Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 161: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 146

May 1957 Part I

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Adventure into Mystery #7

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Invisible Doom!" (a: Gene Colan) ★1/2

"The Watcher!" (a: Marvin Stein) ★★

"One Hour till Doomsday!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"Beware... the Brimm!" (a: Angelo Torres) ★★★

"Mission... Murder!" (a: Howard O' Donnell) ★

"Trapped in the Room of Darkness" (a: Syd Shores) ★★1/2

Brilliant scientist Professor Jason has created a formula that will enable its user to become absolutely invisible (except to himself, that is). Jason has had successful attempts on rats and seems assured that humans will follow suit. That's where Jason's grotesque, hunchbacked assistant Phil comes in. Phil sees dollar signs in the act of becoming invisible and forces Jason to give him the juice.

Jason goes out and steals a million dollars from a bank (for some undisclosed reason, everything that Phil touches becomes invisible so he's able to walk out of the bank vault without anyone the wiser) and then comes back to the lab demanding an antidote. Jason is brilliant so he's able to trick the dope into taking a knockout drug. The police arrive shortly thereafter. The Colan work in "The Invisible Doom!" is good but the script is day-old fish. We're never told what it is that this ding-dong Phil does in the lab. Sweep up dead rats? Mix highly-combustible solutions? Run algebraic problems with the boss? 

Andrew Morris, "a rather colorless man," in his own words "a nobody," invents a portal where he can transport part of his body to save his fellow human beings. He scoops passengers out of a crashing auto, grabs a baby who's climbed out on a ledge, and commits various other selfless acts. But suddenly Andrew's portal opens up onto a distant planet and the startled genius realizes that the portal might be two-way and the people on the faraway world are very aggressive. A fun little bit of dopiness starring one of the most unlikely Atlas protagonists: a brilliant genius who uses his invention to save people rather than knock over liquor stores! It's got the cliched climax but otherwise "The Watcher!" is an entertaining distraction.

In the dopey "One Hour till Doomsday!," hardened criminal Biff Malden holds an old couple hostage on their farm until the woman begins cackling about the end of the world and Biff can't take it anymore. He runs out of the house and down the road but suddenly everything turns black! The old woman was right! Well, no, once the cops arrive we discover it's just an eclipse. -Groan-

Australian cowboy Rick Mallory is out searching for lost sheep one day when he comes across a cute little creature hiding in the brush. Not recognizing it from the approximately one million species to be found in the Outback, Rick grabs the thing and heads back to the ranch. There, the natives become restless, claiming the nipper is the fabled Brimm.. an evil being that brings chaos to anyone around it. Rick scoffs but then his bad luck begins. Could this little gremlin really be a miniature demon? "Beware... the Brimm!" is a fabulous little fantasy, so much more entertaining and clever than anything else I tripped over this time out. The Torres art is right on the level (style-wise) of Frazetta and Williamson, and the Brimm has a Wally Wood-ian look to it. 

In the discardable three-page "Mission... Murder!," foreign agents (read that as stinkin' Commies) are sent in to destroy a mechanical brain that the good guys have invented. It doesn't go well. How to make a three-pager seem like thirty. In the finale, hardened criminal Oliver Deane is given a chance at parole if he'll participate in an experiment that will wipe out crime as we know it: the Jordan Chamber!

Deane enters the chamber and does indeed exit a changed man, with not one bad bone in his body. But that's because, unbeknownst to Deane and anyone else involved in the test, his bad side has exited his body and been given form as an exact clone of Oliver! The twin goes on a rampage of violence, including knocking over candy stores and Hobby Lobbies and smashing parking meters. Only the "real" Oliver Deane can clear up this mess and get back to Barbara, his one true love. There's a Hallmark Movie of the Week schmaltziness to the climax of "Trapped in the Room of Darkness," but there's also a bit of imagination used, so I have to give extra credit where it's due, especially when the scripter is our favorite target, pulpmeister Wessler.-Peter

Astonishing #61

Cover by Bill Everett

"Midnight in the Wax Museum!" (a: Richard Doxsee)

(r: Fear #20) ★★

"Mystery in Mid-Air" (a: John Forte) ★★

"The Frightful Film!" (a: Gray Morrow) ★1/2

"The Floating Man" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★

"The Too Late Show" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★★

"The Creeping Threat!" (a: John Romita) ★★1/2

Tough guy Kenyon accepts a bet to stay the night in the "haunted" wax museum where a criminal named Anders went missing. Everything goes fine until the wax dummy of the bad guy comes to life and threatens bodily harm. As Anders's gun is about to go off, Kenyon awakens to a crowd of cops all laughing at him. Turns out Kenyon had a tussle with nothing but a wax dummy since Anders was arrested the previous night across town. "Midnight in the Wax Museum!" would be completely dismissible were it not for the classy Doxsee art; very Reed Crandall-ish in spots.

The Great Alfredo is in love with two objects: his lovely wife and his marvelous trapeze. One day, while high above the circus floor, waiting for an available swing and wondering why his wife has never said anything about her past in all their years of marriage, Alfredo swears he will put on the show of a lifetime. He shall swing faster than any other trapeze-ster. And that he does! In fact, Alfredo swings so fast he lands in another dimension! Luckily, rather than become Alfredo Sauce, our hero lands safely and is escorted out of the tent by some rather strangely-garbed gentlemen. He's taken to the leader of Trapeze-World and promised that his daughter will make a good wife.

