Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 194: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 179

March 1961

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #66

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"The Return of the Hulk!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #14)

"The Black Ray" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Fear #6)

"The Thing Behind the Wall!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★

(r: Fear #7)

As we saw at the conclusion of the pulse-pounding monster saga, "Yaddayaddayadda Living Hulk!," the Hulk had been shot into space in a satellite, cursed to live out his days in a soup can. But, oh sweet irony, a simple asteroid bumps into the capsule and sends it hurtling back to Earth. Before you can say, "Holy sequel!," the small town of Pineville witnesses "The Return of the Hulk!"

Using his evil hypno-beam powers, the Hulk puts every soul in town into a deep hypnotic trance and then forces the villagers to build a giant star-reflector, all the better to hypnotize the rest of the planet and rule a race of zombies. Luckily, our hero from the previous adventure has been keeping tabs on the giant furry critter and notices that the satellite has not revolved around the sun in three days. He starts looking for clues...

When the news hits that Pineville has erected a fence of barbed wire around its city limits to keep the world out, the amateur scientist knows something's up and heads to the affected area, where he spies the Hulk bathing in the rays of his star-reflector. Using his quick wits and a pocket mirror, our hero quashes the plans of the behemoth and reflects the monster's hypnotic powers back at him. As the Hulk dwindles into nothingness, the triumphant scientist realizes he can tell no one what has transpired here today. Not even us!

Low-budget sequel with nary an original panel to be found among its thirteen pages. I really have no idea what was going on in that mirror-laden climax. It seems like pretty poor planning on the scientist's part to pop the Hulk into a capsule and then leave it to revolve around the sun that close to Earth. Something was bound to happen. 

In the hilarious "The Black Ray!," evil genius scientist Hiram Dudd is sentenced to twenty years in prison for "crimes against society" but finds a silver lining once he gets to the big cage. His warden, the stupidest man on the planet, thinks it's a good idea to let Professor Hiram (the one who's been sentenced for "crimes against society") tinker around in the "prison lab" (why would a prison have a lab?). Bad idea. Dudd whips up a time machine and disappears into the past. Of course, since he's a bad guy, he gets his just desserts. Comic book gold arrives in the form of a few panels where the guards question whether it was prudent to arm a criminal with dangerous machinery. Live and learn, I always say. A few panels (see below) have a very Carmine Infantino-esque sheen to them. Otherwise, this one is a complete Dudd.

A miserable issue of Journey Into Mystery comes to a close with "The Thing Behind the Wall!" Emil Fitch owes six hundred bucks in gambling debts and decides he really must steal the dough from his workplace, the local bank. He hides one night at closing and slips into the vault just before it's sealed but then discovers, to his horror, that the vault doesn't open from the inside! Luckily for him, Morak, a monster from the "dark dimension," promises to save him if Emil will accompany it back to his place for some experiments. Emil refuses and is arrested by the cops when the vault is opened. Morak appears to Emil in his cell and explains that all he has to do is walk through the bars and into the dark dimension and freedom will be his. What should he do? I know what I'm going to do.-Peter

Strange Tales #82

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"The Thing Called... It!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #15)

"The World Beyond" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #17 & #37)

"Fangs of the Monster" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #37)

Brilliant but troubled European scientist Heinrich Munch believes the scientific community ignores his obvious brilliance and continually strokes the ego if his hated rival, Fedor Slovkov. If Emil is to be catapulted to the top of the Brilliance Chart, then Fedor Slovkov must die!

Slovkov decides the best way to eliminate his competition is to create a plastic giant that he can control; his first order will be to kill Fedor Slovkov! Professor Munch assembles all the right ingredients, pops them in the microwave, and lets the mixture settle. A massive creature arises from the slab, fully dressed in a nice three-piece suit (but missing his hat and tie, unfortunately). But Heinrich Munch has missed out on some important ingredient since, once the monster awakens, it wobbles a bit and falls lifeless to the floor! Frustrated, the mad scientist tosses the huge (extremely heavy) behemoth out the dining room window and into the swamp far below. Damn that Fedor Slovkov and his good luck!

Unbeknownst to our mad genius, the plastic man in the swamp stirs and rises, returning to the castle of morose Heinrich Munch. The startled egghead throws his finger in the air and screams, "Of course, the one missing ingredient to make the perfect killing machine is raw human waste! How foolish of me! Now Fedor Slovkov must die!" Alas, "The Thing Called... It!" doesn't see it that way. This creature wants peace among men, love is all you need, all that nonsense. The very sentiments that drive Fedor Slovkov to wake each day and invent an erasable chalkboard or automobile air conditioning. Heinrich Munch quickly realizes that this Thing Called... It! could be a detriment to his plans; loose lips sink ships and all that rot. So he heads down to the local town and stirs up the villagers, inciting them with a speech about baby-killing swamp monsters. In no time, the townsfolk grab their rifles and head up the hill to destroy the Thing Called... It!

