say, maybe for its golf courses or fast food at least); they just want it!

The dope who claims "Nothing Can Stop Me" grows tired of coming out on the losing end of the love stick and downs an experimental strength drug that turns him into an ape. Neither script nor art (Walton can't seem to figure out exactly how big the main protagonist's head should be) inspire anything approaching thrills or chills. "The Quiet Men" (a really dumb title) has an intriguing premise (the crew of the bomber that drop the "cosmic bomb" that begins the destruction of the Earth are cursed to fly through  space forever) that isn't given the proper breathing room to bloom into anything other than an intriguing premise, though the visuals garner a big thumbs-up.

Reporter Johnny Hart stumbles across the story of the Century: an entire town's population has disappeared! Heading back to New York, a bolt of lightning fells a tree and blocks his car, uncovering a deep tunnel under the tree's roots. Johnny follows the tunnel down into an underground city where he witnesses ape-like creatures rounding up the people from the empty city and turning them to dust. As each human disappears, another of the monkey-men transforms into a human being and heads up to the surface. Johnny runs to the nearest station, hops a train, and spills the scoop to his editor. The boss-man tells Johnny well done and urges him to get to sleep, and then places a call to the ape-man leader telling him Johnny's address. Three old, tired, worn-out cliches are regurgitated once again and form the barely readable "The Empty City": the newspaper reporter (Atlas' favorite profession), the underground city (always looking for a way to conquer those insufferable surface people), the friend who is revealed to be the alien (the city editor who has an ape-like shadow!), and the manuscript found in the empty room that tells all (this time out we're told that boarding house landlady, Mrs. Markham, brought the manuscript to "Weird Worlds Publishing Company" when Johnny disappeared, rather than to the police!). Throw in hyperbolic sentences ("I felt a strange, unnatural, weird sensation standing there in the storm...") and the oddest coincidences (the tree that covers the tunnel to the city at the center of the Earth just happens to be struck by lightning just as Johnny is driving by), and you've got one silly and dull read.

Maneely

 Suspense #15

"The Machine!" ★★
"The Strange Shoes!" (a: Norman Steinberg) ★
"The String of Pearls" (a: Ogden Whitney) ★
"The Wrong World" ★★1/2
"Death Comes Calling" ★1/2

Five rather weak fables this issue, starting off with "The Machine," yet another crook-steals-a-time-machine yarn. Karl Gogan is on the lam and needs to get out of the present really bad when he hears about a nutty professor who's built a time machine and is about to test it. Throwing caution (and common sense) out the window, Grogan forces the scientist to show him how to use the machine. The egghead explains that the machine's bugs still haven't been ironed out but Grogan hops aboard anyways and makes the trip. Well, his skeleton does anyway, as we learn the hiccup with the machine is that anyone riding in the machine ages as well. Some nice art, and a legitimate "twist" in the tail, but the script is pretty silly (for some reason, this hardened hood has no problem believing in a time machine) and it drags on too long.

"The Machine"

In "The Strange Shoes," a derelict finds a pair of beat-up shoes and, when he pops them on, they give him anything he wishes for. Only catch is that he must wear them at all times. We don't see the shower scene so I imagine our hobo gets pretty odiferous after a couple pages. So does the story. Margaret has always coveted her husband's prize "String of Pearls," but Gerald insists the jewelry is cursed. And he would know, since he forced several natives to dive into the grotto of the Devil-Fish to acquire the pearls, and they suffered the fate of the damned. Later, one of Gerald's salesladies tries the beautiful bauble on and is choked to death  (the coroner remarks, "Death due to strangulation! I know that what I'm about to say will sound goofy... but by the marks on her throat, I'd say that she was choked to death... by an octopus!"). But what Margaret wants, Margaret gets, so she murders Gerald, opens the safe, and dons the necklace. And then the Devil-Fish enters the room and kills her. Nice Ogden Whitney artwork, very stark and animated, but the script falls back on cliches and doesn't make much sense (in the first murder, the octopus doesn't have to make an appearance, so why does the fella chance dry land to throttle Margaret?).

"String of Pearls"

A scientist, testing his rocket ship (again, we discover that in the 1950s you didn't even need a permit to test a space ship!), stumbles onto the greatest discovery in the history of mankind: on the other side of the sun is a twin world of Earth where everything happens exactly the same at the same time. He happens on this revelation when he is hit by a meteor and thrown off course, crashing back on Earth a few days later, just intimate to attend his own funeral. Yep, he crashed on Earth-II. So, our hero relaunches his ship and travels back to the other world but his dilemma is:which Earth is the "real one?" Wildly goofy and highly imaginative, "The Wrong World" is also very confusing at times but its sense of adventure and nice visuals more than make up for it. A rare case of a happy ending in the Atlas Universe. In our final story this time out, "Death Comes Calling," Dr. Cavari has decided his time is too precious to him and thus only the rich can afford his services. No more charity cases. Unfortunately, this new outlook on the medical field occurs just as a plague hits Cavari's little town. The people are falling all around him but Cavari's attitude remains unchanged. Then, one day, the good Doc gets a visit from someone who appreciates Cavari's stand; it's Death, of course, and after a long, rambling, boring speech, he cures the town and gifts the selfish doctor with the only fatal dose of plague. Nothing new here but I liked the stylish art; the artist is uncredited but several panels look like Everett (but Everett usually signed his work so probably not).

