Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 170: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 155

September 1957-February 1958

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Uncanny Tales #56 (September 1957)

Cover by Fred Kida (?)

"The Glass Man" (a: Bob Powell) ★★

"The Thing in the Sky!" (a: Ruben Moreira) ★

"False Face!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"A Cry for Help!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★

"Out of This World" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★

"Confession of Murder!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★

As you can tell, the Atlas Implosion of 1957 resulted in the axing of most of the sf/fantasy titles and several months of empty comic racks (except for Millie the Model and Love Romances, of course). We aren't complaining, mind you.

Herman Buhler's wife has been nagging him to re-silver the mirror in their dingy flat, so Herman buys the material to do so. Unfortunately, Herman is inadvertently given a can of paint that's been exposed to a high level of radiation. When he gets home and starts the refinishing job, the mirror spits out an evil twin of Herman. He and his wife are horrified and flee the apartment in search of the police.

Herman's evil twin goes forward and launches a spree of (admittedly non-violent) crimes across the city. The police at first scoff at Herman's story, but reports of the evil twin begin flooding in and they are forced to admit the possibility of extra-normal activities. Fortunately, Herman and the cops are able to track down "The Glass Man" and destroy him on a city rooftop. All breathe a sigh of relief. About as milquetoast as it gets, with little to no action and a heck of a lot of wordy captions explaining what's going on in the art below. That art, by the way, is the only reason to be patient through the script.

Really smart and brilliant genius, Professor Kebler, has invented a new gizmo that allows you to look back in time and observe what was going on in, say, the streets of ancient Rome (in one eye-opening panel, we see Napoleon Bonaparte taking a leak in a dark alley). Unfortunately, during a ceremony accompanied by two of his smartest colleagues, Kebler tests his theory that his machine can also jump forward in time and watches in horror as his cat, Mephisto, hops into the machine and is magnified into gigantic proportions above the city... I'm just going to stop right there and admit I can't make heads or tails of the climax, where dear Mephisto becomes "The Thing in the Sky!," a dirigible-sized floater that causes panic in the land. How any of this ties in to Kleber's time machine is anyone's guess. Science hokum.

After his vaudeville act goes belly up, impersonator Claude Barnes (a/k/a "False Face!") turns to crime to make ends meet. He arranges his "putty-like" face to resemble the most powerful men in the city and goes on a robbery rampage, terrorizing the population and befuddling the police before stumbling over his own coattails and landing in a cell. These things never cease to make me smile when an otherwise respectable citizen faces hardship and decides he should become a hardened criminal just like that.

A quartet of street hoods don't have but thirty-five cents between them, so they rough up an organ grinder for his pennies. That's when the man's gorilla steps around the corner and takes care of business. "A Cry for Help!" is three pages of drivel with a purely pedestrian art job by "Jolly" Solly Brodsky. In "Out of This World," two knuckleheads break into a lab and interrupt an experiment, making off with a case of uranium. The cops chase them to a nearby cave, where the men disappear. That's because the scientists were testing a machine that breaks into other dimensions and these two clods are now somewhere on a cliff overlooking Saturn. There's no sense in the (uncredited) writer's script and Bernie looks like he took ten minutes to whip this one out. Still, a rush job by Krigstein is something to enjoy.

Hugh Janssen is out of work and desperate. That's what brings him to the mansion on the hill just outside of town one dark and dreary night. Peering through the window, Hugh sees an old man sitting at a table, counting gold coins. Mad with greed, Hugh breaks in, kills the old man, and flees. Wracked with guilt (and a little hungry), he stops at a police station to give them his "Confession of Murder!" After Hugh finishes his emotionally stirring recount, the cops tell him that he broke into the abandoned Craine house, where its owner, Jeffry Craine, was murdered by a prowler a decade before. The cops tell him to show up back at a construction site in the morning and he'll get work as a carpenter. A happy ending for everyone except the pitiful, bored reader.

