Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 169: Atlas/Marvel Fantasy & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 154

August 1957 Part III

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Strange Stories of Suspense #16

Cover by Fred Kida

"The Eighth Wonder of the World" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★

"Only One Returned!" (a: John Forte) ★★

"The Swami's Secret!" (a: Bob Bean) ★1/2

(r: Crypt of Shadows #15)

"The Second-Hand Man!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"The Morning Sun" (a: Matt Fox) ★★1/2

"Bewitched!" (a: Bob Powell) ★★

Four con men buy up a worthless piece of property in the country in hopes that they can create a gold mine with "The Eighth Wonder of the World," a giant robot one of these morons has created in his "lab." They bury the thing, make a very public dig, and announce to the world that they've discovered the "Denbow Dell Giant!" That night, after the big announcement, the camp is attacked by the real Denbow Dell GIant. Luckily, the bozos rigged up explosive charges around the camp and the behemoth stumbles into one. Bloooey! These swindlers look at each other and vow to walk the straight and narrow from here on out. They've learned a lesson. I love how no one in the media comments on the sharp red shorts the giant is wearing when they dig him up. Again, we have an obviously brilliant individual who turns to crime instead of patenting this giant robot and making millions legitimately.

Milt and Bob were lowered into the deep fissure, but "Only One Returned!" That's because Milt covets Bob's girl, Gladys, and cuts the rope once they get to the bottom, leaving Bob to wander aimlessly until he falls into an underground stream. Milt is pulled back up to the surface, where he has a sob story to tell and insists that he be the one to break the news to Gladys. Unfortunately, that won't happen since Milt has been exposed to high levels of uranium and must be quarantined for several years. But, a week later, the doctor has good news for his patient: Bob was carried up to the surface by the underground stream and is safe. In fact, he'll be married that very day! More lessons learned: find your own babe and never trust an underground stream, no matter how deep it is. Bob has one hell of a set of lungs, I wager.

"The Swami's Secret!" is not that he can converse with the spirit world but that he can read men's minds. That power has gained him some good coin over the years, but he's impatient and wants more. He wants to do something monumental (stop a war, prevent an assassination, lower the cost of eggs, etc.) so that "the world" will give him anything he wants. One day, on the train, he reads the mind of a man sitting in front of him and learns that the stranger is an alien sent to scope out an invasion. The swami heads to the nearest police precinct, convinced this will be his golden Wonka ticket. Nope. A pretty dopey script that ignores the obvious: mind-reading seems to be a swell gift, but this guy chooses to live in relative poverty for years, masquerading as a fortune teller. When he's arrested for fraud at the conclusion of the story, I was disappointed that the particular ordinance he violated was not cited. 

Peter Malley buys a second-hand 1958 Plymouth Fury off a lot and immediately feels a change in his attitude from mild, meek mouse to rip-roaring rapscallion, taking corners on two wheels and shouting profanities at the hookers on 42nd St. Then Peter opens the glove compartment and sees the gun. Things are gonna get a little interesting around town... but not in "The Second-Hand Man!," which oddly shows Peter having a wingding of a day (and landing in the hospital) for three pages and then provides a clunky, full page explanation for his behavior. 

The three-page "The Morning Sun" is "hard" science fiction about a green mist enveloping the world and shutting off the oxygen. Three scientists put their big brains together to try to work out a solution. I nodded off shortly after When Professor Alfred Whitby and his colleagues came from the sea and beheld the calamity... and awoke in time for the cliched, twist climax (the green-misted world is actually a tiny speck under a microscope) that we all saw coming. Truthfully, the captions and word balloons could have been filled with emojis and I wouldn't have cared, since the three pages were artfully crafted by Matt Fox, a truly distinct visionary who always made the most abysmal scripts tolerable.

Last up is "Bewitched!," the story of  Jim Hollis, the only man in town who isn't frozen like a statue. Jim does a bit of amateur sleuthing and discovers the trouble originated from a cursed tome titled The Book of Genda. Once the volume is destroyed, peace returns to the sleepy country village. Though the script is unremarkable, the Powell art is pleasing. So ends the 12-issue run of Strange Stories of Suspense (the first four issues were titled Rugged Action and featured mostly war and intrigue tales), comprised of 69 fairly mediocre tales of fantasy and science fiction that never stepped outside the safety box (though we did hand out the elusive three-star review to three of the tales over the run). What must have the dedicated Atlas fantasy fan have made of their disappearing choices? There was no Comic Reader, no internet, certainly no house ads trumpeting the ongoing devastation; you simply showed up at the newsstand and hoped for the best.-Peter

Strange Tales of the Unusual #11

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Perfect Hide-Out" (a: Frank Bolle) ★

(r: Vault of Evil #18)

"The Rag Doll!" (a: George Roussos (?) & Joe Giella (?)) ★1/2

(r: Journey Into Mystery #16)

"Twenty Long Years" (a: Al Eadah) ★

"Untouched by Human Hands!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★★

"Isolation" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★

"The Five Sinister Statues" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★

Pierre, the murderous masked bandit who has been terrorizing the residents of Paris's Montmartre, stumbles upon "The Perfect Hide-Out" when he bursts into the flat of an elderly, wheelchair-ridden woman who can neither hear nor speak. Devilish egocentric that he is, Pierre begins "confessing" his crimes to the meek Ms. Gault. Not a smart move. I had to read the last two pages over again, since the climax is more than a bit confusing. Take my word for it and don't make the same mistake.