Astonishing #10

"The Man Who Owned a Ghost!" (a: Bill Everett) ★★★
(r: Weird Wonder Tales #6)
"I Solved the Problem" (a: Mac Pakula) ★★1/2
"The Walking Dead!" (a: Al Eadeh) ★1/2
(r: Creatures on the Loose #31)
"Melvin and the Martian" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★
"Only an Insect!" (a: Pete Morisi) ★
(r: Vault of Evil #14)

Alan Kent uses black magic to summon forth a ghost to kill his wife, Helen, who's planning to kill Alan very soon. The ghost explains to Alan that he can't kill humans but he can scare away all of Helen's guests and then Alan will have the peace and quiet in which to kill his wife himself. The haunting goes swell and the cliff house empties, leaving only Helen, who refuses to be frightened by the ghost. Alan sneaks up on the gorgeous dame while she's looking out the window to the rocks below and lunges at her, with an eye to knocking her off the balcony. But the dopey sorcerer takes a header right over the rail and down to the water below. As Ala is wondering how his wife could be a ghost, she explains to him that it's he who is the ghost. She killed him in his sleep a few nights before and has been wracked with guilt ever since. She plunges a dagger into her own heart and falls into the sea as the revelation comes to Alan that he summoned his own ghost.

Though it's monumentally silly and the climax is quite a few too many finales, Bill Everett makes "The Man Who Owned a Ghost!" a spooky riot, a la Beetlejuice or Ghostbusters. The last reveal, that the summoned ghost belongs to Alan himself, is a head-scratching hoot (if Alan is dead, how could he summon his spirit if he is the spirit?), as is the final panel where the two of them look at each other and scream in terror. Lots of great stuff here: Helen is a classic Everett beauty; Alan stands above what we come to find out is his own grave -- on the beach!; the ghost is a creepy/kooky concoction, part Scooby-Doo villain, part Poltergeist; and the layouts are pure Everett, with tons going on in each frame.

In the far future, war no longer exists and that creates the problem of overpopulation. Every square foot of land the world over has been given over to housing; no more space for harvesting or livestock. How to feed this mass of hungry people when the food supply will run dry within a year? I'm glad you asked. Luckily, the world's smartest man, Dr. Fell, has anticipated just such a nuisance and has applied his grey matter to solving the problem thus: he has created a plant that will bear fruit and grow on concrete walls, making it very easy for the populace to harvest their own food. But there's always a drawback isn't there? Dr. Fell doesn't anticipate the side effects to a plant that can grow anywhere and the foliage goes out of control, strangling its owners until the world is barren but for Dr. Fell, who lives in a very tall skyscraper. As the mad (but well-meaning) scientist contemplates what he's done, the ivy reaches out for him. "

I Solved the Problem" is a well-done ecological nightmare that predicts the similar wave of science fiction films of the early 1970s (Silent Running, Soylent Green, etc.). It almost seems as though this catastrophe has snuck up on the scientists, who should have known that when you pave paradise and put up a parking lot, Mother Nature will rebel.  Mac Pakula illustrated a boatload of war strips for Atlas at the same time "I Solved the Problem" appeared, but I have to say I don't care for his bland layouts and sketchy pencils.

Dr. Drago has been obsessed with bringing the dead to life for quite a while and, finally, all the proper ingredients are mixed (vibrating table to stimulate the heart, heat lamps to relax the reflexes, etc. etc.) and...voila!... a living breathing zombie. Drago is so excited he invites all his colleagues over for cognac and caviar, springing his zombie-man on them as a dessert. Isn't it like the science community to bring down a man's dream? One of the other professors commends Drago for the ability to raise an inanimate object from the dead but to what purpose when the thing cannot talk, reason, or think for itself. "You are right," sighs Drago, "I had created a mindless horror... the first of a race of living-dead idiots!" (oh, if only Drago had lived to see the teenagers of the 21st-Century!) The dejected doctor blows up his laboratory, killing both himself and his creation. Three pages does not allow for much character development (but then, neither does seven, does it?) so the primary appeal here would be for the art, which isn't bad, outside of that awful forced-perspective splash (is the zombie's arm really that big?).

"The Really Big Arm of the Walking Dead!"

"Melvin and the Martian" is a mildly funny short about a simple-minded man put in charge of guarding a Martian prisoner, and the mind games the alien uses to get information from Melvin about Earth's battle capabilities. After the Martian is told about a super-secret rocket that will be used against Mars, the alien steals the ship and heads home, only to detonate an H-bomb once he lands (a punchline we've seen before). "Only an Insect" is a really dumb yarn about a slow lab assistant who tortures insects and then has the tables turned when he's splashed with his boss' experimental shrinking formula.

In Two Weeks!
We'll look at 25 more shockers
Guaranteed to keep you
Spellbound!!!

Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror! Issue 30

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 15

February 1952 Part II

Heath

 Suspense #14

"Death and Doctor Parker" (a: Russ Heath) ★★★★
"We Meet at Midnight" (a: Allen Bellman) ★
"The Last Man" (a: Mike Sekowsky) ★★1/2
"The Hide-Out" (a: George Klein) ★
"Out of This World" (a: Joe Certa) ★★

Dr. Parker kills his mentor, the great bio-chemist Crandall Hart, and steals Hart's serum of eternal life. Injecting himself with the formula, Parker destroys all of the older scientist's notes and then settles back to enjoy a long and leisurely life. Unfortunately, the cops arrest Parker for Hart's murder and sentence him to 99 years but the Doc's jailhouse rants convince them the con is insane and he's committed to an asylum. Parker escapes en route and begins a life on the run, visiting exotic countries and devising his plan for world domination. Nuclear war wipes out most of mankind, leaving only savages, and Parker is forced to hide in alleys and beg for food.

Ten centuries pass and our dopey villain (still wearing the same pants he wore in the 1950s!) has grown weary of life, wishing he could curtail his existence, but mutants capture him and place him on exhibit in a freak museum. War between the planets breaks out and Dr. Parker's cage is vaporized, leaving him a free man once more, but he becomes king of an empty world. As even more time passes, the world becomes overgrown with jungles and insects grow to a massive size. A swarm of giant wasps tears Dr. Parker from limb to limb, eating his skin and leaving only his bones, his head, and a heart. The head giggles and the heart beats.

If Atlas veers from suspenseful horror and tame monster yarns into the much more sleazy and gory offerings that would become a standard for Harvey, EC, and Master (publisher of the infamous Dark Mysteries), then I would point to "Death and Doctor Parker" as the moment the worm turned. Deliciously delineated by the master, Russ Heath, "Doctor Parker" not only winds its way through several wonky scripted twists and turns but also holds so many visual surprises as well. Parker grows old with the years (but, since his body doesn't fall apart despite being viable for over one thousand years, I would say he ages in "reverse dog" years) and we see his body fall into decay, his exposed chest mere ribs and scant flesh. His journey is wrought with distractions and obstacles that would have a normal man on his knees in tears but Parker just shrugs at his 99 years sentence and exclaims, "you have no idea how humorous that is, judge!" The final panels, of Parker being ripped to shreds by mutated insects, are sheer genius and our last glance at the fragments is laugh-out loud funny and chilling at the same time.

The crazed finale of "Death and Doctor Parker"

Alas, the rest of the material this issue is not even close to the standard set by "Death and Dr. Parker." The plot of "We Meet at Midnight" (man in a car wreck visits a house, meets death, discovers he's really dead, wakes up at crash scene thinking he's had a dream, visits a house...) is taken whole from "Reflection of Death!" (Tales from the Crypt #23, May 1951) and the art by Allen Bellman isn't nearly as stylish as Al Feldstein's.

"The Last Man" has an intriguing premise: Jimmy builds a fallout shelter for him and his girl, Pam, but said dame wants to die with everyone else when the big one falls. As they're arguing, the attack occurs and Jimmy hightails it into his vault, which is equipped to keep Jimmy safe from radiation and giant wasp mutations for forty years. When the time expires, Jimmy (now an old man) rises from his tomb to explore what he believes will be a vast wasteland, only to discover gorgeous, gleaming skyscrapers and flying cars, along with a still-young and gorgeous Pam, tending to her multitude of children. Seems as though the big attack wasn't so big after all and humanity has discovered the secret to happiness and eternal youth while Jimmy has been moldering in his underground hole with his Ritz crackers and old Playboys. Depressed, he heads back to his fallout shelter to die alone. A very thoughtful, deep script (with some silliness, yes) that almost seems to demonize Jimmy for his zeal to remain alive through a holocaust. It is amazing that Pam never thought to knock on Jimmy's iron door and let him know everything was ok (perhaps she thought he was a dingbat and que, sera, sera) and that the developing committee that erected all those skyscrapers around Jimmy's mountainside tomb never thought to level the nuisance.

"The Hide-Out" is three pages of fluff about a crook who takes refuge in a department store and discovers a party going on. Turns out the mannequins come to life at night and celebrate life; the thug's rude interruption dooms him to a life of wearing bad clothes in a Macy's window. I'll say this though: reading these quick three pages beats the hell out of watching Mannequin. Finally, Kupert Boggs III, the rich SOB of "Out of This World" wants to conquer space and he'll spend every dollar he's amassed to secure that feat, but flying to Saturn is a difficult task and even Earth's greatest brains are failing to find a solution. Finally, a small man enters Boggs' office and tells him he's got a rocket warmed up and ready to go; the duo blast off into space but halfway through the trip, the little man doffs his disguise and allows how he's a man from Saturn and Boggs is his trophy. The final panel shows the disgruntled billionaire in a cage at a Saturnian zoo. That's a final image that's been used quite a few times over the decades. I love how these space explorers in Atlas comics never seem to have to notify their government that they'll be lifting off in a rocket to outer space.

 Strange Tales #5

"The Room Without a Door" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★1/2
(r: Chamber of Chills #16)
"Little Man Who Was There" (a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2
(r: Crypt of Shadows #16)
"The Trap" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★
(r: Tomb of Darkness #14)
"My Brother Harry" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★
(r: Crypt of Shadows #17)

Obsessed with time travel, nutty Professor Wilkins has turned his back on science and instead seeks the "truth" through black magic. His colleagues all plead with him to stop the madness but Wilkins won't listen. One day, he sees an article in the newspaper about the relative of Roxanna Narrse, a famous witch who was burned at the stake in 1692. The old woman, Albitra Narrse lives in an old house that, she claims, contains a "Room Without a Door," and Wilkins makes it his goal to attain the old house. He pays the back taxes owed on the rickety mansion and has Albitra tossed out on her ancient behind. Wilkins tears the house apart until he finds the fabled "room without a door," a small box covered with wallpaper. He breaks the box open and is transported back in time just as he always had hoped. Unfortunately for the professor, he ends up in 1692 and he's burned at the stake as a witch. Nonsensical and clumsy but enjoyable nonetheless if only for Joe Maneely's art. Albitra Narrse is about as crone-ish as you can get.