But Heinrich Munch's plans go awry and he takes a header into the swamp. The Thing Called... It! delivers a stirring monologue to the torch-carrying mob about man delving into matters not of his making or something like that and then looks to the sky and wishes he had a human body. A bolt of lightning strikes it and the Thing Called... It! is transformed into Heinrich Munch. Munch-Thing swears to God that he'll live a decent, honorable life and heads to the local bakery to send a congratulations cake to Fedor Slovkov.

A gleefully satisfying 13 pages of idiocy. Stan and Jack (that is, if Stan actually did anything but cash a check on this one) have to be winking at each other and admitting that 90% of the work they're committing to paper is rubbish, so why not have a good time? A great changeup in that an evil scientist purposely sets out to create an evil monster to do his bidding rather than the typical "professor wants to decrease harvesting time so he mutates spiders into wasps" nonsense we usually get. Here's a "thing" that only wants to pick daisies and fly kites. I love that Heinrich Munch concludes most of his sentences with the words "Fedor Slovkov" to remind us how obsessed he is. And mention must be made of how the initial Easy Bake Oven version of the Thing sure looks like the early version of Ben Grimm. That Jack Kirby never forgot a "thing." Thanks to the tongue planted firmly in cheek, this strip is the most fun I've had in months. 

"The World Beyond" is Stan's latest "homage" to The Incredible Shrinking Man. A brilliant but terribly dressed scientist is shunned by his colleagues when he invents a pill that can shrink anything to the size of the atom. But how far does the subject shrink and where does he go? As the final panels explain, right to a cliche. 

Last up is the decent "Fangs of the Monster." Millionaire Darius Storme's pastime is to hunt down and kill the ugliest creatures known to man. When he gets wind of a butt-ugly sea monster just off the coast of Ecuador, he hires a ship to chase and kill the creature. But the joke's on Storme when the thing abducts him and has a little man-to-thing conversation with the sadistic adventurer and then lets him go, vowing that Storme will spend the rest of his days in a very private hell. Since no one but Storme saw the monster, he's ridiculed and shunned as a lunatic and spends the rest of his days traveling from port to port, trying to convince someone, somewhere that the beast really exists. Not a bad little cautionary tale, very reminiscent of the time I saw Steven Tyler at an airport and no one would believe me. Storme's driving passion to "see those brainless creatures writhing" is a bit far-fetched but I can obviously excuse quite a bit while reading these funny books.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #15

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"Goom! The Thing from Planet X!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Giant-Size Man-Thing #1)

"I Am the Living Ghost!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Giant-Size Dracula #4)

"Moomboo!" (a: Don Heck) ★

An Astronomer named Mark ignores the ridicule of his colleagues and spends his summer vacation with his wife, Helen, at an observatory, where he sends radio waves into outer space in an attempt to prove the existence of unknown planets. He discovers a gigantic planet but is not expecting "Goom! The Thing from Planet X!" to use the radio waves to travel to Earth. Goom lands near the observatory and reveals himself to be a big, bad monster who plans to conquer our world.

Forcing Mark to travel to the city to present a false message of peace on Goom's behalf, the monster gleefully welcomes scientists and statesmen from all nations. He demonstrates his awesome powers until Mark has the bright idea to contact the gigantic planet by means of more radio waves. Voila! More spaceships arrive and Goom's fellow citizens announce that they are a peaceful race and Goom is a sick renegade. The aliens grab Goom and zip home, allowing Mark to end with a speech about how man will one day visit the stars.

By this point, these stories are pretty formulaic. A giant monster arrives and threatens everyone before some simple trick is used to defeat it. About the only thing worth noting is the variety of monsters Kirby and Ayers come up with. Goom is a big orange guy with two tusks that stick up from his lower jaw. Goom's method of displaying his power is silly--first, he takes a man and puts him in a glass box and reverses time so he becomes a baby. Then he causes a city to levitate into space. These are just excuses to give Kirby something visually interesting to draw.

An intruder arrives at Blackhorn Castle intending to prove that the building is not haunted. To his surprise, ghostly events convince the man otherwise and he runs out the door. Little does he know that the creature that seemed to proclaim, "I Am the Living Ghost!" is not a ghost at all, but rather one of several living objects made of metal or stone, such as a walking suit of armor.

Ditko draws some cool panels but the story is a letdown. The castle is haunted, just not by a ghost.

A witch doctor keeps a primitive tribe in line by encouraging its belief in a worthless carving called "Moomboo!" When a much larger idol appears, the witch doctor tries to show that it has no power, but instead it passes each test he comes up with and the people begin to worship it instead. The witch doctor tries to destroy the new idol and it disappears, which causes the tribesmen to drive the witch doctor into exile. Little do any of them know that the big, new idol was really an alien from another dimension. It tried to contact the people of Earth but gave up, since we're savages.