Fred Miller and his family must move to a poorer part of town because he's filed for bankruptcy. Why? Because Fred's father (for whom Fred toiled away for years in the factory) made a bundle of cash and then hid it away. Well, good riddance to bad memories. Little Clarabelle Miller only wants to bring along "The Rag Doll!" her grammy gave her, but her pop won't have it, so he tosses it to the side and the family hops in their station wagon and heads to the new house. Fred opens the door and almost stumbles over the rag doll on the floor. After berating his wife and daughter, he tosses the mangy toy in the trash and demands his dinner.

Later that day, sure enough, the rag doll reappears in the house. Hell bent on destroying this evil souvenir of a rotten childhood, Fred picks up the doll by its neck, and suddenly its midriff explodes, ejecting thousands of dollars in cash. Fred scoops up all the cash, hands the disemboweled doll to Clarabelle, and heads to the nearest tavern, his troubles behind him. Never saw that twist coming, did we? Of course, in the pre-code days, it would have been Fred who had the stuffing knocked out of him in the end.

Reliable Dave Frome has never been late for work a day in his life, but what's he got to show for it? Nada! So Dave begins a daily routine of practicing an out of body experience, perfecting it at last after "Twenty Long Years." The first thing Dave does after looking over his body sleeping peacefully is to rob the company safe but, alas, old habits die hard and the cops come calling after they find that Dave's spirit clocked out after his robbery. Dave perfected the art of projection so well that his spirit was able to turn the dial on the office safe! Ya gotta give the guy credit for working on a plan for two decades that hinges on performing a heretofore impossible act.

In the jungles of South America, 'dozer operator Morgan Tweed learns of the myth of the Mountain of Gold, "Untouched By Human Hands!" and containing a king's ransom of the shiny stuff. Morgan befriends the natives in order to sniff out intel, finally getting them to open up in trade for some bottles of Coke! Our intrepid 'dozer dude breaks into the temple but quickly discovers that the mountain God protects its innards. The dirty American scoundrel who takes advantage of the savages is one of the most overused villains in funny books and Morgan Tweed offers up nothing to set him apart from the pack, but I dug the Robert Sale art--peculiar, I know, since I usually don't have many kind words to say about the artist, but here his work comes off like a rougher version of Matt Fox.

In the three-page "Isolation," a prisoner jumps overboard and swims to a deserted island, where he finds everything he ever wanted. Or so he thinks. Last up is the meandering "The Five Sinister Statues," a morality tale about a man who is willed the titular ornaments by his wealthy uncle. Turns out the statues are alive and grant the man's every wish, turning thought into cold, hard cash, lovely furniture, and lower electricity bills. But, as we all know, there is a price to pay, and our lucky/unlucky protagonist pays that price when the authorities come around looking for receipts for all his new toys. Not a bad little story, though a bit preachy. Time to bid farewell to Strange Tales of the Unusual, a title so forgettable that only one of its 64 stories deserved a three-star rating (Bernie Krigstein's "Mind Reader!" in #9) and certainly none of its third-grade readers noticed it had slipped away into the land of canceled comics.-Peter

World of Fantasy #8

Cover by Fred Kida

"She Lives Again!" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★1/2

"Whose Face Have I?" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"Cell #35-A" (a: Al Eadah) ★★

"The Mark of X!" (a: Matt Fox) ★

"The Secret of the Black Cloud!" (a: Dave Berg) ★1/2

"The Girl You Must Not See!" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

A shy, homely archaeologist named Henry Fabian reads an ancient Egyptian papyrus that tells of a beautiful seeress (a female seer?) who was sentenced to death by the pharaoh. Before she was killed, she drank a potion that put her into suspended animation. Guards thought her dead, wrapped her in linens, and placed her in a mummy case, but before she drank the potion she wrote that the man who finds and unwraps her will discover that "She Lives Again!"

Unlikely to find such a beautiful mate elsewhere, Fabian quits his job and sails for Egypt, where he searches until he finds the mummy case of the seeress. He unwraps her and she's more gorgeous than he imagined! She reaches out to wrap her arms around him but suddenly crumbles to dust. Good thing, too, because she had clutched a dagger that would have ended up in Henry's back! I'm always happy to see a story involving mummies and Ancient Egypt, and Joe Orlando's art is detailed and impressive. The script must not be by Wessler since it's not overly complicated and wordy.

Mort Grayson looks in the mirror one morning and wonders, "Whose Face Have I?" He looks nothing like he did the night before. Now he is a dead ringer for his old army buddy, Gene Baldwin, who saved Mort in the war. Mort heads to the home of Gene's elderly mother and finds her near death. She thinks her son has returned and dies happily. Mort picks up a telegram and reads of Gene's death in a plane crash; he sees Gene's image, hovering in the air and smiling. Looking in the mirror again, Mort sees that his own face is back! It's a corny, sentimental tale with nary a surprise in it, and the art by Paul Reinman is subpar. But I'm glad the old lady died happy.

While serving a life sentence in prison "Cell #35-A," Leo Judd is surprised when a futuristic looking man appears beside him. The man is from a dimension called Turah and has come to bring an Earthman back with him as a test. Off they go and Leo, true to form, tries to commit a robbery. As punishment, he's sent back to cell #35-A. Why is it that no Atlas protagonist can resist robbery? It gets predictable after a while. What I did not expect is the half-decent art by Al Eedah. Too bad the story's not worth it.

A selfish coward named Lucas takes a lifeboat and escapes from a sinking ship, putting his own needs before those of the other passengers. He rows to a desert island, where he methodically carves "The Mark of X!" each day on a tree to keep track of his solitude. Eventually he is rescued, but he lost track of X's and thinks it's only been three years when it's really been seventy, and he has a long, white beard! The twist ending falls almost as flat as the hideous artwork by Matt Fox, about whom Peter and I appear to disagree.