A truly wretched end to a gawdawful final issue of Uncanny Tales. In the grand scheme of things, Uncanny proved to be one of the better pre-code titles (and just as mediocre as the rest of its brothers and sisters once the CCA came sniffin' around), placing five stories on my Top Fifty list: Fred Kida's "Skin Deep" (from #2), Ross Andru's "Phooey on Phoonga" (#15), Vinnie Colletta's "The Machine Age" (#18), "Proof Positive" (#20), and "Don't Count Your Chickens" (#26). Marvel would resurrect the title for a 12-issue reprint comic from 1973-75.-Peter

Strange Tales #60 (December 1957)

Cover by Bill Everett

"With Just One Stroke" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Rude Awakening!" (a: George Woodbridge) ★★

"The Final Shot!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"Child's Play!" (a: Christopher Rule (?) & Ed Winiarski) ★★

"The Puppet Man" (a: Dan Loprino) ★

"The Abyss!" (a: Jim Mooney) ★★

Criminal mastermind John Durston ducks into an antique shop, the cops in hot pursuit, and asks the proprietor if there's anything small he can buy. Unaware he's talking to a big-time heister/murderer/ extortioner/whatever, the shopkeeper shows Durston a really nice writing pen. When the cops show up at the door, Durston scribbles "I wish I was a thousand miles away" on scratch paper and "With Just One Stroke," the evil genius is whisked away to a remote plantation. 

Absolutely shocked, Durston has the wherewithal to scribble down his wish to be in a Spanish castle and... sure enough... he magically arrives in Spain. This rigamarole continues for at least twenty more panels until John wishes something very stupid and gets his just desserts. Silly but harmless. Another go-to plot device in the late 1950s seems to have been the mysterious gift/antique shop. It's lucky John had the foresight to bring paper with him everywhere he zone-hopped.

Parks dreams he's arrested for embezzlement. That's not a big deal except that he has embezzled from his business and once he wakes up he realizes he has to kill the only person who might suspect him of his crime. Parks pushes the man in front of a subway train and awakens in a courtroom, talking to his attorney. Realizing he's going to go to jail for embezzlement, he sighs, knowing he'll serve ten years for robbery. Parks has a "Rude Awakening!" when his lawyer tells him he's been convicted of murder. A bit confusing at times (that's the point, though, ain't it?), but it's one of those Atlas tales where I can discard quibbles since the writer (Jack Oleck) at least feigns interest.

Mike Dillon spends ten long years in the pokey, his revenge simmering inside his fetid brain. Not your average jailbird, Mike spends the decade brushing up on chemistry and becomes probably the most brilliant chemist in Sing-Sing. Once out, Dillon applies his newfound scientific prowess to a complicated chemical mixture he dubs Compound #41™ (#40™ worked okay but Mike decided to add 10% more sodium pentothal and... voila... #41™!) and hits the streets to locate the five men who put him into prison.

Mike has good luck finding these guys randomly (well, he has a couple of addresses) and shoots them with his tricked-up pistol, filled with bullets of ice made of Compound #41™. The men respond only to Mike's voice and he commands them to do awful, illegal things, thus opening themselves to incarceration. Unfortunately, Mike is as dopey as his Compound #41™ in the end and the police snap the cuffs on him one more time. Our protagonist sighs and proclaims that this time he'll use his sentence to learn how to fix washing machines. This one is uber-stupid from frame one and only gets dopier as it progresses. Mike's slip-up occurs when he accidentally shoots the mirror reflection of one of his targets instead of the real thing!

Zillionaire Rod Manning gets what he wants and so does his spoiled rotten brat kid, so when Manning gets wind of a scientist in his company building a robot, the egocentric rich jerk demands that the egghead hand the bucket of bolts over to him so he can keep his monster son happy. Unfortunately, it seems the robot has a mind of its own and, after killing the family dog (well, Manning says it's only fainted with fright but we pre-coders know better) and lighting the house on fire, Manning admits he's made a mistake and returns the mechanical demon to its maker. 

Professor Lang smiles, sighs, and admits that if a creep like Manning could change his stripes and become a softy then maybe it wasn't such a bad experience after all. "Child's Play!" is good for a few giggles (Mrs. Manning is the only one who seems to have any sense in the household and continually berates her inane hubby) and the art doesn't stink. 

