Batman in the 1960s Issue 37: January/February 1966

 

The Caped Crusader in the 1960s
by Jack Seabrook
& Peter Enfantino

Infantino/Anderson

Detective Comics #347

"The Strange Death of Batman!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella

Who is... The Bouncer? Contrary to popular opinion, he's not the guy who throws the drunks out of The Gotham Bar and Grill but a brilliant metallurgist who "stumbled onto an alloy of rubber, steel, and chrome" that allows objects to bounce higher than ever recorded in history. Now, that's some invention! But, instead of applying the find to the greater good and crafting things like airplanes that can never crash, this evil genius uses his "Ellastaloy" to craft a suit that helps him rob banks and amass a fortune so that he can... do something.

Naturally, the crime spree that The Bouncer commences upon catches the attention of the Dynamic Duo (this was one of those rare weeks when the Rogues were all in Gotham Pen at the same time) and the boys head out into the streets to investigate. The Bouncer bounces and the Caped Crusaders are taken completely by surprise, losing the fight in the first round. But at least now they've experienced first-hand the skills of... The Bouncer!

After another failed attempt to capture the extremely fast bouncing villain, Batman concocts a way to eliminate the Bouncer's powers. Just in time too, as the ricocheting rascal has plans to fill the Dark Knight with lead. But wait... there's more...

Right after finishing this compact and simple tale, writer Gardner Fox retreats to his "What If" room (where, doubtless, the question, "What if I were paid better?" comes up daily) and wonders what would have happened if the Bouncer had known what Batman and Robin had up their sleeves and prepared for it? What if the gun aimed at Batman's heart had gone off and killed our hero? Well, naturally Robin would want revenge and the Justice League would mourn their fallen comrade but we also learn that Robin will grow into a scientific genius Bruce Wayne would be proud of (perhaps a little too late since, you know, he's dead and Robin's plan to bring down the Bouncer might have saved Batman's life... but you live and learn). Robin uses science to quash the Bouncer's crime wave and put the fiend behind bars for at least six months (murder is a serious charge even in Gotham).

As he ponders his win in the Batcave and wishes his mentor could be there to share his glee, Robin is startled by a familiar voice behind him. It's the World's Greatest Detective risen from the grave! Well, no, actually it's the Batman of Earth-Two, who had been prodded by that world's Robin to aid this world's Boy Wonder in his path to glory. Robin happily accepts Bruce-2's offer and kindly omits his thought that Robin-2 might just want to get rid of the old man and hog the spotlight for himself. And Bats-2 has brought along a friend... Alfred-2! But, as Gardner points out in the final dialogue box, this is all made up. Forget it. Disregard it. Done.

"The Strange Death of Batman" is enjoyable enough but there's a whiff of "deadline doom" to it. A needle-thin idea that was thrown together at the last second becuz the strip was needed immediately. There's a whole lot of scientific information cluttering up those word balloons as well. The legion of eight-year-old comic buyers must have either been amazed at all the professorial theorems or skipped all the big words and headed to the next nicely-drawn panel. I know I did. Carmine's pencils are the obvious draw here; this is some of the best Bat-art we've seen on this leg of the journey.

At least Fox spared us the three-page origin expository and kept it to a mere three panels. All these super-powered villains seem to arrive at their new vocation through dumb luck or being hit by lightning so why bother drawing it out? This origin even omits the reason that the unnamed metallurgist decided crime was the way to go. I had to laugh at Fox's warning to kids not to skip to the final pages and read the ending first. As Jack notes below, Carmine and Joe were obviously not caught up in the "excitement" of this strip either since their idea of a fabulous suit for The Bouncer is no costume at all. This guy could easily pass as a faster version of Clayface.-Peter

Jack-It's hard to argue that the Bouncer is a silly character when the back-up story features the Elongated Man. I'm more concerned with Bruce Wayne asking Robin if he "dug" something. Bruce Wayne, hippie in training? As for the Bouncer, if he could invent a suit that would protect him when bouncing at great speed or from a great height, couldn't he at least come up with a colorful design? A plain brown bodysuit just doesn't cut it.

Most interesting of all is DC's use of the "what if" concept years before Marvel's comic book of that title premiered. I love seeing Batman of Earth-Two show up, accompanied by Alfred of Earth-Two, to train Robin, while Earth-Two Robin takes over as Batman! It may be another imaginary story, like so many others at DC, but it tracks what really happened...in comic book reality, that is.

Kane/Anderson

Batman #178

"Raid of the Rocketeers!"

Story by Robert Kanigher

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

"The Loan Shark's Hidden Hoard!" 

Story by John Broome

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Sid Greene

Bruce Wayne's old college chum, Professor Nelson, has a lot of weight on his shoulders due to a family history of military success. He is the director in charge of firing several new rockets and, while their purpose may be left unexplained, the importance of the launches to Nelson's sense of self-worth can't be overstated. Unfortunately, the first two rockets suddenly disappear off the radar and Nelson must push the abort switch.

