The Marvel/Atlas
Horror Comics
Horror Comics
Part 112
July 1956 Part II
by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook
Cover by Bill Everett
"Where Did They Go?" (a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2
"The Many Worlds of Henry Adams!" (a: Werner Roth) ★★1/2
"The Hollow Suit" (a: George Roussos) ★1/2
"Earthquake!" (a: Bill Everett) ★★
"Scared Away!" (a: Bob Bean) ★★
"The Despot!" (a: Joe Certa) ★★★
The 148th issue of Marvel Tales gets off to an illustrious start with a marvelously inane yarn about UFOs and missing showgirls. I've no complaints about the Mooney art but the payoff (the dancing gals are the aliens) of "Where Did They Go?" is fumbled so badly it's hard to understand just what's going on. Never mind that, we've got five more tales to wade through...
To escape the pressures of his everyday life, Henry Adams heads into the desert where he finds a strange blue stone. As he holds the rock in his hand, he disappears and finds himself in a "state of transdimension." Henry travels through a set of dimensions that test his patience and skills, and all the while he must hold on to the blue stone. As he enters the 7th dimension, he loses his grip on the stone and finds himself back in his old life again. He heads back to the desert, determined to finish this time.
Three hoods hide from the law in a museum in Mexico and learn about Cortez and his band of merry Atzecs [sic] but it's the lost chest of gold, which fell in a "raging mountain river," that perks them up. Hearing a noise, they turn to witness a terrifying sight: "The Hollow Suit" of an Atzec warrior shambling after them. They run out of the building but the clanking creature follows. Finally, they knock it into a river and then realize which river they've knocked him into. The river!
They hire a diving bell and plunge to the bottom of the river, where they discover a mysterious dry cavern. In the dwelling, they find several chests of gold but they also run across an army of Atzec hollow suits. Without missing a beat, the three stooges head back to the surface world where they turn themselves in and receive protection. "The Hollow Suit" is a groaner and even the eight-year-old target audience wouldn't get chills. The Roussos art is far from outstanding but at least you can tell what's going on and the artist spent a bit of time on detail.
The first manned flight into the density of space drills into a new world but the crew is attacked by a giant with a ray gun. They turn tail and drill back down into the Earth. Turns out the giant is a kid in a space costume who ran across the tiny people in the park. I like the Bob Bean graphics in "Scared Away!" but the big twist is hardly earth-shattering. It actually raised more questions than it asked (How do the "little people" know there's something above the "density"? Where do they get their oxygen from if they live in the center of the Earth?). A moderately entertaining bit of fluff.
Even after "The Despot!" has defeated all enemies and become the ruler of the world, he worries he'll be overthrown by a public that has no enemy. He invents a race of warriors on the moon and lets the population know the aliens are about to attack, transforming his sleepy public into an armed mob. The dictator boards a rocket to the moon, vowing to destroy all adversaries. The ship gets to the moon, the dictator fires a couple of rockets for the hometown crowd, and then he watches in horror as cannons rise from the craters and fire back. The surface of the moon is unpopulated but the underworld evidently holds surprises.
Best Story of the Month award goes to "The Despot!" which ends with a twist that elicited a smile from this hardened old vet. The GCD credits Jack Oleck as the writer, which is odd since, as far as I know, this would be his only Atlas credit. It does jibe with the type of clever material he would contribute to the DC mystery line a decade later. The Joe Certa art is cartoony in a 1960s superhero strip sort of way but it works nonetheless. A solid sci-fi yarn.-Peter
Cover by Bill Everett
"The Idol" (a: Pete Morisi) ★1/2
"Punishment!" (a: Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) ★
"Waiting... Waiting!" (a: Gene Colan) ★★
"The Man Who Failed" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) ★★
"The Silent Ones" (a: Robert Q. Sale & Charles Nicholas[?]) ★1/2
"I'm Afraid!" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★
Disregarding a menacing curse, Fred Harris buys a jungle idol known as "The Yearning One" from a buddy and immediately regrets his rash decision. He takes the idol to his apartment where he and his girlfriend, Julie, study it, when all of a sudden Fred and Julie find themselves transported deep into a sweltering jungle. The idol makes the trip as well.
Simon Andrews travels to the future where there is no violence and, therefore, no laws. He steals some gems but is captured before he can climb back in his machine. He bargains with the government officials and they let him take his booty back to their past/Simon's present. But on the way, his machine blows a fuse and the poor dope ends up a rich man in the dinosaur era. "Punishment!" is the best title I could come up with for this nonsense. The author doesn't even let us in on Simon's time machine; it's as if he had written a five-page story and Stan cut the first page out! Awful, almost primitive art by Andru/Esposito. Yeccch!
Dr. Earle Fulton is "The Man Who Failed." At least, until now he was. Fulton invents a formula for a protein that will "supply all the nourishment man needs to live" and he's on the cusp of becoming the most important and famous scientist of all time. The tests on lab rats and monkeys go wonderfully (well, I mean, great until the ape disappears) and it's time to conduct human experiments.
The subjects are prisoners of the worst kind: lifers, murderers, comic book salesmen. Fulton gives the injections and the cons disappear, only to reappear later, smarter, and bigger. In fact, they're brilliant giants! But, luckily for the Prof, the formula has some flaws and the inmates return to normal very soon. Fulton sighs and admits he's a failure to the public at large but inside he knows he's God's gift to nutty professors.
There's some fun stuff here if you don't think about it too much. I love when the guard at the prison who's there to oversee the inmates at the testing tells the egghead that he's going to get something to eat and he'll return soon, leaving Fulton at the mercy of the prisoners, giant or not. The formula itself is a bit of a mystery; it's never really explained past the "this will make it so man will never have to go hungry again" part.