The first two stories were bad, but this one is even worse. I had to read it a couple of times to make heads or tails of it. Yet another visitor from an advanced planet leaves Earth disappointed. I know how he feels. This issue makes me want to return to my home planet for a few millennia.-Jack

Tales to Astonish #17

Cover by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko & Dick Ayers

"Vandoom, the Man Who Made a Creature!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #4)

"Beware! Of the Ghastly Glass!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #4)

"I Dared to Enter the Haunted Room!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Tower of Shadows #9)

At a wax museum in Transylvania, the old standby monsters don't excite the public anymore, so the owner decides to create a new monster that will revive ticket sales. "Vandoom, the Man Who Made a Creature!" gets busy with his wax and fur and creates a huge figure that scares the heck out of the villagers. The night he completes the thing, it is struck by lightning and comes to life! The creature bursts out of the museum and heads for the countryside.

The villagers blame Vandoom and chase the monster. Suddenly, a spaceship lands and Martians emerge, announcing in their thoughts that they plan to take over Earth! Vandoom theorizes that his giant monster can stop the Martians and, when their gamma gun has no effect on it, they hightail it back to Mars. Despite the positive result of the Martians feeling "The Mark of Vandoom," or at least his living wax figure, the poor creature keels over from exhaustion. The villagers laud the sculptor, who happily builds a replacement.

I gave a rare three-star rating to this story for a few reasons. First, it features drawings of Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy on page two, even though they're just wax figures in Vandoom's museum. Second, the giant creature barely does any harm at all and is not a visitor from another planet. Finally, the climax finds the poor thing seeming like King Kong in that he never meant any harm and collapses. It all worked for me, in spite of Kirby's penchant for drawing men wearing various hats to differentiate them from each other and the obligatory panel showing the Earth from outer space near the end.

A greedy old man travels from antique shop to curio shop around the world, looking for a rare piece of crystal that resembles a drawing he shows to each shopkeeper. He finally finds the wishing glass at a shop in the Orient and ignores the shopkeeper's warning to "Beware! Of the Ghastly Glass!" The old man makes four wishes: to be twenty years old, to live a long and healthy life, to be free from arrest, and to be the richest man in the world. In the blink of an eye, all his wishes are granted, but he finds himself on another planet because he failed to specify which world!

The Ditko five-pagers in the back of these comics are getting less and less interesting from a story standpoint while the art continues to dazzle. Part of the problem is the need for a full-page splash, which means only four pages remain to tell the tale.

Smith builds an atomic bomb and plans to threaten to blow up the whole world unless he's made ruler. He visits a small town and rents a house, unconcerned by the real estate agent's warning of a haunted room that he must never enter. Smith decides that the room is the perfect place to hide his bomb and can say that "I Dared to Enter the Haunted Room!" There's just one problem: entering the room makes him a ghost and now no one can see or hear his plan to take over the world.

This story is a shade better than the one before it. Heck is best when he's not drawing monsters or aliens, so the depictions of Smith are right up his alley. The denouement is silly.-Jack

On Thursday...
An Old Favorite
Carves Up the 100

And Next Week...
The Coming of...
Monsteroso!

The 100 Chapter 11: 78 & 77

 

Who doesn't love a list?

I devour the BFI Best Films of All Time list whenever they deem it necessary to revise and (invariably) disagree with most of the findings, but I still get a kick out of browsing. Same with Rolling Stone's inane Best 100 Albums (how does Sgt. Pepper drop from #1 to #24 in the latest incarnation?); the anger I feel subsides when I see they've put a couple of Aerosmith albums on the list! We all disagree with that number one but we keep right on scrolling through each choice.

This project, which has been percolating for quite a while, originated from the constant back and forth "good-natured bickering" between John Scoleri and myself. John invariably loves everything and I hate it all (for more of the discourse, I advise one and all to pick up a copy of bare•bones print magazine and read our debates about streaming and movie theaters to get a taste). I began to think it would be fun to compose a Favorite (as opposed to Best) 100 and compare our selections. Making it even more tantalizing, I managed to talk the third head of Ghidorah, Jack Seabrook, into participating. This could be interesting, since John's never seen a movie the two Georges (Romero and Lucas) didn't have a hand in, and Jack usually favors the flicks that have words at the bottom of the screen (dis-moi que j'ai tort, Jack!). I, on the other hand, can't wait to educate these two gentlemen as to what constitutes good cinema.

Every Thursday, we'll count down our picks two at a time. We're hoping this will generate discourse outside of our trio. Let us know just how crazy we are. This is going to be fun!—Peter

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) 

Starring the voices of Chris Sarandon, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara

Directed by Henry Selick

"This is Halloween! This is Halloween/Pumpkins Scream in the Dead of Night!"