The next night, Nelson gets ready to launch rocket ship number three, unaware that Batman and Robin are going to follow it in the Bat-Plane to see what happens. The rocket ship again seems to vanish, but Batman and Robin are following close behind and see that it is being pulled to a remote island by a strange ray beam. The Dynamic Duo land on a nearby island and start swimming toward the rocket ship's location but they quickly encounter the "Raid of the Rocketeers!" The men with jet-packs on their backs capture Batman and Robin and take them to the island, where they listen to the grand plans of the King of the Rocketeers--that's what I assume he's called, since he wears a crown on his head that looks like part of a rocket ship.

Peter (Batman) and Jack at a
bare*bones staff meeting

One of the missing rockets is fired into the middle of Gotham City Park with a message scrawled on its side: agree to pay one billion bucks in an hour or the next rocket will carry an atomic warhead! The people of Gotham tell King Rocketman to pound sand, so he sends up the next rocket with a couple of unwilling passengers named Batman and Robin! They manage to free themselves, pull the abort switch, and parachute to safety after a "thrilling" mid-air fistfight with flying Rocketeers, including the king, who should have known better. Gotham is saved and, best of all, Prof. Nelson can hold his head high when his last rocket makes a successful run.

This looks like Big Bob Kanigher's first stab at a Batman story and it's so bad that it's good. I was laughing and cringing as I read it and, by the end, I had begun to wonder if it was intentionally ridiculous. The Gil Kane/Murphy Anderson cover is a knockout, but the Moldoff/Giella interior art is the usual stuff. The Rocketeer island business seems like a James Bond knockoff, which isn't surprising in early 1966, but the billion dollar ransom demand required a spy like Austin Powers to respond.

A pair of Gotham City grifters named Weeper and Rosy lament their lack of funds to bet on a sure thing at the race track. Rosy has been peeping through his binoculars at a room in the building across the street, where he has seen a man putting gobs of the long green stuff into a safe and never taking any out. Weeper refuses to commit robbery, so they head to Sharkey, the loan shark, for a loan at 100% interest.

Sharkey enjoys his massage a bit too much...

That night, while Weeper and Rosy are at the track, Batman and Robin hear an explosion, just the latest in a series of mysterious bombings. They identify the source of the blast and follow a car to Sharkey's office, where Batman fights a huge massage therapist known as Mako. One gang member escapes during the melee. Commissioner Gordon later shows up and Sharkey's records reveal that he was behind the bombings, which were done to punish people who welshed on loans. Robin finds a hidden key and they're off to look for Sharkey's hidden stash.

Mako tries to undress Batman...

Meanwhile, their horse having finished out of the money, Rosy and Weeper head to the apartment with the safe full of money to acquire funds to pay back Sharkey, only to find the safe empty. Batman and Robin show up and discover the missing gang member hiding in the closet with the loot! Weeper and Rosy end up in prison and Weeper reminds his pal that he always says that "crime don't pay"!

As usual, Sid Greene's inks jazz up Moldoff's pencils to an extent, but this story is even cornier than the one before it. The GCD tells us that this issue went on sale on December 2, 1965, and Wikipedia tells us that the Batman TV show premiered on January 12, 1966, when this issue was still on the newsstands. Methinks the folks at DC were upping the camp factor in anticipation of the premiere.

Batman does the old soft shoe...

Oddly enough, in the letters column, ye olde editor quotes a September 2, 1965 article from the Detroit News that says that ABC-TV "'is planning a test film for a possible one-hour weekly program based on the comic strip, The Batman.' All we can do at the moment is confirm the news item, and ask you to watch this department for what we hope will be the most electrifying TV news of the Fall, 1966 season!" I know these mags were put together well in advance of the sale date, but doesn't it seem strange that the editor thought the show wouldn't come out till fall when it premiered the month after this issue went on sale?-Jack

Peter-In "Raid of the Rocketeers!" Robin is caught underwater and remarks that he doesn't even have breath for a one-liner. How do we get a whole strip's worth of Robin underwater? It's not so much the fact that we have to put up with the constant barrage of zingers but that those jokes are so gawdawful ("They look like an unwelcoming committee!" anyone?). The story is brainless entertainment, obviously infringing on Bond territory, though James would probably laugh off the Rocketeers and their goofy outfits. If this was a Marvel comic of that era, the Rocketeers would be commies aiming to stifle world peace rather than just simple criminals out for a big payday. "Loan Shark" is about as bad as they come; awful art and lazy script. Rosy and Weeper come off as a failed comedy team so this might be as close to Abbott and Costello Meet Batman as you'll ever come. The only true dog this month.

Kubert

Detective Comics #348

"Birdman of Bedlam!"

Story by Robert Kanigher

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

Bruce and Dick say a goodbye with kisses to Mona, the winner of the Miss USA Beauty Contest (her prize was a date with the playboy billionaire) and watch with awe as she shimmies her tightly-wrapped buttocks and swings her milky globes gets on the airplane and waves goodbye. Minutes later, while driving away from the airport, their glee turns to horror as Mona's plane erupts in flames and crash lands nearby. The Duo race to the crash site and take the time to change into their outfits and discuss possible reasons for the disaster while passengers erupt into flames before their eyes. "Quick, Robin, these people need help!" exclaims the World's Greatest Detective.