A crew of space travelers land on a faraway planet that makes no sound. The inhabitants welcome them (without talking) but two of the visitors decide to take advantage of their hosts and steal priceless gems from their rooms. They try to take off on their rocket ship but are caught by the commander, who explains that "The Silent Ones" don't need to speak since they can read minds. Last up is the truly awful "I'm Afraid!" wherein mountain climber Hans Mueller falls into a crevasse and discovers an underworld race of ice men. Vic Carrabotta's scratchy art is perfect for this unreadable mess.-Peter
Cover by Bill Everett
"Girl in a Trance" (a: Lou Cameron) ★★
"Prisoner in Nowhere" (a: Pete Morisi) ★
"The Pushovers!" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★
"They're Coming Closer" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★1/2
"Behind the Mask" (a: Dave Berg) ★★
"Torn and Tattered" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★
After Steve Morgan met pretty Joan Brent at a party, he had a string of successes at work and Joan was not surprised by any of the promotions he received. One evening, he spies on Joan from outside her window and observes that she's a "Girl in a Trance"; he concludes that her deep love for him allows her wishes for his success to work like magic. Surprisingly, the next day all of his promotions turn to demotions and he is fired from his job! After he leaves the office, a bolt of lightning sends a tree crashing into the roof of the building where he worked. Steve realizes that Joan's magic saved him again and he can't wait to tie the knot!
I know I'm grading on a curve after reading the terrible Marvel Tales 148 and the marginally better Mystery Tales 43, but I thought this was a pretty good story with decent art. It must not have been written by Carl Wessler because I was able to follow the plot from page one all the way through page four. The panel of Joan I've reproduced here looks like a swipe from a photo, but it's still nice to look at.
A psychiatrist named Paul Machas has an unusual patient named Philip Jason who believes that he has the power to enter a parallel world where he is Jason the Ruler. Machas insists that Jason is imagining the whole thing and decides that the only way to cure his patient is to go along with the delusion. Machas takes Jason's hand and (of course) is transported to another dimension, where Jason the Ruler wants to make him "Prisoner in Nowhere" as punishment for not believing him. Machas makes a run for it before heading to Jason's palace, where he grabs a guard's sword after receiving a shoulder wound. Machas convinces Jason to send him back home and, when he returns, the psychologist is certain he imagined the whole thing. But why is his shoulder injured and where did the sword come from?
How many of these stories do we have to read where someone thinks he imagined an unusual experience and can't explain an object that he brought back with him? It's so predictable. Pete Morisi is not an artist I'll be looking for a "best of" collection by anytime soon.
Howard Phelps is a traitor! He agrees to destroy his munitions plants throughout the world in exchange for $10 billion dollars, thus ensuring a successful Martin conquest. General Xua's spaceship sets off for Mars but the crew notice a light on Earth and decide to take it back to the Red Planet. Everyone on Earth is saddened by the loss of the light; when Phelps's son explains how much it means to him, Howard's attitude changes. He tells the Martians that the deal is off and they come to take him back to Mars. On the Red Planet, Phelps explains to the emperor that the light is very important to the people of Earth, so the emperor calls off the invasion. No reader is surprised by the last panel, which shows that the State of Liberty has been returned to its place in New York Harbor.
I knew right away that the light in "The Pushovers!" was the Statue of Liberty. Wessler's script makes such a point of hiding the details of the light that the whole, dopey story hinges on creating suspense that is relieved by the final panel's revelation. When the secret is this easy to guess, reading the story (a long four pages) becomes an exercise in tedium.
King Hazid hires a soldier of fortune named Jock Nelson to help fight off a robot army that Rudolf Dailer has raised to overthrow the monarchy. When Nelson hears that the robots are remote-controlled, he knows he'll succeed. A cry goes up that "They're Coming Closer" but, when the robots approach the palace, Jock uses his own transmitter to jam the remote-control signals controlling the robots, which fall to the ground. Nelson is paid his $50K fee and is surprised to see that the king is also a robot, whose signal was unintentionally jammed and who is in the process of being repaired.
The only thing surprising about this three-page dud is that it takes place in an unnamed southern European country; it's probably Hungary, whose people revolted in the fall of 1956.
Pulp fiction writer Kip Cornell is stuck as he nears the conclusion of his new story, "Behind the Mask." Who is the masked villain? His editor, Lee Mitchell, telephones to demand the finished script and, as Kip hangs up, the story on the page begins to play out in real life. A masked man kidnaps him at gunpoint and demands the story before taking him for a ride in his car. The ride is interrupted by a police roadblock; the cops take Kip to the location of his story's climax, where the masked man is revealed to be Lee Mitchell, the editor!
It doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense but having a pulp writer suddenly find himself in the middle of the story he's writing is kind of fun, especially when illustrated by Dave Berg. Berg's art is a mix of standard, early comic art style and the style he'd later use in Mad Magazine for his Lighter Side series. All Kip Cornell lacks is a Bergian pipe.
A "Torn and Tattered" old rug lies in a waterfront shack where a man sits, alone in his misery. The carpet recalls the old days, when it was a magic carpet woven by a holy man and given to the great chieftain, Ben Youssef, who used the carpet to perform many great deeds. Over the years, the carpet traded hands many times, finally ending up in the shack, where the man wishes he could travel to South America to aid his family. Suddenly, the carpet takes flight, whisking the man to his destination. In the end, all that is left are a few tattered threads.
Paul S. Newman turns in a decent script for this issue's closer, with Manny Stallman providing workmanlike art. The Atlas comics line looks to be on its last legs as of the issues dated July 1956.-Jack
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