The three-pager, "The Puppet Man!," is about a man accused of a murder he can't remember committing. In the final panel, we learn he's a stage actor and this has all been a role he's playing. Lazy writing, dreadful graphics. In the final tale, "The Abyss!," five refugees are chased into a treacherous mountain region by a band of stinkin' Commies (you can tell the difference between the two groups by the red stars on the ball caps of the bad guys!) and are helped by guardian angels to reach the promised land. The reveal (they were climbing Mt. Olympus the whole time) doesn't make much sense and our male heroes are dressed in three-piece office suits rather than winter wear, but I smiled a couple times. Can't complain much when that's the case.-Peter

World of Fantasy #9 (December 1957)

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Girl Who Fell" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★1/2

"It's Harmless... I Think" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★

"Spare Me, Please!" (a: Al Eadah) ★

"Quarantine!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"Handsome Harry's Wife!" (a: Christopher Rule) ★1/2

"The Phantom of the Farm!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★

After having a knock down drag out fight with his old lady, a young adventurer finds himself stuck on an archaeological dig deep in the jungle. Knowing he'll not see his gal again for two years, our hero resigns himself to finding another squeeze. Fortunately, while wandering through the jungle, he comes across a heretofore unknown temple and the comely maiden who lives there. Little does he know, this babe will help him patch things up with Gloria back home. Obviously, the romance comic titles were all filled that month, so "The Girl Who Fell" was dropped into World of Fantasy #9 instead. The Doxsee art is great but, land sake's alive, it's lucky Dr. Wertham never saw this strip. The young lads in the splash look like they're hanging out at a bathhouse.

In "It's Harmless... I Think," a scientist studying the Mogimpo tribe in deepest darkest Africa, stumbles across a trinket the natives refer to as a "Ju-Ju," a small idol purported to have magical powers. The drawback is the owner of said curio sooner or later takes on the personality of the previous owner. And the last guy killed his wife! Ends with the obligatory "oh, it was just a tall tale" exclamation as the next owner down the line heads home to his wife.

Professor Weston is hired by the government to work on a super secret... something, and his lab pals are all envious. Weston gets his own lab, special equipment, gorgeous lab assistants--the point is, no expense has been spared. But just what is the egghead working on? Well, it turns out that aliens from the fourth dimension are itching to get this information as well and they kidnap Weston and threaten him with bodily harm if he doesn't cough up the goods. Weston sighs calmly and rips the mask off one of the aliens. Holy cow! This ain't no alien; it's a stinkin' Commie!!! When did the Reds get so smart? Anyway, Weston wasn't buying the charade in the first place because... ta-da, he's from the fourth dimension, on loan to America to solve their problems. "Spare Me, Please!" indeed!

Inventor Horace Roarke has been sponging off his brother and sister-in-law while putting the final touches on his brand new one-of-a-kind time machine (which, according to 1200 other Atlas tales of the time, isn't that unique). Pressured to finish early, Horace gives Muriel and Ted a demonstration of his machine's power and travels to the year 2000. Back in the "present," Horace regales his audience with tales of factories displaying the Roarke Industry logo, a world where disease and reality shows no longer exist. "It's a wonderland!," Horace raves.

But then big mouth Muriel tells one of her knitting buddies about the journey and that old hen tells another and another and, very soon, Horace has the Feds knocking at the door. As her brother-in-law is hauled away for questioning, Muriel tells her husband they must go to the future and bring back some proof that Horace is telling the truth. What they find will change the lives of the trio forever. With "Quarantine!," Carl Wessler reaches to the bottom of his bag of surprises and realizes it's empty. No matter, he could just patch together bits of previous nonsense and hand them over to Stan for embellishment.

Harry and Helen have just become a married couple and Helen couldn't be happier now that she's "Handsome Harry's Wife!" Harry can't wait to get the little Mrs. on their honeymoon to Rio where he's got a special surprise planned. But before Harry can deliver his poisonous drink, Helen hands her new hubby a surprise of her own. The Christopher Rule art isn't bad, but the climactic twist can be seen coming long before its delivery. 

Leave it to Harvey Krigstein to save an otherwise crappy issue of World of Fantasy with "The Phantom of the Farm!," a humorous tale of two nitwit criminals trying to separate a farmer from his five thousand in cash. Whenever they get close to the loot, an ominous shadow appears behind them. Turns out it's the farmer's scarecrow, who's usually shooing away the lousy birds in the fields. Blissfully free from descriptive word boxes, "The Phantom" is like a macabre Looney Tunes short. More Krigstein, I say! Whole issues of him, I demand!-Peter

Strange Tales #61 (February 1958)

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Laundry Machines!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

"The Spectre" (a: Dick Giordano) ★1/2

"The Disappearing Man!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"Menace of the Mirror" (a: Bernard Baily) ★1/2

"Fear Walks on Four Feet!" (a: Al Eadah) ★1/2

"The Eyes That Never Close!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★1/2

A shady real estate man named Donald Trump Nicholas Flood rents a filthy tenement store to a (white) immigrant woman from Haiti so she can open a laundromat. He says he trusts her, so no lease is needed. Soon, her business is thriving, so he jacks up the rent by $50 a month, since she has no lease. Soon, Flood is troubled by insomnia and headaches. The doctor can't find anything wrong, so Flood visits the laundromat, where the woman digs up a box of pills from the dirt cellar floor and Flood returns the extra $50 a month he took from her.