The Dynamic Duo evacuate the plane but, sadly, Mona the Most Gorgeous Woman in America is dead. Her dream to build a camp for refugees in Rwanda will never come to be. "Oh well," sighs the Caped Crusader as he turns his attention to the pilot, who has a fantastic story to tell: the jet was attacked by a swarm of birds! Both Dark Knight and Teenage Tornado are flummoxed since there is no sign of an avian at the crash. No feathers, no corpses, not even the tell-tale white splashes on the windshield. What in the world could have happened?

Take away the word balloons
and you can see Wertham was
on to something

The mystery doesn't last long as, hours later, Gotham Airport receives its first message from the mysterious Birdmaster. Batman strokes his chin and asks Robin: "Do you think this evil genius could have something to do with the crash of the jet airliner?" Before Robin can answer, the Birdmaster issues his ultimatum: stay out of the skies or die!

Not one to take a challenge lightly, Batman drives back to the Batcave and winds up the Batplane for action. Sure enough, quickly after taking to the air, the plane is surrounded by thousands of birds of every size and species: vultures, eagles, hawks, McGuinns, sparrows... Bats manages to take out some of them with his Batrockets but more arrive to take their fallen comrades' place. Before long, the boys realize they're not being forced to crash but guided to a certain spot outside Gotham.

Batman and Robin eject from the Batplane and land in a heavily-wooded area. Immediately, they are set upon by a quartet of grown men wearing silly bird suits and gassed into unconsciousness. The men haul the Duo to a high-cliff mansion, a castle owned by... the Birdmaster (cue lightning and waves crashing the rocks)! The boys are brought before the fine-feathered evil genius and dropped in a large cage; Birdmaster explains he wants to add the Duo to his collection of one-of-a-kind birds. 

Not stopping to explain that a bat is not a bird, the Dark Knight instructs Robin to accompany him to the top of the cage. Obviously not one to think an evil scheme through, the Birdmaster has forgotten to put a top on the cage and the boys easily escape, besting the bird-henchmen without much effort. Birdmaster hops into his nearby plane and takes to the skies, forgetting he instructed his avian army to take down any vehicle that flies. The boys watch as the plane heads for the ground; a certain death for the one-and-done Rogue. 

What a difference between last month's serious tone to this month's campfire. "Birdman of Bedlam!" is certainly not Big Bob Kanigher's finest hour and his insertion of at least one bad Robin one-liner per panel is so far away from his landmark work on Our Army at War that I'd never have guessed the identity of the author without a helping hand. Worst quip might be Robin, as the boys are heading for a fiery death, assuring Batman that he only turns green when he's standing on his nose. What does this even mean?

Aside from the awful zingers, though, this one is full of violence. From Mona's meaningless death to the exploding buzzards, Big Bob doesn't hold back. That was the one aspect of his script I appreciated. The Birdmaster's ultimate motivation for all this chaos is a supremely dopey one, almost as inane as the Bird-thug outfits. I want to see the excised panel where Birdmeister convinces hardened criminals that the only way they can bodyguard is by wearing a feathered shawl and a beak cap. 1966 has definitely arrived.-Peter

Jack-The Go-Go checks are here! Did anyone ever get the story behind them in an interview, possibly with Julie Schwartz? Was DC feeling the heat from Marvel and so felt the need to do something to make the tops of their mags stand out on newsstand racks (that's exactly what it was, Jack, according to this fan-written blog post-Peter)? I'd love to know the scoop. Big Bob gets even nuttier this issue, with characters getting killed, plane crashes, and one-liners flying left and right. I love Joe Kubert's art but he doesn't seem quite right for Batman, as shown on the cover.

Next Week...
More Everett
You're Welcome!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 126: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 111

July 1956 Part I

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Adventure Into Mystery 2

Cover by Sol Brodsky

"The Straw Man" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★★

"The Man Who Saw the Saucer" (a: Bob McCarty) ★1/2

"A Woman Screamed" (a: Ross Andru & Jack Abel) ★★1/2

"The Betrayer!" (a: Bill Benulis) ★1/2

"The Man on the Thirteenth Floor" (a: Paul Cooper(?) & Christopher Rule(?)) ★

"Among Those Missing!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★1/2

A formless creature from outer space lands on Earth and mistakenly enters the body of a scarecrow. When "The Straw Man" moves, it terrifies the drunken tramp sitting next to it and he inadvertently sets the creature on fire. The smoke-thing hops back into its ship, tail between its legs, and vows never to come back. "The Straw Man" is an okay sci-fi yarn but it's never made clear whether the thing is here to invade us or just chill. 

Tired of being ignored in his hometown, Caleb cooks up a tall tale about meeting with aliens from outer space in the woods. He chops a couple of trees down and makes some fake footprints and the villagers eat the fable up like so many M&Ms. Caleb becomes a nationwide hero but finally someone does their homework and discovers the whole meeting was a fraud. Quicker than you can say "Milli Vanilli," Caleb is public enemy number one. He heads back into the woods where... naturally, he bumps into some aliens who hand him a parchment they claim can help Earth rid itself of all pestilence (including reality TV shows). With a gleam in his eyes, Caleb heads back into town where his story is met with derision and tossed vegetables. Poor guy can't catch a break. "The Man Who Saw the Saucer" is a painfully obvious tale that's been done so many times before (and much better). Its sole saving grace is the sharp McCarty art.

