The Marvel/Atlas
Horror Comics
Horror Comics
Part 101
April 1956 Part I
by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook
Cover by Carl Burgos (?) & Bill Everett (?)
"It Happened at Midnight!" (a: Bill Benulis) ★1/2
"One of Our Ships is Missing!" (a: Bill Everett) ★★1/2
"The Man Behind the Mask!" (a: John Forte) ★
"The Thing in the Box!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★
"There's No Tomorrow" (a: Bob Powell) ★★
(r: Tomb of Darkness #17)
"When Ends the Dream!" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★
Fantasy writer Randy Clarke types up a fanciful tale of a man assaulted and kidnapped by aliens, but he doesn't quite know how to put a bow on the climax (sounds like Randy Clarke might have been one of Stephen King's pseudonyms!). Allowing the outcome to be murky and deciding the reader can supply the details, Clarke heads out to mail the manuscript and is kidnapped by... you guessed it, aliens. Now Randy has a better climax!
All across the globe, vehicles of transportation disappear into thin air. What's the story? Turns out the King of Mars had the cars, boats, trains, and a bicycle teleported to the Red Planet for the amusement of his son. The Prince selects the bike and all the other vehicles are returned to Earth. The previous owner of the bike is happy to find a bag of gold on his porch the next morning. A cute little fantasy, "One of Our Ships is Missing!" also benefits from three pages of gorgeous Everett penciling.
Captain Blackheart's crew are the victims of a very predictable disaster in "There's No Tomorrow." Blackheart's pirates hijack a ship and kidnap an old fortune teller. The captain asks for his fortune and receives news he's not happy with. There's a decent twist in the tail and Bob Powell's old hags are always fun to look at. "When Ends the Dream!" is an overly complicated fantasy about three sailors who find themselves shipwrecked on an island that is actually a multi-dimensional portal. A mediocre climax to a mediocre issue.-Peter
Cover by Sol Brodsky & Carl Burgos
"The Flame That Burned a Thousand Years!"
(a: Manny Stallman) ★★
"There'll Be Some Changes Made" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★★
"The Fabulous Traveler!" (a: Chuck Miller) ★★
"The Meddler!" (a: Bill Benulis) ★
"The Man Who Had No Friends!"
(a: Al Williamson & Gray Morrow[?]) ★★
"Footprints From Nowhere!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★★1/2
Flint Wentworth finds a unique relic in an antique shop, a small incense burner that glows brightly; the shop owner explains that it is "The Flame That Burned a Thousand Years!" Flint pays a steep price for the item, but the shop owner explains that Flint must keep the fire burning as long as he owns the bowl or else he will have bad luck.
Flint being Flint, he decides he's not going to feed the flame and, as the fire dims, bad luck arrives in many forms. Realizing he'd better get with the program, Flint reignites the flame and good luck arrives at his door! There's not much sense to a man paying two hundred bucks (in terms a comic fan might understand, that would be about how much Marvel paid its artists in a calendar year) for a burning bowl and then making it a point to extinguish the flame. This guy isn't just lazy; he makes it his goal to watch the fire go out! Well, I guess without his inane stance, there would be no story. But guess what, there is no story.
Warped genius Paul Haines creates a giant TV screen that can telecast events from the past. The best thing about it (besides the low cable bill) is that Paul can change the events occurring before him. So, he does what any dopey genius would do: he sets the way-back machine to when his great-great-great-etc.-grandfather, Cedric Haines, decided to blow his millions on trivial pursuits. As Cedric heads to the chest that holds his cash, Paul zaps the container and teleports it to the present day, only to discover it contains Continental currency, as worthless as the paper it's printed on. "Oh well," sighs Paul, "at least I learned a good moral lesson about the value of love vs. money (or something like that)."