Dennis Ames has a shadow, a ghoulish figure, that follows him everywhere and leaves death and destruction in their wake. During the war, Dennis encounters the man in his foxhole and, after he flees, the hole is bombed. Encountering the figure on a train, Ames gets the willies and disembarks, watching as the departing train crashes in flames. And so on and so on. Dennis grows weary of the mounting death toll and drifts around the country, trying to shake the man but he finally decides to come home. Hitching a ride on a truck, Dennis sees his wraith along the side of the road and, as the driver is pulling over, Ames grabs the wheel and crashes the truck. On the operating table, Ames opens his eye to see the surgeon is... yep, Dr. Spectre! "The Little Man Who Was There" is another of those quickies that makes absolutely no sense (why is this figure following Dennis and what exactly does the final operating table scene mean?) and makes no apology for the shortcomings. How did Stan keep track of these titles so as not to use them over and over?

Equally baffling is "The Trap"about a man, named Kane, stuck on a flight that heads into outer space. The man parachutes to Earth (!) and finds his life a jumble. Kane knows people he's never met before and can anticipate events before they happen which is great but that's not really what the story is about. This guy is a gambler, he embezzles funds from his company and when his boss finds out, Kane murders him, is executed in the electric chair, and wakes to find it's all a dream. Well, sorta. It's all done in Tarantino-esque non-linear fashion, which would be a dazzling effect if the story was any good.

Space travel becomes so much easier in "The Trap"

In the last story this issue, "My Brother Harry," Phil has had enough of his wife, Margie, and her nutty brother, Harry, who has a bit of a wild imagination. Every night, Harry sits on the sofa and talks to his dead mother's ghost, a ritual that has Phil tearing out his own hair and beating his lovely wife. One night, after tea, Phil and Margie have a particularly nasty spat and Phil heads down to the local dance parlor, where he meets up with his regular squeeze, Lola. While on the dance floor, Phil doubles up and collapses. When he awakens, he hears the doctor tell Lola that Phil has been poisoned. Enraged, Phil bolts out of the bed and heads out the door without so much as a by your leave, racing home to even the score with Margie but, once he gets there, Margie won't give him the time of day. Harry, though, tells Phil he hears him perfectly. A nice little final snippet of dialogue saves "My Brother Harry" from being a total waste of time. We never do find out who poisoned Phil's tea (though Margie does tell Harry that "Phil's not coming back!") and, oddly, Harry's mother never makes an appearance.

Everett

 Venus #18

"The Little Man" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★★

Ex- WWII pilot Ryan thinks he's tough stuff so he accepts a job from Anything Inc. to find “The Little Man” for the richest man in the world. Seems this billionaire saw the smallest man in the world years before in the jungles of Africa and really must add the freak to his collection of oddities. Things go south for Ryan when he discovers that the witch doctor in Bali Bali must have a blond man to make a little guy and Ryan is the only blond around! For a four-pager, “The Little Man” is a lot of fun and I really didn’t see the twist coming ’til it was right on top of me. Even better is the lead-off “Venus” story, “The Sealed Specters,” wherein the titular goddess contends with a Tunnel of Love packed-full of demons. Some jaw-dropping art from Bill Everett on this one. That cover reminds me of Amando de Ossorio's Templar Knights in Tombs of the Blind Dead.

Just a taste of the Everett goodies found in Venus #18

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #9

"The People Who Couldn't Exist!" 
(a: Mike Sekowsky) ★★★
"The Spaceman" (a: Allen Bellman) ★★
"Don't Kill Me Twice!" (a: Werner Roth) ★★
"Beyond Time!" (a: Pete Morisi) ★★1/2
"The Four Walls" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★1/2


The first manned expedition to Pluto expects to land on a deserted barren landscape but, instead, they find a town just like "back home," populated with very familiar faces. Dead wives, children, and mothers run from houses to greet the explorers; when prompted, the relatives just shrug and give no explanations, simply inviting their loved ones in for endless nights of partying. The space travelers get used to the cozy atmosphere very quick until they start becoming ill, as if they hadn't had a meal in weeks, and a terrified voice over the phone sends the Captain racing to the local hospital. One of the crew, Benson, has gone blind and has discovered the secret of Pluto: the planet itself has hypnotized the crew into thinking they've landed in paradise. As his men die around him, the Captain heads for the rocket ship to warn the oncoming second expedition of the danger but only a nonsensical message is received by the nearing ship.

