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!!!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 152: September 1974

The DC War Comics
1959-1976
by Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook

Kubert

Our Army at War 272

"The Bloody Flag"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin

"A Sergeant Dies ..."
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: As Easy Co. cautiously enters a French town overrun with Nazis, a new recruit conveniently nicknamed Green Apple laments having seen no action. The townsfolk tell Sgt. Rock that Nazis shot at them for displaying the flag that symbolizes French resistance and, as if on cue, here comes a jeepful of Nazis, guns blazing. In the gun battle that follows, the Nazi commander is fatally wounded, and with his last breath he tells Rock that the Nazi battle flag that Rock's men just captured was handed out by Hitler himself.

Green Apple is killed by a sniper's bullet as the dying Nazi commander warns Rock that he'll never be able to hold on to the Nazi battle flag. Easy Co. heads back to base by a route through the woods, but it seems like every tree hides a Nazi sniper, and more G.I.s are killed. Finally tiring of the random carnage, Rock and his men march across a bridge holding the battle flag in front of them and succeed in attracting a swarm of Nazis; after Rock and his men kill all the Nazis, Rock decides to leave "The Bloody Flag" draped over their corpses.

"The Bloody Flag"

Severin's art looks suspiciously like it was inked by someone less skilled, and I wonder if Jack Sparling or even Sam Glanzman is to blame. The layouts are typically Severin, with some impressive, wordless panels, but the art is not good enough to make up for the story, which is a mix of cliches and boring battles. Nothing much to see here, folks.

"A Sergeant
Dies ..."

A Roman soldier fights hard against Egyptian troops before being killed. Centuries pass, and the same scene plays out with a crusader, then a WWII G.I., and finally an Israeli soldier. Each time, Egyptians wonder at the resilience of the enemy. "A Sergeant Dies ..." features the usual unpleasant art by Estrada but contains a surprise, since it doesn't end with WWII but rather moves on a few decades into what I guess is the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Robert Kanigher was Jewish and there is a clear pro-Israeli slant to the last section of this story. I am not going too far out on a  limb to say I don't think we'll see another DC War Comic with a story about the Arab-Israel conflict.

Peter: I love John Severin's art but that sure doesn't look like Sgt. Rock to me. The plot is ludicrous: Rock decides to carry this bloody flag around with him, even though it invites attacks from the enemy, and then decides, after all these attacks from the enemy, that it's not worth the blood drawn to carry around this bloody flag! After a brief flirtation a few months ago with continuity, editor Joe Kubert decides the "one and dones" are the way to go. For me, this creates a sense of disorientation; one month, the boys are in the desert, the next they're in France. At least assign a date to each story. "A Sergeant Dies ..." is one of the weakest of Big Bob's "Gallery of War," with the obvious moral being "war is pointless." There's an original thought.

Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 150

"Mark Our Graves!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin

"Catch"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Ed Davis

Jack: As the Losers march through the North African desert by moonlight, they discover an old graveyard and are suddenly attacked by a Nazi tank. The Losers play dead for a moment and surprise the Nazis with gunfire, but there is a new distraction as a jeep of British soldiers appears on the scene and is soon blown up by fire from the tank's gun. Survivors from the jeep turn out not to be British soldiers but rather Jewish men fighting for Israeli independence against the Nazis.

The Jewish fighters are attached to the British Army and have been sent to find German commander Von Eltz's supply dump. The Losers join up with the Jewish freedom fighters and head toward the town of El Karish. On the way, they fight off a band of armed looters and put on the clothes of the vanquished in order to enter the town under cover. They soon discover the supply dump hidden in an abandoned synagogue; the Losers blow up the dump and head back into the desert outside of town, where they help bury some of the Jewish soldiers, who make sure that they "Mark Our Graves!"

Yes, this is from a 1974 DC War Comic!
("Mark Our Graves!")

Just when I thought we'd seen the only story with Jewish fighters and Jewish themes, we get another one with Jewish freedom fighters in WWII, an abandoned synagogue, and soldiers reciting the prayer for the dead in Hebrew! Bob Kanigher must have been affected by current events when he wrote these stories in 1974. I can only imagine what 10 year old kids who liked DC War Comics must have thought of these tales. They are certainly different!

A patrol marches through the Vietnam jungle and, when one steps on a mine, four men die. Two men survive, but one dies when they step off the trail and there is another explosion. James Macklin survives, though injured, and radios for help. A helicopter is dispatched to rescue him and, while he waits for it to arrive, he marvels at the incredible system that has been set up to provide speedy care to injured soldiers. There's just one "Catch": you need to be alive when the helicopter comes to pick you up. Unfortunately for Macklin, he dies of his massive chest wound right before the chopper gets to him.