The pills work, but Flood thinks he's clever and sneaks down to the cellar, where he digs up the box of pills and hides it elsewhere. He finds a lawyer and has the woman deported, but before you know it, he's suffering again. This time, when Flood goes to the cellar for the box of pills, he finds endless boxes and has no idea which one holds the cure. I didn't expect much from a story called "The Laundry Machines!" and Paul Reinman's art has that same, tired look we've grown used to, yet the story intrigued me right up to the disappointing conclusion. Too bad the scene on Bill Everett's cover doesn't happen in the story!

He may be the top race car driver in the country, but Burt Malone is shaken up when he sees "The Spectre," a large, ghostly figure, looming over the racetrack two times in a row, right before another driver's car crashes. Burt swears off racing, but his boss won't have it and visits a mystic at a county fair for help. The swami imprisons the spectre in a crystal ball and hands it to the boss, telling him that, as long as the glass orb remains intact, the spectre can't harm anyone. Malone resumes racing and, in the biggest race of the year, he suddenly sees the spectre and his car crashes. He's okay, but his mechanic finds that the glass ball fell off a shelf and smashed. We all saw that one coming a mile away. I never cared for racing stories, but Dick Giordano's art is always professionally done.

A year after a scientist named Farrell disappeared, a pair of his friends break into his house and find that he had built an unusual machine. One of the pair, Ellis, flips a switch and suddenly "The Disappearing Man! returns, wearing a golden crown! Farrell explains that the machine sent him to another dimension, where he made peace among warring tribes and was crowned king. That night, Ellis sneaks in, intending to travel to the other dimension and become a king himself. Farrell discovers him; they fight and Ellis is catapulted into the other dimension. Farrell explains to Clay, the other friend, that he passed a law that requires any stranger who suddenly appears to be arrested and jailed until Farrell returns. He'll fix the machine and head off to rescue Ellis, but it took him a decade to build it the first time! Ed Winiarski's art is pedestrian and, as is so often the case, the twist ending isn't much of a shock. The fact that this and "The Laundry Machine!" are both credited to Jack Oleck in the GCD suggests that his tales weren't any better than Wessler's.

Raynor has a theory that each reflection of his in a room of mirrors has a life of its own. He invents a machine to make one of the reflections come to life, which he'll prove by watching it move differently than he does. He flips the switch but, instead of one of the mirror images changing, he changes! Raynor realizes that the "Menace of the Mirror" must have built an identical machine and used it on him, so now he moves but none of the reflections follow his motions. Bernard Baily seems to be trying harder than Paul Reinman at this point, but this three-pager makes little sense.

Jim Andrews has invented a ray gun that, when used on a jungle beast, renders the beast docile so it can safely be captured and brought back to be exhibited in a circus or a zoo. If the ray gun works, Jim will have enough money to marry Ruth, but Jim's partner, Lester Morse, has other plans. In the African jungle, Lester aims the ray gun at a lion and turns the dial way up. Lester is knocked out and awakens to see a T-Rex! Assuming he's been sent into the past, he hides out for a year until the radiation wears off and he returns to the twentieth century. He finds that Jim and Ruth wed a year ago and Jim explains that the ray gun blast hit a dinosaur egg. The dino grew to full size in two hours, which means that Lester wasn't really in the past--he was hiding in a cave in the present for a year while Jim got rich and famous with his dinosaur exhibit. Hang on--did I write that Jack Oleck's scripts were as bad as Carl Wessler's? This story proves me wrong. Wessler could write bizarre scripts like no one else. Al Eadeh's art is nothing to write home about, either. I gave "Fear Walks on Four Feet!" a charity extra half-star because I like dinos.

