Thursday, December 27, 2018

Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror! Special Double-Sized Holiday Issue!


The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics
Part Nine
July/August 1951




Sol Brodsky & Christopher Rule
 Mystic #3 (July 1951)

"The Jaws of Creeping Death"  
(a: Gene Colan & Christopher Rule) 
"The Undead!" (a: Allen Bellman) 
"The Man in the Moon" (a: Frank Sieminski) 
"Beware the Eyes of Horror" (a: Paul Reinman) 

Poor Bruce has the same nightmare every night: he’s a judge sentencing a man to die in an iron maiden. To get away from the pressures of work, he accepts his boss’ offer to deliver an important cargo. Too late, Bruce realizes his boss has set him up to fall for an embezzlement scheme. To keep him quiet, the boss puts Bruce in an iron maiden. Other than its fabulous pulp-influenced title, "The Jaws of the Creeping Death" is a yawn-fest. And let's deduct a half-star for the cheat of a cover.

In "The Undead!," a scientist works on a formula to raise his dead wife from the grave but research can take time, and time is not kind to the flesh. How is it that Anthony Brenton, “one of the world’s most important men of science,” doesn’t know that his wife won’t look as lovely after being in the ground for 12 years? Allen Bellman contributes some truly awful, ugly art. Not much better is Frank Sieminski's work for "The Man in the Moon," wherein the first man in the moon is captured and made a mind slave by moon creatures who want to conquer Earth. Our hero tricks the moon men though, and Earth is safe. I'm well aware that deadlines could result in rushed, sketchy, and amateurish art but if I'm to judge these stories fairly, I have to put that contributing factor to the side.

"The Undead"
Museum guard Joe Ravek is having problems keeping his domineering wife happy; she wants more dough and thinks Joe is spineless, so Joe shows her. He steals the priceless ruby eyes of a statue at the museum, only to have the idol show up at his doorstep (ringing the doorbell!), to request its eyeballs back. For good measure, it takes wife Mary’s as well. A killer statue who’s mannered enough to ring the doorbell is all right in my book. "Beware the Eyes of Horror" is a not-bad little piece of borderline-humorous fluff.

The murderous but well-mannered beast of
"Beware the Eyes of Horror!"


Sol Brodsky
 Suspense #9 (July 1951)

"Back from the Dead" ★1/2
"The Weatherman" ★ 
"Step Into My Parlor!" (a: Don Rico) ★ 
"The Little Men"  (a: Dick Rockwell) ★1/2
"Norman's Nightmare"  (a: Gene Colan) 

Detective Mike Carter is ordered by his Captain to tail the swami, Egon Tarel, who is suspected of murdering two rich clients through a rite known as "projection of the living ghost" (the Captain manages to keep a straight face while explaining this to Mike), and Mike sticks to the fortune teller like glue. His persistence pays off when the Detective witnesses Tarel murdering a third wealthy client and arrests the vicious fiend on the spot. Tarel stands trial and is found guilty of first degree projectional murder and sentenced to life in prison. Tarel, somehow still wearing turban and cape rather than prison stripes, swears he'll get revenge on Mike. Sure enough, Tarel astrally projects his ghost into Mike Carter's room and strangles him but, the joke's on the murderer when the spirit world deems his crimes too evil for him to return to his body.



"Back from the Dead" is stuffed full of wooden dialogue and really strange decisions on the part of its characters. Mike's Captain, for instance, is skeptical about the mystic arts but assigns his top cop to investigate and, similarly, the State decides it's got enough proof to warrant a first-degree murder trial despite the lack of anything resembling evidence (the DA cites Mike's statement and the say-so of the deceased's doctor who claims the man was in good health). Wildly, Tarel is found guilty, so my reservations about the case are obviously moot. The GCD has no artist credited to this story but it sure looks like Dick Ayers' work to this untrained eye (but then a whole lot of artists in the 1950s pumped out average art that resembled Ayers' stuff).

Paul Lowry is out shopping one day when he stumbles upon a small wooden house in a curio shop window. It's not so much the toy that catches Paul's eyes but the uncanny resemblance between himself and the small, carved "Weatherman" standing outside the house. On a whim, Paul purchases the oddity and brings it home, wondering if "The Weatherman" can, indeed, predict the weather. After  seven straight days of accurate predictions, Paul wonders if the toy can see into the future and make him a wealthy man. Horses, stocks, land deals, and a fortune follow until, one day, Paul notices the little man lying on his face in front of his house. What could this mean? Several close calls with death (including falling girder, spider attack, and getting caught in the middle of two trigger-happy gangsters) convince our protagonist that the prone figure is predicting Paul's death. The suspense is killing him, he can't deal with not knowing how he'll go, so he takes matters into his own hands and blows his brains out.

The grim ending for Paul Lowry
"Step Into My Parlor"
A ludicrously simple yarn but one that has a few guffaws and an abrupt, disconcerting climax. The hilarious way in which Paul Lowry escalates the weatherman's predictions, from simple weather forecasts to elaborate stock deals, boggles the mind. Since the little man's only answers to Paul's queries is a frown or smile, you can only imagine my puzzled look at the panel where Paul's stock broker informs him he's made a killing on the "Amalgamated Potash," and Paul answers with, "Thank you... now instruct my brother to sell out all my shares of Consolidated Brass." To get detailed information on Wall Street dealings with a simple smile must have taken hours and hours of questioning, no? This head-scratching delight is a strong contrast to the penultimate panel where Paul takes his own life, transforming a light-hearted romp into something a little more daring.

"Step Into My Parlor!" is a three-page quickie about a man whose house is a museum of murder. Don Rico's creepy graphics (almost like a reined-in Wolverton) are the highlight but, for a three-pager, the script is a grabber as well. In "The Little Men," good-natured Clem becomes obsessed with the tiny mechanical men he sells, much to the displeasure of his overbearing wife. Imagine Clem's surprise when one of the little men informs the henpecked schlub that he can become a little mechanical man and forget all his worldly responsibilities. A nicely illustrated, entrancing fantasy, sure to raise a smile or two, wherein the good guy comes out on top for a change. Finally, a man plagued by a toothache, visits a dentist promising no pain thanks to his Nitrous Oxide. The problem is, the gas sends the patient into a nightmare world that he never really leaves. Some genuinely creepy Colan, in "Norman's Nightmare." Colan was, at the time, just beginning to invest his rather dull art with the noir-ish techniques that would make him famous a decade later.