The truly awful splash

"The People Who Couldn't Exist" is a perfect example of the highs and lows of Atlas science-fiction. Though the completist in me forces coverage of the SF titles, I'm  not ignorant of the fact that it was in the horror tales that the company excelled. Still, "The People..." is a hoot from beginning to end and I sure wish I could ask the writer a few things about the script (not that he'd remember). First of all, how is it that the men suddenly find it safe to remove their helmets and spacesuits on a planet that, according to scientists, falls to almost 400 degrees below zero on a warm summer day? What is the planet's motive for fooling and, ultimately, killing these space travelers? How could you not realize, until it's far too late, that you're starving and severely dehydrated? Most important of all, should we care about my nitpicks as funny book fans? That last one is easy. Nope, not at all. Not when you've got a wonderfully entertaining and loony yarn such as "The People...," so entertaining in fact, that I barely realized I was wading through Sekowsky-Swamp. Loaded with choice dialogue and amusing captions ("We were all overjoyed to see our loved ones... but still a little worried... The men began to relax a little... after they got used to the idea of dining with the dead") and graced with one of the funniest final panels I've yet read on this journey.

The rip-snortin' finish to "The People Who Couldn't Exist!"

Reynolds, "The Spaceman," accepts a secret space trip on the "Stardust" for a whole lot of money, but then regrets his decision when he discovers the ship is aimed at Betelgeuse II, a star that would take 35 years to reach. When he confronts the Captain, he's told that the trip will only take a matter of months since the ship is taking a convenient "time warp" short cut (see handy scientific explanation reprinted here) and our hero goes back to counting his money. But it turns out the Captain wasn't entirely forthcoming when Reynolds lands back on Earth and finds that, though he's only aged 6 months, Earth has seen 70 years go by; Reynolds' love, Joan, is a 95-year-old grandmother! Despondent, Reynolds heads back to the "Stardust"for another run. Though Allen Bellman delivers the most amateurish art this side of Manny Stallman, "The Spaceman" does contain a few moments of genuine pathos, as when our spaceman faces what once was the apple of his eye and then heads back to port with his head hung low. But, my goodness, Speedos in space?

Four people are all snatched from the moment of death but then reappear on a future Earth with no answers and a feeling of constant dread. Then, one by one, they begin to die in the same manner they passed the first time around. The answer comes too late and only one "survivor" is graced with the explanation: scientists from the future were monkeying with a time machine and accidentally teleported the four doomed individuals to the future but now, to insure that nothing disrupts the space/time continuum (or something along those lines), the eggheads must rectify their mistake. "Don't Kill Me Twice" starts out as your average, cliched "I beat death" yarn but veers into a different playground altogether with its surprise revelation. It doesn't all come together cleanly in the end but the finale is effective and downbeat.

Two quickies round out the package this time out: "Beyond Time!" has very nice Heath-esque illustrations by Pete Morisi and tells the tale of a scourge that winds its way across the Universe, snuffing out planets, stars, and suns for nourishment. The last planet standing, Excto, manages to capture its combined knowledge and condense it into a very small ball and then eject it far into space. That ball becomes... Earth. Pretty risqué for a 1950s funny book to turn its nose up at Creation and offer up its own (admittedly reasonable) explanation for how we got the ball rolling. Unless I'm mistaken (which happens frequently around here), this only the second time we've seen art from Morisi (the first being "The Waiting Grave," back in Suspense #6, March 1951) and I'm looking forward to more from the artist (next up: Strange Tales #6 next month), but it looks like the bulk of Pete's work appeared in the Charlton horror titles (a company that I will get around to some day!) according to this (incomplete) checklist. "The Four Walls" also contains some dazzling art, this time by future Marvel superstar Joe Sinnott, and has a very Bradbury-esque flavor to its script about a man trapped on mars who finds a house that adapts to his needs... or so he thinks. Nice twist in the tail I never saw coming. Not a bad issue of Journey Into  Unknown Worlds!

The shocking climax of "The Four Walls"

In Two Weeks...
Peter wonders just how much madness he can take
as Marvel adds two more genre titles!

Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror! Issue 29

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 14

February 1952 Part I

Adventures Into Terror #8

"Enter... the Lizard" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★★★★
(r: Weird Wonder Tales #9)
"The Parasite"  (a: Bill Walton) ★★
"You Can Only Die Once" (a: Manny Stallman) ★1/2
(r: Beware #5)
"The Miracle" (a: Bill LaCava) ★ 
(r: Dracula Lives! #1)
"The Ones Who Laugh" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★

Doctor Charles Barris leads an expedition, which includes his fiancé, Kim, and (unbeknownst to Charles) Kim's lover, Brad Colton, into deepest, darkest Africa in search of the deadly Devil Lizard of Buango. Does the lizard actually exist? Good question. Legend has it that these creatures secrete a "weird" poison and the Doc just has to examine these secretions and share with the medical world his important findings. The crew come across the track of a giant lizard and, in true Atlas femme fatale fashion, Kim shrieks and grips tightly to Brad. The cat's out of the bag and Charles pulls his rifle on the couple, threatening to kill them for their adultery, but before the crazed man of medicine can get off a shot the trio are attacked by the giant Devil Lizard of Buango! Brad is bitten by the reptile and the Doc shoots it with a tranquilizer, then tells Kim (who's nursing the badly-injured Brad) that he's leaving them here to fend for themselves. Good luck!