What is "The Secret of the Black Cloud!"? Scientists in West Germany are working on an important project and a mysterious black cloud seems to be spiriting them away. Is it the work of Communists from behind the Iron Curtain? A scientist named Luther Janning is not willing to help the West German police solve the mystery, but his son, Heinrich, also a scientist, is happy to help. He tries over and over to come up with an agent to dissolve the cloud but meets with no success. Unfortunately, the cloud is gobbling up one scientist after another. Finally, Heinrich invents a spray that works and, to his surprise, it turns out that his father was inside the black cloud, seizing scientists to help him work on his important project. Why? I have absolutely no idea. Nor can I understand why Luther didn't just pull Heinrich aside and fill him in. Dave Berg does a fairly good job with the art, but Wessler (as usual) can't tell a straightforward story.

A young man who has left his home after taking the company car and wrecking it takes the name of Billy Smith and secures a room at a boarding house run by a spinster named Miss Braden. She mentions her only other guest, a sickly young woman named Emmy Lou. When Billy sees Miss Braden visiting Emmy Lou's room after midnight, he begins to wonder about "The Girl You Must Not See!" Eventually, he insists on meeting her and Miss Braden explains that Emmy Lou is just a portrait of her when she was younger, before her fiancée jilted her. Billy decides to go home and face the music, unaware that Miss Braden knew his real identity and that he's the son of the man who left her! If stories like this are what we have to look forward to in future issues of World of Fantasy, it's too bad it didn't suffer the same fate as other Atlas comics during the implosion. I gave it an extra half star for the art by Forte, but's that's pushing it.-Jack

Next Week...
And Then There
Were Two!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 168: Atlas/Marvel Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 153

August 1957 Part II

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Mystery Tales #54

Cover by Fred Kida

"The Last Lap" (a: Reed Crandall) ★★

"Prisoners of the Valley of Fear!" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★1/2

"Death of a Gambling Man!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★

"Can of Soup!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"Nobody!" (a: George Klein) ★1/2

"The Labyrinth!" (a: Sid Check) ★★

Race car driver Rex Bilbo will do anything to win and that includes cutting his competitors off at the final lap. This is how Rex wins. Then along comes "The Kid," the fastest racer anyone's ever seen. Rex knows he can't beat the newbie, so he loosens the young man's tires; next day, on "The Last Lap," The Kid hits the wall and... bloooey!

The other racers know what Rex has done but can't prove it. But they'll get him, they promise. One night, when Rex is working on his GTO, The Kid rises from the grave (still wearing his speed racer outfit) and heads for the track. Next thing we see is Rex's new auto, with real human skin upholstery, Rex's eyeballs as headlights, and a tank full of blood. Alas, that's not what happens, but in the early pages it sure seems like we're going to get the first honest-to-gosh EC-style revenge tale in years and the cherry on top is the Reed Crandall art. The CCA wouldn't have okayed my scenario, but the sappy (and inane) climax we're given is safe enough for the 8-year-olds. No nightmares here.

Planes flying through Austria are disappearing from sonar without a trace. Government agent Alfonse Grumet suspects foul play, so he commandeers a dirigible to fly the same path in hopes the truth will unravel. Sure enough, the blimp reaches the same area as the missing planes and is stopped in mid-air by a huge net. The net brings the vehicle to a landing and Grumet and crew are taken prisoner by a group of bald ruffians. Grumet is taken to the wizard of this Valley of Fear, disgraced Professor Kalendru, whose theories of... something... drew waves of laughter from his colleagues.

As his revenge, Kalendru traveled to this deserted valley and created a city of miracles. Kalendru orders his mute slaves to take the dirigible to a populated city and kidnap hundreds of people in order to build Kalendru's army of slaves. But Grumet has an ace up his sleeve and puts the kibosh on the evil emperor's plot. Everything about "Prisoners of the Valley of Fear!" smells like an old cinema serial, with hidden cities, beast-men, and an explosive finale. The elements it's lacking are a good script and excitement. We're never really clued in to what Kalendru's goal is; he builds a "paradise" to get even for all the slights aimed at him through the years. Heck of a revenge.

Larry Hall worked for Matt Trevor, one of the biggest crooks in the city. Trevor is opening a new casino and his biggest enemy is the mayor, whose daughter happens to be in love with Larry. Get all that? Well, when Trevor gets wind of the secret affair, he uses the mayor's daughter as a pawn in his war with her father. Luckily, Larry stumbles on a secret room at the new casino filled with chemicals and stuff. He uses the potions to make the casino disappear, thus preventing any harm to his one true love. Larry has made the ultimate sacrifice. "Death of a Gambling Man!" (hey, spoiler alert!) is cheesy Wessler pulp junk that's good for a couple of chuckles when it changes direction in the final page, but little else.

Starving, a hobo steals a "Can of Soup!" from a truck, unaware that this "soup" is actually nitroglycerine. It's evident right from the get-go what the mystery can is, but what's not clear is why Stan okayed the truly awful Robert Q. Sale art. Yeccch! In the equally brainless "Nobody!," a flight filled to the brim with stinkin' Commies lands in Moscow to find an empty city. Panicked, they jump back onboard and head to the next Red city they can find. Same thing. "Nobody!" In the end, it's all a case of brain manipulation by a stinkin' Commie scientist. They see only what he wants them to see. But the joke's on Ivan when he tries to end the hold on his comrades' brains and the machine goes kaput. So does the plane. 