"Catch"

In five pages, Archie Goodwin tells a thrilling story that really doesn't have much plot at all, yet the details of how medical care has advanced from WWII to the Korean War to the Vietnam War are fascinating. The art by Ed Davis suggests a rougher, less-skilled Alex Niño.

Peter: Above, in my critical comments for the Rock story, I mention my disdain for the "one and dones," and "Mark Our Graves!" illustrates exactly why I like the DC war series with continuity. Each installment of The Losers almost seems to be like a chapter taken from a large novel. The search for Ona continues but the boys stumble into adventures and mishaps along the way. There's a real sense of direction and destination here and Big Bob stocks his tale with intricate detail and dialogue that "sounds" real. The Jewish references aren't forced, like the racial plots found in Rock; it's almost an organic hook. How the hell Bob and Archie managed to mold four useless war series characters into a seamless and enjoyable package is beyond me, but bad news may be on the horizon since Jack Kirby takes over the editing/writing/penciling of OFF with the next issue. Mid-70s Kirby is not something I look forward to. The back-up, "Catch," written by Archie, feels as though it's a hold-over from Goodwin's tenure as editor and chief writer of Blazing Combat for Warren, but it's so much more powerful than any of the BC stories I've read thus far. Yep, the captions are a little wiki-style detail-heavy but they don't dull the power of the climax one bit. Newcomer Ed Davis's art is brilliant; very moody and dark, almost a combination of Toth and Talaoc. That final page is a stunner. This could be the best single issue of Our Fighting Forces we've yet seen (and, with the coming of "King" Kirby, probably the last great issue of OFF we'll see)!

Dominguez

Weird War Tales 29

"Breaking Point"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ernie Chan

"The Hunted"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Gerry Talaoc


Peter: The Major was a supremely competent Nazi officer and excelled in the art of torture. One might say it was his hobby. One of the Major's favorite tools was a casket, in which a prisoner would be sealed for the length of time it would take him to crack. But deep down inside that gruff interior lies a Hitler-hating mutineer. Oh, he believes in Hitler's cause, just not in the man himself. When the time is right, the Major conspires with several other officers to assassinate Der Führer, but the plan goes awry and his secret plan is discovered by his right-hand man, who informs Berlin that there is a traitor in their midst. The Major is arrested and tortured for days in an effort to discover the names of his conspirators.

"Breaking Point"

"Breaking Point"

True to his word, the Major does not give in and the torture continues. One day in his cell, after days of freezing and starvation, the Major swears he'd serve the devil if he could be free. As if by magic, the door to his cell swings open and the Major escapes. Realizing Satan has made him a free man, he hightails it to the nearby forest but his freedom is short-lived as he rounds a bend and runs straight into his aide, who confesses it was not Satan but he who left the cell door open. Finally past the breaking point, the Major sobs out the names of his allies and is then given a quick death by firing squad. As he stands against the pole, the Major comes to the realization that the ultimate torture is ... hope!

What a great story! Am I giving "Breaking Point"such high praise because Weird War Tales has, of late, been barely readable? That could be, but I'd also cite the fact that writer Jack Oleck slyly nudges us toward believing this thing will end just like any other Oleck script: with the Major on the bad end of a deal with Satan or the Major waking up in the casket to find out the freedom was all a dream or the Major having died in his cell long before his run for the roses or ... you get the picture. But, no, instead we get a highly original twist and a very confusing main character. Here's a guy who loves the art of torture but wants to bring down the most evil man on the planet, not because he wants the suffering to end but because he thinks he himself can do a better job! And Ernie Chan, whom we've griped about in the past, contributes his best work yet. No, he's not Alcala or Niño yet, but there's still hope.

"The Hunted"

"The Hunted" is Robert Kanigher's fictional ode to Lawrence of Arabia. While having a sip from a desert oasis, Lawrence is attacked by a Turkish soldier and shoots him dead. Unfortunately, the soldier's lover is standing right behind him and catches a bullet as well. With her dying breath, the woman places the curse of Anubis on Lawrence. But Lawrence's continued good deeds obviously sway Anubis and the curse is lifted. Gorgeous art (as usual) by Alcala, with an almost insane attention to detail, but the story itself comes off as one of those Big Bob scripts for House of Mystery. Is the jackal that leads Lawrence to a hidden enemy tunnel a supernatural presence? Who knows? The curse doesn't come into play at any point in the tale (and we never really know for sure about that jackal) but that may be due to Big Bob wanting to stick to "the facts" for the most part.

"The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy"

"The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy" is a forgettable quickie about a long-dead army coming to the aid of soldiers in World War I. This is a plot that gets taken out of the DC file cabinet every six months or so and, by now, Oleck doesn't even attempt to dust it off. Talaoc's art is like muddy and busy Niño but it has a certain style to it that's not without its merits.