"My wife! She's still waiting for me to land!," exclaims the befuddled performer. With that, he turns tail, runs back into the tent, and climbs to the highest swing. His engine at Mach-10, Alfredo swings right back into our world and into the arms of his mysterious wife, who admits she's that gorgeous chick back in Trapeze-World! No wonder she's never come clean about her early days. She was a swinger. (drum beat) I gotta say that "Mystery in Mid-Air" made me laugh almost as hard as that time Jack swore Bill Shatner was a great actor. None of this four-page delight makes sense, but who cares? Just savor it.

Photographer Eli Payne runs out of plates for his camera box so he digs out some old stock created by his father, also a photographer. Turns out these plates can change a person's face with just a little monkey business on the photo. The proof is when Eli makes himself twenty years younger with some retouching. Eli suddenly realizes he can become the richest man in America if he uses the new process to blackmail vain millionaires. But, as we've seen with so many of these Atlas mad-genius-get-rich-quick schemes, Eli is in for a rude awakening. "The Frightful Film!" is Wessler back to doing what he does best... pumping out sub-par microwaved scripts low on ingenuity and high on groans. Normally, I'd give anything sporting a Gray Morrow art job two stars, but even Morrow looks tired here.

In a stinkin' Commie compound, U.N. prisoners are given little to eat and made to slave for backbreaking hours on end. Danny wants to get home to see his newborn son and the only way out he can see is Rupa Sidi, an Indian prisoner who has perfected the "rope trick." Danny is convinced that Rupa can elevate Danny over the barbed wire and from there he can make his way home to his family. I'm not spoiling anything when I tell you that, by the climax of "The Floating Man," Danny will be changing diapers and his wife will be bitching about the broken air conditioning. I'll say this though (for the 100th time), that Orlando guy sure knew his way around a pencil. 

Old penny-pincher Jason Bond buys a cheap television set at a rummage sale and sits in wonder at channels that aren't listed in the TV Guide. You're not going to believe this but everything he watches on the set comes true the next day. Apartment fires. Train crashes. The mini-skirt. So Jason decides he's going to get even richer on this wonderful miracle. He bets on the stock market and makes enough to buy the Empire State Building. That night, he watches in horror on his TV set as he's killed by a falling brick from the building. Jason Bond swears he'll now turn this miracle into a good tool for mankind if given the chance. In heaven, the angels who rigged Bond's TV have a laugh and head for the next penny-pincher on their list. For a three-pager, "The Too Late Show" is not all that bad. It's got a hilarious final shot and some scratchy Winiarski art perfect for the subject. I don't see Win doing cheesecake art.

Leading professor in ant science Dr. Paul Marsden believes he can communicate with the little bugs and that they are even more intelligent than man. So he does what any other brilliant mind would do: he sets up a communicator between himself and a trio of ants he's weeded out of dozens of test subjects. These three are all strictly A (for Ant) students. Soon the ants are requesting human history lectures and studies in science. Marsden spends the better part of a decade reading the little critters every book on science he can find and then the exhausted egghead takes a nap. That's when the ants make their move.

There's nothing particularly original to "The Creeping Threat!" but, like "Mystery in Mid-Air," it generated several out-loud laughs from this jaded comics consumer. Marsden supplies the little buggers with materials they request and darned if the trio doesn't build a mini-laboratory and make plans of world conquest. The climactic panels, where Marsden takes his insect friends out to lunch at a nearby cafe and a well-meaning waitress squishes the bugs is comic book gold. The devastated scientist, unaware how close he came to destroying the world, can only sob and make "dumb waitress" jokes. These are the moments I live for when cracking open Atlas funny books. This was John Romita's 33rd and final appearance in the Atlas SF/Horror titles, but Spider-Man fans know he'll be back in a big way.-Peter

Journey Into Mystery #46

Cover by Carl Burgos

"The Middle of the Night!" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Voodoo!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★1/2

"The Red Doom!" (a: Bernard Baily) ★1/2

"The Desert Rat!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★

"The Betrayer!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★

"Nightmare!" (a: Angelo Torres) ★★

A mysterious stranger visits Alfred Mott in "The Middle of the Night!" He asks Mott to repair a pocket watch before midnight the next evening and offers to pay twice the going rate. Mott greedily accepts and stays up late working on the watch. Testing it to see if it's fixed, he pushes the hour hand backwards and realizes that he's traveled to the day before! He turns the hands back a week and travels back in time seven days.

Determined to cash in on the handheld time machine, Alfred winds the watch back to the year 1575, where he plans to steal jewels from the King of  France! He scales the castle wall and surprises the king in his bedroom, only to be arrested. To his dismay, Alfred can't find his watch to return to the present because watches haven't been invented yet!

John Forte's art is competent but don't think too much about this story. How in the world does Alfred wind the watch back a week, not to mention almost 400 years? That's a lot of times around the dial! The last panel is funny--Alfred is in his cell yelling about his missing watch and a guard is outside making the "he's crazy" sign with his finger by the side of his head.