"The Labyrinth!," the final story in Mystery Tales #54, helps the title go out on a high note (or at least a higher note than the four stories that preceded it). A race of underground men try to make it to the surface world but can't seem to work their way through a maze of tunnels. Turns out the poor chaps are stuck in a subway tunnel. Some nice throwback penciling (meaning it looks like the penciling was done in the 1940s) by Sid Check and a fairly decent twist ending. Quality-wise, the 54-issue run of Mystery Tales was middle of the pack, neither better nor worse than its sister pubs. Two stories from pre-code MT made my Top 50 list: George Tuska's "Marion's Murderer" (from #14) and Bill Benulis's "The Little Monster" (from #15).-Peter

Mystic #61

Cover by Bill Everett

"Someday It Will Open" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★

"The Thirteenth Floor!" (a: Bernard Baily & Gene Fawcette (?)) ★

"Mister Backwards!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★★

"Too Dangerous to Live" (a: Carl Burgos (?)) ★

"The Strange Sea!" (a: Alfonso Greene) ★

"The Face in the Mirror!" (a: Joe Orlando) ★1/2

Professor Klauser returns from the jungles of South America with a souvenir, an odd, stone-like object he dubs a "thought pod." Kaluser is convinced that if he concentrates on something hard enough, that thought will materialize from out of the pod. His colleagues all think he's daft, but Klauser sits in his chair staring at the pod, certain that "Someday It Will Open." And it does. It just doesn't produce anything interesting, unfortunately. Not even the Doxsee art can elevate this one above the basement floor.

Brand is convinced the partying people on "The Thirteenth Floor!" are wearing priceless jewels and he's intent on robbing them. His friends tell him he's nuts since the hotel has no 13th floor, but he's convinced it isn't a mirage. When one of the hotel employees tells him that the hotel used to have a 13th floor but it was destroyed by a fire and never rebuilt, it gives him an idea. He sets a fire and watches as all the "shadow people" run into the elevator. He heads for their jewelry but fate has other ideas. What a dumb story! How can an entire floor of a hotel building be destroyed and removed without affecting the floors above and below? 

Ralph Paval buys a wonderful hourglass at an auction house and quickly learns it has the remarkable power of turning back time. All Ralph has to do is turn the hourglass over and... ta-da!... it's the past. Of course, since Ralph is living in the Atlas Universe, the first thing he does is rob a bank. Then he turns the hourglass over several times and it's ten years before. Ralph takes the money he made from the robbery and invests it in a sure thing in the stock market. Ralph's not as smart as thinks, though, as evidenced by the G-Men who come to arrest him for counterfeiting. The dope used 1957 currency in 1947! You'd think that would be the end of "Mister Backwards!" but, as with Mr. Brand in the previous story, Ralph finds fate has a way of evening things up for time travelers. I thought this one was semi-clever, but my only question would be, if Ralph is going back in time, why does he get to keep the dough he robbed in 1957, a heist he hasn't even committed yet? Am I thinking too much?

Really smart genius Professor Rajec is forced by the stinkin' Commies to build the perfect weapon, an explosive device they plan to use on the enemy. The Reds test three ounces of Rajec's formula and it destroys a square mile of land, but it also gives Rajec a bad case of amnesia; he can't remember the formula. After interrogating and torturing him for weeks, the Commies leave him be, hoping his brain will come around. At last, Rajec tells his bosses he's okay and ready to build another, bigger gizmo. But Rajec has a better idea and a better device to build: an air purifier that will suck up all the radioactivity caused by his first bomb. When last we see the professor, he's driving away with a U.N. escort, and the Commie colonel who once led his interrogation is giving him a thumbs-up. Bar none, "Too Dangerous to Live" contains the fastest (and funniest) transformation from bloodthirsty sadist to peacenik ever portrayed in a funny book strip. 

In the three-page, "The Strange Sea!," Jeff Marlowe yearns to be a seafaring lad like his ancestors, so he signs up to be a sailor. On his maiden voyage, he's swept overboard by a giant wave but, luckily, he's saved... by his great-grandfather. I know just how Jeff feels, swirling around in a whirlpool of bad comic stories. The finale, the last story ever to appear in Mystic, stars a pair of thieves, one of whom has become something of an animal, brutalizing everyone he comes in contact with. "The Face in the Mirror!" has yet another predictable, inane twist ending and uninspired Joe Orlando art. Four Mystic stories placed in my Pre-Code Top 50 list: Sol Brodsky's "The Devil Birds" (from #4, which landed smack dab in the number one spot), Mort Lawrence's "Help Wanted" (from #19), "The Living and the Dead" (from #26), and Russ Heath's "Who Walks with a Zombie" (from #27).-Peter

Mystical Tales #8

Cover by Fred Kida

"Stone Walls Can't Stop Him!" (a: Doug Wildey) ★★

"The Dream People!" (a: Ruben Moreira) ★1/2

"The Lair of the Thunder Lizard!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★1/2

"The Sleeping Man" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★1/2

"Try-Out!" (a: Sid Check) ★★

"The Island of No Return" (a: Sam Kweskin) ★

A convicted killer named Carl Brent walks right through the bars of his prison cell as if they were not there! Even "Stone Walls Can't Stop Him!" and he walks through one of those as well on his way to freedom. Roy Anders, the prison guard, doesn't tell anyone because he thinks he'd be ridiculed. He goes home and his wife encourages him to consult his "scrapbook case histories of all the men who have been executed on Death Row." (Roy is clearly a little off.)

Reading about Brent, Roy recalls that the criminal seemed to have a heart, never taking all the cash when he robbed a store and begging for forgiveness from a young woman he mistakenly shot during a holdup. When the woman, whose name was Molly Spinner, died, Carl was sentenced to death. Roy has an idea and drives to the cemetery, where he observes Carl kneeling on Molly's grave, asking her to forgive him. Roy hears her voice granting forgiveness and the guard drives back to the prison, where he learns that Brent was found dead of a heart attack on the floor of his cell, a contented smile on his face.

Doug Wildey does a decent job with this rather mournful story and I enjoyed it. The final twist, such as it is, comes from the surprise on the face of the guard on duty when Roy tells him he knows Carl died with a smile. Not much of a twist, but a pretty good story.

