The Warren Report Issue 5: March/April 1966

The Critical Guide to 

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Frazetta

Eerie #2 (March 1966)

"Footsteps of Frankenstein!"★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Reed Crandall

"One for De-Money"★★1/2
Story by E. Nelson Bridwell
Art by Angelo Torres

"Eye of the Beholder!"★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Johnny Craig (as Jay Taycee)

"Flame Fiend!"★★
Story by Otto Binder
Art by Gray Morrow

"To Pay the Piper!"★1/2
Story by Larry Ivie
Art by Gene Colan

"Vision of Evil"★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Alex Toth

"Ahead of the Game!"★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Jerry Grandenetti and Bill Draut

"Footsteps of Frankenstein!"

Dr. Byron King has second thoughts about his trip to the town of Low Kilburn in the north of England after the locals react poorly to his questions about where to find Dr. Amos Sebastian. After he is beaten unconscious in the street, he awakens in the doctor's lab and finds that Sebastian has created a huge, lumbering monster that lacks a high quality brain. Amos begs Byron to transplant Amos's brain from his aging body into that of his creation and, after some studying, Byron succeeds in doing just that. Nosy villagers see lights at the doctor's castle and head up there, with intent to destroy the new creation, but Dr. Sebastian, now in a large and powerful body, pushes Dr. King and the angry villagers aside and strides out into a thunderstorm, where a lighting bolt finds his electrodes and vaporizes him.

I have to admit I enjoyed this story right up to the disappointing ending, mainly because of Reed Crandall's art, which illustrates the parade of cliches perfectly. The creature (don't call it a monster!) looks just like Karloff in Frankenstein, but the idea of transplanting the doctor's brain into the creature's head made me think more of Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein. It may not be a classic story, but it's fun!

"One for De-Money"

Vernon is a young dandy who never has any dough. When he visits his Uncle Cornelius and asks for a handout, the old man tells him he can stay for free but he's not getting one red cent. Vernon witnesses his uncle summon a demon in the basement; the demon must give Cornelius money and can't step outside the pentagram where he stands. Vernon murders his uncle and summons up the demon but neglects to notice that he accidentally rubbed off some of the pentagram's chalk outline, allowing the demon to step outside it and kill the greedy young man.

"One for De-Money" has (here we go again) gorgeous art by Angelo Torres and a weak, poorly-executed script by DC stalwart E. Nelson Bridwell. Speaking of DC, the demon looks like one of the Demons Three trio drawn by Mike Sekowsky for early Justice League of America stories.

The horror of dark socks, dark shorts, and dark shoes
is revealed in "Eye of the Beholder!"

Gerald's beautiful wife is dead, and he can't stand it! Seeking magical help, he finds an old man and gives him a lot of money to bring Eve back, "beautiful and alive as I remember her." Gerald goes home and finds Eve there, but soon bad things start to happen: the family dog dies of fright and the flower delivery man runs screaming out the door. Only when Gerald embraces Eve before a mirror does he discover the horrible truth: everyone but he can see that she is a rotting corpse!

I was so excited for the return of Johnny Craig to our reading list, and "Eye of the Beholder!" certainly looks like his work, both as we recall it from the EC Comics and as we saw it change in the EC Picto-Fiction series. There are some weak sections, sure, but overall it's good to have the old boy back. The end prefigures the horrific scene in The Shining where the beautiful woman in the bathtub turns out to be a rotting old hag. Not a great story, but good to see Craig back at the drawing board.

"Flame Fiend!"

After John Murdock kills his business partner, Henry Todd, by planting an explosive device in his car, Henry's image appears as a "Flame Fiend!" rising out of John's fireplace and warning John that he will die in flames. Murdock vows to avoid fire of any type, and this leads to one awkward moment after another, as he keeps away from cigars, birthday cakes, and the like. Out hunting on a cold winter's day, Murdock encounters an out of control campfire and jumps in a freezing brook to avoid the flames. He comes down with pneumonia and thinks he's beaten the curse, until Henry's flaming, spectral image tells John that he's "burning up" with fever!

Otto Binder runs a bad idea into the ground with this story, and it gets laughable as John freaks out every time he sees a little flame. Gray Morrow's art, as always, is impressive, especially in his use of blacks and shadows, but he deserves better material.