"Norman's Nightmare"




Bill Everett
 Astonishing #5 (August 1951)

"Death from the Sky" 
"Menace from the Moon!"  (a: Cal Massey) ★1/2

Two very short science-fiction pieces break up the adventures of Marvel Boy this issue.

The first, the inane "Death from the Sky," concerns a jet pilot who lands on a solid cloud and discovers the sky is being overtaken by a race of "cloud-men" who kidnap wayward pilots and transform them into fellow cloud beings. When the population of cloud clods outnumbers that of the human race, they will conquer Earth. How they'll do this is, blissfully, ignored. Writer Hank Chapman injects plenty of the goofy word play he became (in)famous for years later on the DC war books. Here, we're graced with such gems as "What in blazes is happenin' to this jet crate? The engine's purrin' like a mouse-stuffed kitten... yet I'm droppin' like a ton of GI bricks! This baby ain't foolin'! She's headin' for a boom... an' Mrs. Edison's lil' boy Harry better shake his GI carcass an' hit the silk!" How did we ever get through the 1950s DC war books without Hank? "Menace from the Moon" is a very rare two-pager about the first return trip from the moon. It doesn't go well.

"Death from the Sky"




Sol Brodsky
 Strange Tales #2

"The Egg!" (a: Morris Marcus & Frank R. Sieminski) 
"Trapped in the Tomb!"  (a: Norman Steinberg) 1/2
"The Pin!" (a: Russ Heath) 
"The Island of Madmen" (a: Ed Moore) ★ 

Canadian scientist Sir Alexander Laurier is summoned to the estate of Sir Humphrey Devonshire one cold Christmas Eve, where he is shown aerial pictures of a giant egg discovered in the Arctic Circle. The next day, a group of four of the scientists fly up (without notifying any authorities whatsoever) in a cargo plane and confront the huge white oval. Since this is the snow-covered Arctic Circle, you'd assume the colorist would naturally leave the ground around the egg a nice white tone rather than the orange or green they settle on. Curiously absent from the professors are any kind of instruments, gauges, pencil and paper or, believe it or not, snowsuits. This would have to be the warmest icy environment ever recorded. The professors decide that this is the greatest discovery man has yet to find but, rather than study it a bit, they feel it best to ram a hole into the egg with a nearby log. Through the hole geysers a black goo that eats anything around it, including two of the scientists.

Never a good idea
Only one, Laurier, manages to make it back to civilization, where he tells of the world-eating ooze. Deemed a nutcase by the society he's trying to protect, Laurier is institutionalized, but escapes and convinces an old friend to loan him a dive bomber and a one thousand pound bomb. Armed only with steel nerves, prayers, and a really big explosive device, the ostracized professor flies right into ground zero and blasts the goo to... well, smaller bits of goo, I guess. Once on the ground, it's discovered that the egg was actually a spaceship, the first wave of an invasion of aliens from the planet Goo. Okay, I made up that last bit about the planet name but all the other events in the story, we're told, are based on an actual incident. Only the names and the clothing choices were changed.  "The Egg" is the perfect example of the sort of bland "horror" and fantasy that made up the first few issues of Strange Tales but still holds quite a bit of warped charm.

George has always shown patience with his friend and mentor, Professor Lapham, whenever the old fool would come around with some crazy new invention but this time is a bit different. The Prof. asks George to babysit his new gizmo, a weird little box studded with buttons, wires, and lights. As George's wife, Helen, prattles on about her less-than-ideal living situation and how George promised her diamonds and minks when they married, he wishes he was on top of a remote mountain as he accidentally pushes one of the buttons atop the box. Magically, he's whisked away to a Utopian tor, complete with waterfall and mermaids. Hot damn! This is the life! But, unfortunately, the spell lasts only one hour and, as his spirit returns to his body, George realizes that, while he was gone, life just rolled on without him. Soon, George is using the contraption to play the stock market and rack up huge dividends. Too soon, the day comes when Lapham returns from his vacation to claim his toy and George must return to his life of "too much wife." Our hero gets the bright idea of murdering his wife with help from Lapham's invention but he arrives at the Prof's home just as the old man is dying. With his last breath, Lapham tells George he can't lend him his golden goose because someone else has borrowed it. George arrives home to find out exactly who that "someone" is as Helen holds a gun on him and explains that she, too, can play that game.

An interesting variation on the "spirit migration" plot, with "Trapped in the Tomb" (perhaps the most misleading title we've yet encountered) allowing its characters to do more than merely visit other places with their spirit; these spirits can take out loans, play the stock market, and hold firearms. George is in the middle of a nasty spat with his shrewish wife when he experiments with spirit travel and returns to his body one hour later (yes, actual time elapses) to find he's still in the same argument with Helen; that's one hell of a rhubarb. Ostensibly, George just sat and took it, without opening his mouth, like any smart hubby would. "Trapped" is a little bit long at seven pages but it's fun and entertaining.

Wally Ambrose opens his door one day to find a basket holding a tiny tot and, after due diligence, adopts the precocious toddler. The baby comes equipped with an odd pin, one that he sticks into Wally one day "by accident." This is no ordinary tot, as Wally soon finds out. Buster, as he's come to be known, grows up very fast, becoming a quite intelligent young man within months, while Walter grows younger by the day. Eventually, the tot is a man and Walter is the baby and the expository comes: Buster is actually "Professor Lungham, age 55," who concocted a miracle drug that reverses the aging process. Unfortunately, the side effect is that Lungham couldn't get back to age 55 and so had to invent an antidote, "The Pin," that needs to be injected into an unwary and innocent bystander and creates an "age-youthexchange" between the two. Lungham pops Wally into a basket, with a pin, unceremoniously dumps him on a doorstep and rings the bell. Variations on this formula have been done to death through the years but "The Pin" is a weird, almost sordid little yarn that keeps you guessing and doesn't disappoint in the end (aside from the wordy, but necessary, elucidation in the final panels). Wally Ambrose is another of those rare Atlas characters who seems to be a generous and kind soul who meets a bad end through no fault of his own. One question though: if Professor Lungham morphed all the way down to a baby, who put his basket on Wally's doorstep?

