Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 129: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 114

August 1956 Part I

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Astonishing #52

Cover by Carl Burgos

"The Man in the Sky!" (a: Bernard Baily) ★

"Those Who Vanish!" (a: Gray Morrow) ★1/2

"Needle in a Haystack" (a: Lou Morales) ★

"The Edge of the Cliff" (a: Bill Walton) ★

"No Such Animal" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★★

"The Peace-Monger" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★1/2

Jess Staunton has a great gig; he can walk on air and defies gravity thousands of feet above ground before stunned crowds. What the near-sighted dopes below don't realize is that Jess has a friend, Al, in a helicopter miles above (hidden behind a "man-made cloud"), dangling Jess from a wire. That old saying is especially true when assessing Atlas crowds: "There's one born every minute."

Anyway, Jess is set to make a big payday with his next air walk when tragedy strikes: a man standing atop a high building to watch the show loses his balance and takes a fall. Luckily, time seems to slow down in the Atlas Universe at times like this and Jess is able to contact Al to take off (!) and dangle him in the right place to catch the falling stranger. The rescue complete, Jess lands safely, only to hear Al in his earphone telling him that he never had a chance to hook up the wire! How did Jess pull off the rescue of the ages? 

I don't know. Divine intervention, if I had to guess. This is one of the oldest tropes in horror comics and, alas, years after "The Man in the Sky!" it was still being used. It's amazing that no one in the entire city could see that helicopter or the wire.

"Those Who Vanish!" is the supremely silly story of Joe Tully, who labors away in the labs of the Dudley Chemical Company, gaining nothing monetarily but still pumping out "wonderful chemical compounds" that make Mr. Dudley rich. Joe accidentally creates a formula that, when sprayed, makes things vanish. In anger, he sprays his boss in the face and the man's head disappears. He then becomes a wanted criminal, running through the streets spraying anyone who attempts to stop him. 

But the joke's on Tully in the end since it's he who is vanishing bit by bit. In the final panel, he's reduced to his shoes. Again, don't ask me why. Writer Carl Wessler evidently looked at the clock, threw up his hands, and declared "the little kids won't understand any of it anyway!" Why bother with logic? The art belongs to a very young Gray Morrow, whose supreme talent would not become obvious for another decade or so. The graphics are still much better than most everything we're seeing month-to-month, but Gray wasn't given much to work with. Lots of talking faces and spray cans.

Scraping the bottom of the science fiction barrel, I present "Needle in a Haystack," a near-unreadable space opera about alien pirates and half a billion bucks in gold bullion aboard the spaceship Sparrow. The climax features another old cliche, the switcheroo, and the entirety is rendered amateurishly by Lou Morales. Hoo boy, Lou Morales is Frazetta compared to Bill Walton if his work on "The Edge of the Cliff" is any indication. 

Pedro is a poorly-drawn Mexican kid who accepts a dare for money from an American tourist to take a dive off a high cliff. Halfway down, he sees peril and wishes he could have the whole morning over again to sidestep his own greed. Presto, Pedro is granted that replay, but circumstances force him to take the dive again. The new, happy ending-friendly Atlas era assures Pedro will survive that dive, but I'm not sure the deep etches carved into my pupils by Walton's inept scribbles will mend in time for the next debauchery. Jack and I don't hand out "zeros," but if we did, there'd be a great big one right next to "The Edge of the Cliff."

Wood carver Hans Himmler claims there's a huge beast hiding in the forests of Germany, but scientists scoff at the man's assertion. To prove Hans is stuffed full of blueberry muffins (and to calm the panicked public), scientists head into the forest but find no such beast--only a strange cave which, when the camera pulls back, is revealed to be the hibernating monster with its mouth open. Artist Harry Lazarus still claims a place in my heart for his loopy, eccentric doodling; there's a sleaziness there if you look close enough that brightens up any third-rate script he worked on.