As far as I can tell, TB's The Nightmare Before Christmas is the only "kid" movie on my list (though Finding Nemo almost made the cut) but it's not really your average kid flick is it? It's the Disney movie we always wanted when we were pre-teens (but got Herbie the Love Bug instead), hanging our mint copies of Famous Monsters on the wall and reading Where Creatures Roam with the flashlight under the covers when we were supposed to be sleeping. 

Everything about the film is perfect—the design, the stop motion, the songs, the voices, the atmosphere, everything. Pretty ballsy of Disney to pony up for a scary children's movie (one that features a mad scientist who longs for his living Raggedy Ann doll and opens his skull to scratch his brain now and then) that had no known characters. I'll still listen to "This is Halloween" and "What's This?" now and then. They're incredibly catchy tunes even outside the film. First time I saw this was with my then seven-year-old daughter at the Saratoga Six and a few months after that the DVD went into heavy rotation at the Enfantino house. Watching it again 30+ years later, it still brings a very wide grin to this old man's face.—Peter

Remarks from the Gallery:

Jack: This was a fun flick, but it's the songs that really stick in my head. There, now you've done it! "This is Halloween, this is Halloween" will play on repeat in my brain for a while.

John: While it's not in my top 100, I agree with your overall assessment on this one. That said, I've found that while I can put on the opening and watch it over and over again, once it gets past "What's This?," it's easy for me to switch it off. It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's just the opening is usually enough to give me my nostalgic fix. Looking ahead, I've got at least one film coming up that I think you would identify as a "kid" movie, but to me, if I can enjoy it as much as an adult as I can as a kid, I won't ghettoize it in that way. 

Modern Times (1936) 

Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard

Directed by Charlie Chaplin

In the middle of the Great Depression, a factory worker is fired and ends up in jail after he is mistaken for a Communist. On being released, he meets and falls for a pretty young girl without a home. Together they work hard to make their dreams come true.

Modern Times was Chaplin's last appearance as The Little Tramp, and it's a hilarious commentary on life in mid-1930s America. His skill as a physical comedian is amazing and the fact that he wrote and directed the movie, starred in it, and composed the score demonstrates why he was one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

I could have chosen The Gold Rush or City Lights, both of which are outstanding, but I picked Modern Times in part because it represents a last hurrah for silent cinema. There is no dialogue, but Chaplin uses sound effects and music to help tell the story, and his song in gibberish near the end is the first and only time The Little Tramp would vocalize on screen. Paulette Goddard is great as the young woman and is easily the prettiest homeless teenager ever on film.—Jack

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: Another one I've never seen. Of course, I've heard about it, but Chaplin has never graced a screen in front of mine eyes.

John: I've bought Vonna most of the Chaplin films, as she was interested in seeing them, but I've yet to see one that has grabbed me. I'll have to give this one a try. As I mentioned last week, Buster Keaton is more my style when it comes to silent comedies.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 

Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, HAL-9000

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

"This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it."

My first exposure to 2001 was on television, and other than that it had some cool apes in the opening, it didn't hold my interest. Once I had transitioned to building a library of LaserDiscs, where I could finally see classic films in their original aspect ratios, I decided to give 2001 another shot. I was quite impressed by the audio/visual spectacle of it all. I think my wife came home one day and found me slack jawed during the stargate sequence; no artificial stimulants required. Still, I didn't come to fully appreciate the film until I read Arthur C. Clarke's novel. While you can definitely appreciate Kubrick's film without reading the book, I don't think you can fully understand it without having read it. For me, it made watching the film a far more fulfilling experience. 

I've since seen the film on the big screen several times, and I do love the immersion in Kubrick's grand visuals, surrounded by the fitting classical soundtrack. It quickly became my favorite of his films, although as fate would have it, that would be short-lived.—John

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: Zzzzzzzzzz. Saw this when it first came out (yep, as a seven-year-old lad at the Tropicana Drive-In in San Jose) and fell asleep. Fifty years later, I thought I should give it another try since it was such a critical darling. Zzzzzzzzzz. This is one of those "classics" (like Citizen Kane) that I'm obviously just too thick to get. I'm okay with that. Just don't try to get me to watch this thing again.

Jack: I went through a Kubrick phase at one point and I think I saw every one of his films. I remember seeing this on a giant screen in a movie theater that later got chopped up into three theaters. What I recall most is that they accidentally closed the curtains as the final scene was playing and the star child was projected on red velvet!

The Black Cat (1934) 

Starring: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

"It has been a good game"

I love the Universal Monster Movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Seen them all multiple times (some more than others, of course) but there is a safeness and formula to the vast majority. "Safe" is not a word you could apply to Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat, a bizarre and sexually twisted nightmare coming in at a very compact sixty-six minutes. By 1934, Karloff and Lugosi were the "titans of terror" but this was the very first time they had teamed up in the same flick. I was always a Karloff kid, preferred Frankenstein to Dracula, and never gave Bela much more than a second glance (perhaps because of his hamminess, perhaps the accent). but I've got to admit that Lugosi shines here in the "hero" role (the stars would semi-sorta switch roles the following year for The Raven), perhaps giving the performance of his career. Karloff, of course, delivers eeriness with just a turn of his head or a cocking of his brows. No "monster star" was ever better than Boris.