Sergeant Lane doesn't believe that Mario really can practice "Voodoo!" and Mario threatens to make a doll of Lane. Mario is using his dolls to blackmail superstitious locals, so Lane gives Mario a few of his own hairs and challenges him to make a doll of the sergeant. Lane's partner, Sergeant Brice, isn't sure what to believe. Lane canvasses the neighborhood and finally finds someone who will testify that Mario has been blackmailing him. Lane and Brice visit Mario to confront him, but Mario shows Lane a new voodoo doll that he's made in Lane's image. Mario drops it out the window, threatening Lane that he'll die, but instead Mario falls out the window to his death. Brice reveals that he switched the hairs on the doll so they were Mario's rather than Lane's.

Stories involving voodoo are always welcome, but Robert Sales's art continues to disappoint me. His characters are just plain ugly and his panel designs are flat.

Jean Lacoste collects the largest jewels in the world. When he's told that he doesn't possess the biggest ruby, known as "The Red Doom!," he vows that he'll have it under glass within a month. Jean flies to India and goes into the jungle, where the locals fear the ruby's evil power. Jean enters a shrine and takes the huge jewel, but when he tries to leave the jungle he finds himself trapped in a large glass cube. His vow came true--he has the ruby under glass!

Cue the "wah-wah" horns for the dopey, cornball ending to this story. Where did the big glass cube come from? What's its purpose? Who knows? Certainly not the writer. Baily's art makes it clear that he didn't think much of this tale.

Why does an old hermit whom the newspapers call "The Desert Rat!" refuse to move out of his condemned shack in the desert to let a road project pass through the property? A reporter named Phil is determined to get the answer. Pretending to be a sick, lost, bewildered traveler, Phil is taken in by Josef Kruge, the hermit, who confesses that he hates the shack in which he lives. Kruge explains that he was once known as Josef the Great, a strongman who performed before crowds. When he began to get weak with age, he sought a way to regain his strength and found Abu Shah, a strongman who traveled with a sheik's caravan.

Kruge discovered that Shah's strength came from a liquid he drank every night, so Kruge grabbed the bag and took a drink. Shah told him that he'd be doomed to live in the desert from then on. Kruge's strength returned and he again performed before adoring crowds, but he was forced to flee to Death Valley and remain there. One night he had reached his hand out of his dressing room tent to see if it was raining and it was, but his hand rusted because he had become a man of iron!

Bernie Krigstein turns in another superb performance on this tale, which creates a mystery and carries the reader along until the final panel, where the secret is revealed. He's able to tell so much more story with his technique of multiple, skinny panels, and at this point his work is the closest thing in Atlas comics to something from the days of EC Comics, even if he was not one of their original stable of great artists.

Igor is a Communist in New York City who can't seem to convince red-blooded Americans of the validity of his cause. "The Betrayer!" keeps being told that the patriots will listen to him when the torch on the Statue of Liberty stops burning. Igor gets the bright idea to blow up the torch, but when he climbs all the way up one night with a satchel of dynamite he suddenly falls over the side to his death. A doctor examines him and concludes that he wasn't killed by the fall but rather from third degree burns, "as if he were burned by a big flame."

It's comforting to see that Atlas Comics were still keeping up their anti-Communist fervor in terrible stories like this one as late as 1957. The rest of the country was emerging from the national nightmare brought on by HUAC, but Stan Lee and co. were determined to show their pre-teen readers that the Red Menace was still alive and well in the U.S. Three pages are wasted here and Manny Stallman's art shows how little he cared about the story.

Just after midnight, an entire town disgorges itself from the Earth and floats off into space! It must be a "Nightmare!" Only three men are awake and aware of what's happening. One is Mayor George Bascombe, who just withdrew the town's welfare fund from the bank and plans to clear out in the morning. Another is Frank Lefferts, the banker, who plans to foreclose on the farm of a sweet young couple tomorrow. The third man is an old farmer, Joseph Brooks, who plans to kill his wife's fiance the next day due to an old family feud. As the city floats off into space, the trio reconsider their cruel plans and suddenly the town reverses courses and settles back down on Earth.

The story is an old one and the conceit of the town flying off into space is bizarre, but Angelo Torres ignored the trite theme and drew some very nice pages, making this a comfortable way to end the issue.-Jack

Next Week...
A Rare Stop in the
Atlas Post-Code Universe
for Dick Giordano!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 160: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 145

April 1957 Part IV

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Uncanny Tales #54

Cover by Carl Burgos

"Mystery in Midville" (a: John Forte) ★★

(r: Chamber of Chills #17)

"The Warning!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★

(r: Vault of Evil #20)

"The Hidden Island" (a: Fred Kida) ★

(r: Tomb of Darkness #15)

"Inside the Tomb!" (a: Dave Berg) ★1/2

(r: Vault of Evil #19)

"The Terrible Fate of Mr. Wren!" (a: John Tartaglione) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #36)

"The Moving Walls!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★1/2

On the run from the law and starving, petty thief Mort Lowman wanders into Midville and finds a town devoid of greed, anger, and jealousy, The town has no crime and the only cop does little but direct traffic. All the folk in the town open their arms to Mort and, for once in his life, Mort feels happy and loved. There's just one thing, advises Mr. Dora, the man who "adopts" Mort: do not, under any circumstances, open the locked box found in Dora's living room. 