Disgusted by his own timidity, meek Myron Midgely hypnotizes himself and gains strength and bravery. Out to test his new-found vim, Myron stumbles into a screaming woman and learns she's being chased by bad guys. Myron gives the bad guys a right cross and he and the woman escape into a nearby amusement park. The girl introduces herself as Sonya and explains that her brother, Stefan, is being held in another country against his will; she's madly in love with Myron and hopes he'll help her and her brother out of their jam. 

Myron immediately agrees and they board a rocket on a roller coaster. The rocket takes flight and Sonya admits she lives on Jupiter. They arrive on the planet and rescue Stefan, but Sonya reveals that the man is actually her boyfriend and she'll always appreciate Myron for his help. Myron screams "No!" and wakes up back in his apartment. It was all a hypnotic dream! Or was it? I liked "A Woman Screamed" for its lunacy and track-changing. The obstacles and adventures Myron encounters seem almost dreamlike, so the ending isn't as much of a cop-out as it might have been. Thanks to Jack Abel's inks, Ross Andru's art is nearly unrecognizable.

Raymond Coates has always wished he had gone down a different path as a young man so that he would have been a better provider for his wife. It gnaws at him and gnaws at him and gnaws at him and... guess what? He finds himself a young man again and takes the road not traveled. Soon he will wish he had just stuck to the first off-ramp. On the Atlas lunchroom wall, I firmly believe, was a "Ten Best Plotlines We Can Use Over and Over" chart and, every couple of weeks, a writer would initial next to "The Guy Who Wishes He Was in the Past" and come up with some kind of thinly-masked variation. It's no surprise that pulpmaster Carl Wessler (author of "The Betrayer!") initialed that one a few dozen times.

In "The Man on the Thirteenth Floor," Paul Lane exits his penthouse suite and enters his elevator, only to be trapped on the 13th floor, where all sorts of magical things happen. When the elevator finally reaches the ground floor and he tells his tale to the bellhop, he's reminded there is no 13th floor on the hotel! D'Oh!

In the finale, "Among Those Missing," psychologist Burton Jannis is tasked with finding out where 32 big brain geniuses have disappeared to. The men have vanished in thin air and the job seems an impossible one, but Jannis (not questioning why maybe the FBI shouldn't be involved) rolls up his sleeves and follows genius #33 all the way to a space/time vortex that takes both to the year 2160. There, the other 32 smart guys explain that the future needs their help more than the present. 

Yeah, I was lost too but since I'm always bitching about cliches and dopey plots, I have to give the unnamed scripter props for dreaming up a wild (if a little over-complicated) story here. It's the most imaginative if not the most enjoyable Adventure into Mystery this issue.-Peter

Astonishing 51

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Mutant!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★★★

"I Flew in a Flying Saucer!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"I, the Wizard" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Perilous Paintings" (a: Kurt Schaffenberger) ★

"Spaceship" (a: Mort Meskin &  Bill Draut (?)) ★★1/2

"Blackout!" (a: Jim Mooney) ★

Five years after the disappearance of The Great Connel, a mutant who provided wonder, peace, and happiness to his fellow humans, we finally discover where he vanished to. Connel lived in a high tower overlooking the city, working his wonders to better mankind but, deep inside, he's just a real lonely guy. A mutant, yes, but a lonely mutant! One day, while Connel is moping and feeling sorry for himself, an alien materializes in his apartment and explains that the Great One was sent to Earth as a child to lead Earthlings down a path to glory. Now that Connel's work is done, the alien gives him a choice: he can stay here on Earth or go back to his home planet.

Connel opts for the former and the alien bids him farewell and transforms him into just another average Joe on the street. Five years later, he smiles and heads home to his wife and family. "The Mutant" is a charming, intelligent fantasy, with a happy ending that avoids the maudlin; it's also one of the first uses of a mutant in a Stan-edited funny book but certainly not the last. Robert Sale's art is adequate but it's a shame we didn't get "The Mutant!" as envisioned by Bill Everett, who contributed the snazzy cover.

Author John Farrar writes a book on his experiences called "I Flew in a Flying Saucer!" but runs up against skeptics who view his non-fictional account as rubbish. Turns out they're right, but Farrar gets a second chance at the space trip. Rubbish. Even more rubbishy is "I, The Wizard," wherein a sorcerer coaxes a king into making him the royal wizard but then runs into a brick wall when he courts the king's daughter. Paul Reinman, whose work used to overcome even the worst of scripts, continues to exhibit a decline in quality.

Artist Arthur Kent is obsessed with the work of artist "ZIS," an anonymous genius whose private stock of oils was just discovered in an archaeological dig in Italy. Kent steals the case of paints and begins his masterpiece, "The Burning of Rome." When Kent is almost finished, he's leaning into the mural to get a pesky corner piece when he falls into the canvas!