Jack: I liked this issue, too, but I can't decide if I liked it because of or despite the lack of weirdness. "Breaking Point" is entertaining and competently illustrated, but there's really nothing weird about it. The jackal is supposed to inject some weirdness into "The Hunted," but that's stretching a point and I was happy to see Niño drawing a famous episode in the career of T.E. Lawrence. Finally, I've always found the tales of ghosts on the battlefields of WWI interesting, so I enjoyed "The Phantom Bowmen of Crecy." This is one of the better issues of WWT in recent memory.

Next Week...
Johnny Craig joins
the Warren Bullpen!

The Hitchcock Project-James P. Cavanagh Part Six: Father and Son [2.36]

by Jack Seabrook

Edmund Gwenn as Joe Saunders

Edmund Gwenn made his last screen appearance in "Father and Son," a moving episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1957 that is based on a short story by the English author, Thomas Burke, that first appeared in the August 1934 issue of Vanity Fair.

The story, just a page long in the magazine, concerns a 17-year-old named Sam Swote, who needs money and who looks for an easy way to get it. His father, Joe, has become "reluctant in handing out shillings" in the belief that it is time for his son to start earning a living. Sam thinks about the illegal tobacco sales occurring in the neighborhood and the police's interest in finding the man responsible. Wanting to "do his duty as a citizen" and perhaps earn a small reward to spend on a girl, Sam visits the police station, makes his report, and receives a reward.

"Father and Son" was first published here

The next evening, he is summoned to the police station to identify the man he had reported. He identifies Joe Swote, his own father, as the criminal, after which the police dismiss him and he senses that others look on him with disdain. As Sam slouches out of the police station, he trips and falls down the steps. His father leaps up and runs to the doorway, calling down to ask if his son is hurt.

Burke uses few words and little dialogue to draw a clear portrait of two characters whose relationship is tragic: the loving father who indulges his son, and the ne'er-do-well son who takes advantage of his father. The concern shown by Joe at the end when Sam falls, even after the betrayal, is heartbreaking and true to life. Each character's personality is consistent throughout the story: Sam is selfish to the end, while his father is compassionate. Thomas Burke holds back the identity of the tobacco seller and reveals it subtly, as Sam goes to the police station and sees what are described as two civilians and "a third civilian, his father ..." This withholding of the identity of the illegal tobacco seller creates suspense and allows Burke to surprise the reader; to this point in the story, there was no suggestion that the person Sam planned to turn in to the police was his own father.

The story's brevity and lack of dialogue presented a challenge to James P. Cavanagh when he adapted it for the small screen; the show was first broadcast on CBS on Sunday, June 2, 1957, and it is a model of adaptation in which the themes of the story are enhanced.

Charles Davis as Sam Saunders

The show begins with establishing shots: first, a foggy London street with a superimposed title card that reads, "London 1912"; next, the familiar three-ball symbol of a pawn shop. We then see a display case of rings on the pawn shop counter before the camera pulls back to reveal Sam and Joe Saunders, the father and son of the story. Joe owns the pawn shop and Sam asks him for money, but he refuses. Right away, we see that Sam is considerably older than the 17-year-old of Burke's story--Charles Davis, the actor playing Sam, was born in 1925, making him about 32 at the time of the TV show, though the character is revealed through dialogue to be 35. His father is played by the 79-year-old Edmund Gwenn. By aging both characters significantly, Cavanagh deepens the pathos of the situation, since it is one that must have been playing out over and over for many years.

Joe blames himself for helping Sam along so that Sam cannot hold a job; the dialogue establishes their history and their relationship and we learn that Joe has a drinking problem. After Joe refuses to give Sam two pounds, Sam says that Joe might not like what Sam has to do to get the money: this foreshadows the later betrayal at the police station.  Joe walks out of the shop and into the London fog and, moments later, a new character, Gus Harrison, enters the shop and collapses.

Pamela Light as Mae

In a pub, we see Sam talk to a pretty singer named Mae, who tells him that she is leaving the next day for a holiday in Brighton. Sam desperately wants her to stay with him and tells her he will get money, even offering to marry her, but she dismisses him until he has cash in hand. Sam tries to borrow fifty pounds from a man named Schiller, who refuses the loan. Schiller knows that Sam is harmless and when Sam picks up a heavy object with which to hit Schiller from behind, the lender's assessment of the young man proves true when Sam decides to replace the object on Schiller's desk.