"To Pay the Piper!"

In 17th-century Germany, the village of Meingott has a vampire problem. A stranger named Sandor offers to get rid of the foul fiends for 1000 gold marks and does so by playing his flute that night, luring the vampires out into the open where they all (I think) die when the sun comes up. The town burgermeister stiffs the piper of the 1000 marks, so the piper, like his namesake in Hamelin, pipes another tune and all the town's children follow him outside the village. The burgermeister set a trap and the piper is killed by three arrows to the chest. The children return, but that night they all turn into werewolves, since the field outside of town was full of wolfbane and they got scratched by it and ... you get the picture.

Our first exposure to the great Gene (or Eugene, as the credit reads) Colan at Warren is, sadly, on a rather idiotic story called "To Pay the Piper!" by Larry Ivie. Acknowledging that you're copying the classic tale of the Pied Piper in your story doesn't excuse it, and how many times in the few issues of Warren horror comics we've read so far have we seen the old switcheroo of one monster menace to another? Too many for my liking. At this point, Colan was also drawing romance comics for DC and superhero comics for Marvel--a true pro.

"Vision of Evil"

Art collector Simon Norton is so entranced by a ghoulish painting by obscure artist Conrad Archer that he tracks the painter down at his residence, which happens to be the Kingsford Asylum for the Insane! Norton finds Archer sitting in a trance in front of his latest painting, which depicts the artist in the clutches of a demon. Dr. Young then shows Norton Archer's other painting, a mural on the rec room wall depicting a "Vision of Evil" in which ghouls and ghosts attack poor souls. They hear Archer scream and rush to his cellar studio, only to find Archer gone, a burning smell, a finished painting, and red "paint" dripping on the floor. Norton goes back to the rec room to study the mural, but now he notices figures of himself and Dr. Young painted in the claws of a demon! There is a loud booming on the door ...

Okay, I'll admit it doesn't make a lot of sense, and we've seen similar stories before, but I am in such an Alex Toth phase that just about anything he does appeals to me. It's funny how one can get hooked on an artist, especially one with such an individual style. I used to think his work was juvenile but now I really like it.

Big game hunter Harry Black kills an albino gorilla and cuts off its head as a trophy, ignoring warnings from a native about the animal's sacred status. On the ship heading back to the states, mayhem ensures in the luggage room where Harry's trophy is kept, and his wife insists on flying home. Harry gets home and displays the gorilla's head on his trophy wall, but soon trouble follows as the groundskeeper is killed. Harry's wife flees the scene and Harry sits alone, rifle on lap, until he sees the gorilla's headless corpse coming toward him. His wife returns with the cops; they hear shots from inside and enter to find Harry decapitated and his head now in place of the gorilla's on the trophy wall.

The guy in the middle is pure Grandenetti
("Ahead of the Game!")

"Ahead of the Game!" is the pits! I won't bother commenting on the terrible, incomprehensible story. Rather, I have to ask why Jerry Grandenetti and Bill Draut are ghosting for Joe Orlando. Does this mean some of the bad Orlando art we've been complaining about was not his work at all? And how about the good Orlando art in the late '60s (Cain, I'm looking at you!)--was it not Orlando's work either? My world is rocked! Grandenetti's worst instincts are tamped down by Draut's inks, but I can still see signs of the artist we loved to make fun of on our DC War Comics blog shining through here and there.-Jack

Peter- The first official issue of Eerie is jam-packed with mediocre material. From the big-game hunter who ends up with his head mounted on a wall to the village that gets rid of its vampire plague only to be infested with werewolves (notice how the two monsters seem to mingle in stories so frequently?) to the Universal Monsters reboot with little or no feeling. On and on and on. Again, the major asset to the Warren books, so far, is the insanely good artwork. Well, yes, I know we also get Grandenetti and Draut but I'm trying to be a bit positive. I love Craig's shift from one medium to another halfway through "Eye of the Beholder!" (a rare non-Johnny written story) and Crandall's detailed penciling elevates "Footsteps of Frankenstein!" to at least "readable" status.