The Black Cat is like a sleazy stepbrother to the other Universal horror films of that era. Karloff lives in a sterile mansion, keeps his dead wife's body preserved in a glass case in the downstairs dungeon (looking like a perfectly realized shudder pulp cover), and sleeps with his stepdaughter. No, seriously, I couldn't make this up. The big finale involves Satan worship and an honest to goodness flaying. All that's missing is a hunchback. You would be excused for believing The Black Cat was one of Val Lewton's creations as it's more in line with The Seventh Victim than House of Frankenstein. I can only imagine how this went down 92 years ago.

This might actually be the last of the Unis I caught up with. For some reason (a few I've already put out there), this never made the cut for the Saturday night Creature Feature shows, so I missed out as a kid. I finally saw this when Universal dumped a load of their classics on VHS in the 1990s. I've never seen the 1941 version starring Lugosi and Basil Rathbone but I can vouch for the quality of the 1966 Harold Hoffman-directed low-budget shocker. If this were a 100 Favorite Horror Films list, that '66 film would definitely merit a spot.—Peter

Remarks from the Gallery:

Jack: Boris is one of my all-time favorite actors, so of course I saw this and loved it. Having Bela as an extra added attraction didn't hurt. I should watch it again soon.

John: It's been a while since I've seen this one, and while I recall enjoying it, for it to make my top 100, there would be quite a few more Uni titles filling up my list. In any case, your selection encourages me to give this one a re-watch.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) 

Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy

Directed by John Hughes

"Those aren't pillows!"

It's almost Thanksgiving, and ad exec Neal Page is at a meeting in Manhattan, watching the clock, since he promised his wife and kids he'd be home to Chicago for Thanksgiving. He makes it to the airport and his plane takes off, but a snowstorm in Chicago means his flight is diverted to Wichita, Kansas. Neal can't seem to get away from Del Griffith, a loquacious, heavy-set shower curtain ring salesman who sits next to him on the plane, and the two men end up sharing a room (and a bed) at a cheap motel for the night as they wait for the planes to start flying again. Can this odd couple manage to keep it together long enough to get Neal home for the holiday?

A funny thing about making a list of 100 favorite movies is that some of the ones you recall fondly turn out to be duds when you watch them again. Such was the case with Duck Soup, a Marx Brothers classic that I remembered as very funny. Well, at age 63, I didn't find it funny at all. In fact, the 68-minute running time seemed like hours. I wrestled with keeping it on the list and trying to explain why I once liked it, or with just replacing it. I saw something somewhere that reminded me of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and thought it would fit the slot perfectly.

This is such a fun movie! I think I saw it first-run and I know I've watched it every so often in the years since. The opening scenes in Manhattan look exactly right and remind me of the two years I worked in midtown from '85 to '87. Steve Martin is great as an unlikeable man who softens and grows over the course of the story, but John Candy really carries the film as the cheerful salesman who seems to know everybody. The surprise ending, which I won't spoil, manages to put everything that came before it in a new light, which is what a good twist does. Ignore the awful '80s music and just enjoy the laughs.—Jack

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: I mentioned in a past post that I have a particular dislike for most movies made in the 1980s and that goes double for comedies (obviously I do like Bachelor Party, which is very much of its time but excels at satirizing the era). Well, except for some of John Hughes's films, which have an uncanny knack for being just as funny these days as they were 40+ years ago. That includes Sixteen Candles (which very nearly made my list), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (ditto), and this one. It's nearly impossible to dislike a John Candy film and his pairing with Steve Martin is brilliant. 

John: I've only seen this one once, and it didn't knock my socks off. Despite its growing popularity through the years, I've never been motivated to revisit it. While I do enjoy several of Steve Martin's films (The Jerk was under consideration but ultimately didn't make my list), I've never been much of a John Candy fan. So I'll take personal credit for Peter saying it's nearly impossible to dislike a John Candy film in his comment above. That said, Candy was in two of my runners-up (Heavy Metal and The Blues Brothers), and [SPOILER ALERT] he does show up in a forthcoming selection in my top 100.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 

Starring: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

"Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends?"

From the opening notes of Chris Isaak's "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" in the trailer, I couldn't wait to see this film. And it didn't disappoint. It was as if Stanley Kubrick decided to wander into David Lynch territory, delivering what I consider a dark and disturbing horror film that's more interesting and effective than The Shining. 