Three shipwrecked friends end up on "The Island of Madmen," a little piece of property owned by a demon known as Lucretia de Velli, a master of mysticism and soul transference. One by one, the hapless adventurers end up victims of de Velli's evil ways. "The Island of Madmen" is the only real stinker in the bunch this issue but it's a royal odor. Badly-written (the concept of de Velli is introduced and then jettisoned, never to be explained) and illustrated, seemingly, by an artist with both hands tied behind his back. To be fair, Ed Moore was best known for newspaper strip illustration and that's exactly the type of visuals you get here, stripped-down and unattractive, with no flair or imagination. Best line and biggest smile comes when one of the survivors notices a skeleton in the bush and informs his comrades that he knows "enough anthropology to tell these are human bones!"



Bill Everett
 Venus #15

"Escape from Death" (a: Sol Brodsky)  

After years of plundering the galaxy, space pirate Kallam Raa is finally arrested and convicted for his crimes and sentenced to serve 2 years of hard labor in the Salydium mines on Mars. But, while Kallam is being transported to his rocket ship, his guards are distracted by a procession of lepers who are being marched to their space ship to be blasted into space where they will find “sweet solace in death” while the “flesh falls from their bones.” The crafty space pirate blasts the guards (“Out of my way you sniveling sheep, or you’ll be meat for the moon vultures!”) and hijacks a nearby rocket and blasts off. Unfortunately for the nitwitted scalawag, he’s just hopped on the leper ship. Pure pulp nonsense but laugh-a-minute dialogue and a very short running time make “Escape from Death” a pleasant experience. You gotta love a strip that features a vain galaxy pirate (“Close the hatch! This space helmet is bad for my complexion!”) and a group of men walking the plank in space! Nice trick, that. Though just a little guppy in the pool of Atlas artists, Sol Brodsky would, of course, become a permanent fixture at Marvel during its explosion in the early 1960s.






 Journey Into Unknown Worlds #6

"The Day That Saturn Struck!"  (a: Hy Rosen) ★1/2
"The Voice of Death" (a: Russ Heath) 
"The World Below" ★1/2
"The Terrible Toy" (a: Gene Colan) ★1/2

Dismissed as a crackpot by his fellow scientists (and banned by the Association of Astronomers!), Prof. Henry Malvern nonetheless continues his monologue on the dangers of the planet Saturn. Malvern believes that, deep under the Saturnian crust, an evil race prepares an attack on Earth that will leave the entire population burnt to cinders. The fire-beings of Saturn get wind of the Prof.'s theories and send emissaries to capture the scientist, his shapely daughter, Adora, and her boyfriend, Lank. Can the brave trio quash the invasion threat and still find happiness in the Rocky Mountains on "The Day That Saturn Struck!"? The Prof.'s theories are, admittedly, a bit out there but you have to give him credit for being right on the money about a species of aliens who live under the ground sixty bajillion light-years away! What I want to know is: can a pair of lovebirds named Lank and Adora find true happiness in the world of the 1950s?


Ham radio enthusiast Mac is chewing the fat with his buddy, Sparks, when Sparks' ticker abruptly fails and he dies in mid-sentence. For some reason, Mac decides that Sparks' death would make for a great piece of vinyl but then discovers the LP has strange powers. "The Voice of Death" turns even whackier when Mac tries to convince the army that this is the way to win the Korean War, with a 78 that's music to the Grim Reaper's ears. The army isn't biting (imagine that) so Mac, now enraged to the point of insanity, cuts a few copies of the sinister slab and sends it off to all the Army brass that scoffed at him. The military is suddenly short its top men but they're convinced so they make thousands of copies and send them to Korea! While I allow that "The Voice of Death" is a little... out there with its theories on death, I do have to admit that I smiled through the entire five-page run. Sometimes, as I've noted before, lunacy is all I need for a good time.

"The World Below" gives us a treasure-seeker who dives "30,000 leagues under the sea"(approximately 90,000 miles!) and gets a little woozy before being saved by a merman and discovering an undersea kingdom that houses more gold and baubles than Jennifer Lopez' jewelry box. It's all a bit silly and not too pretty to look at. Rickie and Dickie, the local JDs, torture and pester toy-maker, Mr. Grisby, until he can stand it no longer. Grisby concocts "The Terrible Toy!," a board game that sucks its player in and transforms him into a marble (no, seriously!) and traps the two little monsters. That is, until an even worse kid moves into the neighborhood and turns the tables on poor Mr. Grisby. Gene Colan brightens up what would otherwise be a waste of reading time; evil youths Dickie and Rickie are almost too ruthless to be believed.






 Adventures Into Terror #5

"The Man Who Was Death" (a: Russ Heath) 
"Find Me! Find Me! Find Me!"(a: Don Rico)  
"The Clock Strikes!"(a: Gene Colan)  
"The Hitchhiker"
"The Hand" (a: Paul Reinman) 

Dr. Banks of the J. Kling Hospital happens onto a weird conspiracy: some of his fellow doctors (led by the mysterious and sinisterly-shaded Dr. Cragmore), actually from the planet Jupiter, are injecting patients with a serum (2X13 to be exact) that interacts with human blood to transform its carrier into a human bomb. Much easier than setting off atom bombs, according to Dr. Cragmore, and since Banks has discovered the secret of the Jupiterian invasion, he'll be the next to be infected. Once the poison is introduced into the human bloodstream, the victim has about two hours before he goes WHAM! Banks is injected with the serum but he manages to escape and finds his way to the office of Strategic Civilian Defense (and, if you've read a lot of Atlas stories, you know how long the line can be to get in) and lays out his story to the top brass. The suits lend Banks a sympathetic ear and then send him on his way, convinced he's a crackpot. Our poor Good Samaritan wanders the street, warning passersby that he's a human time bomb. Alas, they ignore him or call him insane. They shoulda listened.

What begins almost like a 1950s noir crime-drama heads down into science fiction territory with the outer space connection and then wraps itself up on a very bleak note when Banks takes out an entire city with his eruptive hemoglobin. Russ Heath's penultimate panel of Banks ripping at his shirt and screaming "I hear it inside myself, like a sizzling fuse! I'm blowing up!" is pretty compelling stuff, not your usual kiddie fare.