Yes, Kent is a victim of that pesky Atlas Time/Space Portal and he lands smack dab in ancient Rome as its skies are red with flames. A mob sees him and chases him into what he discovers is the studio of ZIS! Thinking quick, Kent paints the entrance to the Holland Tunnel and leaps into the canvass, escaping back into our time through sheer magic! Deciding the paints of ZIS are best left alone, Kent grabs hold of a handy blowtorch and destroys the evil colors forever. "The Perilous Paintings" is lifeless; there are no surprises, no excitement, no originality. If I never read another time warp story, it'll be too soon.

That goes double for spaceship stories. Oh, here we have another one. But at least this one is a bit different. Mac Shaw is homeless and really cold. While searching for shelter, he stumbles on a "Spaceship" parked in a vacant lot. He enters, appreciating the warmth, but is taken aback by a group of men clad in spacesuits. They explain to him that they're from Saturn and will be parked here until the spring; Mac is welcome to food and drink if he'd like. Not questioning whether Saturnian food is digestible by a human being, Mac digs in and he and the men become fast friends.

Spring arrives and the Saturnian group leader bids Mac farewell but tells him he can keep the ship! The next afternoon, his cozy den is invaded by lots of people. When Mac exits the ship and protests, he discovers the craft is part of a carnival ride! Well, this one doesn't make much sense (how could Mac not have known he was in a carnival ride... and... um... did the ride have a porta-potty?) but it tickled my funny bone enough for me to give it a thumbs-up.

In 1929 England, ace pilot Sam Destry enters an aviation race and breaks all known records, flying an incredible 240 miles an hour. He flies so fast, in fact, that he has a "Blackout!" He comes to and discovers he's flown through the Atlas Time/Space Warp Continuum (we know because he sees Dr. Burton Jannis of "Among the Missing" waving at him through the cockpit glass) and lands in the future. Destry is amazed but this reader is not. Between the sleepwalk of a script and the by-the-numbers Mooney art, "Blackout!" is a dud.-Peter

Journey Into Mystery 36

Cover by Bill Everett

"I, the Pharaoh" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★

"He Hides Among Us" (a: Herb Familton) ★1/2

"The Floating City" (a: Christopher Rule?) ★★

"Something is Happening in There!" (a: Carl Hubbell) ★

"The Lost Land" (a: Ted Galindo) ★1/2

"The Beasts!" (a: Paul Hodge) ★1/2

Ted Craven is an Egyptologist who is becoming too wrapped up in his work. His obsession with Pharaoh Ras Hati-Kah is even influencing his dreams, in which no one believes that he is Ted Craven and everyone insists that he's the pharaoh. Gradually, he begins to resemble the ancient Egyptian more and more until finally his shrink explains that he really is Ras Hati-Kah and Ted Craven is only a dream.

"I, the Pharaoh" is an intriguing story with an ending we've seen before. I wonder what Carl Wessler might have done if he were not limited to four pages? This seems like it could have gone on longer and would have benefited from more space. Joe Sinnott's art is fun, especially the way he draws Ted gradually morphing into Ras.

During a visit to Mars, Professor Lister scoffs at a suggestion by Dr. Hoskins that a Martian baby taken to Earth would have descendants who look like Earthlings. Hoskins brings home a green baby and treats it so that it turns into a handsome Earth boy named Stephen Dowell, who is quickly adopted but whose heritage is kept secret. The boy grows, excels at sports, and gets engaged to a pretty socialite named Louise Wharton. Fellow student Chip Ladby is jealous and discovers Stephen's secret, but Hoskins tricks Chip into thinking that he may be a Martian, too. Chip leaves town and Stephen weds Louise; only Dr. Hoskins knows that she is also secretly a Martian and that's why she was so attracted to Stephen.

Whew! "He Hides Among Us" is confusing and ends with another conclusion out of left field, as so often happens in Wessler's tales. The art by Herb Familton is interesting; it looks in numerous panels like he studied the work of Wally Wood and did his best to imitate it. I Googled Familton and couldn't find any evidence that this is a Woodian pseudonym.

Kirk Lamont is an architect who designed a futuristic suspension bridge that collapsed. Although many people laugh at him, Lamont is soon hired by a mysterious man named Blane to build "The Floating City" in the desert. With Blane's help, Lamont designs a city of buildings that float in the air, supported by guide wires. When it's finished, Lamont asks where all of the staircases and elevators are, when people arrive from outer space who can float through the air. Lamont rushes to tell his fellow Earthlings about the wondrous city, but when they return the city is gone. Though he's thought mad, Lamont is secure in the knowledge that his modern design worked.

This story is unremarkable and Christopher Rule's art isn't worth mentioning.

A creep named Ebenezer Prystone looks at a barn and is certain that "Something is Happening in There!" A bald man in a lab coat orders Eb off his property, so Eb tries to rouse the townsfolk into putting a stop to whatever is going on, certain that it's along the lines of what happens in the copy of Shock Science Fiction that he likes to read. Eb breaks into the barn and sees what looks like a time machine. He bumps into it, passes out, and awakens in the future, where he is chased by aliens. He blacks out again and awakens in the barn, where the man in the lab coat tells him that it's not a time machine but rather a new type of automatic car wash and Eb must have dreamed it all. But how does he explain the piece of alien clothing in his hand?