The scene shifts back to Joe's home, where he and Gus sit at the kitchen table. Gus, a character not in the short story, is starving, after having been trying "to keep one jump ahead of the police," since he has been wrongly accused of murder. Joe and Gus are old friends and Gus reveals that there is a fifty-pound reward for his arrest; he is unaware that Sam has entered the pawn shop and stands listening behind the curtain that separates the shop from Joe's residence. Joe sends Gus to the cellar to hide and then goes to the front door of the shop to let in Sam, who had snuck out and who pretended to arrive just then. Sam spins a story to Joe about a business opportunity, claiming that he needs fifty pounds that night to buy in, but Joe does not believe him and refuses to lend him the money. Sam says he will do anything to get the cash and leaves, going back to the pub, where he tells Mae that he plans to turn Gus in to the police to collect the reward. As Sam leaves the pub, Mae picks up a telephone to make a call.

Frederic Worlock as Gus Harrison

The show's final scene takes place at the police station. Sam has already told the desk sergeant where to find Gus and is waiting for the fugitive to be brought in before he can collect his reward. Instead of Gus, the police bring in Joe, Sam's father, who looks distraught, especially after his son identifies him as the man who was hiding Gus. Gus escaped before the police arrived and the sergeant, clearly disgusted by Sam's behavior, reluctantly gives him the reward money after Joe admits that Sam was telling the truth and that he had been harboring the fugitive. Joe tells the sergeant that Mae, the singer at the pub, telephoned him to tip him off that Sam was going to tell the police about Gus. Sam takes the money and looks at Joe, who is crying. Sam rushes outside and falls down the stairs in front of the station, at which point Joe follows him out and calls down to ask if his son has hurt himself.

James P. Cavanagh's teleplay for "Father and Son" is a model of how to adapt a short, nearly dialogue-free story into a longer, dialogue-driven television show. Instead of having the story revolve around Sam and only introducing the father in the final scene, Cavanagh makes the father a central character, whose differences with his son are on display from the start. The girl referred to in the story becomes Mae, a character who serves as a tangible motivation for Sam's behavior, yet whose unexpected call to Joe allows Gus to escape. It is ironic that Sam's act of telling the police the truth about where to find a man thought to be a murderer seems to be the most unsavory act in the episode; Joe, Mae, and Gus all stick together on the wrong side of the law, yet their loyalty to each other seems more admirable than Sam's selfishly motivated adherence to the law.

Dan Sheridan as Schiller

Unlike Burke's story, where Joe is engaged in an illegal enterprise, Cavanagh is careful to make the old man's transgressions less egregious: he shows loyalty to an old friend who says he has been wrongfully accused. Finally, in the TV version, there is no surprise when Sam turns his father in to the police; in Burke's story, this is a shocking moment, since the author had not to that point revealed the identity of the seller of black-market tobacco.

"Father and Son" is brought to the small screen by the talented Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993), a director who worked almost exclusively in television from 1952 to 1975. He directed 27 episodes of the Hitchcock series, including Cavanagh's "Fog Closing In," and he also directed sixteen episodes of Thriller.

Starring as Joe Saunders is the great Edmund Gwenn (1877-1959), who was born Edmund Kellaway in London and who began acting on stage in 1895. He served in World War One and began his film career in 1918. Gwenn appeared in many classic movies, including four directed by Alfred Hitchcock: The Skin Game (1931), Waltzes From Vienna (1934), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and The Trouble With Harry (1955). His most famous role was as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. "Father and Son" was his last screen credit before he died two years later.

John Trayne (?)

Charles Davis (1925-2009) plays Sam, Joe's son. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Davis had a long career on stage in Ireland and on Broadway and appeared on large and small screens from 1951 to 1987. He was on Night Gallery twice and he appeared in seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the three-part "I Killed the Count."

Gus Harrison, on the lam for a murder that he says he did not commit, is played by Frederic Worlock (1886-1973), a British actor who was on stage in London and New York from 1906 to 1954. His first film was in 1914 and he was seen on screens large and small up to 1970. Worlock was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents four times, including "The Crocodile Case."

In smaller roles:

• Pamela Light as Mae; she had a short career on TV and film from 1956 to 1966 and this was her only role on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
• George Pelling (1914-2008) as a policeman; he was on screen from 1946 to 1966 and he was in eight episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "I Killed the Count"; he was also seen on Thriller and The Outer Limits.
• John Trayne (1918-2004) as a policeman; he was seen mostly on TV from 1956 to 1973 and he was in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole."
• Dan Sheridan (1916-1983) as Schiller; born in Ireland, he was a busy character actor from 1945 to 1963 and he was also seen in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "The Crocodile Case."

George Pelling (?)