In the distant future, Kierzek, a/k/a "The Peace-Monger," orders the destruction of every weapon on Earth in hopes that peace will bring all men together. Then the warships of Pluto land and his grand plan is criticized as short-sighted. But Big K has an ace up his sleeve and the Plutonian warriors turn tail and head back into space. Not a bad little SF tale, with a clever twist in its final panel. A nice way to wrap up a pretty mediocre issue.-Peter

Journey Into Mystery #37

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Deep Freeze" (a: Don Heck) ★★

"Volcano!" (a: Jim Infantino) ★★★

"Inside the Whirlpool" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"The Voice in the Night" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"The Sea Serpent!" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

"The First Man" (a: George Roussos & John Giunta) ★★1/2

Rick and his two comrades steal 150 grand, but the cops are onto them. Luckily, Rick had the foresight to stash a suspended animation machine in his cellar. The trio enter a deep sleep and awaken two hundred years later, ostensibly free men. They dig their way out of the basement (!) and exit the soil into a city of shiny buildings and strangely-garbed pedestrians. The future!

Though the monetary system has evolved, merchants are only too happy to accept 1956 currency for their wares. Soon, Rick and his two dopey buddies are living like kings. That is, until they're arrested for fraud. Rick had no idea he was stealing counterfeit cash! "The Deep Freeze," dumb as the dirt the boys dig through (and that's a scene to place in the Howdidtheydothat Hall of Fame) to claim freedom, is a brainless hoot from start to finish. Rick had the foresight to move a dry ice machine into his basement just in case the thieves had to enter a century-long coma? That's planning! Rick enters his sleep with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and doesn't burn to death? That's luck! I don't care what Harlan Ellison said about Don Heck (in fact, I don't care what HE said about anything!), he was an able draftsman who stood tall over several of his fellow pencilers. 

Engineer Paul Wayne finds himself lost when his helicopter crashes into the center of a Mexican "Volcano!" Finding a tunnel, Paul exits into a beautiful, small village on the side of the volcano and quickly becomes friends with the inhabitants. To show his gratitude for their acceptance, Paul shows them the magic of modern engineering, helping them build canals, supermarkets, telephone companies, and tattoo parlors. The great God of the volcano becomes angry and Popocatepetl erupts, hurling its molten fireballs at the village. 

Paul is asked to leave but, returning to the "modern world," he vows to return and set things right. A deep and thoughtful essay on simple life vs. rural evolution, "Volcano!" is one of the best Atlas stories I've read in a while. Paul Wayne is the rarity, an Atlas character stranded in a strange land, not driven by greed but by a strong desire to introduce an easier life to these primitive villagers. The art is scratchy (Jim in not as good an artist as big brother Carmine) but certainly acceptable.

Morgan Armstrong steals eleven grand off of his boss's desk and hides it at the bottom of a nearby lake (the home of the titular whirlpool). When he emerges, he discovers he's in an alternate reality where everyone (including his wife) is a rotten scoundrel just like him. Oh, if only he could have a second chance, he'd make it all right and accept any punishment that comes down the pike. Holy cow, he gets his second chance!  "Inside the Whirlpool" is hilariously inane (Morgan keeps a bathysphere-like vehicle at the lake so that he can travel to the bottom of the whirlpool!) and badly illustrated to boot.

Monte Clark conks a man on the head and steals the poor box the man was keeping, but there's a witness to the crime. "The Voice in the Night" belongs to a talkative alarm clock that promises to deliver Monte to the law sooner or later. Sooner would have been ideal for the readers of this tripe. This had to be one of Robert Sale's easiest checks to cash; his panels are nearly naked, featuring only a character or two and little else. "The Sea Serpent!" is a three-pager about... a sea serpent. Not much more to report, sadly. The John Forte graphics add a bit of life to the silly script.