The natural crookedness arises in Lowman's heart. "I could take the treasure found in this here box and live like a king. And that's just what I'll do!,"  exclaims the dope. So Mort grabs a handy crowbar and pries the chest open. Out pops all the awfulness and black-hearted deeds Mr. Dora sucked out of his fellow Midvillians and stashed in the box. Suddenly Midville becomes the rotten place it once was and the cops come to arrest Mort Lowman for his petty crimes. You see, the crate in Mr. Dora's sitting room was Pandora's Box! Holy cow, what a surprise this was. Well, to be fair, I was expecting The "Mystery in Midville" to wind up being some kind of Martian testing facility or a really bad dream but at least we got a semi-satisfying twist and some decent art from John Forte.

Dr. Bishop has recreated the Midas touch in his lab but, in a strange twist, he's given the formula to his dog. This, he asserts, is to keep greed from common man and also because he likes to eat a meal now and then that hasn't been turned to gold. For a while, Bishop is able to control the objects the dog touches but then, one dark and dreary day, a fellow scientist enters the lab and assures Bishop he won't be leaving until he has that formula. 

The script for "The Warning!" is old news; we all know it's the Krigstein Midas touch we'll be paying attention to but, here, that touch seems to be muted a bit. Gone are the trademarked multiple thin panels and Bernie delivers his graphics in (for the most part) a standard Atlas fashion. It's still good art but it's lost the uniqueness. I was nowhere near the Atlas Bullpen in 1957 (in fact, I was nowhere near being born yet) but I have to think that Stan had something to do with reigning BK in. Hopefully, for just this one little saga.

Two misfits, a man and a woman, homely and scarred, leave the real world and travel to "The Hidden Island," a Pacific plot of land surrounded by mist and populated by Komodo Dragons. The island's magical powers turn the man into a big-muscled strongman and the woman into a babe. There, they find love and, hopefully, no mirrors. Even worse is "Inside the Tomb!" An archaeologist rises from an ancient Egyptian tomb in some sort of a trance (with a really low heartbeat!) and his fellow explorer must descend into the depths of the structure to find out how his friend became a zombie. Since not one soul has perished in an Atlas story since the advent of the Comics Corrode, all suspense and danger are discarded and all we can hope for is a little imagination and perhaps some eye-pleasing graphics. Good luck with that. The script is meh and Dave Berg does the best he can with it, but this is strictly snoozeville.

In the three-page "The Terrible Fate of Mr. Wren!," Hubert Wren survives a bad childhood to become a brilliant inventor who dreams up a gizmo that can perfectly duplicate anything. The world is his oyster until Wren proposes to a gorgeous dame but accidentally blasts her with his Duplicator Ray and, suddenly, the poor sap has two fiances. A terrible fate indeed! This one has a fun sense of mischief and some great art by Tartaglione (again, I have to believe Howard Chaykin must have been a Tart-fan). 

Last up is the shamefully padded (padded? I hear you say, how can a four-page story be padded?) "The Moving Walls!," wherein three stooges head into the Gorse Manor to steal the fabled Gorse Diamond but find a house full of startling obstacles. Three of the four pages are devoted to the crooks constantly reminding us how spooky the house is but at least pulpmeister Wessler delivers a good twist in the tail.-Peter

World of Mystery #6

Cover by Carl Burgos

"The Secret of the Haunted House" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo) ★★1/2

"The Most Dangerous Man in the World!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★★

"Witch Doctor" (a: Gene Colan) ★★1/2

"Hideous Hide-out" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★★

"Secret Under the Sea!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★1/2

"The Sinking Man!" (a: Chuck Miller) ★

In order to join a local social club (nope, not a JD gang, but one of those nice, innocent circles that probably gather on Sundays to knit and help tend to orphaned children), three wacky teens break into a supposedly haunted house only to discover the rundown old mansion is a hub for inter-dimensional travelers. "The Secret of the Haunted House" has one of the three most overused plot hooks on the Atlas carousel (picture one of those twirly things on the Atlas breakroom table that holds ketchup, mustard, and cliches) but, for some godforsaken reason, I enjoyed it anyway. Yes, you're right, the Williamson/Mayo gleam probably has a lot to do with that. I'll take it.

Jack says to hell with deadlines
and marches out of the Bare Bones bullpen

Martin was just an ordinary schlub, walking the streets until the day he was struck by lightning and became "The Most Dangerous Man in the World!" Once Martin comes out of his bolt-induced coma (a rather short one at that), he discovers that his glowing hands can incinerate anything they touch. Will Martin use his newly gained energy to save the world or destroy it? Well, that's a good question, but it's one that's not answered. Oddly enough, Martin delivers an ultimatum to his hometown to follow his orders or perish but we never find out what his endgame actually is. "Most Dangerous" is a clever variation on the Midas Touch theme and it shows Ditko slowly but surely developing that unique style we all know and love.

"Witch Doctor" is an inane and supremely silly tale about a movie company in Africa that lands on the wrong side of the titular medicine man. The maladies that befall the cast of the film escalate as did my giggles. But never mind that cuz Gene Colan to the rescue. Colan's guys are tough, girls are gorgeous, and noir the noirest. The dopey script (courtesy of the reliable Carl Wessler) and strong graphics continue in "Hideous Hide-Out," about a sweet old woman who runs a unique museum. Her pieces are not made of wax but are animal subjects frozen in suspended animation. Enter the vicious Rocky Larsen gang, who are looking for somewhere to hide and decide that Mrs. Turner's museum is just the right place. A huge smile came to my face as I watched Most Wanted Criminal Rocky and his gang sit outside the museum all day waiting for a good time to invade. I'd be looking for a hiding spot a bit faster but then I'm not a wanted felon. That's four well-illustrated stories in a row. May be a record for a post-code Atlas issue. Could the streak continue?