Speaking of noir, the protagonist (as well as the writer) of "The Clock Strikes!" has definitely been watching some of the latest B-flicks down at the Rialto; how else to explain his proposed suicide by hit man, when he finds he's about to die of a heart ailment? Unfortunately for the poor dope, after he's signed the contract, the doc calls him back and says there might have been a misunderstanding.  In "Find Me, Find Me, Find Me!," an overworked artist gets drawn into his painting of a hand holding a picture of a hand holding a picture of a... (on and on) but, just as the narrative gets interesting, we're cut off as if the writer had no idea to close this intriguing premise.

"The Hand" quiets a yawn
Two more hoary cliches are dusted off and put to bad use with "The Hitchhiker" (man picks up hitchhiker just as radio warns of escaped lunatic but, wait, it's the driver who's the looney -- fooled ya!) and "The Hand." The latter, at least, provides a boatload of guffaws (not sure that's what the scribe intended but take what you can get, I says) with its story of Jack, a mountain climber who loses his best friend in a hiking accident and the hand (belonging to the deceased) that shows up on his doorstep. All manner of terror ensues: the hand tears up Jack's office papers, pours water on his face when he's sleeping, screws up a great game of poker and, in the ultimate betrayal, rings Jack's girlfriend's doorbell! Even though Jack manages to get rid of the offending appendage, it shows up at the most inopportune time (while Jack is enjoying a mountain hike) to exact its final revenge on our hapless protagonist. You gotta hand it to the Atlas writers... they could wring a thousand stories out of the most overused plot line. Oh, and take a second look at that cover as it advertises what would have been Basil Wolverton's first terror tale for Atlas, "The Eye of Doom," which must have been pulled (and had "The Clock Strikes" put in its slot) at the last second, possibly because it wasn't completed. "The Eye of Doom" will arrive in Mystic #6 in January of '52.





Marvel Tales #102

"A Witch is Among Us" (a: Mike Sekowsky)  
"The Man Who Dreamed" (a: Gene Colan)  
"The End of the World" (a: Basil Wolverton)  
(r: Curse of the Weird #4)
"The Island" (a: Cal Massey)  

A sleepy New England town is rocked by the disappearance of several new-born babies and the residents of the village blame the kidnappings on an old woman who lives on the edge of town, a woman they all suspect is a witch. Into this maelstrom comes young Dr. Jonathon Poole, who takes a room at the residence of Faith Bonham, an old biddy who believes in the witch theories. Just as Poole is settling, a scream from the garden has him racing outside to find the beautiful Rosa, who claims her grandmother is, at that moment, being burned in her house as a witch. Poole, Bonham, and Rosa rush to the house, only to find it in ashes, Rosa's grandma up in smoke. Poole takes a liking to Rosa and offers her a room at Mrs. Bonham's place (to the consternation of his landlady), where they settle in to domestic bliss.

Faith explains to Poole that "each year of a newborn baby's life extends a witch's life one day." Poole, of course, scoffs but very shortly thereafter, the Harris baby is kidnapped by "a big black creature" and Rosa is suspected of inheriting her grandmother's genes. Mrs. Bonham searches upstairs for the witch-girl but finds something more alarming when she opens Mr. Poole's door -- the young doc sits in the middle of a pentagram, about to slice up the Harris baby! Faith wrests the child from his grip and, sacrifice denied, Poole the witch crumbles to dust. I really dug "A Witch is Among Us," a genuinely spooky little chiller that had me guessing right to the climax. Since we've read millions of these witch stories, we suspect that Rosa's granny is the red herring, a victim of mob madness (although that famous EC story where the accused witch was actually the witch comes to mind when I read these things now), but who could the real demon be? I take shots at Mike Sekowsky's art constantly and though I'm not ready to say things sure have changed, I will allow that there are plenty of good goosebump-raisers here. Those two shots are, of course the ones reproduced here, of Poole holding the Harris baby in one hand, a huge dagger in the other. Like the final panels of "The Man Who Was Death" (in this month's Adventures into Terror), this is pretty nasty stuff and far removed from the silly pablum of "The Hitchhiker," "The Hand," or "The Island of Madmen."


"The Man Who Dreamed" is a forgettable yarn about a guy who has nightmares about being upside-down and it turns out he's not having dreams; he's being visited by aliens who intend to shift the Earth off its axis. Much better if only for historical reasons is "The End of the World," the first of eight Basil Wolverton stories to grace the pages of the Atlas anthologies. Yes, alas, only eight but, scripts be damned, Wolverton could make anything readable, couldn't he? In "The End of the World," we enter a future Earth where man's ultimate goal is the conquest of the universe. Caught in the web is brilliant scientist, Julius Kane, who has developed a world-killer that harnesses "the full power of magnetic force," an explosive device deadlier than an H-bomb.

Kane wants no part of the plan the military has to use the weapon on Mars and so he craftily rejiggers his baby and then tells the army it's ready for testing. The "lethal load" is exploded on the far side of the moon, pushing it into Earth's atmosphere and causing catastrophes all over the globe. Kane manages to jump into his little anti-gravity air car and watches the devastation from above until chunks of the moon send his auto earthward. For some reason, Kane goes into suspended animation and wakes up (months? years?) later to find the Earth completely uninhabited. I absolutely love these apocalyptic, bleak, downbeat sagas that dotted the Atlas landscape, if for no other reason than to remind me that adults like to read funny books sometimes, too. Wolverton's panels are cluttered (in a good way) with all manner of detritus and destruction while his human characters look... anything but human!

Shipwrecked, Bob Archer rides a plank of wood to "The Island," at first a Godsend but later, after Bob meets the residents of the uncharted hunk of soil, a curse. Though friendly, the people of the island are ugly, almost cadaverous in appearance and Bob's only thought is escape. But his savior, Captain Windruff, insists that Bob should stay here for the rest of his life. Our wary protagonist feigns happiness by day, builds a boat by night (crafting a pretty good little ship in no time) and before long he's sailed and made it back to his sleepy little harbor town home. But something's just not right; as Bob makes his way through the village, people run screaming from a man they once called friend. When the bewildered Bob finally arrives at home and looks in the mirror, he finally understands: he never survived the shipwreck and "The Island" was a haven for souls lost at sea. Archer hops back into his skiff and heads out to sea, hoping to return to the island. A really depressing tale, but also one with hints of hope. Why his entrance into the after-life is kept secret from Bob is probably the only false note in "The Island." There's nothing sinister, we discover, about the people of the island, so why not let their new friend in on what's going on? Although, now that I think about it, the Captain's "office" has a flag bearing the skull and crossbones! At first very scratchy and ugly, Cal Massey's art becomes more suited to the mood of the story as it progresses and packs a wallop by tale's end. Except for the hiccup known as "The Man Who Dreamed," this is a solid issue of Marvel Tales!