"The Fabulous Traveler!" has an intriguing set-up: Bill Fleming finds a book in the library detailing the flora and fauna of Mars and takes it to a scientist friend, who claims it could only have been written by someone who actually had visited the red planet. Turns out the book accidentally found its way from a Jupiter-Venus library system. It's not really supposed to be on Earth! There's no explanation of how the book actually turned up at the library (UFO lands in the parking lot and drops off one book?) or why Bill's scientist buddy is so convinced only a space traveler could have detailed the plant life and canals on Mars when no one from Earth has actually landed there. Couldn't it just be someone writing a fanciful tale?
"The Man Who Had No Friends!" is a bit better, thanks to atmospheric art by Williamson and Morrow. A pirate ship takes on a new crew member who doesn't cotton to raping and pillaging and lets his captain know of his growing disdain. This was Morrow's first work for Atlas (he'd do a total of 22 stories through 1957), and the first of three he'd collaborate with Williamson on. Williamson, fresh off a stellar stint with EC, would appear 33 times, usually inked by Roy Krenkel or Ralph Mayo. In the sendoff story this issue, "Footprints from Nowhere," the first men to land on the moon find footprints leading to... a wrecked spaceship! Despite the weak graphics from Winiarski, this science fiction tale is not bad at all and has a good shock ending.-Peter
Cover by Sol Brodsky
"Someone is Waiting!" (a: Bob Forgione) ★★1/2
"Where the Dinosaurs Roam" (a: Bob Powell) ★★
"The Blue Men!" (a: John Forte) ★1/2
"The Wrong World!" (a: Carl Burgos) ★
"Enchanted Town!" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★
"They Come By Night" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2
A pair of scientists named Lanner and Dunbar make contact with intelligent life on another planet and build a rocket ship to make the one-way trip from Earth. Lanner kills Dunbar and travels alone, only to discover that the planet is inhabited by robots, leaving him the sole human there, unable to return home.
The sudden murder is a surprise and doesn't make a lot of sense, other than to make Lanner a less sympathetic character. Forgione's art on "Someone is Waiting!" is not bad and has a '60s DC look to it.
Having never read any fiction by Ray Bradbury, Mr. Pruw signs on with Time Safari, Inc., to go back to a time "Where the Dinosaurs Roam" and hunt a T-Rex. He kills the giant beast but objects when his guide spots two other dinos and feels like he's supposed to kill them. When the duo return to the present, they discover that the failure to kill the last two dinosaurs meant that dinosaurs did not become extinct and still roam the planet.
The uncredited writer adds insult to injury by plagiarizing the setup of "A Sense of Wonder" and then tacking a dumb ending onto it. The last panel shows the dinos wandering around amidst futuristic buildings, so humans must have evolved alongside the dinos. It doesn't make much sense.
Morgan is a test pilot who takes a new super jet for a ride and seems to land on the moon, where he encounters "The Blue Men!" After a tussle, he sees that he's on a movie set and returns to base. He goes to every space movie for months but never sees the blue men; he does not realize that he was really on the moon and stumbled into a movie being filmed there by its inhabitants.
Haven't we seen this plot before? John Forte's art can get pretty stiff at times.
Uod and his wife, a Martian couple, land on Earth in disguise and befriend an Earth couple at a charity bridge game. The Martians invite their new friends over to their home for another game and abduct them, but on the way to Mars, the ship's controls get stuck and they head straight for Pluto, where the Earthlings turn out to be Plutonians who thought that they were abducting an Earth couple.
I was intrigued to see a story drawn by Carl Burgos, but text and art are awful. Fortunately, "The Wrong World!" is only three pages long.
Arbor Haven truly is an "Enchanted Town!" Each man who approaches it sees something different. Clive, a composer, sees castles and palaces, while David perceives it as an Arabian Market Place, with danger lurking in every street. Those who are turned off leave, but Clive stays, marries Linda, and lives happily in a castle.
As Peter noted, now that the stories are three or four pages long, the quality of the art is key. Joe Orlando makes this slight tale as enjoyable as it can be, despite the lack of any semblance of plot or suspense.