Well... Sol Brodsky's art on "Secret Under the Sea!" is not up to the standards set previously this issue but the work is certainly not bland nor boring. As for the plot of the three-pager: a strange sea captain can locate sunken ships and no one knows how he does it. It's uncanny. The secret, once the captain gets under the sea, is that he's likely one of Namor's second cousins. The truly wretched art arrives finally in the form of "The Sinking Man!," penciled by Chuck Miller, who has one of those generic styles half the bullpen acquired over the years. Lots of talking heads (in this case, bald heads) going on about time travel and mental telepathy. I'm sure there was more but, seriously, you're not going to read this tripe so why go on about it? Let's hold on to those first three stories this issue (and honorable mention to the fourth) and pretend "The Sinking Man!" never appeared.-Peter

World of Suspense #7

Cover by Carl Burgos

"The Face!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #32) 

"When the Creature Escapes" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo)

(r: Chamber of Chills #13) ★★1/2

"The World's Strangest Crime" (a: Bernard Baily) ★1/2

"The Lost Island!" (a: Pete Morisi) ★

"Escape from Nowhere!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★

(r: Amazing Adventures #28)

"To Walk Unseen" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

Roy Farnum has put up with cranky old millionaire, Wallace Lawson, for 14 years in hopes of inheriting his millions, but when Farnum learns of a long-lost son, he is certain his dreams of wealth will not come true. Farnum meets a stranger who, for $1000, takes him to  meet an inventor whose machine can change a man's face to resemble "The Face!" in a photograph. For another $8000, Roy has his face changed into that of Andrew Lawson, the missing son; the inventor takes Farnum's face as his own. The old man dies, the will is read, and--surprise! (NOT)--Wallace left his fortune to Roy rather than to his no-good son. Roy suddenly realizes he's been had by the inventor, who is none other than Andrew Lawson!

Carl Wessler once again packs eight pages of captions and dialogue into a four-page story where the twist is telegraphed well before the last panel. Joe Maneely's art may not be what it used to be, but it's still pretty good.

After catching a strange sea creature, Dr. John Halsey brings it back to the aquarium, where he begins to sense that it is highly intelligent. Eventually, the creature begins trying to communicate telepathically with the doc, who fears what it might do. "When the Creature Escapes," Halsey grabs a gun and searches, soon learning that the nearby atomic pile is reaching the danger point. The doc finds and shoots the creature, only to learn that it entered the atomic pile and stabilized it, possibly saving the world from destruction. Oops!

Williamson and Mayo do their best with a rather static story, providing a nice half-splash page with the creature being pulled from the sea in a net, as well as a very sharp panel of Halsey shooting  among its tentacles. I did not expect the creature to be benevolent, so the ending was satisfying.

Warren and Grayson decide to commit "The World's Strangest Crime" using their new machine that can send a man back in time and view scenes from the past. The Cooper Gang stole $20,000 in gold coins a century ago and Grayson proposes going back to that moment, grabbing the loot, and returning to the present while the gang members are too startled to react. Everything goes smoothly until Grayson returns with the money and he and Warren are surprised by a man from 100 years in the future, who grabs the money and disappears back to his own time while they are too startled to react.

Jack Oleck demonstrates that he's learned well at the feet of Carl Wessler, penning a story that plods along to a dull finish. At least Bernard Baily's artwork is not the worst we've seen from him.

Joe Brock breaks out of the death house and makes his way to a port, where he holds a boat's crew at gunpoint and insists that they take him along on their scientific expedition to the South Seas. A storm washes the boat ashore on a remote island, where Brock notices a Geiger counter clicking furiously. He assumes that this means that the island contains valuable uranium, so he pretends to see dangerous animals in the jungle. The rest of the crew get back on the boat and leave. Brock thinks he's sitting on a fortune in uranium until he sees a beetle that has grown as big as a man. When he sees a sign with a warning that the island is being used as a disposal area for atomic waste, Brock realizes that he'll grow giant-sized just like the beetle.

I usually like Pete Morisi's quirky style, but on this story he was just collecting a paycheck. The story itself is awful and the worst part of all is the idea that Brock somehow thinks he can profit from being left alone on a remote island with uranium. Does he think he'll mine it all himself? Then what? Wait for a passing ship and cart it back to civilization? The ending is worse--he's being exposed to high levels of radiation and his main concern is that he'll grow bigger?

The Great Myron has always managed to escape, no matter the challenge. But when he's hit by a truck while crossing the street, Myron's return to life may be his most daring escape yet. "Escape From Nowhere!" pushes the boundaries of what should be included in a comic titled World of Suspense, since next to nothing happens and there's little to no suspense.

Fred Beasley delivers laundry to various folks. One of his customers is Doc, a scientist, who tells Fred that he's working on an invisibility liquid. Like every Atlas protagonist, Fred immediately thinks he can cash in. The Doc tells Fred that if a tiny bit of the liquid is rubbed on the skin, it produces temporary, safe invisibility, but too much will produce permanent invisibility, followed by death!