As with 2001, the film is visually stunning, with a soundtrack that perfectly supports the strange events occurring throughout. Perhaps the notion of married couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman starring in the film as a married couple having their fidelity tested probably brought with it too much baggage, but I think they're both great in it—Kidman perhaps giving her finest performance. And Sydney Pollack reminds us what a great actor he was, in addition to being a fine filmmaker. 

The film was quite ridiculously digitally censored after Kubrick's death to attempt to try and protect filmgoers eyes from scenes prudish studio executives shied away from (and despite attempts to suggest that Kubrick supported the changes, the same changes were not made on international releases of the film). Thankfully, the film is now readily available in the original, uncensored international cut. 

Even having seen it multiple times, there are certain sequences of heightened tension that always manage to keep me on the edge of my seat. It continues to edge out 2001 as my favorite Kubrick film.—John

Remarks from the Gallery:

Peter: What I took away, after spending 159 minutes trying to stay awake, from Stanley Kubrick's revered masterpiece is two things: there's a hell of a lot of traffic in New York at all times of the day and night and Tom Cruise sure looks good in a winter coat. And thank God for that since approximately 140 minutes of the running time is given over to Tom walking the city streets. Tom also smiles a lot and talks in that annoying monotone. I'm going to use the line, "I'm a doctor..." next time I'm at the Dirtwater Bar and Grill and see if it opens as many doors. Doubt it. I'll give you there are a few interesting bits here and there (the ceremony being number one, of course) but so much of Eyes Wide Shut is ponderous and meandering. And you can't tell me that clumsy climactic toy store scene wasn't tacked on at the last second. For the record, my favorite Kubrick would be, naturally, The Killing.

Jack: My wife and I saw this in a theater when it was released and I recall thinking it was very good. Of course, I didn't know we were including naughty pictures on our top 100 lists! Shame on you, Mr. Scoleri.

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 193: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 178

February 1961

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #65

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Am the Brute That Walks!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #1)

"Fear in the Night!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #1)

"Kragoo!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #1)

Ninety-pound weakling Howard Avery can't take his girlfriend Sally anywhere without having sand kicked in his face by brutes and nincompoops. Sally says she doesn't mind that Howard is a frail little string bean, but there's a bit of an edge in her voice that convinces him otherwise. How can Howard Avery solve his problem?

Luckily, Howard is not only a snappy dresser but also a brilliant scientist (who'd a thunk?), so he heads back to the lab, situated somewhere between his kitchen and his Murphy bed in his teeny-tiny apartment, and immediately cooks up a potion to help him grow muscles, pronto. Unfortunately, the formula works better than he thought and very soon he's looking down at his apartment building as a furry orange beast. "I Am the Brute That Walks!" exclaims the unrecognizable Howard. 

Sadly, the same disease that has gripped so many brilliant but troubled scientists in the Atlas Universe takes hold of Howard's insides and he takes a lengthy journey of destruction through the city, leading him to Sally's apartment. He'll show her who's a spineless worm! Howard has a problem keeping his words to thought balloons and the police overhear the Brute telegraphing his mission to kidnap poor Sally. They get there first and accompany the frightened woman to the precinct, where she's kept in a cell for her protection.

The Brute sees Sally's Edsel parked at the station house and destroys the building, but Sally escapes. He chases her into a nearby amusement park where, naturally, Sally boards a roller coaster (1961 statistics showed that amusement park rides were the best places to hide from giant monsters). Again, the huge but clumsy Brute misses his chance and Sally escapes into the "Tunnel of Horrors." As he is reaching for Sally in the dark, the potion wears off and The Brute becomes wimpy Howard again. Sally mistakenly believes her beau has destroyed the monster and swears she'll never introduce him to friends as her brother again. Howard, realizing that there are some places where man was never meant to roam, burns his notes and settles into life as a scrawny but satisfied and brilliant scientist.

I've alluded to it before but it bears repeating that all the brilliant minds in the Atlas Uni practice biochemistry at home rather than at more conventional locales. We finally get a giant Atlas monster that doesn't wear briefs and perhaps the most startling aspect of Howard's change-O formula is that it allows him to regain his human form with clothes intact. How does that work? I love how Sally jumps on that roller coaster to evade capture. It would be my first instinct to hide under the ride, but I've never had to run from a giant orange gorilla before so what do I know?