Thomas Burke (1886-1945), who wrote the short story, "Father and Son," was an English author of short stories, novels, poems and essays; he became famous due to his 1916 book Limehouse Nights, which featured stories set in the working-class Limehouse District of London, where many Chinese immigrants lived. Only a handful of films and TV shows have been made from his works, but one of them was D.W. Griffith's famous silent feature, Broken Blossoms (1919), adapted from Burke's story, "The Chink and the Child." Three of his stories were adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the famous tale, "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole," which was voted the best mystery story of all time in 1949. A 1950 collection entitled The Best Stories of Thomas Burke was published in London and included "Ottermole" and "Father and Son." "Father and Son" was also collected in Burke's Night-Pieces (1935), which was reprinted in 2016 and is available in print or on Kindle.

Read "Father and Son" for free online here or watch the TV version for free online here. It is also available on DVD here. Read the GenreSnaps take on this episode here.

Sources:

Burke, Thomas. “Father and Son.” Vanity Fair, Aug. 1934, p. 21.

“Father and Son.” Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 36, CBS, 2 June 1957.

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

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: Sylvia, starring Ann Todd and John McIntire!

The Warren Report Issue 4: Eerie Debuts! September 1965-February 1966

The Critical Guide to 

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Jack Davis

Eerie #1 (September 1965)
(Ashcan Edition)

"Image of Bluebeard!"★★
Story by Bill Pearson
Art by Joe Orlando

"Death Plane" ★★1/2
Story by Larry Ivie
Art by George Evans

"The Invitation" ★1/2
Story by Larry Engleheart
Art by Manny Stallman



So, what exactly is an ashcan edition? Well, I'm glad you asked. Back in 1965, James Warren decided Creepy was doing well enough to introduce a companion title. An ad was run in Creepy #6  (see way below) and Eerie #1 was scheduled for a late 1965 release, but James Warren got word that an upstart company was about to release an Eerie #1 as well. In order to convince his distributor (which was also the distributor for the new publisher) that Warren had claim to the title Eerie, he had Archie Goodwin cobble together three stories that were scheduled to drop in the next couple of Creepys and print 200 copies (in an odd digest size), to be dumped at the newsstand just outside the distributor's office (a better worded and more detailed synopsis can be found in The Warren Companion).

"Image of Bluebeard!"

That rival publisher became Eerie Publications, which flooded the stands with titles such as Tales from the Tomb, Witches' Tales, and Tales of Voodoo, filled with gorier versions of 1950s' pre-code horror comics (and, yes, I'd love to cover those one of these days before I die). The "ashcan" became a highly-prized and over-priced "collector's item" over the years (I've seen "legit" copies selling for over a grand) and pirated several times (if you look on eBay right now, there's one of those pirates selling a photocopy for about twenty a pop) but, luckily for all of us, the insides were reprinted very quickly (especially since the printing job was rushed and the reproduction was ugly!).

So, what did this "ashcan" serve up?

"Death Plane"

Mousy and homely Monica knows no man will come within spitting distance of her and time is growing short. She'll be an old maid before she knows it. Therefore, accepting a proposal from a man she doesn't love seems to be the smartest thing to do. That man happens to be Brian Cerulean, a brutish and elderly bearded gentleman who proposes to Monica and, after the wedding, brings her back to his isolated home in the forest. After only a few weeks, Monica begins complaining that she has nothing to do and too much time to do it. Brian promises she'll have company soon. Bored, Monica wanders into Brian's library and finds a book on Bluebeard. Reading a few chapters, the girl comes to the conclusion that her new husband is the one and only Bluebeard! When Brian begins spending a lot of time in his workshop, Monica spies him using a giant ax and naturally fears the worst. The next day, after a long drive into town, Brian comes back home and is greeted with a blade in the gut from his petrified wife. Calling the police, Monica confesses her fears but, once the workshop is opened, she discovers that Brian had been making cages for the forest animals he'd trapped to be her companions.

Stallman splash
Eerie #1

"Image of Bluebeard!" is nothing special, merely another variation on the "paranoid wife" hook. Orlando's art is muddy and amateurish. Interestingly enough, no effort is made to cover up the identity of Uncle Creepy in the pro- and epi-logues of "Image of Bluebeard!" but in the other stories, his profile is whited out. Also, I assume the production for the ashcan was based on photocopies rather than original art, as this story is very dark and "Death Plane" is very light.

During World War I, a "mystery ace" is shooting down planes from both sides, evading any attempts to shoot it down. In a rare moment of cooperation between the Allies and the Germans, both sides team up to exterminate the threat. One American pilot gets close enough to the enemy's cockpit before he's shot down in flames and discovers the eerie secret behind the "mystery ace."

As noted above, "Death Plane" has a very light printing tone and that doesn't help George Evans's delicate penciling one bit. If you take a look at the Eerie #1 version and then the version printed in Creepy #8, there's no comparison in quality. Evans's wonderful pencil strokes disappear in a shock of white. As far as the script goes, Larry Ivie generates healthy suspense before laying an egg with a head-scratching expository in the climax. An interesting concept but one not played out to a satisfactory conclusion.