Fred tries a little and robs a grocery store, certain that he's invisible when the sole customer does not appear to see him. The crook returns to Doc's office, where he and Doc get into a scuffle and Fred is soaked with the liquid. He rushes outside and the same man who had been in the grocery store ignores him. When the police come to take Fred away, Doc explains that he was just kidding about the fluid causing invisibility and death. After the police leave with Fred, we see that the man on the sidewalk wears a placard: "Blind and Deaf."

After reading the last three Atlas comics from April 1957, the idea of being blind doesn't seem so bad. This ridiculous story depends on the blind man being present both in the store and on the sidewalk when Fred thinks he's invisible. Pretty far-fetched if you ask me.-Jack

Next Week...
Now This is More Like It!

"Hey, Mom and Dad! Look!
Have you thought about this yet?"

It's Coming!

 

Coming July 2nd.

But What Is It?

Keep Watching This Space

For Clues!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 159: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 144

April 1957 Part III

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Strange Stories of Suspense #14

Cover by Bill Everett

"Beware... a Martian" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo) ★

"Someone is in the Trunk" (a: Dick Ayers) ★

"When His World Vanished" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★★

"All Through the Night" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★

"Child's Play!" (a: John Tartaglione) ★

"Inside the Hidden Well!" (a: Doug Wildey) ★★

You know that oddball vagrant who's been living in the small shack on the outskirts of Raffington? You're not going to believe it, but he's really a Martian! At a town hall meeting, the grizzled, bearded old man dispenses with his disguise and introduces himself to the populace as Nardo the Martian!

Nardo insists that he loves the town and really digs the people who live there. Just give him a little time and he'll prove it. Within days, he's not only holding down a job at RR McGowan Manufacturing but also dazzling the boss with his business acumen. But, unknown to Nardo, there's one very unhappy Raffingtonite looking on from the fringes: Horace Vail, who swears he'll bring down the outer space man no matter the cost.

"Beware... a Martian" is a silly "cautionary" tale about man's inhumanity to Martian. Vail's escalating frame jobs (including nitro planted on the tracks of the town's passenger train) are hilarious, as is the preachy climactic panel (we can grow to love someone despite the color of his gills). As far as the art goes, I'd rather have seen Williamson, hold the Mayo. Not much of Al's magic power on display here.

Jerry Slade has been breaking into the rooms of the people he boards with over at Ma Pearson's Home and pawning the valuables for lots of dough. Poor old Mrs. Pearson has no idea Jerry is behind the robberies but something must be done... and quickly. Jerry salivates when his landlady explains that he'll need to share his room with another boarder for a brief time. More booty to loot.

Once his new roommate is off to work, Jerry rummages in the man's oversized trunk when, to his shock and horror, an image leaps out at him. "Someone is in the Trunk." I'll save you the wear and tear on your eyeballs (and patience) and spoil that the "image" is actually Jerry's face reflecting back at him from a mirror inside the trunk. Terrifying! The Ayers art is dreck but giggle-icious in spots, such as the panel of Jerry running (see above), which reveals just how oddly the human body can bend.

Rene Lacoeur owns the most profitable casino in Macao but dark forces are planning against him; the mob, noticing the huge profits Rene is pulling in, attempts to kill him several times. While racing away from a pursuing car, Rene runs over a little boy but doesn't stop to help. He turns to his loyal henchman, Kutso, and asks if he knows of any black arts practitioners who can lend him a hand. Kutso answers in the affirmative and takes him to an old man who works a spell and promises Rene he'll never die. Too late, Rene learns the kid he ran over was Kutso's nephew and now he faces a fate worse than eternal life.

"When HIs World Vanished" begins as a fairly intriguing and suspenseful crime drama but then changes lanes midway so that the story can actually fit into a sf/fantasy title. The switch is abrupt and lame and torpedoed whatever interest I had in Rene Lacoeur and his predicament. Robert Q. Sale's art is sketchy and ugly in spots, but serviceable.

Everett Marley mocks his wife, Lois, for her belief in the supernatural until an incredible event hits him right in the face. Coming home from the office the next day, Ev discovers there's a strange woman feeding unfamiliar kids in his kitchen. The woman is clearly not Lois but she identifies Everett as her hubby. Bewildered, he goes to work the next day and a similar conundrum occurs with his co-workers! What the heck is going on?

If you're waiting for a solution, clearly you haven't been paying attention to the majority of our synopses. All we learn is that Ev will surely change his mind by story's end. Clarification was never Carl Wessler's strong point. I know I boast this about stories every week but "All Through the Night" might be the single worst story I've read in the post-code Atlas era. 