After dreaming of standing before an audience, a playwright named Baker is convinced his new play will be a hit. "The Dream People!" can't be wrong! Instead, his play is rejected and one written by his roommate, Philips, is accepted. Baker lies to Philips and takes his place, taking credit for the work and watching the rehearsals. Philips catches on and threatens to go to the cops, so Baker kills him just as the police burst in. He is tried and convicted and finally realizes that the audience he dreamed of was the members of the jury. Once again, Ruben Moreira works hard with a run of the mill idea.

Old Edouard Duval likes to spin yarns about seeing dinosaurs in a nearby cave, describing it as if it were "The Lair of the Thunder Lizard!" Young Jacques Rambeau doesn't believe it and enlists two friends to explore the caves with him to show that the old man is making up stories. The trio descend into the cave and photograph what lies in the darkness, certain it's nothing. To Rambeau's surprise, when the film is developed, it shows the thunder lizard! Duval volunteers to visit the cave and Rambeau agrees to film the outing; the old man shoots into the darkness and the film records the death of the creature. The cave is sealed off and Duval is a hero! Days later, Rambeau finds a small lizard that crawled into his camera and looked big in the pictures. He doesn't have the heart to burst the old man's bubble. Leave it to Krigstein to wring some emotion out of a weak story by Wessler. The artists gets the feeling of the French folk right and Rambeau's kind decision at the end seems genuine.

In the year 1457, Wolfgang Roebling invents a machine but when he shows it to the authorities they throw him out, insisting that it's evil. On his deathbed, Roebling entrusts the machine to his faithful servant, Karl Rieger, who promises not to give up until the world recognizes Roebling's genius. In a secret cellar room, Rieger sleeps for a century and awakens to show the machine to a man in Italy, who calls it a work of darkness. "The Sleeping Man" nods off in the catacombs for another century, wakes up, and tries his luck in Paris, where he is nearly killed when one of the king's ministers doesn't react well to the invention.

He sleeps for another hundred years in a cave in the Pyrenees, but when he wakes up, the king's secretary tries to steal the machine and Karl runs off to another extended nap in a tower castle. He gets the same reception in England in 1857. Finally, it's 1957 (surprise!) and Karl stows away on a ship to America. He arrives, but the perpetual motion machine Roebling invented 500 years before is scoffed at. Karl finds an underground spot to doze off and the robot hopes that, in a hundred years, the machine will be accepted. I kind of liked this story, not for the hideous art by Sale but rather for the plucky robot who keeps thinking that, if he just tries again in 100 years, people will accept his inventor's gizmo. I did not know he was a robot till the last panel, so I guess Wessler got me this time.

A booking agent named Stanton yawns through a presentation by a man named Lund, who narrates a travelogue to Neptune, the Earth's core, and the moon while showing images from a projector on a screen. He then suggests a talk on telepathy and ESP, but Stanton is unmoved. After the "Try-Out!" fails and Lund exits the office, Stanton is shocked to discover that Lund accidentally left the projector behind and there's no film in it! Sid Check's regular panels with people talking are smooth and the panels where he depicts the wonders presented by Lund are impressive, but they're not enough to make the story interesting.

Bruce Marner bullies everyone in Merville, a small town on the coast of Canada, and has one thing on his mind when he sees Hover Island, where there's a safe filled with gold coins in a long-abandoned bank. Marner commandeers a boat and heads out to "The Island of No Return," but when he gets the gold and tries to navigate his way back to the mainland, he discovers that the boat keeps ending up back at the island. Sam Kweskin's art on this forgettable story is a hair better than that of Robert Q. Sale on "The Sleeping Man," but the narrative is much less interesting.

So ends the short run of Mystical Tales, which never rose above the level of ho-hum. My highest-rated story was "Someone Behind Me!" by Reed Crandall, in #3.-Jack

Next Week...
Watch Helplessly as Matt Fox
Tries to Save Atlas From
the Deadly Implosion!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 167: Atlas/Marvel Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 152

August 1957 Part I

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Astonishing #63

Cover by Bill Everett

"A Tender Tale of Love" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★1/2

"The Secret Beyond Belief!" (a: George Woodbridge) ★★★

(r: Tomb of Darkness #17)

"The Terrible Toy!" (a: Bob Forgione) ★★

"The Room That Wasn't There" (a: Don Perlin) ★

"A Piece of Rope!" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) ★

"The Girl with the Evil Eyes!" (a: Fred Kida) ★

(r: Chamber of Chills #21)

Lester Barnett is the worst kind of man, one who roams across America looking for lonely rich women. Lester thinks he's found his latest easy squeeze in Joyce, a gorgeous but shy lady who rents a room at Mrs. Fenly's Rooming House. Lester moves in for the kill but discovers he has competition for Joyce's affections in George Roberts, a man who rambles but always comes back. Lester intends to eliminate his rival but finds it extremely hard to land any blows. What gives? Well, there's a pretty effective twist in the climax of "A Tender Tale of Love"; I'm not saying it's never been done before, but (maybe because good stories are few and far between around here) the reveal worked for me. 

Professor John is tasked with going through the journals of brilliant genius scientist Calvin Bart, who has recently been killed in an auto accident involving a drunken milkman. While puttering about in Bart's lab, John accidentally discovers a secret hidey-hole containing the notes of long-dead scientist, Barton Calvin (hmmmmm....). Reading the log, John puts two and two together and posits that Calvin Bart and Barton Calvin are one and the same man (Atlas men of science are brilliant!). John reads on and learns that a Dr. Dane Morris had perfected a rejuvenation formula that would allow a man to live a whole lot more years than normal; Morris had given this drug to "six of the world's most brilliant geniuses..." and then the bunch of them moved to South America.