Frazetta

Blazing Combat #3 (April 1966)

"Special Forces!" ★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Jerry Grandenetti and Joe Orlando

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

"U-Boat" ★★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Gene Colan

"Survival!" ★★1/2
Story by Alex Toth and Archie Goodwin
Art by Alex Toth

"The Battle of Britain!" ★★
Story by Wally Wood
Art by Dan Adkins and Wally Wood

"Water Hole!" ★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Gray Morrow

"Souvenirs!" ★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by John Severin

"Foragers"

Captain Curtis Bradford leads his "Special Forces!" team through the jungles of Viet Nam on a suicide mission. Their job is to provide themselves as bait for ambush, pulling the Viet Cong out of hiding. Bradford does his job well and the men plow through a multitude of enemy soldiers, "all in a day's work." "Special Forces!" is another disappointing Blazing Combat story; I almost feel guilty saying that, given this title's place upon a mantle of greatness. But there it is, just another story about grunts doing grunt work, sacrificing themselves and their bodies for the men who sit in offices a world away.  War s Hell. I get it. Joe Orlando continues to be the weakest link in the Warren bullpen, laying down sub-par doodles and panels almost too muddy to wade through. But Joe will be around for a while so I better get used to him.

"U-Boat"

During the Civil War, one of General Sherman's tactics was to send out "Foragers" to harass civilians, burn their homes, and loot their belongings. This would, he believed, lead to disenchantment and, eventually, utter surrender. Our protagonists, a band of "Foragers," are picking Georgian households clean of food and then leaving the families homeless and having a real good time doing it. When the soldiers come across an old man who won't give up his shack, they fire on him and the gunfire is returned, killing all but two of the Union soldiers. When the old man runs out of ammo, a corporal is about to execute him when he's shot by one of his own soldiers. "Foragers" has a powerful climax and some gorgeous Reed Crandall work. Jack often says the best stories send him off to do more research and that's exactly what this one did for me. In fact, you can read a very good summary of role the foragers (or "bummers") played in the Civil War here.

A transport ship is torpedoed and sunk with only two sailors, Dawes and Ramsey, left alive. The "U-Boat" that sunk her takes the two mariners aboard as POWs and then has to dive quickly as a destroyer looms on the horizon. Dawes becomes enamored of the efficiency the German captain displays, but Ramsey's only thought is that he must warn the destroyer above them before the U-Boat has a chance to add another notch to its periscope. When Ramsey explains his plan to make noise, Dawes warns the U-Boat commander and a struggle ensues. The racket warns the destroyer above, which launches its depth charges and destroys the German killer. Thought its plot twist owes quite a debt to The Bridge Over the River Kwai, "U-Boat" is masterful in both script and art departments. Colan is at the top of his game here (and about a half year away from his classic stint on Marvel's Daredevil), and the black and white only enhances his talents. Archie's script reads like a one-hour noir film that happens to be set aboard a submarine.

"Survival!"

"Survival!" is a change of pace for this title, a post-apocalyptic tale about a scavenger who fights off mad packs of dogs and hunts for tinned food in the wastelands of a burned-out city. As far as he's concerned, he's the last man on Earth, until he comes across a raft on the beach and several sets of footprints. His excitement turns to rage when he comes across one of the new immigrants digging up one of his caches of food and he beats the man's skull in. Now driven to find the rest of the newbies and kill them before they can steal more of his hard-earned grub, the man inherits an assault weapon from his victim and heads out into the night. It's not long before he finds them and, yep, they're eating his vittles, so he mows them down. A single survivor crawls from the wreckage and the scavenger strangles him to death. Only upon inspection does he discover his latest victim was a woman. He screams in the night. That final panel is a bit of a head-scratcher. Is our violent lead character upset because he just saw a more exciting Friday night go down the tubes or was he thinking "there goes repopulating the Earth?" Like Colan, Alex Toth's work is much more powerful when delivered sans color, possibly because so many of Toth's scenes are built around the blackness. Archie stretches the parameters of blazing combat, but that's okay as long as he can pump out strong stories such as this. Life after the apocalypse will be a favorite subject of future Warren writers (DC and Marvel will try their hands as well and, for the most part, fail miserably).

"The Battle of Britain!"