In the three-page "Child's Play!," a respected professor finds himself testing out toys at a research center. Then, one day, a mysterious gizmo from the future arrives in his in-box. What could this thing be? It's not worth your time to find out. In the finale,  "Inside the Hidden Well!," American troops run across a deserting Afrika Corps soldier and take him prisoner. While searching for water, the soldier runs across the fabled oasis that Achilles drew his power from. Once he has several sips, he feels as if his body is made of steel. He heads back to camp to prove he's immortal. Long story short, he gets shot in the heel and dies. "Hidden Well" wins best-of-issue honors simply because it contains a bit of imagination. It's cliched, fer sure, but I'm starving for even a morsel of originality.-Peter

Strange Tales #57

Cover by Bill Everett & Carl Burgos

"You Used to Be Me!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★

"Murder on His Mind" (a: Pete Morisi) ★1/2

"The Door That Wouldn't Open!" (a: Marvin Stein) ★

"The Voice of Doom!" (a: Gray Morrow) ★★1/2

"Volcano!" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★

"It Walks in the Night!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

Frank Evans grows up hating and envying rich John Wilson, he of the fancy Caddys and mansion on the hill and swears someday he'll have everything that Wilson owns for himself. With that goal in mind, Evans goes to science college and becomes the most brilliant professor in the world; he invents a mind-switching gizmo and (like every other mad/brilliant Atlas scientist) uses it for selfish reasons. The mad doc switches brains with Wilson and quickly regrets it. 

The setup is laughable but, for some reason (lack of sleep?), I never saw the twist coming and the Stallman art is pleasing as well. It does make one giggle when one thinks about all the dough Evans could make with his invention but instead insists he must own everything the other guy possesses. 

Vaudeville performer Frank Mason has wandered into a life of crime and now imagines the voice of his partner, Johnny Mason, ringing in his head, urging him to give himself up to the cops. Frank deep sixes that idea and promises to ventilate Johnny once he gets his hands on him. Breaking into "the old theatrical warehouse" where Johnny shacks up, Frank is surrounded by the cops and forced to surrender. One of the cops remarks that Frank must be insane thinking the man is hearing the voice of Johnny Mason, Frank's ventriloquist dummy!

I could see the climax coming right from the get-go thanks to the various "clues" the scripter threw in my face, but "Murder on His Mind" is almost worth the read to catch a glimpse of what 1950s cops were really like. Mason gets a stiff right in the breadbasket from two nattily dressed detectives. I thought that only happened in Manhunt.

Okay, pay attention, cuz I ain't repeating myself. Frankie Walford is a good-for-nothing bum who's been living off his genius inventor-guy father. His pop tells him if he goes straight and stops hanging out with JDs, the new gizmo the old man is working on will net him millions. "Pshaw!" exclaims the young louse. Pop dies and leaves his newest invention to junior, but there's a proviso: the kid, now 24, must prove his soul is full of love and he no longer wants to rob pizza vendors for fun and pocket change.

Pop's lawyer swears to Frankie that the old man isn't kidding; the thing he invented could revolutionize time travel (or something like that), but it's hidden away behind an impenetrable door. The only way the door will open is if Frankie proves his worth. Good luck with that. "The Door That Wouldn't Open!" is yet another badly illustrated snoozer about a brilliant Atlas scientist. In 1957, there were more time machine inventors than there were color TV sets in New York. Why didn't these guys get together and form a club to blow off a little steam instead of disrupting the natural timeline?

Radio "ham" Joe Talcott has zeroed in on a frequency from outer space but his other "ham" buddies don't believe him. Or won't. Could be that Joe is a pompous, self-serving, egotistical ass and the fellas don't want to spend another minute with the guy. "But hold on a sec, my bosom buddies..." Carl says, with a tone of elation, "Let's fix that Joe real good. We'll beam in on that alien frequency and pretend we're invaders from space!"

And that's exactly what the trio do. The prank comes off so well that Joe runs off screaming into the night, never to be seen again. The mates congratulate Carl on a job well done but the joke's on these two dorks: Carl is an alien readying an armada to invade Earth. Thank goodness he was tipped off to Joe's discovery! For three pages, I thought "The Voice of Doom!" was going to end with the obligatory "I meant to disguise my voice as a Martian but my tire blew out and I never made it to the microphone. Jeepers! Joe's telling the truth!" but thank goodness we got a bit of a variant for once. I enjoyed that last second twist almost as much as I enjoyed Gray Morrow's art, very much like George Evans in spots.

Speaking of time travel, Giovanni, the lead protagonist of "Volcano!," has developed yet another form of time travel: a pill. Giovanni has become obsessed with a treasure his ancestor left behind just before Vesuvius erupted and he's keen on traveling back and nabbing the big prize. In the end, our hero becomes a hero when he foregoes the treasure to save some children who are about to be lavalized. Another conceit of the comics code: all brilliant but selfish scientists must see the error of their ways before that final panel.

In the final saga of this special "Brilliant Atlas Inventors of 1957" issue of Strange Tales, a brilliant inventor creates a new form of plastic that can change shape with just a thought. While the egghead is demonstrating the elasticity of the goop to a pair of plastic company owners, one of the trio wills the plastic to take on a gorilla form. Then the ape walks out the door... The Reinman art is, as usual, nice to look at but, seriously, I've had it up to here with messages tacked on to stories about money-hungry creators. Let the innovators make a little dough once in a while.-Peter

Strange Tales of the Unusual #9

Cover by Bill Everett

"They Meet at Night!" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★1/2

"Prophet of Doom!" (a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2

(r: Chamber of Chills #14)

"A Matter of Life or Death!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★

(r: Creatures on the Loose #32)

"Mind Reader!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★

"Stowaway in the Sky!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"Captured by the Cave Men!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★

An old farmer named Morse sees something fall from the sky behind a copse and goes to investigate. He finds a man named Shoreham, who insists he saw a Martian spaceship land and overheard the Martians say that they had visited Earth a thousand years ago and can only come once per millennium. They're here to capture a human to take back to Mars as a specimen! Morse plays along and follows Shoreham as they approach the ship; suddenly, Shoreham leaps up and knocks Morse unconscious. Morse awakens on the Martian rocket ship, en route to the Red Planet, and happily anticipates returning to the home he left a thousand years ago.