Months later, as Dr. Barris sits in his lab, beaming with pride over the progress he's made in studying rare giant lizard spit, when the door flies open and in walks a badly-mutated and very perturbed Brad (who leaves a layer of skin on the knob as he closes the door!). The semi-Alligator man explains that Kim was eaten by a lion but that he managed to escape the fetid hell and make his way back to civilization, but now he's cursed with shedding his skin several times day and crawling on his stomach all day is getting him down. Barris explains that he understands the properties of the venom and that he can cure Brad but the witch doctor pulls a fast one on the naive young man and gives him an overdose of Buango Juice and Brad becomes a full-fledged Devil Lizard for the Doc's collection. Even as Barris smiles and pats himself on the back for getting full revenge, Buango Brad flicks his tongue and muses that someday Dr. Barris will be careless and when that day comes...

First of all, let me explain that four-star rating. Most of the Atlas yarns I read have very little enthusiasm behind them or derive the bulk of their plot line from some other source, be it Universal monster movies or Ray Bradbury tales, but "Enter... the Lizard" seems to be fueled more by either alcohol or a really good joke. The natural inclination, when thinking about inspiration, is to point to The Alligator People, the wretched but beloved low-budget SF flick starring Lon Chaney, but that flick didn't come out until 1959. "Enter... the Lizard" is a compact and never-less-than-enjoyable five pages of pure wack, perfectly visualized by Harry Lazarus, an artist I'm usually not all that fond of, but whose style perfectly meshes with the loony-tunes script. We don't want Graham Ingels for this job, no sir.

So many great moments: the doc whirling on the young lovers, rifle in hand, suddenly forgetting he's here to land the big lizard ("So, this is what's been goin' on while I was busy with my research!"); the crawling alligator-like Devil Lizard of Buango suddenly standing on two feet and launching itself at Brad like a jr. T-Rex; the revolting, but hilarious scene where Brad leaves a layer of skin (like a full-hand glove) on the Doc's door handle; Brad's hurried expository about Kim's run-in with a jungle king ("She was clawed by a lion, and when I felt this coming on I left her to die in the jungle and hurried back to civilization... forget about her... will you help me!"); and, last but not least, Brad's gradual descent into lizard life and speedy loss of gorgeous red hair. The last panels explain that Brad has lost every human memory except that of getting even (that one "revenge" cell in your brain is really strong, I guess), putting to bed five fabulous pages of bonkers storytelling and, again, reminding me why we love(d) these things so much. Oh, and I wouldn't doubt for a second that Stan remembered this story when he needed a new villain to fight his Amazing new superhero in 1963

"The Parasite"

Nothing in the four stories this issue that follow can even come close to matching the sheer joy I felt reading  "Enter... the Lizard" but there are snippets of interesting material scattered to and fro. "The Parasite" has some creepy Bill Walton noir art (similar in style to early Gene Colan) and an offbeat plot (prisoner tells guards his cellmate has an extra head sticking out of his torso that wants him to commit murder) but the dopey climax (the extra head is an emissary from Mars, here to lead an invasion, so of course he picks an inmate??) ruins whatever suspense the first two acts build. "You Can Only Die Once" loses any surprise by giving away its twist in the title (guy keeps botching his suicide but that's because... surprise!... he's already dead!) and its Manny Stallman art is hard to look at without skimming. "The Miracle" wastes creepy LaCava art on a two-pager about a dope who changes places with a ghost. Joe Sinnott reminds us why he's one of the favorite Marvel artists with his work on "The Ones Who Laugh," an otherwise forgettable variation on the overworked "man notices everyone else around him acting strange and then discovers it's because they are all aliens" motif. The story does reward the patient reader with a shocking, downbeat climax (knowing he's the last man on earth and the aliens are going to breed him to be food for their invasion, the protagonist leaps off a cliff) but then there's the problem of staying awake through the first five-and-a-half pages.

"The Ones Who Laugh"

Heath

 Astonishing #9

"The Little Black Box" (a: Bob Fujitani) ★★1/2 
"Who Dares to Enter?"  (a: Joe Maneely) ★1/2
"Where is Death?" (a: Don Rico) ★★
"The Luck of Louis Nugent" ★
"The Scientists" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★★★

Meek-as-a-mouse Gerald must deal with a monster of a wife and a dead end job and the pressure is mounting. Now he's dreaming of tying Belinda to the railroad tracks. Then one day a strange little package comes to him at work in the Post Office's "dead letter" office, a "Little Black Box" that somehow seems to change colors every now and then. Gerald becomes fascinated with the package and hides it in his overcoat to study at home. Unwrapping the package, he finds a curious camera-like gizmo that has the ability to duplicate objects Gerald points it at. Our hero gets the idea of cloning himself and then running away from Belinda to parts unknown with duplicated cash. Just then, the rightful owner of the contraption, Astro, from the year 2000, enters and tells Gerald he must get his invention back to the future but he has to take all the duplicates with him. Both Gerald claim they're the original so Astro picks at random and the real Gerald disappears into a void, musing that at least he doesn't have to deal with Belinda anymore. "And wait'll that guy I left in my place meets Belinda... Hah!"

"The Little Black Box" is a light-hearted little fantasy, the kind that Robert Bloch used to conjure up in his spare time for Imaginative Tales, with some primitive, but pleasing, art by Bob Fujitani. It's a nice change of pace that Gerald doesn't get to follow through on the murder of wife, Belinda, though he does contemplate it quickly near the climax. The final panel, a white space save for Gerald's proclamation about getting the better end of the deal, is pretty darn funny.