Steve Ditko's minimalist art is the best thing about "Fear in the Night!," wherein two space travelers find themselves shipwrecked on a remote planet and must escape a giant monster while rationing their life-giving "oxygen-concentrate" pills. One of the men is a robot and you won't guess which one it is unless you've read some of Stan's previous scripts. In our last (and certainly least) entertainment for the issue, "Kragoo!" is a warrior from another planet sent to Earth to conquer, rape, and pillage by assimilating himself into another being. Once he's settled in, the alien will be able to use his hypo-powers to enslave the human race. He's warned by his superior that he can only transform one time, so make it a good vessel. The dope picks what he thinks is a strong, healthy male but discovers too late that his new home is a stone statue. Don Heck was an adequate, at times superior, artist, but it should have registered with Stan fairly early that Heck could not design a monster to save his life.-Peter

Strange Tales #81

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"The Scarecrow Walks!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

"A Giant There Was!" (a: Don Heck) ★

"I Went Too Far Back!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Thing in the Cell!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #5)

Evil businessman Jarvis Cragstone owns the mortgage on the farm belonging to the Smiths and when the government needs land for nuclear testing, Cragstone jumps at the chance to make a quick buck. He tosses the kind-hearted Smiths off their farm and, as they leave their home, they say a prayer for their scarecrow, who has helped them for so long to ... scare off crows, of course. The Smiths head for an unknown future as the suits move in and transform the farm into a test site.

The Delta-Ray bomb goes off and incinerates everything within miles, everything except the straw man, who somehow keeps it all together and exits the other side a rejuvenated, some would say better scarecrow than ever before. The blast has not only given the sack of weeds a brain but also expands his height twenty-fold. The straw man heads out on the range to find his destiny. After ignoring several ranches and necking teenagers, the scarecrow finds what he's looking for: the office of Jarvis Cragstone! With a little persuading, Cragstone agrees to give all the proceeds of the farm sale to the Smiths. Sack of dough in hand, the scarecrow finds the Smiths camping in the wilderness and leaves them the bag of green. He then reverts back to his normal size and intelligence, leaving the Smiths to ponder the wonders of the world.

There's nothing original in Stan/Larry's script for "The Scarecrow Walks!," including the old standby of immediate change due to radiation, but it earns an extra star for originality in its monstrous protagonist. It's also rare for one of these monsters to have nothing but good intentions. Not once does our straw super-being stop at a jewelry store or candy shop to do a bit of looting. The panel of the scarecrow walking through the desert with a huge sack of cash in its gigantic hand (the bag would be larger than Jarvis, mind you) is a Kodak moment.

"A Giant There Was!" is a silly melodrama about a thief who breaks into a curio shop and discovers magic beans. Tossing them out the window, he watches in amazement as a beanstalk grows high into the clouds. Remembering the children's story, he climbs the beanstalk and indeed finds a giant's castle at the top of the stalk. Thoughts of priceless gems and rubies fade as he discovers it's all an elaborate trap for thieves. Too elaborate for my tastes; it would be so much simpler for the giant to squish his prisoners than to feed them. And let's talk about the raw sewage disposal problems for a castle in the clouds. That's the truly horrifying aspect of this loser.

It's 1971 and, yep, time travel is possible. A jealous lab assistant decides he's going to go far into the past and with his revolver he'll become the most powerful man in the world. But this dope didn't factor in that if you go too far into the past you land in the future, an era where guns are no good against human beings. At some point, the law of averages decrees that Stan will pump out a decent time machine saga, but "I Went Too Far Back!" ain't it.

A truly wretched issue of Strange Tales comes to a much-awaited close with the supremely dopey "The Thing in the Cell!" Hans Vogel, gendarme in the European village of Bork, fines every traveler who drives through the town ten dollars (yes, I agree, an odd fine for a European village, but let's not dwell on that), not for personal financial gain but for an ego-related matter. Once Hans has saved up six million American dollars, he has a huge, state of the art prison built in the middle of town. Why would Hans need a prison in a crime-free zone? Because it's always been his dream. 

Well, Hans's dream becomes a nightmare when he arrests a vagrant walking through Bork on the wrong side of the road. The stranger insists that Hans should let him go because "they are coming to get him," but the Inspector ignores the man's pleas and throws his prisoner in a cell for ten days. Sure enough, "they" in the form of chubby, hairy aliens arrive to take their friend back to Planet X in the Vortex 7 Solar System, but they can't get the darn cell door open. With no other option available, they steal the entire prison. Hans is discredited by the village of Bork and sent packing, regretting his past behavior and pondering the sheer bigness of the galaxy. So the aliens couldn't find a way to pick a lock but they've got the tech to pull up the whole building and, what, stash it inside their spaceship? I'll accept a lot (walking scarecrows, giant snails, etc.) but this is a bridge too far.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #14

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Created the Colossus!" (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #17)

"I Am... Gorak!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #16)

In a certain, unnamed country behind the Iron Curtain, a sculptor is ordered to build a huge statute as a symbol of the government's power. After months of toil, he can exclaim, "I Created the Colossus!" A flying saucer crash-lands outside the sculptor's workshop and the crablike alien that emerges from it uses mental telepathy to tell the sculptor that it has to protect itself until it can be rescued. The alien enters the statue, which starts to move, much to the shock of the government officials who arrive on the scene.