Harsh words promising conquest are broadcast over the airwaves, but no one knows where they're coming from. A TV receiver is built and the speaker turns out to be Julius Caesar, preaching domination from the distant past. Everyone is calm, thinking the receiver picked up events that happened long ago. That's just what the people of Mars wanted to happen--Earthmen will be lulled into complacency prior to the invasion!
"They Come By Night" is another example of Carl Wessler rehashing old plot points he's used before. Fortunately, Paul Reinman's art bounces back after last month's dreadful "Take a Giant Step."-Jack
Cover by Sol Brodsky
"Run All the Way" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★
"Philander's Last Performance" (a: Al Hartley) ★★1/2
"No Turning Back" (a: John Forte) ★★
"This Never-Ending Dream" (a: Dick Ayers) ★1/2
"The Last of Angus Merriwell" (a: Jim Mooney) ★★
"The Machine That Ruled!" (a: Bob Powell) ★★1/2
Greg reads in a 1930 newspaper that Pharaoh Amon Hatok was buried in a pyramid with a fortune in gold and gems. Greg loves Helene Bixby, but her father won't let her wed a man who is not rich, so Greg heads to Egypt to find the hidden wealth. Entering the pyramid, he finds a secret passageway that leads to a surprise: the pharaoh is very much alive and living in a chamber where he has found the secret of eternal life! Greg escapes, ignoring the pharaoh's warning that it will take him 25 years to find his way out of the pyramid. He emerges, thinking it's only been 24 hours, but when he gets home, he discovers that his girlfriend Helene now has a grown daughter and 25 years have passed!
The great magician Phil Philander disappoints his public by retiring. They dog his every step until he agrees to give "Philander's Last Performance." Before the eyes of the crowd gathered in a hotel lobby, Phil fades away into nothingness.
Philander's Last Performance may be anti-climactic, but Al Hartley's art is impressive, especially his work on the magician's face. The panel reproduced here may be a photo swipe, but it looks good.
I was kind of hoping that Joe and Ogu would find each other. Curse you, uncredited writer! My heart is broken again.
Steve Marlin, sailor, has "The Never-Ending Dream" while working on a ship. He keeps seeing men dressed in green togas, welcoming him. When he's swept overboard by a wave, Steve plummets to the ocean floor, where he meets a bearded patriarch who explains that Steve is descended from the people of...wait for it...Atlantis.
Raise your hand if you didn't guess Atlantis right away. Is this your first post-code Atlas comic? All is forgiven. Reading Atlas post-code comics is like "This Never-Ending Dream" in a way, except there are no men in green togas to welcome us at the end.
Angus Merriwell is a lonely man who wishes he had friends. One day, picnicking in the mountains, he meets a group of wee folk who call themselves Hokies and welcome him. After whiling away the afternoon bowling with them, Angus says he must head back to town, and the Hokies offer him a choice: stay with them or take a bag of gold. Angus chooses the gold and, when he gets back to town, he discovers that everyone is suddenly his friend. Realizing they're only after his newfound wealth, Angus flees to the mountains and rejoins the Hokies.
Jim Mooney is a reliable, if unexciting, artist, and "The Last of Angus Merriwell" contains no surprises, except for the last panel, where Angus rejoins the Hokies and is suddenly their size. The story may be set in either the Blue Ridge or Allegheny Mountains in Virginia, where Virginia Tech students are known as Hokies.
Fred plans to fire employees at his factory and replace them with machines, but when he is suddenly catapulted into a future world where a computer is in charge and no one can think for themselves, he has a change of heart.
Bob Powell elevates this issue of Marvel Tales with four pages of above-average art in "The Machine That Ruled," a story that, once again, contains little to surprise. The big computer that runs the future society is referred to as a "giant calculator."
I really like Brodsky's cover and wish some of the exciting scenes pictured were as interesting in the interior stories.-Jack
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2 comments:
"Phil Philander" is a pretty good joke name.
It is, isn't it!
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