Finally, Roussos and Giunta contribute some snazzy sci-fi visuals to "The First Man." From birth, Tagger Bronk's number one goal is to be the first man on the moon. To that end, he spends his time and money building space stations and rocket ships and, finally, he achieves his goal. As he's walking on the surface of the moon, he is approached by a green-skinned alien who informs him that they are actually standing on Xanou, a satellite launched from the end of the galaxy eons before. Tagger sighs and begins prep for a visit to Mars.-Peter

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #48

Cover by Bill Everett

"Which World is This?" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

"The Handy Man" (a: Gray Morrow) ★★1/2

"Don't Leave Me Alone!" (a: Reed Crandall) ★★★

"Fair Exchange!" (a: Howard O'Donnell) ★

"The Man Who Framed the Future!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★1/2

"Unwanted" (a: Sid Check) ★★

While out chasing butterflies, Newton Oswald falls into the open hatch of a spaceship that takes off, much to his chagrin. He thrusts his net over the head of the pilot, presses an exit button, and is ejected into the atmosphere, falling and landing on a haystack. Newton walks back to his town, but no one recognizes him, and when he gets home, he discovers that his double is already there. His wife and his double chase Newton into a closet and, when he emerges, all is back to normal.

"Which World Is This?" is a typical Carl Wessler script, where a somewhat intriguing premise wraps up in a disappointing way. Why are there two Newtons? Who knows? And where did the other one go? At least artist Paul Reinman is on again; his art in these Atlas titles varies wildly from decent, as it is here, to awful, as we've seen recently.

Billy is "The Handy Man" who walks out of the desert and into the lives of Mr. Danner and his pretty daughter Janie. Billy can fix everything and Janie falls for him right away. Danner wonders why the mysterious young man is so good at fixing things. One night, the spirits of sorcerers appear and demand that Billy return to his role as their apprentice, but he resists and threatens them. They back down and wipe the memories of Billy and the Danners. After that, Billy can't fix anything, but that doesn't diminish his value to Danner as a new son in law.

Twenty-two year old Gray Morrow is a welcome addition to the Atlas artist stable and this story shows a heavy Al Williamson influence. I enjoyed the tale, short as it is (at four pages) and look forward to more from Morrow!

Why does English Lord Gaxton insist, "Don't Leave Me Alone"? It stems from his childhood, when he was often left by himself in a tiny, dark bedroom. He stole and cheated his way through life until he was able to buy a title and now he wants people around him at all times. He's impressed by a spirited young man who refuses to bow to his wishes and, when his fortunes turn and all desert his side, Lord Gaxton uses a Gypsy spell to put his spirit inside the young man's body. The man is in a shipwreck and ends up on a desert island. Gaxton thinks he'll soon be rescued, but he doesn't know the future of Robinson Crusoe!

I admit I'm grading on a curve by giving this story three stars, but I'm a fan of Reed Crandall's work and the last panel's revelation of the young man's name made me chuckle audibly. Crandall's genius peeks through in some of the panels, though he's not given much to work with.

An above-average issue of Journey Into Unknown Worlds comes to a screeching halt with "Fair Exchange," in which the people on Saturn and the people on Jupiter envy each other's planet, invade at the same time, take over, grow homesick, and go back to where they started. Howard O'Donnell's art is as dull as the premise of the story.

Brad Norris is thrown 200 years into the future when he's zapped by a crossed electrical wire. On returning to the present, he does what anyone else would and heads to the home of Marie Andrews to propose marriage. She declines, saying she loves another man. Brad heads back to the future, just a year this time, and sees the man whom Marie has wed. Hearing about a big robbery on the radio, Brad frames Marie's hubby and watches as the cops confront him. "The Man Who Framed the Future!" returns to the present, only to sustain facial injuries in a lab explosion. Marie agrees to marry him and Brad realizes that the man he framed a year in the future was himself.

How did Carl Wessler manage to tell such convoluted stories in only four pages? This one takes such awkward twists and turns that I would have known it was his work even if the GCD didn't identify him as the writer. I kind of like Frank Bolle's artwork here, but he can only do so much with what he's handed.

In 2019, the first Earthmen travel by spaceship to Mars, expecting a big welcome, but when they arrive, they find themselves "Unwanted." The Martians claim never to have heard of Earth and insist that the Earthmen go to a nearby planet for a year to establish residency before returning. The Earthmen leave in a huff and head home; the Martians admit that they were pretending in order to tamp down the Earthmen's arrogance.