Using the map (with a big X on Morris's plantation), John visits Morris and asks him if a longer life is all it's cracked up to be and if he can have a shot of the super-drug. Morris explains that immortality is a curse rather than a blessing. He then introduces him to several of the other men who took the drug over a hundred years ago. One is an artist who just can't get that great painting right; one is a composer who has worked on his masterpiece for 85 years; and then there's George Martin, still working on overdubs for Sgt. Pepper. "Y'see, John," says Morris as he puts his arm around his visitor, "When you have an eternity to work on a project, it just never gets finished." "The Secret Beyond Belief!" is a bit preachy (just be happy with the time you're given), but I gotta say that the message is one of the most thought-provoking we've been given in the post-code era. I'd love to know who wrote this script. I love how the tale begins with Professor John turning to the readers of Astonishing (all third graders, mind you) and telling us that he really needs to tell this story to the world. Great art from Woodbridge; both he and Doxsee are turning into personal favorite discoveries.

Strange flashes ignite Earth's skies and scientists fear the worst. Could these brilliant displays of light be harbingers of an alien invasion? Meanwhile, the young son of a "high government official" is playing in the woods when he stumbles upon a toy gun. Aiming it at his bike and blasting it, the kid is astonished to see an identical bike appear. He's found a Matter Duplicator™! Racing home he shows his father the gun and is told "The Terrible Toy!" must be destroyed. "Who knows what a thing like this could mean for the economy?!," a startled father cries. Later that night, dad is visited by the aliens who are hovering over Earth's atmosphere. Do they come in peace or will they conquer? Only time and the last few panels will tell. 

In the disposable three-page "The Room That Wasn't There," Chuck Chandler stares into his bathroom mirror and sees an older version of himself in a terribly maintained room. The reflection informs him that if he doesn't do something about the road he's traveling, he'll end up in that drab room with terrible wallpaper and cockroaches in thirty years. Somehow deciding he needs money right then and there, the dope robs a bank and is caught. He's then sentenced to life in prison, trapped in the room he saw in the reflection. Looking at this art, I'm not sure if Don Perlin got better or worse by the time he was assigned Werewolf by Night.

Ed and Burt climb the Matterhorn in search of a huge chest of jewels hidden by some old goofball named LeClaire, with only one rope between them. They both swear that if one falls, the other will save him. Sure enough, Ed has to show off and attempt a jump over a crevasse; he loses his footing and goes over. Rather than have Ed drag him to his sure death, Burt cuts the rope and heads back to the village with a tale of a broken line. No one believes him and so, his guilt wracking his very fiber, Burt heads back up the mountain to find Ed's body. But Burt finds Ed safe and sound at the bottom of the crevasse and, what's more, Ed has found the chest of jewels. They're millionaires and buddies for life. What a load of hooey this CCA nonsense has unleashed upon us. "A Piece of Rope!" shows us that not only will a bad man turn good on a dime, but he will be rewarded for his bravery as well. Give me the pre-code version where Ed's corpse is standing next to the chest, snickering "Come and get it, pal!"

In the final story of the final issue of Astonishing, Jack Taylor stumbles across an old amulet after watching a voodoo ceremony in Haiti. An old witch tells him the bauble can help him see the future. He scoffs and then heads back to America with the souvenir. He bids farewell to his brother, who is heading to the very same resort in Haiti for a vacation. Jack's dreams are wracked by a strange but beautiful blonde who comes home with brother Ben and announces that she and Ben were married. When Ben leaves the room, the blonde tells Jack that it's he whom she really loves and they must kill her husband if they are to be together. The dream ends and Jack wakes in a sweat. The next day, Ben introduces Jack to his new bride, a gorgeous blonde he met in Haiti... Oh no, not that one again. The cherry on top of the climax to "The Girl with the Evil Eyes!" is when Jack turns to us and asks us what we'd do. I'd recommend skipping this one is what I'd do.

And so comes to a close the 61-issue run (remember, the first two issues were titled Marvel Boy) of Astonishing, a fair to middling title that shined in the pre-code era but (as with every other Atlas title) produced mostly drab and cliched tales of brilliant but flawed criminal scientists and Commie dictators. Three tales made my 50 Best Pre-Code Atlas Stories list: Bill Everett's "A Playmate for Susan" (from #12), Sid Greene's "Jessica!" (from #35), and Dick Ayers's "The Devil-Man" (from #37).-Peter

Journey Into Mystery #48

Cover by Bill Everett

"Where There's Smoke..." (a: Sam Kweskin) ★1/2

"The Woman Who Played With Dolls" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★

"The Phony!" (a: Marvin Stein) ★★1/2

"Behind the Mask!" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★

"Don't Turn Around!" (a: Bill Everett) ★

"The Curiosity of Mr. Catt!" 

(a: Angelo Torres & Gray Morrow(?)) ★1/2

A smoke shop owner mixes a pair of tobaccos and the blend produces a strange effect: the visions he dreams come true! So, like most Atlas dreamers before him (except maybe Jack Taylor of "The Girl with the Evil Eyes!," Emil Kojer dreams of world domination and riches beyond compare. But after vacationing and plotting his future, Emil comes home to find his wife has sold off the concoction to a regular customer. And that guy is having strange dreams too! "Where There's Smoke..." The Kweskin art is pretty good but the script lacks originality. Why would a brilliant tobacconist leave his best weed lying around for just anyone to smoke?