In two weeks...
Let's welcome famed Batman artist
Jerry Robinson to our creepy neighborhood!

Thursday, December 20, 2018

The Hitchcock Project-Bernard C. Schoenfeld Part Ten: Out There--Darkness [4.16]

by Jack Seabrook

"Over There--Darkness" was first published in the October 1958 issue of a digest called Sleuth Mystery Magazine. This was the first of only two issues of this periodical, which was published in cooperation with the Mystery Writers of America.

The story's author, William O'Farrell (1904-1962), wrote short stories and novels from 1941 to 1962. His stories appeared in the slicks from 1941 to 1947 and in the digests from 1955 to 1962. At the same time, he was busy writing novels, 15 of which were published between 1942 and 1962, two of them under the pseudonym of William Grew. Two movies were adapted from his novels and, once TV became a viable market in the 1950s, he had two stories and three novels adapted for television from his works. He wrote three teleplays himself, including "The Kind Waitress" for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In addition, the first episode of Thriller was based on one of his novels.

"Over There--Darkness" won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story in 1959 and was collected in Best Detective Stories of the Year and again in Best of the Best Detective Stories. Bernard C. Schoenfeld adapted it for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and today it is probably O'Farrell's best-known work.

"Over There--Darkness"
was first published here
The story concerns a wealthy, middle-aged woman named Miss Fox, who lives alone in a Manhattan apartment with her dog, Vanessa. "Her favorite elevator boy," handsome Eddie McMahon, walks her dog six nights a week. She has been alone since her fiancee, a military man, died in 1943, and she treasures the diamond engagement ring her gave her. One April day, Eddie appears unexpectedly at her apartment on his day off, out of uniform and out of breath after having climbed fourteen flights of stairs. He asks her to loan him $50, explaining that his girl is in a sanitarium and that he pays half of her medical bills. Miss Fox turns him away.

That night, she takes Vanessa for a walk, following the dog past the lighted area in front of her building and into the "sinister" darkness in front of a row of neighboring brownstones. She is attacked from behind and left unconscious on the sidewalk, her ring and money stolen. Police sergeant Kirby questions Miss Fox, who convinces herself that Eddie must be the thief. Summoned later that night to the police station, she denies that another young man was her assailant. The next day, she calls Eddie to her apartment and suggests that she will pay $500 for the return of her ring. Eddie does not realize that she suspects him, and later that day she tells Sergeant Kirby that Eddie was the thief. Eddie is tried, convicted, and sent to prison.

Late that fall, Sergeant Kirby tells Miss Fox that her ring was found in the room of the man whom she refused to identify at the police station. Eddie is released from prison and resumes his job. Miss Fox asks him to walk her dog, but he refuses. He no longer needs extra money; his fiance died. Miss Fox attempts to pay off her feelings of guilt by giving Eddie an envelope containing $500. That night, she heads outside to walk Vanessa. Again, a man attacks her from behind, this time killing her. When the doorman finds her corpse, she has five one-hundred dollar bills in her hand.

Bette Davis as Miss Fox
"Over There--Darkness" takes place in a specific location: West 23rd Street, in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. There are hints that Miss Fox is attracted to Eddie, but the social gulf between them is always clear and one may infer that the reason he is forced to walk up 14 flights of stairs to reach her apartment on his day off is because elevator boys are not welcome to use the elevator when they are not on duty. Eddie is an honest young man who asks Miss Fox for a loan because he thinks she is "kind." He is paying half of his girl's medical bills and works hard, so there is no reason to suspect that he is a criminal, yet Miss Fox jumps to this conclusion probably because she views him as her inferior. There is an imbalance of power between them: she is middle-aged, wealthy, and lonely, while he is young, poor, and in love. Proud and haughty, she refuses to loan him money that she surely has; she assumes that he is lying and trying to "take her in."

Miss Fox seems unreasonably fearful about walking into the darkness that lies just beyond her own building, yet her fears are justified when she is attacked and robbed. Once again, her wealth and privilege are on display when she thinks of Sergeant Kirby as "plodding." She thinks that she has solved the crime on her own by jumping to conclusions based on little evidence, and her ego will not allow her to admit that the vulgar man in custody at the police station might be her assailant, since she has already solved the crime to her own satisfaction.

James Congdon as Eddie
When Eddie is released from prison and back at work, Miss Fox's efforts to re-establish a relationship with him are all based on money. The story's conclusion suggests that he is disgusted by her gesture, since it appears that he is the one who kills her and returns her money. While satisfying in that Miss Fox seems to get what she deserves, it seems out of character for Eddie to kill her. Perhaps his year in prison has changed him, since he barely speaks to her and is described as follows: "He had changed. His smile was fixed and meaningless, and there was a glassy quality in his eyes."

This well-written and well-received short story was quickly purchased by the producers of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and adapted for television by Bernard C. Schoenfeld. The episode aired on CBS on Sunday, January 25, 1959, only a few months after the story's first publication. As is often the case, narrative and description in the story are converted to dialogue in the TV show, which opens with Miss Fox (played perfectly by Bette Davis) talking to her dog in her apartment. "Never mention age," she tells Vanessa, and she then speaks to a framed photo of her dead fiancee and also to herself. The Miss Fox of the show is not as isolated as the character in the story; this woman is going out to play bridge with friends when Eddie arrives to fulfill his dog-walking duties. She flirts with the handsome young man but the attempt at romance is clearly one-sided. She tells him to have the superintendent of the building let him in if the dog ever needs walking and she is not home; this shows that she trusts him and that he has an approved way to get into her apartment, which may be important in considering the show's conclusion, which has been changed from that of the short story.

Frank Albertson as Sergeant Kirby
Later, there is a medium close-up of Miss Fox's legs as she puts on leopard-print, high-heeled shoes. Her fashionable attire is in sharp contrast to that of the off-duty Eddie, who arrives, unshaven and in street clothes, to ask for $50. As the scene is played by Bette Davis, the viewer can infer that she will not give Eddie the money he requests because she is jealous of his girlfriend, who is only twenty years old: Miss Fox will not help out a perceived rival. As she explains her refusal to Eddie, she fingers her expensive necklace and gazes at her expensive engagement ring.