"Who Dares to Enter?," another three-pager that wastes the talents of Joe Maneely, tells the story of yet one more reporter who stumbles onto a haunted house. "Where is Death?" is another shorter piece, this one about sadistic seaman Kim Larsen, a sailor who has no problem killing or stepping to the front of the line for lifejackets when the ship is going down. Larsen's rep grows very strong after he's the sole survivor of the wreck of the Bengal Queen and his services come at a high fee. The captain of the Eastern Moon hires Larson but a few days out Satan appears before his favorite son and warns him that the ship will crash and Larson needs to get off. Larsen scoffs at the Prince of Darkness but, sure enough, the boat strays into the Sargasso Sea and Larsen is doomed to drift forever. A meandering 4-pager that doesn't seem to know where it's going; the funniest bit is when Satan (completely red, with horns, a cape and, ostensibly, a tail) confronts Larsen and the dopey tar asks, "Who the blazes are you to talk to me like that?" I like Don Rico's work; it's moody and noir-ish and (I've probably already stated this but...) it looks a lot like early Colan to me.

"The Luck of Louis Nugent" has been nothing but bad since his mother died in childbirth at the base his father was stationed at. Let's see, there was the train accident on the way home that left dozens dead, Louis' best friend who accidentally shot himself to death, the college dorm fire, and I'll bet you can guess where Louis was on the morning of December 7th, 1941! After months of disaster follow Louis and his platoon, a bright idea hits him and he deserts to the Nazis. Only Louis' C.O. and father know the truth. Well, you and I know as well. I'm not sure I've read a dumber story and feasted my eyes on blander and more boring art but the damn thing has a sly, parodic charm to it. I can almost see this as a skit on Saturday Night Live, with Dan Ackroyd narrating. The escalating disasters will cause you to giggle endlessly. How could our writer have missed the perfect final panel, that of Louis' body in Hitler's bunker?

In the finale, three scientists discuss how traveling back in time could affect the outcome of our present and future. Professor Green isn't buying the "butterfly effect" and sends a small brass ball hurtling 200 years in the past before his colleagues have time to halt him. The ball disappears and flies through time, eventually hitting an 18th-Century tailor on the head and killing him. The ball returns and Green offers proof that nothing has changed (well, except for their Victorian dress). Excited by his success, Green sets the way-back machine for 330 BC and the ball flies again, this time cutting in half the idol of Athena in Greece and halting the war with Babylon. The ball returns and the boys are, again, flush with success and exclaiming that nothing has changed (well, except that "The Scientists" are now dressed in togas and work near the pyramids. One final experiment for the day finds the ball hurtling through space to the dawn of time and cracking the first reptile to step out of the sea across the noggin. Reptiles become gun-shy and never again leave the safety of the water. When the ball returns, all three scientists observe it from the safety of their swamp. Direct from his success with "Enter. The Lizard!," Harry Lazarus gives us another five pages of sheer joy and laughter. Yeah, sure, Bradbury did it first (and better), but Ray's version was about as funny as a blind date with Charlie Sheen, so this particular variation sits just fine with me. According to GCD, Satn re-used this plot for "Those Who Change" in Amazing Adult Fantasy #10 (March 1962). I'll let you know what I think when we get to that issue in about ten years.

 Adventures Into Weird Worlds #2

"The Iron Door" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★★★
"The Eyes!" (a: Werner Roth) ★1/2
(r: Chamber of Chills #15)
"The Thing in the Bottle!" ★
"When a World Goes Mad!" (a: Al Hartley) ★★1/2
(r: Weird Wonder Tales #1)

In 4467 AD, man no longer has to worry about mundane chores like turning on the light switch or rising from your La-Z-Boy to visit the men's room. Thank Karra, the Mechanical Brain operates everything, from the underwater train trestle to the ships that take vacationers to Mars or Venus. An absolute paradise. Then one day it happens. The Brain shuts down and the couch potatoes begin to drown or perish without oxygen. Mass panic ensues, until a man named Vashto steps forward and tells the government leaders he's been off in a faraway land learning mechanics and he's certain he can fix the problem if he can get behind "The Iron Door." At first hesitant, the leaders eventually give in and open a portal which hasn't been cracked in the 2000 years since Karra built the Mechanical Brain and sealed it away from prying eyes. Vashto enters and finds an old man standing before the machine. He blasts the stuffy old codger and then exits the building, explaining to the government leaders that the saboteur has been eliminated. But, with his dying breath, Karra explains that the assassin was actually an emissary from Saturn, sent to kill him and pave the way for an invasion.

A wildly imaginative and (unfortunately prescient) science fiction tale, "The Iron Door" features groovy Maneely graphics and a whole lot of nice touches. The uncredited writer (Stan?) subtly alludes to the future with Karra's final monologue ("Vashto was our enemy, but you hadn't the brains to see it! I'm responsible! Karra made you give up thinking! This then is the price we must pay for making the machine our God... extinction") as well as to the past (the government symbol looks suspiciously like a Nazi logo), all the while taking stock in the growing trend of laziness and religious fanaticism ("Praise be to Karra, who invented the Mechanical Brain which feeds us and clothes us, warms us, cleans us and heals us! Through it we speak to one another! We have no existence without it!"). I complain about the really bad horror tales Atlas was pumping out by the tons but, when you stop to think about how many titles were being published (a mere 8 at this time but, within a year, that number will jump to 13!), it's a wonder a gem like this was even possible.