"The Colossus Lives!" and nothing--not an electric fence, not artillery fire--can stop it. The sculptor cannily invents a tale and tells the representatives of the tyrannical government that the giant statue's purpose is to stop the dictatorship. It heads for the bay, where gunfire from submarines has no effect. This being 1961, the next step is an H-bomb.

But the tyrant's fighting forces can't defeat "The Power of the Colossus!" Jets are scrambled and the big granite guy takes flight himself, crushing planes in his hand and forcing the bomb to explode in outer space. A flying saucer finally arrives and the alien exits the statue to return home. The Colossus may be still now, but the sculptor warns the government agents that they had better change their ways or it will return and cause more destruction. Guess what? They make peace with the West!

This three-part story runs eighteen pages and, at the end, the editor asks readers if they'd like to see more full-length stories. My answer is yes! The Colossus tale is not bad. Kirby does his usual thing of drawing as many big pages as he can, but the extra length allows for more story development. Reading these late '50s/early '60s Atlas comics is certainly an education in seeing how all of the pieces of the classic Marvel super hero comics started to come together. The Colossus resembles the Thing in some ways.

A master of illusion announces that "I Am... Gorak!" and does a lot of talking as he wows his audience. He is deemed to be the world's greatest magician, but he has a secret. When jealous folk begin to attack his reputation, Gorak proves his mettle with amazing feats and eventually reveals that everyone else is but a figment of his imagination. But wait! Gorak doesn't realize that he's just a character in a comic book story, and he must vanish when the story ends!

The self-reflexive conclusion does nothing to improve what is essentially five pages of a character talking to himself. Ditko is wasted here.-Jack

Tales to Astonish #16

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"Here Comes... Thorr the Unbelievable" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #3)

"My Touch Means... Doom!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Tower of Shadows #8)

"Save Me from the Mole Men!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #3)

"I Am the Victim of the Sorcerer!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #3)

A henpecked archaeologist named Linus and his shrewish wife, Helen, fly to a newly discovered island in the South Pacific that features unusual statutes that look like giant heads made of stone. While digging around one of them, Linus accidentally triggers it to come to life and, sure enough, "Here Comes... Thorr the Unbelievable," who announces that he is (yet another) scout for an alien race that is just waiting till the right moment to conquer the Earth.

Linus tricks Thorr into summoning its fellow aliens in a big yellow spaceship and, after they land, the archaeologist uses dynamite to blow up the island and save the world. Guess what: giant stone statues can't swim, and they sink to the bottom of the ocean. At long last, Helen realizes that her husband is a brave man!

The most interesting thing about this story is surely the name of the alien, who refers to himself as "the mighty Thorr."

Desperate to get the money he needs to pay for an operation to cure his ailing wife, bank teller Bill Howard steals money from his cash drawer and drives into the New Mexico desert, police chasing him. He unknowingly wanders onto an atomic testing site and soon discovers that "My Touch Means... Doom!" When police approach Bill, he jumps off a cliff rather than harm them. Suddenly, he wakes up and is back at the bank. It turns out he was hypnotized by the psychiatrist hypnotist bank guard who was testing Bill. That evening, the teller learns that the surgeon will operate on his wife free of charge!

This issue is quickly becoming a test lab for the near future at Marvel--in this story, a man wanders onto an atomic testing site and gains superhuman powers. The idea of making him a hero/monster with unusual adversaries remains unrealized, as does the idea of a continuing series, but we're getting close.

A cruel middleweight boxer known as the Crusher enjoys beating the stuffing out of his opponents in the ring but wishes he were a heavyweight so he could punch even harder. He hears about new pills guaranteed to make a person gain weight, so he steals a bunch and downs them, only to discover that he's gaining weight so fast that no floor can support him! He crashes through layers of Earth and rock until he must cry, "Save Me From the Mole Men!" when furry denizens of the underworld begin to use him as their punching bag.

It's a dumb story with unattractive art, but once again a piece of the Marvel puzzle is seen! These mole men look nothing like the ones the Fantastic Four would soon face, and we've actually seen mole men at Atlas before, but it's still interesting to watch the early stages of development.

A ragged man walks the foggy streets of a city, unable to remember his identity yet aware that some inexorable, evil force keeps drawing him toward it. Unable to get anyone to help him, the man finally allows himself to be drawn toward his fate. He passes through a door and walks down a hall toward a light source, finally disappearing into vapor and unable to escape his fate. Later, two men in an art gallery are disturbed by a painting called "The Sorcerer's Betrayer," which depicts the ragged man cowering before a magician.

"I Am the Victim of the Sorcerer" isn't much different than "I Am... Gorak!" in this month's Tales of Suspense--both feature a main character who talks a lot and ends up a character in a work of art. Ditko does a decent job but the story is just filler.-Jack

On Thursday...
The Boys Discuss the Genius
(and the Drawbacks) of Kubrick

Next Week...
The Debut of
the Original Hulk!!!