As in the story, she walks her dog at night and is attacked. Sergeant Kirby interviews her in her apartment, and events from the story are compressed when he gets a telephone call about the suspect in custody and she accompanies him back to the police station.  At the station, she denies that the man is her assailant and we see that he resembles Eddie. Eddie comes when called to her apartment and she offers to pay him to get her ring back; in a well-played exchange, she says one thing but means another and we are unable to tell if he is doing the same. Sergeant Kirby arrives and Miss Fox accuses Eddie, seeming like a spurned lover.

Almost a year later, Sergeant Kirby is clearly angry at Miss Fox when he arrives to tell her that the real thief has been caught. Miss Fox is defensive and even tries to put blame on the sergeant for arresting the wrong man. When she encounters Eddie later in the elevator and gives him the envelope containing $500, he tells her that his fiance "died while I was in prison" and the elevator doors close, shutting out Miss Fox and reinforcing the barrier between her and Eddie.

Arthur Marshall as Jerry
The final dog walk arrives and Miss Fox follows Vanessa down the same alley where she had been attacked. There is a scare as a cat jumps out and a garbage can lid falls loudly to the ground. Miss Fox is relieved, and readers of the short story expect her to be attacked, but instead she goes back into her building and up to her apartment. Inside, she is attacked and strangled by a man who at first is not seen. She falls to the floor, dead, and we see the $500 taken from the envelope and dropped on her corpse. Finally, the camera reveals that Eddie is the killer, and the episode ends on a shot of the dead Miss Fox (who appears to be played by a stand-in).

Why did Schoenfeld move the ending of the story inside her apartment? Perhaps it was done to allow for a period of quiet relief after the scare from the alley cat. Still, this ending makes even less sense than the one in the story on which it is based. Why would Eddie enter her apartment, wait for her, and kill her there? It is not only inconsistent with his personality (unless he changed a great deal while in prison), but it is also a sure way to get caught. He will have to leave her apartment and find a way down 14 flights of stairs and out of the building without being seen. I can think of no valid reason for ending the story in this way.

The show centers around Bette Davis, who gives an outstanding performance. Her Miss Fox is more vibrant and outgoing than the character in the short story, who is portrayed as afraid to leave the area in  front of her apartment building. She also is more overtly sexual in her interest in and flirtation with Eddie, as she vainly tries to deny her advancing age.

Miss Fox and Vanessa in the alley
shortly before she is murdered
The lead actors in "Out There--Darkness" create believable characters. Schoenfeld's teleplay is, with the possible exception of the ending, well-constructed, with a strong structure and engaging dialogue. The direction is solid and the pacing rapid; the lighting and shot selection are also quite good, with the shadowy scenes in the alley outside contrasting with the bright scenes in Miss Fox's apartment. Overall, this is a memorable episode.

Bette Davis (1908-1989) was one of the best and most successful actress of the classic Hollywood period. She started out on Broadway and began appearing in films in 1931, winning Academy Awards for Best Actress for her roles in Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). She also starred in the brilliant All About Eve (1950). She began appearing sporadically in television roles in 1956 and was seen in film and on TV for the rest of her life. A website devoted to her is found here. This was her only appearance on the Hitchcock show.

Giving a strong performance as Eddie is James Congdon (1929- ), who began appearing on TV in 1949 and on film in 1951. His career on screen lasted until 1986 but does not contain a large number of  credits. He also appeared on Broadway from 1956 to 1984 and was in the original cast of The Miracle Worker in 1959. This was his only role on the Hitchcock TV show.

The role of Sergeant Kirby is played by Frank Albertson (1909-1964), a veteran character actor who appeared on film from 1923 and on TV from 1950. He was in four episodes of the Hitchcock show and also appeared on Thriller. He had a small role in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

Eddie, out of uniform on his day off
Finally, Jerry the doorman is played by Arthur Marshall, who had a handful of roles on TV and film from 1951 to 1964 and who was not seen otherwise on the Hitchcock TV show.

The assignment to direct Bette Davis in "Out There--Darkness" was given to Paul Henreid (1908-1982), the actor-turned-director who had co-starred with Davis in Now, Voyager (1942). He directed 29 episodes of the Hitchcock series including "The Kind Waitress," which had a teleplay by William O'Farrell.

Making his only appearance on the list of crew members in all of the ten years of the Hitchcock TV show was director of photography Ernest Haller (1896-1970), who was Bette Davis's favorite cameraman. He went to Hollywood in 1914 and became a cinematographer in 1920, later winning an Academy Award for his work on Gone With the Wind (1939). He did some TV work from 1957 to 1966, including a 1957 episode of Suspicion that starred Bette Davis, and his final credit was for the second pilot of Star Trek, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Read the GenreSnaps take on this episode here. The TV show may be viewed online for free here or the DVD is available here.

Sources:

The FictionMags Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm.

Galactic Central, philsp.com/.


Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.
IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.
O'Farrell, William. “Over There--Darkness.” Best of the Best Detective Stories, Ed. David Cooke. NY: Dutton, 1960. pp. 250-266.
“Out There--Darkness.” Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 16, CBS, 25 Jan. 1959.
Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: Our series on Bernard C. Schoenfeld wraps up with a discussion of "Hitch-Hike," along with an episode guide to Schoenfeld's work for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and a summation of his contributions to the show.

Special note: A podcast called "Presenting Alfred Hitchcock Presents" has begun appearing. One episode per month is examined in detail, and five episodes have appeared thus far. Here is a link to the podcast's website. I recommend giving this series a listen!

Monday, December 17, 2018

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 145: January 1974

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




Dominguez
Weird War Tales 21

"One Hour to Kill!"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Frank Robbins

"When Death Took a Hand"
Story by Sheldon Mayer
Art by Bernard Baily

Peter: Captain Philip Starr is dragged off the front lines by Army brass and given a super-secret mission: he will go back to the 15th-Century via a time machine and he has "One Hour to Kill!" Leonardo da Vinci. Since da Vinci is the originator of rapid fire weapons, the Army is convinced war will no longer exist if the artist is assassinated. His boss explains that the machine will allow Starr to stay in the past for sixty minutes then pluck him up and dump him right back in the 20th. Starr makes the journey but can't pull the trigger on an innocent man and he drops his sidearm just as the machine pulls him back to the future. Oh, the irony! If Captain Starr had not made the journey, da Vinci would never have "designed"  the world's first Walther PPK. It was only a matter of time before we saw Frank Robbins assigned art duties (he's been doing a decent job of writing Unknown Soldier) and so my teeth are gritted and I'm braced for the worst. At least Batman doesn't appear in this wretched time-travel yarn, so we're spared the sight of his wiggly, rubbery limbs. Lots of clenched jaws and unrecognizable backgrounds and a "twist" ending everyone saw coming.