Stallman splash
Creepy #8

Baron von Renfield's coach loses a wheel on his way home to his remote chateau and he comes face to face with a merry band of vampires. About to become dinner, von Renfield promises the blood-suckers he'll deliver four of his friends for their dining pleasure if they'll spare him. The vampires agree and the Baron heads back to his chateau, where he quickly sends out invitations to people who have wronged him in the past. Three entrees are served up to the vampires but von Renfield finds it hard to find a fourth. The vampires are not happy. A very confusing finale and a really dumb and predictable twist sink this one but I must say that Manny Stallman's pencils are a delight. His splash for "The Invitation" is exquisitely detailed (but most of that detail is, again, lost in the muddy photocopying) and his vampires very Bernie Krigstein-esque (a good thing). Stallman was a heavy-hitter in the Atlas horror title bullpen in the 1950s but only contributed to three stories for Warren.-Peter

Jack: I enjoyed this short magazine! Too bad Monica never looked in a dictionary for the definition of her husband's surname. I actually thought the poor reproduction improved the look of Joe Orlando's art and I enjoyed the surprise ending to 'Image of Bluebeard!" If it's a story about WWI planes, call George Evans! "Death Plane" has an unfinished look and a weak ending. That full-page splash on "The Invitation" is impressive and I thought the art, and especially the layouts, were reminiscent of Alex Toth. Midway through the story, though, the words overwhelm the pictures and the conclusion was just silly.

Frazetta

Blazing Combat #2 (January 1966)

"Landscape!"★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Joe Orlando

"Saratoga"★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Reed Crandall

"MiG Alley"★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Al McWilliams

"Face to Face!"★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Joe Orlando

"Kasserine Pass!"★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Angelo Torres & Al Williamson

"Lone Hawk"★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Alex Toth

"Holding Action"★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by John Severin

"Landscape!"

An old Vietnamese rice paddy farmer named Luong watches as guerrillas free his village and murder the former leaders. Luong's son is recruited as a guerrilla, but the old man just wants to be left alone to farm. American soldiers take the village from the Viet-Cong, then the North Vietnamese recapture it; each time, there is bloodshed and Luong doesn't see any improvement in his daily life. In the final attack, he is shot through the heart and his rice paddies are torched. The troops march off, unaware of the personal tragedy they leave behind.

Perhaps this anti-war tale was more effective when it hit the stands in late 1965, but today "Landscape!" seems trite and obvious. Joe Orlando does nothing special to elevate the narrative and Archie Goodwin's script tells a story that's been told many times before. War is futile and the little guy gets hurt. We get it. I suppose it was more surprising in the early days of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, when anti-war sentiment was not yet widespread. Still, it's nothing we didn't see at EC during the Korean War.

"Saratoga"

It's October 1777, and the colonial forces under General Gates are bored and restless until battle erupts at "Saratoga." Gates has his men stuck in a position and they're getting hammered until a different general rides up and urges them on to attack the British. The frontal assault is a success and, ten days later, the British surrender. Who was the brash young general who changed the tide of battle? None other than Benedict Arnold, future traitor to the American cause!

It's not enough to have Reed Crandall's gorgeous, almost woodcut-like art to enjoy, but this story is a pip! I had no idea the young general was Benedict Arnold and now want to learn more about him and the Battle of Saratoga. This is what a good war comic story should do!

"MiG Alley"

"Pappy" Rice and his wingman had flown numerous missions in "MiG Alley" over Korea when Pappy was finally shot down, though he was able to eject safely before the plane hit the ground. Once he's back in the air on his next mission, Pappy is much more cautious than he used to be, and his wingman is worried. Pappy's landing gear is damaged from an enemy attack, and when he tries to land his jet too quickly it blows up and he is killed.

Al McWilliams does a terrific job with this fast-moving piece about jet fighting in Korea, and both story and art reminded me of classic DC War comic stories from the late '50s and early '60s, when MiG battles were a regular feature. I am really impressed by McWilliams's mastery of faces and planes and look forward to seeing more of his art.

The men who flocked to Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American War in 1898 did not have much experience in combat, and when Trooper Halpern is complimented for continuing up the hill after being shot in the arm, he thinks war is pretty cool. Sent back down the hill to deliver a message, he encounters a lone Spanish soldier, who tries to take his gun away. Vicious, hand to hand combat ensues and, after Halpern kills the enemy soldier with repeated blows to the head from a rock, he suddenly does not think war is quite so cool anymore.

"Face to Face!"

If I thought "Landscape!" was heavy-handed, the second story this issue by Goodwin and Orlando lands with an obvious thud. I don't understand why we have to put up with two stories by Joe Orlando when there were so many other great artists working for Warren. I also find it hard to work up much enthusiasm about the Spanish-American War.