The townsfolk insist Elsa Beatty is a daft old bat, always playing with her dolls and their doll house, but con man Floyd Coe overhears a conversation in a diner about a vial of... something... her late husband acquired in South America that is supposed to be worth a cool quarter of a mil. That's all that Floyd needs to hear. The next day, he's up at the Beatty mansion romancing the old bird and cooing sweet things in her ear. Once the two are on a first-name basis, Elsa shows Floyd her treasured doll collection and Floyd pops the question... "Um, I never told you I'm a chemist. You think I could have a look at this vial of... something you have in storage?"  

Elsa keeps beating around the bush and Floyd gets uptight, finally brandishing a pistol and demanding the old hag turn over the vial of... something. Elsa smiles and admits Floyd has already gotten a taste of the formula in the wine he just drank. Minutes later, Elsa is admiring the new doll in her collection. Saw that one coming from the get-go didn't you? Me too. The Crandall-esque art of Richard Doxsee is the only reason to weather the four long pages of "The Woman Who Played With Dolls."

An old man named Bruce Selden walks into a New York publisher's office and tells the man of the incredible life he has lived: first he was captured in the jungles of Burma by a race of cat people, then he was trapped by an island full of giant men, then staked to a beach by little people... this guy's been through hell! The gullible publisher laps it up and buys Selden's autobiography sight unseen. The book becomes a best-seller, knocking The Lighter Side of Joseph McCarthy right out of the number one spot but, hang on adventure lovers, Selden's wife shows up at the publisher's office to inform him the whole damn thing is a hoax. Selden is 35, hasn't been out of Hoboken his entire life, and now he's deserted his wife and six kids. 

The only thing Bruce Selden is good at is makeup. On the run from the law, Selden ends up off the coast of Borneo, where he's attacked by man-eating plants. Surviving the ordeal, Selden wonders if the experience would make the best-seller list! Where can I find a publisher who would buy a story full of poppycock without seeing the manuscript first? "The Phony!" is fun, dopey entertainment, with some solid Marvin Stein graphics. This was Stein's 13th and final appearance in an Atlas SF/H title. 

"Behind the Mask!" is sappy crap about Bruce Chalmers, an old millionaire who covets his 24-year-old secretary but needs youth to capture her. He's told about a scientist who can change a person's face and make them young again for a hefty ten grand. Chalmers pays the price and gets his girl. The happy ending reveals that 24-year-old Lois Farr is actually an old woman, too. The only question I have is how a steno afforded such a high price tag. Perhaps she's a reaaaallly good secretary!

By 1957, full stories illustrated by Bill Everett were few and far between so, don't you know, they'd waste one of their best assets on a crappy, three-page Wessler script about a really smart Atlas genius inventor who's attacked by two burglars while testing out his newest gizmo. He's knocked unconscious, so he doesn't see the cavemen who emerge from his machine to scare off the criminals. "Don't Turn Around!" is deadly dumb but  undeniably Everett. The silliness continues in "The Curiosity of Mr. Catt!," wherein the titular Mr. Catt becomes obsessed with the murderer who once lived in his apartment. Don't worry, fate intervenes before Mr. Catt can duplicate the previous tenant's evil deed and the entire incident is laughed at over  drinks. No harm, no foul. This would be the final issue of Journey Into Mystery until November 1958. Journey and Strange Tales would be the only two survivors of the Atlas Implosion of 1957.-Peter

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #59

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Dreadful Disc!" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

"I Wake Up Screaming!" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★

"Shock at Seven O'clock" (a: Ted Galindo) ★1/2

"The Strange Warning!" (a: Ruben Moreira) ★

"A Shaggy Wolf Tale!" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo) ★1/2

"The Man Who Lived Twice!" (a: Al Eadah) ★1/2

Just before he is caught by G-Men, traitor Jeff Barker uses a recipe from a book on alchemy to create "The Dreadful Disc!" In prison, he tricks his cellmate into retrieving the object, which causes anyone holding it to shrink to ten inches high. Jeff escapes and goes on a crime spree, stealing secrets until the FBI man catches him with a well-placed mousetrap! Another overly complicated script by Wessler features four pages of standard art by John Forte; the final panel shows Jeff caught in the trap but I wouldn't have realized that's what it was unless I read the dialogue.

A man is compelled to drive through the night in order to save the person he cares for the most from unknown danger. He passes police, crosses a dangerous bridge, and knocks out a burly man before entering a dark house where he sees someone lying on a couch. "I Wake Up Screaming!," he tells us, and it turns out that doctors used hypnosis to cure his mental block and amnesia. The man is Sid Black, a fugitive from justice, who underwent plastic surgery and a self-imposed mental block to start over as an amnesia victim. Doxsee's art is above average and this story chugs along nicely until the last page, when the disappointing resolution stretches credibility.

A pirate crew led by Captain Enid boards another ship called The Willow, whose captain and crew are strangely unconcerned. Captain Stoddard of The Willow warns Captain Enid of a coming "Shock at Seven O' Clock" and disappears when he is forced to walk the plank. Captain Enid grows more and more worried as the time approaches and, at seven, the ghostly crew of The Willow return to avenge the original taking of their ship by the pirates a decade before. This one doesn't make a lot of sense and Ted Galindo's graphics, while decent, can't save it from leaving the reader confused.

Charles Dawes is a businessman who rushes everywhere and ignores his doctor's advice to slow down and think about retirement. He's hit by a car while racing to catch a plane and receives "The Strange Warning" while in a coma; a man tells him, "Better Hurry! It's going to rain!" Dawes recovers and is about to board a plane when the pilot utters the same phrase. Spooked, Charles doesn't board the plane and later reads that it crashed. He wisely vows to retire and enjoy life. Fans of The Twilight Zone will have seen the ending to this story coming a mile away, since it was used in the episode, "Twenty Two." Moreira's art does little to liven up the proceedings.