The Jerrys are fast eliminating the R.A.F. It's up to a handful of brave men to stanch the bleeding and save England from the clutches of Der Führer. "The Battle of Britain!" is gorgeously rendered by Wally Wood's ward, Dan Adkins (despite the Wally Wood sole credit on the splash page, Adkins claimed it was 90% his work), who had just as sharp an eye for aerial battles as Wood himself. The script is one part Encyclopedia Britannica and a heaping helping of late night Hollywood reruns (something with Van Johnson or Rod Taylor, I would think), nothing particularly original. "Water Hole!" concerns a cavalry troop attacked by Apaches in the desert. The water hole becomes a last stand for both sides. A clever twist and some decent Morrow art. Finally, in "Souvenirs!," American G.I. Holloway finds a fortune in the mouths of the dead Japanese soldiers lying stacked like cords of wood all around him. His CO orders him to halt his ghoulish practice but Holloway's greed finds him slithering back to the carnage after his comrades have bedded down that night. Bad idea. About as close to EC as BC is gonna get, "Souvenirs" is a bit slow, but Severin's art keeps us interested until we get to the startling reveal. -Peter

"Souvenirs!"

Jack-I know I've said this before, but when you  have such a great lineup of artists, why lead off with a story drawn by Joe Orlando--or in this case, Jerry Grandenetti? I recognized Joe's work right away from the way he draws the shading over soldiers' eyes from the bill of their caps as if they're wearing domino masks. "Special Forces!" is unusually dull for a Vietnam War story. Things perk right up with "Foragers," in which the unexpected ending elevates the whole story and Reed Crandall's work sparkles. Gene Colan conveys a real sense of excitement and danger in "U-Boat" and I love his use of unusual panel shapes and layouts. In contrast to the story before it, empathy with the enemy's professionalism leads to disaster.

"Survival" seems like a sped-up version of A Canticle for Leibowitz, but the end is disappointing. There's too much "I say" and "old chap" in "The Battle of Britain!" and the story ends up being more historically interesting than engaging. "Water Hole!" starts well and features gorgeous art but fizzles at the finale and seems anticlimactic. Finally, in "Souvenirs!," John Severin again shows how he can say so much with just the look on a character's face. I wonder if his scripts were less verbose than others in order to leave room for his silent panels.

Morrow

Creepy #8 (April 1966)

"The Coffin of Dracula!" 
Part I  ★★★
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Reed Crandall

"Death Plane" ★★1/2
Story by Larry Ivie
Art by George Evans
(see Eerie #1 for review)

"The Mountain" ★★1/2
Story and Art by Johnny Craig (as Jay Taycee)

"The Invitation" ★★
Story by Larry Engleheart, Russ Jones, & Maurice Whitman
Art by Manny Stallman
(see Eerie #1 for review)

"Adam Link's Mate!" ★
Story by Otto Binder
Art by Joe Orlando

"A Vested Interest" ★
Story by Ron Parker
Art by George Tuska, Don Heck, Frank Giacoia, & Mike Esposito

"Fitting Punishment" ★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Gene Colan

"The Coffin of Dracula!"

Lord Adrian Varney has inherited a warehouse full of junk from his recently-deceased uncle, but one piece catches the young Lord's eye: a casket with the Dracula crest. He and one of his workers crack "The Coffin of Dracula!" open and Varney can't help himself as he tries the box on for size. An immediate change comes over Varney, one that proves fatal for his assistant. Meanwhile, across London at Varney's mansion, several guests are partying and awaiting Varney's arrival. These guests include Jonathan Harker and his bride, Mina, recently returned from a vampire-staking exercise in Transylvania. At last, Varney arrives and is immediately taken with Mina's beauty, asking her to dance. She becomes nervous and asks to cut their dance short but the lights go out and the pair disappear from sight. Jonathan catches a glimpse of Varney, carrying Mina, as he escapes down the back steps. Varney assaults Parker and flees in a coach with the unconscious Mina. Knowing he has nowhere else to turn, Harker hoofs it to the asylum where Dr. John Seward works. Not coincidentally, Dr. Van Helsing is also at the asylum and informs Seward and Harker that a vampire has been spotted in "the seacoast village of Whitby" and that the three of them must destroy the bloodsucker if Mina is to live. Van Helsing believes that Dracula's spirit has possessed Lord Varney and is luring him to Whitby for a bite from the vampire.