"Kasserine Pass!"

A Sherman Tank operated by confident American soldiers rumbles across the North African desert, looking for any remnants of Rommel's Afrika Corps. At the "Kasserine Pass!" they are attacked by a German tank but return fire and make a direct hit--or so they think. Riding up to investigate, they come upon two German tanks in an ambush. The American tank is caught in a crossfire and everyone on board is killed.

The story's not bad and the art is above average, but I've seen better from both McWilliams and Torres. One thing is for sure: it beats the Haunted Tank!

Here's the WWI Flying Ace, "Lone Hawk" William A. "Billy" Bishop in his Sopwith Camel Nieuport, zooming through the skies above France and Germany, shooting enemy planes out of the clouds while other pilots are dropping like flies. In the course of the war, he shoots down 72 planes and, to everyone's surprise, lives to tell the tale.

"Lone Hawk"

What starts out as a bit of a boring story about WWI fighter planes gradually sneaks up on you and delivers a surprisingly effective ending, in which the hero does not die on his last day out! Alex Toth's draftsmanship is excellent, but so many of the panels just feature planes in flight that he's not able to do as much as usual. Still, it's an unusual story and a pleasure to read.

The Korean War is nearly at an end, but new replacement soldiers arrive, including Stewart, who is scared and tries to run the first time he's fired upon. His tough sergeant insists that he grab his gun and start shooting enemy soldiers, but Stewart gets a little too wrapped up in his job. When a cease fire is declared, he is at loose ends and has to be dragged away from the battlefield.

"Holding Action" ends this issue on a strong note, as Goodwin's script is brought vividly to life by the great John Severin, an artist I've grown to appreciate more and more as we've worked our way through these blogs. Some of his individual tricks are on display here, including the wordless panel with one character glaring at another, and the multi-panel sequence where only small details change but have a big effect. He was an extraordinary comic artist and he seems to have excelled at war stories.-Jack

Severin's wordless glare
("Holding Action")

Peter: I've never read any of the Blazing Combat stories prior to working on this blog and if I hadn't just absorbed all of Harvey Kurtzman's EC war stories recently, I might have thought some of these were pretty powerful. "MiG Alley" and "Landscape" certainly have their powerful moments but, overall, I have to say I'm disappointed in the title so far. Yep, most of the art is top-notch, but a lot of the scripting is obvious and Goodwin seems to be going for the easy moral. "Holding Action," in particular, seems cliched and predictable. But that may be due to my Kurtzman overload. Archie was influenced by Harvey's writing, that's clear to see, but most of his scripts are reading like homage rather than building on any inspiration. "Landscape" is the infamous anti-war story that pretty much killed Blazing Combat, as detailed in an interview with Archie Goodwin's widow, Anne T. Murphy (who would also contribute to Warren Publishing), in The Warren Companion. Milton Caniff, creator of the "Steve Canyon" comic strip, writes in to praise issue #1. Archie blushes with pride but the gremlins misspell Caniff's first name!

Frazetta

Creepy #7 (February 1966)

"The Duel of the Monsters!"★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Angelo Torres

"Image of Bluebeard!"
(see Eerie #1 above)

"Rude Awakening!"★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Alex Toth

"Drink Deep!"★★
Story by Otto Binder
Art by John Severin

"The Body-Snatcher!"★★★1/2
Story by Robert Louis Stevenson
Adapted by Archie Goodwin
Art by Reed Crandall

"Blood of Krylon!"★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Gray Morrow

"Hot Spell!"★★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Reed Crandall

"The Duel of the Monsters!"

Murder! In a small village in Spain in the Year of Our Lord 1811, Sgt. Vega's reaction to the bloody murder of one of the town's residents is unexpected--he is frustrated that the violent deed will have an adverse effect on his way of life! Vega realizes right away that this is the work of a werewolf, and he discovers that the hairy beast also found Vega's sleeping coffin and ruined it by placing a cross inside. Vega, you see, is a vampire, and he does not like the idea of another monster eating up the tasty local populace. The sergeant suspects Alphonso, the night watchman at the cemetery, of being the werewolf, and goes to his home one night to confront him. The werewolf attacks and "The Duel of the Monsters!" ensues but, once both vampire and werewolf have inflicted fatal wounds on each other, the werewolf turns out to be Vega's colleague, Corporal Ruiz, and Alphonso turns out to be a ghoul who set up the battle in order to feed his own unholy appetite.

"Rude Awakening!"

Whew! That's a lot of plot for such a lousy story. The "old Spain" setting never interests me much and the final showdown is a real letdown. Having the night watchman turn out to be a ghoul is the corny icing on the cake. The Torres art is okay but can't hold a candle to Frazetta's cover, which purports to illustrate a scene from this story.