Stan Lee makes an appearance at DC headquarters

In "When Death Took a Hand," Private Ivers has no courage until a grenade goes off near him and he survives. Suddenly, he's leading his friends in a charge and wiping the Earth of scummy Nazis. After a long, arduous battle, his comrades go looking and find him... right in the spot where he died after getting hit with the grenade. A ghost had been leading the charge! Oh, man, this issue is the pits, the worst since the title was introduced. Not only in the microwaved and cliched scripts but also in the ugly, amateurish art found in both stories, which is a startling turnaround from the quality of artwork we've been graced with in the last dozen or so issues. Hopefully, we'll be back on track next time out.

"When Death Took a Hand"

Jack: After seeing so much bad art over the course of 145 DC War Comics posts, ranging from that of Jerry Grandenetti to that of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, I think I've become more immune to it than I used to be. In any case, I didn't think Robbins's art was as terrible as I expected. Granted, the premise of the lead story is ridiculous and the ending uses an old science fiction trope, but it was far from a one-star story, in my opinion. Bernard Baily's art is a tad better than Robbins's but I don't really like his '70s work and it's not nearly as good as his Golden Age stuff. The plot is just more of the same.


Barr
Star Spangled War Stories 177

"The Hornet's Nest!"
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Jack Sparling

"The Better Part of Valor!"
Story by Don Kaar
Art by Frank Thorne

Peter: Since his identity has been compromised and he's stuck inside a freight car bound for a Nazi concentration camp, the Unknown Soldier must think quick or Operation: Whocanrememberwhatthehellwasgoingon will be nipped in the bud. A melee inside the box car and a lit fire provide the perfect escape into the night but, since the idea is to make it to the stalag, US manages to transform himself into Major Schatz, the officer in charge of the train. The Nazis are on to the deception but they can't figure out who's who. Meanwhile, the German version of The Unknown Soldier stews and awaits the inevitable showdown with his verdammt American counterpart!

"The Hornet's Nest!"
"The Hornet's Nest!" is a 'tweener chapter, thirteen pages of nothing-really-happens, a chance for Archie to strrrrrretch a two-parter into three. It's not awful but it's certainly not the bundle of action and excitement that was the first chapter. For one thing, the other bandaged freak, Captain von Sturm, is barely present and when he does pop up, it's to answer some retort from stalag commandant Krantz or make a silly face. Call me crazy but I'm starting to get used to Jack Sparling's "art." Well, at least when it's applied to pulp fiction such as this.

The back-up this issue,"The Better Part of Valor!," is an interesting look at how Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna and his army after days of retreating. It's another of the bio-comics that Harvey Kurtzman did so well in the EC days and the DC writers do to varying degrees of success. That might be down to which skirmish they elect to dramatize. This here battle had enough twists to keep my interest but Frank Thorne's art is still on the rough side.

"The Better Part of Valor!"

Jack: I like Thorne's art--always have. I remember him wandering around the NYC Comic Con in the mid-'70s dressed as a wizard with half-naked Red Sonjas in tow. Those were the days, eh? "The Better Part of Valor!" is well-told and Thorne's art fits the story, which is of particular interest to me since I visited San Jacinto with my grandfather in 1984. I had ancestors who died at the Alamo, so I like stories of early Texas. I'm not ready to embrace Jack Sparling's art; however, in this issue's letters column, a reader praises it and Archie Goodwin wholeheartedly agrees. The editor also notes that new page count is down to 20 and they have abandoned the "Make War No More" slogan.



Kubert
Our Fighting Forces 146

"The Forever Walk!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by John Severin

"Burma Sky"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Alex Toth

Jack: Having left Fort Fini behind, the Losers suffer from extreme thirst and begin to see mirages, including one that looks like a group of Nazis at a water hole. A tiff between Gunner and Johnny Cloud is interrupted when the group is attacked by a Nazi plane; as usual, small arms fire from the ground succeeds in bringing the plane to a fiery end. The Losers happen upon a tank graveyard that is used to conceal a water source, so they drink deep and await the tank attack that comes soon enough. Gunner helps Ona and the position is lost; Cloud complains and, before you know it, Ona is sneaking off alone into a desert dust storm, feeling guilty about the problems she thinks she has caused.

Johnny Cloud's sexism is hard to take in 2018 and he refers to Ona as a "squaw" and Gunner as "moon-eyed." This is just a minor complaint, though, as "The Forever Walk!" is a strong entry in the continuing saga of the desert wanderings of the Losers. Kanigher seems to be developing a romance between Gunner and Ona, which may mean she's not long for the strip. Severin's art is superb and makes the art we saw this month in Weird War Tales and Star Spangled War Stories look all the worse in comparison.

"The Forever Walk!"

In early 1942, Japanese planes rule the "Burma Sky." The Flying Tigers do their best to preserve the Burma Road but cannot hold out against the enemy's superior firepower. The Americans abandon their position and Pappy Coburn, who had flown in the prior World War, takes to the air in an old biplane and gets one last measure of vengeance against the Japanese before being shot down.

Archie Goodwin provides a solid story but Alex Toth really outdoes himself in this seven-page classic, which is not so much drawn as designed and done beautifully. Toth's pages deserve to be reprinted; I'll just reproduce one here so you can see what I'm talking about. He dedicates the art to "Jerry deFuccio, Johnny Severin, and 'Tiger' buffs of every stripe" and to late cartoonist Bert Christman. Wikipedia tells me that Christman was a DC artist who was killed in the action described in this very story in January 1942. Wow is all I can say. We have our first definite entry in the top ten of 1974.