Coming back to Earth, we have the utterly predictable "The Eyes!," about a man who discovers a race of mutants living amongst us, who possess eyes in the back of their heads. When the creepies give chase, the man finds sanctuary at his best friend's house until... you guessed it, he discovers his bosom pal is one of them! Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

In "The Thing in the Bottle," a tough guy on the lam rents a room in a flophouse and discovers a bottle in his closet that comes equipped with a wish-granting genie. His first two wishes make him a handsome and wealthy man but his third, to be a genie, makes him miserable. This guy has to be the world's stupidest man, not taking into consideration that genies live in bottles! Some really rough art here. Finally, we get "When a World Goes Mad," a decent "what-if" about a science professor trying to teach his thick-headed students the theory of relativity and using a story about a giant monster in space who uses planets as snacks. The gargantuan cloud beast is eaten by an even larger creature in the end, thus supporting the egg-head's theory that there's always something bigger out there. The students laugh it off until the head out of class to discover a giant hand reaching for them. Despite the inevitable and utterly predictable final panel, I liked "When a World Goes Mad" and Al Hartley cooks up a goofy cloud-monster (think The Old Witch with a vapor trail) that keeps those pages turning and the smiles coming.

Heath

Marvel Tales #105

"The Spider Waits!" (a: Fred Kida) ★1/2
(r: Fear #11)
"In Little Pieces" ★
(r: Monsters on the Prowl #21)
"The Red Face" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #18)
"The Drop of Water" (a: Gene Colan) ★1/2
(r: Monsters on the Prowl #21)
"The Man Who Vanished!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #18)

Neither "The Spider Waits" nor "In Little Pieces" mine new ground. The former concerns a man who is deathly afraid of spiders but just loves to kill them. He meets a gorgeous dame in a bar and... I'll let you guess the rest. Fred Kida's art is easy on the eye and the obligatory "giant spider with a woman's head" panel is pretty creepy but Heath's fabulous cover promises terror that's never delivered. Ben Maijus discovers he has the power of life and death in his hands when he rips up photos of business rivals and they drop dead within 24 hours. Now on to that nagging wife.

Maurice Vallou has just been told by his sweetheart, Cecile,  that she's going to marry Maurice's cousin, Claude, instead. Maurice is a wealthy man and anything can be bought at Mardi Gras time in New Orleans so he hires a well-known assassin named Raveau to murder Claude. Raveau tells Vallou that he'll be dressed as Satan at the Mardi Gras and for Maurice to nod in the general direction of the man he wants killed but, come parade time, Claude and Cecile don't show up to the designated spot. Maurice bumps into his assassin and the man offers him a ride in his carriage. Once on board, Maurice discovers he's bumped into the real Satan and earned himself a fast track to hell! "The Red Face" has a very obvious twist but the story's humor (the panel where Stan loses his balance onboard the carriage and his hooves are revealed to Maurice is a hoot) and great Lazarus art make this an enjoyable read.

A scientist discovers that the tear drop he collected from a statue in the park, thirty years before, is a universal solvent. He's ecstatic beyond measure until he realizes he can't find anything to hold the substance, which eats through everything. Eventually, the scientist theorizes, it will dissolve the Earth. There's not much rhyme or reason to the three-page quickie, "The Drop of Water" (if the substance eats through everything, how is the professor able to capture it in a test tube and keep it there for decades?), but it's got the quickly-evolving art of Gene Colan, who's transforming his style right before our lucky eyes.

Willis Striker takes a fishing vacation the same time every year and stays at the same cabin every year. This year, though, when he shows up, the manager tells him there's an evil old man staying in the cabin and he can't get rid of him. His groundskeeper, Jud, went up to evict the old codger and never came back. Now, the manager is convinced the creepy old guy is in league with the devil. Willis heads up to the cabin and confronts the (admittedly homely) dwarf (albeit, dressed in his Sunday best) and, after a few cross words, the hunchback scampers off. Willis notices a nasty tree growing in front of the cabin and decides he's going to take it down but, after chipping a few pieces off and noticing the sap looks like blood, he leaves well enough alone.

But, then again, maybe he didn't. Striker discovers the sap has infected his arms, giving them a nice green tint. Promising himself he'll see a doctor the next day, Willis hits the sack but can't get to sleep so he rises for a smoke, only to discover he's entirely covered with green foliage and his limbs have become... limbs! Thinking that if he destroys the other tree outside, he'll revert back to jolly old Willis Striker, the half-crazed tree-man grabs an axe and heads out the door. Once he hits the ground though he becomes rooted and realizes the other tree must be groundskeeper Jud! As the transformation into gruesome tree concludes, the creepy hunchback returns to tend to his garden. Brilliantly gross and extremely disquieting, "The Man Who Vanished!" (a really dumb title) is a Joe Sinnott masterpiece. Striker's quick transmutation is so effective, we've forgotten al about the fact that we have no idea why this is happening or how long the cabin manager will wait to call the police. He's going to run out of paying customers eventually, you'd think. Who is the nattily dressed hunchback and why does he reserve his powers for that particular cabin? I want to know more! Stephen King tried a variation on this theme a couple decades later in "Weeds" (later filmed for the awful Creepshow), but that's not nearly as much fun as "The Man Who Vanished."

In Two Weeks...
Stan Lee beckons you...