Good Lord, this is the pits. The story is dumb and the art is about as bad as it gets in an Atlas comic. Carl Hubbell later went on to ink 1960s Marvel comics.

Three Western fellers are prospecting for gold in the desert when a powerful wind lifts them off their feet and transports them to "The Lost Land," where everyone lives in peace. They can't resist a pile of gold, however, and their failure to resist temptation means they are swept back to the desert, where a single nugget of gold is all they have left of the wonderful life they could have led.

It's hard to get much accomplished in three pages and this story is simple, but Ted Galindo succeeds in providing some decent Western-themed panels, especially the ones that are monochromatic.

Prof. Henslowe has spent twenty years trying to find a way to elicit speech from "The Beasts!" When he gets a spider to ask for food, he plans to show everyone that he was right all along. The next day, the prof takes his talking spider to the university to show off the fruits of his labor, but a janitor sees the arachnid crawling across the floor and whacks it with his push broom. So much for twenty years of effort!

My brief summary doesn't do justice to the utter nonsense in this story, which sadly features dreadful art by Paul Hodge. There's a flashback to the prof's attempts to display a talking horse, which made me think of Mr. Ed, a show which would not hit the airwaves for another five years. I was also reminded of the great Warner Bros. cartoon, "One Froggy Evening," when a theater crowd jeers at the prof's failed attempt to make the horse speak. But the biggest smile of all came at the end when the janitor whacks the spider. I know I've seen this somewhere before but reading so many comics has turned my brain to mush. Wait! I have it! It's the end of The Fly, a film released two years later! Rod Serling, The Fly--was everyone reading Atlas comics???-Jack

Journey Into Unknown Worlds 47

Cover by Bill Everett

"They Wait in the Shadows!" (a: Bob Forgione) ★★

"The Iron Men" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★1/2

"The Girl Who Vanished" (a: Syd Shores) ★★

(r: Worlds Unknown #5)

"No Escape" (a: Mac Pakula) ★★1/2

"The Strangers" (a: Herb Familton) (r: Amazing Adventures #27) ★1/2

"A World There Was" (a: George Roussos) ★★

Winter has just begun on an alien planet that is very much like Earth, and the first humans to colonize it watch with apprehension as aliens approach for the first time. The pink-skinned aliens arrive and, having read the humans' thoughts, they unveil a fully-decorated Christmas tree and wish the newcomers a Merry Christmas!

Peter often remarks that the stories in Atlas comics rise or fall on the art, so it's a good thing Bob Forgione is competent, since "They Wait in the Shadows!" is as corny as it gets.

The small town of Wellsburg cautiously welcomes the first of "The Iron Men," a robot who replaces the police force at half the cost. Another mechanical man soon replaces the mayor and more robots follow, taking the places of bankers and heads of industry. Florian Rath, who makes and sells the robots, grows rich but, when he breaks a few traffic laws, the heartless robots sentence him to prison and he realizes that his greed was justly rewarded.

Another story that goes nowhere, and with mediocre art to boot. The irony of Rath being arrested and imprisoned by the robots he created is weak.

Don Mace is an unhappy young man who is out hiking in the mountains when he spies a pretty young woman. Moments later, she becomes "The Girl Who Vanished"! She appears and disappears, telling Don to forget that he saw her. He observes a young man who looks just like himself come and get her before a group of men in futuristic garb emerge and chase Don, finally overpowering him. The pretty girl tells him that they are from an unknown world that is parallel to our own and she urges the men to let him go. The time flaw between worlds closes and Don is left alone, until he runs into a woman who looks just like the one from the parallel world.

The art by Syd Shores on this story is decent and he does a nice job drawing the blonde from a parallel world, which helps. The story is predictable.

Certain that past, present, and future all exist simultaneously in different warps, Paul Westlake invents a gizmo that allows him to return to boyhood and back with the press of a button. Joe Simpson, the janitor, walks in and hands Paul his mail, which includes a check. A mysterious person has been sending Paul a check each month for years and Paul decides to solve the mystery with his time penetrator. He pops back to the past and observes his father yelling at his business partner, whose unwise speculation ruined the firm

Back in the present, Paul vows revenge on his father's partner and, when Joe the janitor again enters the lab, Paul realizes that the old man with the broom ruined his father's life and has been sending checks all along to try to make amends. Paul decides to use the time gizmo to flee to the future to avoid having to decide what to do about Joe, but when he gets there, Joe walks in to deliver the mail and Paul realizes that there is "No Escape."

The GCD suggests that this may be another Wessler script and I can believe it, because it has an interesting premise and a finale out of left field. I like Pakula's art, which is cartoony but solid, except for a panel on page two (reproduced here) with a bizarre example of forced perspective. I also like the subtle touch in the last panel, where Joe the janitor is wearing a futuristic outfit (purple tights and a yellow cape) but otherwise looks exactly the same as he did in the present.

An alien ship lands at an Earth military base and the human officers observe that the creatures piloting the ship appear humanoid. Suddenly, a ray beam shoots out from the ship and the men spring into action, though a fighter jet is quickly dispensed with by a ray from the spaceship, which flies off. Hours later, two see-through tubes descend to Earth, containing what look like alien robots. The humans assume the aliens must have built the robots to resemble themselves but, when the ship lands and the aliens emerge, it turns out that the ones who look like robots are the aliens and the ones who look like aliens are the robots.