Russian H-bomb tests had the unexpected side effect of making wolves intelligent; they also were able to communicate using mental telepathy and their fur grew long and sleek. American furriers are shocked when a pair of captured wolves began communicating with them and urging them to stop killing animals for their furs. The wolves demonstrate how they can pass this gift along to humans by making the men suddenly grow long hair and fur. Easily the dumbest story in this weak issue, "A Shaggy Wolf Tale!" has but one thing to recommend it, and that's some smooth art by Williamson and Mayo.

Bart Knox agrees to participate in an experiment in order to spend two weeks outside of prison, where he has three years to go on a ten-year term. Transformed into a new man and struck with amnesia, Knox enters a new life as Walter Jones. "The Man Who Lived Twice!" gets a job at Steve's service station but betrays his employer by stealing a wad of cash from his safe. Bart/Walter drops the cash in the river and disappears, returning to his old body and heading back to prison. Released early for good behavior, he seeks out his old partner, who reveals that a man named Walter Jones discarded all the cash they stole together years before. Eedah's art is nothing special, but I gave this one an extra half star because the ending was a bit of a surprise.

Not a great way for Journey to Unknown Worlds to end its run! As was so often the case, the best thing about the last issue was the cover.-Jack

Marvel Tales #159

Cover by Fred Kida

"The Man Who Believed!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

"The Last Look!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★1/2

"Wish You Were Here!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

(r: Tomb of Darkness #14)

"Four Who Vanished!" (a: Al Eadah) ★

"Behind the Iron Gate!" (a: Matt Fox) ★

"The Terrible Touch!" (a: Syd Shores) ★★1/2

(r: Journey Into Mystery #17)

After framing his co-worker for tampering with account books, Hugh Radcliff is haunted by dreams, where spectral figures try to convince him he no longer belongs on Earth. A psychoanalyst tells Hugh to insist to his tormentors that he does belong here, but that night, in his dream, "The Man Who Believed!" ends up in limbo, stuck in the darkness between the real world and the dream world. Only his wife's voice calling to him saves Hugh from being stuck forever. Paul Reinman pulls some old tricks out of his bag to enliven this story, such as a panel where Hugh's head is seen surrounded by words and another where he is struggling in the dark. It's a good thing, too, because the story makes little sense on its own.

A fake swami named Ross tells his partner Cooper that he saw the future in his crystal ball: Cooper will kill a man and the police will apprehend him! Cooper doesn't believe it and their relationship becomes increasingly strained until, one night, Ross makes a run for it. Cooper follows and holds Ross at gunpoint in an alley. They struggle and Ross shoots and kills Cooper! As he is led away by the police, Ross realizes that the man he saw in the crystal ball was himself, wearing Cooper's striped jacket! Bernie Krigstein's strips tend to look like he spent more time on them than most of the other Atlas artists. Here, a mix of his signature small panels, the use of blue and black to depict nighttime scenes, and dynamic action make "The Last Look!" a cut above the rest.

Franz Necco makes a living drawing greeting cards, but when his boss criticizes his sloppy work he wanders through Greenwich Village and finds a little shop, where an old man sells hand-drawn, perfumed greeting cards for a buck a piece. Franz buys a few, copies them, and sends out the originals--two are "get well" cards and the recipients experience miraculous recoveries. Franz returns to the little shop, volunteers to be the old man's assistant, and discovers his formula for making the perfume that renders the cards magical. He quickly draws a "Wish You Were Here!" card showing himself in a room with piles of money. Franz mails it and, the next day when he receives the card, he finds it has come true and he's in a room with a pile of money. There's just one problem: he did not draw a door, so he's stuck and can't remember the formula to make more magic perfume! Ed Winiarski is certainly in the bottom group of Atlas artists, and his work on this tale is no exception. The surprise ending is a letdown.

A quartet of robbers become "Four Who Vanished!" after their failed attempt at a bank heist leaves them on the run from the fuzz. They wore Halloween masks for the robbery to hide their faces and they happen on a house in the country where a party is in progress. What better way to mix in than to join the fun while wearing masks? The partygoers all seem like folk from the late 1600s and, eventually, they are revealed to be the ghosts (I think) of those involved in the Salem Witch Trials, which occurred on the site of the house. At least I think that's what happened. It's not terribly clear and Al Eedah's art is forgettable.

Chuck Morgan was sentenced to ten years in the pen, but his hatred of being cooped up led him to accept a deal whereby he was put into suspended animation for 1000 years with the promise that he'd be let out on awakening. What does he find "Behind the Iron Gate!"? A society of the future where cops read the minds of criminals before they break the law. Chuck doesn't get far before he's back in stir. Taking a cue from Bester's The Demolished Man and Dick's "The Minority Report," this three-pager briefly ventures into a fascinating SF topic. Matt Fox seems to have been a well-regarded pulp cover artist, but his work here is ugly, even worse than that of Sale.

An old prospector named Si lies on his death bed, gasping out the story of his search for a lost gold mine. He followed an Indian map but noticed that landmarks seemed to move. Finally realizing that someone must be behind it, he locates the mine and discovers a very old King Midas, who explains that he uses telepathy and teleportation to prevent anyone from finding him. Si grabs at the old king and runs off. On his deathbed he proves the truth of his story by removing his gloves and displaying his hands, which turned to gold when he touched Midas! The art by Syd Shores on "The Terrible Touch!" is excellent, giving Krigstein a run for his money as best in issue.

So ends the long, first run of Marvel Tales, which had begun in 1939 as Marvel Comics, changed to Marvel Mystery Comics, then changed to Marvel Tales  in 1949 to feature horror stories. The title would return in 1964 as a reprint comic for the new Marvel super heroes stories and run for 30 years.-Jack

Next Week...
The Implosion Continues as
Three More Titles Go Up in Smoke!