Big Jeff Corley shares a cell at Alcatraz with Leo Hutten, who holds an idol that he stole from an Indian mystic and stares into "The Eyes That Never Close!" until he disappears! When Leo returns, he warns Jeff not to mess with the idol, but Jeff will do anything to get out of the cell, so he stares at the idol and disappears. Jeff finds himself on the Titanic, just after it hits the iceberg, and zips back to his cell, where Leo explains that the one who holds the idol gets three voyages. The problem is that those voyages are evil if the person holding it is evil. Jeff tries again and finds himself on the Hindenburg, just as it bursts into flames. Back to the cell! The third and final try lands Jeff in a prison cell in a Japanese city known as...wait for it...Hiroshima, and the air raid siren just sounded. Leave it to Bernie Krigstein to save the issue, even if his art is even sketchier than usual.-Jack

World of Fantasy #10 (February 1958)

Cover by Carl Burgos

"I Went Through the Veil!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

(r: Journey Into Mystery #11)

"The Silent Street" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

(r: Uncanny Tales #10)

"The Secret Men" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★1/2

(r: Journey Into Mystery #11)

"The Last Stop" (a: Gene Colan) ★1/2

(r: Fear #23)

"The Mystery of the Smiling Man!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"The Books That Were Alive" (a: Mort Meskin) ★1/2

(r: Journey Into Mystery #11)

A funny thing happens when Ralph is hiking near a sheer cliff: he sees a pretty, young woman drive a sports car right off the edge and disappear through a veil! Ralph is compelled to buy a sports car and drive through the veil himself; when he does, the young woman appears and tells him that he's the one for her. A wise old man appears and tells her that she can't do that, at which point Ralph wakes up in bed at home. He thinks it was all a dream, but in the future, the wise old man tells the young woman that Ralph looked just like the man she'll marry and, coincidentally, she's a dead ringer for Ralph's wife. Paul Reinman does a decent job on "I Went Through the Veil!" but, once again, a reasonably intriguing story falls flat at the end. I suspect these stories were written backwards, with Wessler or Oleck coming up with a twist and then figuring out how to get there. It's a shame the journey so often is better than the destination.

Officer Greene walks his beat on "The Silent Street" one evening, unaware that a Martian named Nargak lands and is prevented from destroying the Earth by a Martian policeman who follows him. To Greene, it's just another dull night. Ed Winiarski was the perfect choice for this forgettable three-pager, since both story and art are dreadful.

A party of soldiers climb a snowy mountain with one purpose: to determine whether a hidden city exists on the peak. The clouds part and they see the city, but it is quickly hidden by clouds again and the men are convinced it was just a hallucination. One man tries to leap across a crevasse and falls to his doom, so the rest head off, confident that no city exists. The fallen man arises from the crevasse after his companions have left and announces that he is one of "The Secret Men" from the hidden city, whose inhabitants possess the secret of levitation! Richard Doxsee's art is serviceable here but, again, the story goes nowhere.

Nick Taras is a truck driver transporting stolen goods when he runs into a pedestrian and leaves the scene of the accident. The man is not badly hurt, but Nick's conscience trouble him, and every time he goes on a delivery run his truck heads straight for the cemetery. Nick can't take it anymore and confesses to the cops, who learn that his truck's engine used to be in a hearse. The usually reliable Gene Colan didn't waste much time on this one and it's so bland that the hit and run victim isn't even badly hurt.

A prisoner named Mallin has served just a week of a ninety-nine year sentence, yet he's always smiling! What is "The Mystery of the Smiling Man!"? A doctor thinks Mallin replaced himself with a robot! The doc enters Mallin's cell at night to test his theory, only to have Mallin knock him out and take his place. Mallin explains that he smiled all the time so that others would be receptive to the placement of a post-hypnotic suggestion, one he stuck in the doc's mind because the doc looks like him. Mallin switches places with the doc and heads for the exit but is caught, unaware that the doc was also an inmate. Good lord, this has to be the bottom of the barrel! The art by Sales makes Winiarski's work look like that of Neal Adams, and the plot is idiotic.

Even the usually reliable Mort Meskin falls victim to the case of the shrinking paycheck, delivering scratchy, unfinished art to "The Books That Were Alive." A book-loving dreamer named Bert Wells discovers a pile of books on a hillside. When he opens them, he is transported into the exciting adventures they describe! In the end, it turns out the books came from the Stellar Space Traveling Library, whose alien pilot apologizes for crashing his ship into the hillside. I like the concept, but the execution is lacking.-Jack

Next Week...
A Man Enters a Mysterious Fog
and Begins to Shrink...
Who Thinks Up These Unique Ideas?

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!