Just because an ending is surprising doesn't make it satisfying. Why did Morse trick Shoreham into thinking him a human farmer? Why does Morse think that "it will go hard with him [Shoreham] when we arrive"? Is it because he's bringing home a Martian rather than a human? I need answers that "They Meet at Night!" fails to provide.

A bank president named Morse (apparently back from Mars already--see prior story) is visited by a man named Drew whom he fired four years ago for stealing. Now Drew announces that he's been studying in Tibet and can see the future. For example, Morse is about to faint (he does) and Drew is about to rob the vault in the confusion (he does). Drew walks out of the bank and boards a train, where he becomes a "Prophet of Doom!" when he has a vision of an impending train crash. He pulls the emergency cord and exits the train; moments later, the crash occurs and a piece of flying metal knocks him out. Drew wakes up to see police standing over him, having found the stolen loot in his pockets. They add that it was his tug on the emergency cord that caused the crash, which would not have happened had he not acted.

Jim Mooney turns in his standard, professional job on this tale, which fails to generate much excitement. I wonder how difficult it is to go to Tibet and learn how to foresee the future? It might come in handy with sports betting.

Tom Baker is a gardener who always buys the same products at Harry Farris's gardening supply store. One day, Farris talks Baker into buying a new product, a can of Lamond's Shur-Kil insecticide. Fifteen minutes after Tom leaves, Harry gets a call from the Lamond Chemical Company saying that they made a mistake and he'd better get that can back--it's "A Matter of Life or Death!" Harry races to get the police to help him find Tom, while Tom tries everything to open the impenetrable can--an axe, a drill, a steamroller--nothing works. Finally, he throws it far into the dump and it explodes! Harry arrives to tell him that the can was mistakenly filled with nitroglycerine!

Sol Brodsky's art is bad, but the panels that frame this story are worse since they feature Death himself as narrator. In the last two panels, he informs any readers left awake that it wasn't Tom's time to die. Apparently that's why he couldn't open the can. However, if it was filled with nitro and exploded when he tossed it in the dump, you'd think it would have blown up when run over by a steamroller!

In the fall of 1942, a Nazi sergeant named Hans Reuger is respected as a "Mind Reader!" and given an assignment: go to Newark, NJ, pretend to be an American G.I., and plant a time bomb in a munitions plane. Rechristened Harry Judson, the saboteur is dropped off by a submarine and paddles a raft ashore, where he meets Private Eddie White at a cafe. The two hit it off right away and Eddie says he put in for assignment to a U.S.O unit.

After spending lots of time together for a week, Harry tells Eddie his outfit is on the move, and the men agree to meet for the last time that night. Harry plants the time bomb and then meets Eddie in a hotel lobby. They exchange presents, but Harry tells Eddie not to open his till after midnight. At 12:01, Eddie opens his gift, a lollipop labeled "sucker." By 12:09, Harry is on a U-boat, where he opens Eddie's gift--the time bomb Harry placed at the munitions plant! The next morning, Eddie opens a letter and reads about his new U.S.O. assignment, where he will entertain the troops with his mind-reading act!

Forget the silly ending and just sit back and delight in four more pages of outstanding work by EC alumnus Krigstein, who is fast becoming the main reason to read Atlas comics of 1957. His draftsmanship is excellent and he's working twice as hard as anyone else in the shop, cramming small panels into his pages to try to make sense of another overly convoluted and wordy plot by Wessler. He does a darn good job and even creates some suspense at the end.

Ralph Healy is an aeronautical engineer who discovers Neutralium, a metal that floats on air and will revolutionize air travel. On his first test flight in a plane built with the substance, Ralph is held at gunpoint by two stowaways who want him to fly the plane behind the Iron Curtain. Ralph says no and two of his men are thrown out of the plane in midair. Appearing to agree to proceed to the Communist country, Ralph flies on, but when he lands, it's back in America. Turns out the two men tossed from the plane were wearing Neutralium suits and turned the plane around in midair from outside!

Groan. If the script weren't bad enough, we have to deal with more amateurish art by Winiarski. His panels look like they could have come from one of the backup (far far back) stories in an early 1940s comic.

On an archaeological expedition, Dr., Curt Ford wishes pretty Dr. Betty Cooper were less cold toward him. She thaws out fast when she falls down a deep hole and the duo are "Captured By the Cave Men!," members of an advanced species driven underground long, long ago by the more apelike ancestors of the human race. Curt throws a handy switch and he and Betty climb to the surface right before the big hole is sealed over and the menace avoided. Now it's Curt and Betty, no more of this "Dr. Ford" and "Dr. Cooper."

This isn't a particularly strange or unusual tale. In fact, the mediocre art by Tony DiPreta and the by-the-numbers plot are all too common in Atlas mags these days.-Jack

Next Week...
The Jungle Drums
of Gene Colan!