"Image of Bluebeard!" follows, with much better reproduction quality than we saw in Eerie #1. The art by Orlando isn't half bad, for Orlando, but I kind of liked the xerox-quality heavy blacks in the Eerie version.

Mr. Asher has a recurring nightmare in which he is held down by hooded figures while a man in glasses plunges a knife into his chest. He wakes up in the morning from the dream, has it again on the subway on his way to work, and still again in the elevator at work. Lying down at the office, he has the nightmare again, but this time he wakes up and falls backwards out of a third-story window. He is rushed by ambulance to the hospital and the last thing he sees in the operating room is the man with glasses approaching him with a scalpel.

"Drink Deep!"

"Rude Awakening!" reminds me of a DC horror comic story in that the writing is lamebrained but the art (and layout) is excellent. I wonder if Archie Goodwin was recalling the "Perchance to Dream" episode of The Twilight Zone from back in 1959. Toth's work continues to impress me.

Reggie Beardsley may be rich and have his own yacht, The Golden Galleon, but he treats its crew terribly. The Beardsley family fortune can be traced back to pirate Black Beardsley who, two centuries before, scuttled ships across the Caribbean in order to build up his own pile of gold. Reggie's crew quits in disgust, so he hires new men and sails off to the spot where his ancestor had scuttled his last ship. Late one night, his crew deteriorates into rotting corpses or skeletons that drag him onto the wreck of the old ship that had risen up for the occasion; once Reggie is aboard, it sinks again and he dies, after having to "Drink Deep!" of the briny water.

Not one of Severin's best efforts, but passably good, this waterlogged tale is dragged toward the bottom of the Creepy ocean by a predictable plot.

"The Body-Snatcher!"

Dr. MacFarlane, professor of anatomy at the Edinburgh Medical School, depends on the services of "The Body-Snatcher!" named Gray, who provides fresh corpses for the students to dissect. His new assistant, Fettes, is aghast when Gray brings in the body of a young flower girl, since Fettes realizes she must have been murdered rather than taken from her grave. MacFarlane is content to look the other way until Gray becomes too much trouble; at that point, MacFarlane kills Gray and the former body snatcher becomes the latest body to be cut up. One rainy night, Gray and Fettes head off to the graveyard and dig up the corpse of a young woman. They transport the body back in the front seat of the carriage between them, but when the horse bolts, a flash of lightning appears to reveal that the corpse is actually that of Gray!

"Blood of Krylon!"

The end doesn't seem to make sense, so I looked up the plot of the short story on Wikipedia and it seems to be the same as that of the comic adaptation. I vaguely recall the wonderful film with Karloff and Lugosi and the classic horror scene in the coach, but for some reason I thought it was a guilty imagination at work. Whatever the point of it all, Crandall's art is again superb and the mid-nineteenth century London setting really fits his style.

Frustrated by the poor prospects on Earth, a vampire named Remick rides a spaceship to a planet named Krylon, where he hopes to feast on the inhabitants. Arriving and anxious to taste the "Blood of Krylon!," Remick flies toward a city and sees a yummy fellow below. Just as he's about to start dining, the sun comes up and fries him; it seems night are shorter on this planet and poor Remick did not account for that.

Sometimes the dumbest stories are the most fun! Gray Morrow's art looks like he used some kind of wash or water color technique, if not paint, and it's really cool. The concept reminds me of the Atlas comic series from the '70s, Planet of the Vampires, though that was kind of the opposite situation.


Tied to the stake and burned as a warlock in 17th-century New England, Rapher Grundy curses the people of Warrenville and their descendants. Three hundred years later, a series of folks have died in accidental burnings and suspicion falls on an artist, new to the village and a dead-ringer for Frank Frazetta. The dimwitted townsfolk burn down his house with his young wife inside, then beat him to death. Just then, the spirit of Rapher Grundy rises and drags the four evil townsfolk down to Hell!

As Creepy develops issue by issue, we're seeing flashes of brilliance along with selective instances of increased gore and violence. "Hot Spell!" is outstanding in story and art, but it makes me wonder why editor Goodwin saved the best story in the magazine for the last position? Why not lead off with this?-Jack

Peter: The two high points here are "Hot Spell!" and "The Body-Snatcher!" Archie's adaptation is the best one thus far (and I'm not the biggest fan of these "Creepy Classics") and Crandall's art on both stories is as great as it was in the EC days, with that "Hot Spell!" splash a stunner. "The Duel of the Monsters!" is a silly monster mash-up that contains not one iota of the excitement promised by Frazetta's cover. Overall, it's still the art that makes us turn those pages as most of the the scripts seem like warmed-over EC but, ohhhhh, that art!

Next Week...
Jack and Peter decide that, yes,
they'll see this through to December 1976