"Burma Sky"
Peter: A very good entry in the Losers' saga this issue, with tempers flaring and hearts palpitating. I keep waiting for this strip to hit its brick wall but it continues to hold my interest, and it's not lost on me that it might be due to John Severin's awesome art. I hate the word "awesome" because it sounds so yuppie, but "awesome" is an adjective I would apply to Severin's Losers work. Not just the art--it's the story and the fact that it seems we are on a journey. I'm not sure I want to get to the end of this particular trip, though. The climax, in particular, is strong, with Ona separating from the rest of the crew to forestall any more macho heroics. We don't need Big Bob's captions telling us "She's making a TNT decision." Nope, we can read it in her eyes and in her tears.

I'd heard and read a lot about "Burma Sky" through the years from fans but, until now, had never had the pleasure of experiencing this four-star battle classic. How could anything with the names Goodwin and Toth attached be anything less than magnificent? In an enlightening essay in Chris Pedrin's Big Five, DC war enthusiast James Robinson calls "Burma Sky," "one of the best stories ever to appear in a comic book." While I'll reserve judgment until I get the reading of at least another ten thousand funny book stories under my belt, I'll bow to the judgment of enthusiasts who know more about this genre than I do.


Kubert
Our Army at War 264

"The Hunt!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"The Gook"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: Having liberated the Nazi prison camp at the end of last issue, Rock and Easy Company blow it sky high so it will house no more prisoners. Trudging along through the snowy landscape, they are set upon by Nazis with potato mashers, but some well-aimed shots from the American sergeant quickly eliminate the menace. Moving on, the men of Easy Co. observe that a Nazi tank is attacking the rest of the prisoners who were set free from the camp. Rock and his men try to think of a way to attack the tank when a second tank attacks them and they are forced to take shelter in a farmhouse. They run out the back and find themselves in a minefield! Rock and co. use large stones to detonate the mines and create a walking path for themselves; Rock runs ahead and attracts the tank's fire until its treads come in contact with a mine and it is destroyed. Rock realizes that the delay in fighting off the tank means that the other prisoners are doomed, so he and Easy Co. head back to their lines.

This drawing of Bulldozer does not look like Heath.
Not a bad story, but not a very good one, either--"The Hornet's Nest!" features some unusually rough work by our friend Russ Heath and this makes me wonder if someone else did the inking. I also wonder if we've seen the last of those supposedly doomed prisoners. I do like the continued stories we're seeing now.

"The Gook" is a North Vietnamese soldier who witnesses bombing runs and vows to see the eyes of the men who fly the enemy planes. He is shot during a jungle ambush and finally sees the enemy close up when an American soldier inspects the bodies of the dead. A grenade ends the lives of both American and North Vietnamese soldiers.

"The Gook"
The offensive term of the title is hopefully used with irony, though the final paragraph mentions "slant eyes and round eyes" and remarks that no one can tell the difference once they're dead. I admire Kanigher's efforts at telling more adult stories in the back of the book, but this one verges on offensive and Ric Estrada's art doesn't help.

Peter: Though "The Hunt" does not steer far from the road Rock has been traveling (the one I was complaining about in our last installment), there were a couple of novel detours that I liked quite a bit. Having Easy stumble so quickly across the United Nations of POWs they had freed last issue was a surprise, but then to have Rock wave his men away because the death of the others is "somethin' we're helpless to stop!" is a pretty ballsy move for Big Bob to make. We don't get the usual last-second save, either. The scene where Easy must throw stones across the mine field is a classic, something I'd never thought about. Rock even dispatches the Tiger in a unique way, rather than resorting to the usual "Open up the turret! I'm dropping in a TNT pineapple while I ride this iron horse!" nonsense. "The Gook" is a decent entry in "Gallery of War" but the subject matter (or variations thereof) has been used a few times already and I'm hoping for a new artist on this strip pronto. This Ric Estrada cartooning is killing me.


Neal Adams
G.I. Combat 168

"The Breaking Point!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Sam Glanzman

"Panzer!"
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Sid Check

Peter: After being rescued (last issue) and airlifted back to Italy, the Haunted Tank crew comes under attack and Leftenant Farrar (again, see last issue!) is shot and killed. Reaching "The Breaking Point!" after watching his new friend and ally murdered before his eyes, Jeb Stuart chases the assassin into the ruins of a village and brat-ta-tat-tats the party responsible, but gets a shock to the system when he discovers his target was a girl. Another round of machine gun bullets brings Jeb back to his senses and he whirls to see a dead Nazi, blown to hell by Jeb's crew. Turns out the girl was an innocent bystander but the good news is... she's alive! The better news is... she's a babe! And it doesn't take very long for Jeb and Rachele to fall in love. Disgusted with all this war business, Jeb tells his boys that he's deserting and heading to a paradise known as San Palmera with his new soulmate. But, as happens in war, all of Jeb's dreams are dashed when Rachele steps on a land mine and becomes a memory (well, pieces of a memory) that Jeb will cherish for the rest of this arc.

"The Breaking Point!"
Possibly the most maudlin and utterly predictable script Archie Goodwin has ever turned in, a hunk of junk from start to finish. Just in case we don't remember that maintaining a good relationship during wartime is not an easy task, we get a brief flashback to Jeb's doomed marriage (way back in #139) just before the curtain falls on Rachele. Not that we expected Jeb to actually turn his back on war and leave the series, but this new-found freedom (thanks to desertion, I might add) lasts all of three panels and our hero's mood after returning to his mates could be described as "sulky," rather than devastated. His final proclamation, to get the men responsible for mining the road and killing his true love, sounds a bit far-fetched, but this is a strip about a tank commander and his ghost bodyguard. The follow-up this issue, "Panzer!," is better Goodwin, but the art by Sid Check is at times very good and at other times, almost shapeless. It's tough in some of the panels to figure out exactly what is going on since everything seems to blend together, but that may be down to the colorist. This was Check's comeback to the comics field after retiring in the late 1950s (and joining the Post Office!); his first wave of art appeared in EC and Atlas comic books.

"Panzer!"
Jack: It's almost false advertising to put a Neal Adams cover on this comic and then open it up to reveal art by Sam Glanzman and Sid Check. Glanzman's work here is dreadful, especially when he draws close-ups of human faces. The romance is hokey though I was surprised when Rachele was blown up. Goodwin's script reaches an almost Marvelesque level of self pity by the end. I also found "Panzer!" hard to follow, mostly due to the muddy art. One letter writer this issue comments that "the war magazines get the leftovers as far as artists go" and, with the exception of John Severin, Russ Heath, and Alex Toth, he's right.









In Two Weeks...
The Curtain Begins to Close on EC!