This three-pager tries to make a point about hubris and assumptions but falls flat. Familton's art still resembles that of Wally Wood in spots but there are too few pages to do much analysis.

After landing on a mysterious planet, a trio of astronauts realize that it is telepathic and will display whatever they imagine. A blue sky, a grove of trees, and a futuristic city all appear and vanish as the men think of them. Once they depart, the planet itself evaporates and they realize that it was actually a telepathic cloud of space gases that formed itself into the planet of which they were thinking.

"A World There Was" has decent art by George Roussos but nothing particularly interesting happens. The twist at the end is supposed to be that the entire planet was a creation, but this doesn't really come as a surprise.-Jack

Next Week...
The Shocker of All Shockers!
The Death of Batman!
No, Really! It Says So In the Title!

The Hitchcock Project-Diagnosis: Danger by Roland Kibbee [8.22]

by Jack Seabrook

"Diagnosis: Danger" aired on CBS on Friday, March 1, 1963, and is a good example of how The Alfred Hitchcock Hour had difficulty figuring out its identity during the first season. The show is written and produced by Roland Kibbee and it was the only episode he wrote for the series.

Roland Kibbee (1914-1984) started out writing for radio in the early 1930s, when he was still a teenager. He wrote for Fred Allen and Groucho Marx and served in the Air Force during WWII. He briefly acted on Broadway in the mid-1930s, but writing and producing were where he would make his mark. After the war, he began writing films, including A Night in Casablanca (1946) for the Marx Brothers, and in 1957 he also began writing for TV. He added the role of TV producer in 1960 and continued until the early 1980s, sharing Emmy Awards with other writers for the TV shows Columbo and Barney Miller.

Michael Parks as Dr. Dana

Perhaps Kibbee should have stuck to comedy, because "Diagnosis: Danger" is one of the weaker episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. It begins with a scene where a woman is driving a car with a pickup truck bed along a California highway. In the back, a man writhes in pain; he is very sick and clutches a bongo drum. A sign on the car door reads "The Harry Slater Sextet" and, as we will later learn, the sick man is Harry Slater. The woman driving also begins to show signs of illness and suddenly swerves to avoid hitting another car. As a result, the man is thrown from the back and rolls down a hill into a ditch, along with the bongo drum.

Charles McGraw as Dr. Oliver

The scene then shifts to the County Health office, where Dr. Dan Dana is summoned to see the chief, Dr. Simon Oliver. After giving an injection to a little girl who has been bitten by a rabid dog, Dana and a deputy sheriff named Judd head to the morgue, where the coroner is examining the body of Harry Slater. A look through a microscope confirms that the man died of anthrax and Dana quickly instructs everyone that they need to be given penicillin and to burn their clothes because the disease is deadly and fast-acting. Meanwhile, in the ditch beside the highway, a man cleaning up trash picks up the bongo drum and takes it with him.

Dr. Dana calls a news reporter named Huntziger and asks him to spread the word about the danger posed by anthrax, but Dr. Oliver grabs the phone and tells the reporter that Dana was mistaken. Oliver then delivers a heavy-handed lecture about the need to avoid creating a panic. Elsewhere in the city, the trash collector sits on a bench by the side of the street with the bongo drum next to him. Three young men pull up in a convertible and spy the drum, so one of them uses a fishing pole to hook the item and pull it into the car. More heavy-handed irony is displayed when the trash collector stands up and the bench is revealed to feature an advertisement for a funeral home.

Berkeley Harris as Deputy Sheriff Judd

A police sergeant named Boyle finds the vehicle that Slater fell out of, abandoned on the side of the road, and sees evidence that the musician had been returning from a trip. Huntziger, the reporter, shows up and realizes that Dana's report of anthrax was correct. Outside a bar, the trio of young men wait for a drunk to emerge so that they can rob him. One of the men is named Gordie and he passes the time by playing the bongo drum. The episode's best sequence follows, as Gordie and one of his cohorts, Doug, attack the drunk in an alley and the viewer only sees the attack in intermittent shadows on an alley wall due to a light that blinks on and off. The scene is silent but features an appropriately jazzy score by Lyn Murray. The third young man, Alf, chose not to participate in the attack and is left behind by Gordie and Doug.

Douglas Henderson as Huntziger

At the health office, Oliver, who represents the establishment, explains to Dana, the angry young man, why he kept the anthrax story out of the news. Both men rush to the county hospital, where the trash collector has died of pulmonary anthrax. Dana tries to interrogate his widow, who is in shock, and Judd, the deputy sheriff, realizes that the dead man must have picked up something contaminated at the site where Slater's body was found. Meanwhile, Gordie and Doug are relaxing by the ocean, starting to feel sick and worrying that Alf might turn them in to the police.

Sergeant Boyle tracks down Helen Fletcher, a married woman who was driving the vehicle that Slater fell out of. She had also been sick but was cured by antibiotics given by an old doctor who did not realize that she had anthrax. Dana visits her at her home and, while she is initially resistant to admitting anything out of fear that her husband will learn of her affair, she eventually confesses to Dana that she spent the weekend with Slater in Mexico, where he bought a bongo drum from a street corner peddler. The drum was made from the hide of a dead burro, the source of the outbreak.