"The Mountain"

For some strange reason, "The Coffin of Dracula!" was chopped into two pieces (the second part will be unveiled in #9), despite the fact that "a bonus-length chiller" is advertised right on the cover. Even weirder is the fact that the story's length is listed as sixteen pages on the contents page (omitting "Death Plane" in the process), rather than the presented ten. Enough of my trivia, you say, does the story work as a sequel to Stoker's original novel? Yes and no. It's a fast-moving and exciting little vampire story (actually lacking a true vampire until the final page) but it feels way too compressed, as if we're missing out on a few pages (in addition to the six we won't get until next issue) and some necessary expository. We get a flashback of Dracula's demise, a page we probably didn't need, and some annoying head-scratchers (if Varney is not really a vampire until he's bitten, why does he have fangs when he attacks his assistant?) but, overall, "The Coffin of Dracula!" is enjoyable.

"The Mountain"

"Death Plane" and "The Invitation" were reviewed in our last issue as part of the contents of the Eerie #1 ashcan edition. I'll just repeat that the versions printed here are immeasurably cleaner and less murky than those that ran in the ashcan issue. In fact, I've rated "The Invitation" slightly higher here because of the nicer art reproduction). One of our favorite EC writer/artists returns to horror in the same capacity with "The Mountain." A gorgeous woman trudges up a snow-covered mountain, chased by a torch-bearing mob for sins undisclosed to us. She's a "brazen hussy" and they're "narrow-minded" and "sanctimonious," and that's all we know. At the top of the mountain, she collapses on the porch of a secluded cabin and awakens hours later in front of a blazing fire. A man introduces himself to her as Luke (hmmmm ...), and explains that he stays in the desolate cabin to research the black arts. The babe says the dark arts may come in handy against her enemies in the town below; Luke tells her to bring him the mayor and everything will work out exactly as she wants. At gunpoint, the mayor is forced to slog through the snow and enter the cabin, where Luke touches the man's forehead. A blank look comes over the mayor's forehead and our lass, pleased with what she sees, cries out her intention to take over the politician's mansion. A change comes over Luke, telling the woman she's a fool for setting her sights so low. He grows horns and a tail, revealing his true identity, and explains that he needed a body to possess to walk the Earth. Our gal with a 'tude is lifted and hurled into the fireplace, a gateway to ... (surprise, surprise, surprise) Hell!

Well, "The Mountain" certainly began on an intriguing note. Just who is this woman and why are the townspeople intent on killing her? We never find out, but that's not my major complaint with the story. In fact, I think the secrecy adds to the intrigue. No, the fault is in the pat climax, a supreme cop-out. Why is the devil wasting his time with a no-place town and why does he need this woman to draw the mayor up the hill? Did it have to be the mayor? Again, this is Satan, who can open fireplaces and raise Hell. Why such small stakes? Any problems I have with Johnny Craig's writing do not extend to his penciling, which is just as exquisite as it was when we last encountered Craig in the final issues of the EC Illustrated zines. So what was Craig up to between the years of EC's collapse and his startling resurrection at Warren? Craig did a couple of stories for Atlas in the late 1950s (Battle and Wyatt Earp), then hoofed it to an ad agency, before returning to the comics field, working briefly for ACG (Unknown Worlds and Adventures Into the Unknown) before Archie recruited him for Creepy and Eerie. I've seen all six stories he did for Atlas and ACG and none of them come across as stylish or innovative, two adjectives that adhere to Craig's work for EC and Warren. Flotsam like "Treasure of Bad Luck Point" (under Craig's pseudonym of Jay Taycee and found in Unknown Worlds #47) is barely recognizable as Craig's work; rushed and lacking any imagination.

"Adam Link's Mate!"