Hellena Westcott as Helen Fletcher

As Oliver finally tells a newscaster to spread the word to the public, Dana finds another victim at the hospital--the drunk who was attacked by Gordie and Doug. Dana is called to the morgue, where Doug's body is found to have anthrax, and he realizes that he needs to find Gordie. The police break down the door of Alf's house and Dana interrogates the very sick young man in order to find out Gordie's location. Dana and Judd then go to Devil's Cove, where Gordie tries to hold them at bay with shots from a rifle. He retreats into a cave and then onto the beach, while Dana uses his foot to push the bongo drum into a campfire, eliminating the source of the outbreak. After Dana and Judd catch up with Gordie, the final scene finds Dana in a police car with Judd and Oliver, who tells Dana that he'll be back at work the next morning.

Marc Cavell as Alf

Unlike most episodes of the Hitchcock TV show, "Diagnosis: Danger" features no twist ending and has very little suspense. The story is dull, the direction is uninspired, and the acting is second rate. The musical score by Lyn Murray mostly distracts from the events onscreen, except for the brief scene in the alley where it fits the action.

In The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion, director Sydney Pollack comments that this episode was meant to be a pilot for another series, one that never materialized. It's puzzling that the crew of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour would be enlisted to make a pilot, especially when this episode seems so unlike most other episodes. What would the new series have been about? Presumably, it would have featured the adventures of Dr. Dana and the rest of the men and women of the county health department, though it's hard to imagine that they could have faced a serious crisis week after week.

"Diagnosis: Danger" was directed by Sydney Pollack (1934-2008), who had a long and successful career as a director and sometimes an actor. He began as a TV director from 1961 to 1965, then switched to movies from 1965 to 2005, winning an Oscar for Out of Africa (1985). He directed two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, neither of which is very good. His other episode is the Cornell Woolrich adaptation, "The Black Curtain."

Gus Trikonis as Gordie

Starring as Dr. Dan Dana is Michael Parks (1940-2017), whose career onscreen began in 1960 and continued until his death. He starred in the TV series Then Came Bronson (1969-1970) and also had a singing career. He played Jean Renault on Twin Peaks (1990-1991) and was in both parts of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (2003-2004). "Diagnosis: Danger" was one of his early roles and displays unfortunate tendencies toward method acting.

In his only appearance on the Hitchcock TV series, Charles McGraw (1914-1980) plays Dr. Simon Oliver as a know-it-all establishment figure. Born Charles Butters, McGraw had a long career on film and TV from 1942 to 1977, appearing in such films as The Narrow Margin (1952) and Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), as well as on Thriller and in The Night Stalker TV movie. McGraw also starred in a couple of TV series in the mid-1950s: Adventures of the Falcon (1954-1956) and Casablanca (1955-1956). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Marc Rambeau as Doug

Berkeley Harris (1933-1984) plays Deputy Sheriff Judd; he was on screen from 1956 to 1981, mainly on TV, and this was one of his two appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; the other was "Wally the Beard."

Huntziger, the reporter, is played by Douglas Henderson (1919-1978), who served in the Marine Corps in WWII and who was on screen from 1944 to 1976. He was seen in three episodes of The Outer Limits and had a recurring role on The Wild Wild West as Colonel James Richmond, appearing in ten episodes between 1966 and 1969.

Clarke Gordon as Dr. Miller

Hellena Westcott (1928-1998), born Myrthas Helen Hickman, plays Helen Fletcher, the cheating wife. Westcott started out in vaudeville at age two and had a long career on screen from 1934 to 1977. She also appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Alf, the young man who decides not to participate in the attack on the drunk, is played by Marc Cavell (1939-2004), who was on screen from 1949 to 1978. He appeared in Cool Hand Luke (1967) and on many TV shows, including The Twilight Zone, Thriller, two episodes of Batman, and one other episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "I Saw the Whole Thing."

Gordie, who engages in the standoff with Dana and Judd at the end of the show, is played by Gus Trikonis (1937- ), who acted on screen from 1961 to 1968 before switching careers and becoming a director from 1969 to 1983.

Stefan Gierasch as Sgt. Boyle

The third member of the trio, Doug, is played by Marc Rambeau (1942-1985), who had a brief TV career from 1962 to 1966 that included three appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; one of the others was "Death of a Cop."

Clarke Gordon (1918-2004) plays Dr. Miller, the coroner. He was on radio, appeared on Broadway, and was on screen in a career that lasted from 1946 to 1993.

Finally, Sergeant Boyle is played by Stefan Gierasch (1926-2014), who trained at the Actors Studio and played countless roles on screen between 1951 and 2009, including a role in the 1980s remake of "Breakdown" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Watch "Diagnosis: Danger" online here. It is not available on U.S. DVD.

Sources:

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.

"Diagnosis: Danger." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 1, episode 22, CBS, 1 March 1963.

IBDB, www.ibdb.com.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

Old Time Radio Downloads, www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" here!

In two weeks: "Final Arrangements," starring Martin Balsam!