Fully intent on committing robotic suicide (by letting his battery run down), Adam Link wants nothing to do with mankind after his romance with human Kay Temple went chest plates up. His solace is interrupted by the entrance of Professor Hillory (who happens to own a cabin nearby), a scientist who convinces Adam that all he needs is a companion to fulfill his robotic existence. The two get to work on crafting a female robot and Kay Temple arrives to invest the automaton with female traits (you know, like enjoying flowers, charging clothes on a Macy's card, cleaning the kitchen, etc.). The transformation from a bucket of bolts to gorgeous, gleaming, stainless steel chick is complete, and Adam and his new bride, Eve, enjoy a life of wedded bliss, until Hillory returns and unveils his true motive: he wants to compel Adam and Eve to do his evil bidding by placing mind-controlling skull caps atop their heads, leaving them helpless to defy his orders. Under Hillory's spell, Eve begins a dastardly campaign of evil, robbing the local banks and completely ignoring the household chores. Only a chance visit by Kay Temple can break the spell Hillory has over the metallic pair; Kay knocks the antennaed hat off Hillory's head and Adam can think on his own again. Unfortunately, Hillory regains control over Eve and forces her to shove Adam over a cliff to the rocks below. Is this the end of Adam Link? We can only hope so!

"A Vested Interest"

Alas, being the Monday Morning Quarterback I am, I know this wretched series is far from over. "Adam Link's Mate!" could very well be the dumbest chapter yet, filled with dopey cliches and some really awful art. I love that the first female trait Kay imparts upon Eve is"flowers freshen up a home" (and you thought I was being sarcastic!) and that Professor Hillory might just as well have shown up with a Snidely Whiplash mustache; there's absolutely no doubt that from the first we know this guy will be up to no good. The final page deals with the "exciting" hand-to-hand battle between Eve and Adam and all I could think was "just knock the damn hat off her head, you tin dimwit!" Whenever these big brain deviates get it in their minds to use their smarts to rob banks, I wonder why it is they never set their sights higher. Binder doesn't bother explaining what the nutty professor intends to do with all the wealth. I almost want to say I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter to see if it's even worse.

Huh?
("Fitting Punishment")

A drunk sees a werewolf attacking a man in a dark alley but the cops won't take the word of a booze-hound, but a chance meeting with a stranger convinces the bum to return to the scene of the crime with a camera for proof. This guy's no dummy, so he tricks out his camera with a gun that shoots silver bullets (no, really!) and heads for the alley. Turns out (surprise, surprise, surprise!), once they're alone, his new buddy reveals himself to be the lycanthrope. Our hero shoots the monster, but nothing happens. The werewolf strips down, revealing a bullet-proof vest (no, really!). Oh boy. Marvel mainstay George Tuska (mercifully, his only Warren appearance) contributed some decent work to the Atlas horror titles I'm currently dissecting, but his art here clearly shows he was already past his prime and pumping out the dreary stuff he'd become "famous" for at Marvel in the early 1970s. Ron Parker's debut for Warren is, hopefully, the worst of the seven stories he wrote for the company; it's silly and predictable. We'll see a variation on the werewolf vest twist in a mid-70s issue of Creepy but you'll have to wait a while before we get to it. Just as dumb is the finale, "Fitting Punishment," about Max Troy, a grave robber who gets caught red-handed and, to make his escape, exchanges suits with the corpse he's just robbed. For some reason (don't ask me why and I'm not sure Archie would have been able to tell you), the suit shrinks on Max and cuts him "to ribbons," leaving only a huge bloodstain oozing over the well-cared for cemetery lawn." The WTF? climax really ruins whatever suspense was built up, but at least we have some very nice art from "Gentleman" Gene to waste our time with.

The inaugural "Creepy Fan Club" page offers up a detailed bio of artist Gray Morrow and our first look at fan art. Send that money in, boys and girls, and you too can contribute! -Peter

Jack-Despite a stunning cover by Gray Morrow, this is a poor issue of Creepy. "The Coffin of Dracula!" is oddly dull for a Reed Crandall story about the reincarnation of the vampire; ten pages is too long and there's more to come! The two reprints from Eerie #1 don't improve much in my eyes and the Evans entry seems unfinished. Of course, I'm happy to see a story by Johnny Craig but, as you note, the ending is a stinker. Then we have the last three stories, each of which rated one or one and a half stars in my notebook. Enough of Adam Link already! As if Orlando isn't bad enough, we then get saddled with George Tuska--it seems like the stable of top artists is getting less selective. The Colan story is wonderful to look at but I agree that the last page is incomprehensible.

Next Week...
Big Bob gets deep again,
but does it work?

In Two Weeks...
Oh, yeah, you
remember
this one!

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!