The art carries the story this time out, with Sid Check drawing some nice spaceships and Martians with pink skin and big heads. The "twist" ending falls flat, but Check channels EC sci-fi comics here.-Jack

Marvel Tales #149

Cover by Bill Everett

"Among the Missing!" (a: Hy Fleishman) ★★

"The Last Warning!" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★

"Charlie's Choice!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★★

"The Broken Man!" (a: Tony Mortellaro) ★

"Stop Us If You've Read This Before" (a: Jim Infantino) 1/2

"The Thief!" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★

Kurt Channing is wandering through the African jungles when he happens on old Gus Barlow, a prospector whom he had staked on a trip a year before. Gus insists that he's discovered a city of gold and wants to share his find with Kurt, but Kurt doesn't believe him, in spite of a bag of pearls that Gus gives Kurt. On the way back to the trading post, Kurt loses the pearls in a river. Two weeks later, the district commissioner tells Kurt that Gus's possessions were found; among them is a photo that proves the existence of the city of gold. Kurt spends the rest of his life searching for Gus, who is forever "Among the Missing!"

Adequate art, adequate story, nothing special.

Russ is an airline pilot whose wife Marge has a bad dream in which a series of events end with his plane crashing. He discounts her dream but each thing happens just as she predicted. When the wing catches fire, that's "The Last Warning!" Russ looks down, expecting to see water, as in Marge's dream; he sees desert, snaps out of it, and is able to land safely. He rents a car to drive home instead of flying and sees a mirage of a body of water along the way, concluding that Marge must have seen the same mirage in her dream.

How does Wessler do it? In story after story, he builds a rickety plot on a thin premise and then wraps it up with a twist that doesn't quite make sense. Unfortunately, the mess is compounded here by Carrabotta's art, which looks like he was holding a pencil between his toes.

Charlie Dunn arrives at work fifteen minutes late and sees that the glass on the time clock is broken. He's tempted to set the clock back and punch in, since his boss told him he'd be fired if he were late again. Good thing he didn't do it! Had "Charlie's Choice!" been to cheat, he would have experienced a series of events in which he was invisible while time was out of joint. Charlie does the right thing, avoids any problems, and hears his boss say that he can't prove he was late due to the broken clock.

Once again, I like Frank Bolle's art on this strip, especially the panels where Charlie is being tossed around through time. Like so many celebrities and politicians of 2025, he blames his wife for making him late: "She could've had breakfast ready on time!" Hey, creep, try making your own breakfast!

Frank Edwards is one of a group of sailors marooned on a Pacific island. He overhears the others talking about Ben, who seems to be losing his mind; they seem to want to get rid of him in order to protect themselves. Frank helps Ben and they make a run for it, but when they're cornered the men grab Frank and it turns out the other men were worried about him, not Ben.

Was there ever any doubt that Frank was "The Broken Man"? Not for me. Mortellaro's art looks like what happens when a kid takes a pen to his comic book and adds beards to the characters' faces.

A performer visits a theatrical agent but gets the brush-off. The performer turns out to be a dog in a fedora and trench coat. But wait! The story takes place on a planet "inhabited only by dog-beings."

"Stop Us If You've Read This Before" may be the first time I've awarded a half star to an Atlas tale. I think we did read this same story before, only last time the performer was revealed to be a monkey.

John Paulson is rich, blond, and seen as an aspiring dictator (remind you of anyone?). He tells a scientist named Cort that he can name his price for his new immortality potion, but Cort refuses, determined to use it for the benefit of mankind. Paulson gets his spaceship ready and steals the potion, which is in a valise, along with the scientist's notes. The police chase Cort into outer space and he loses them, finally landing on a deserted asteroid. He realizes that immortality is no good and smashes the bottle. After drinking from a bottle of poison he finds in the valise, Paulson reads Cort's final note and discovers that the immortality serum was hidden in the bottle of poison to prevent Paulson from finding it!

Joe Orlando to the rescue! "The Thief!" is not a great story, but it's better than most of the others in this stinker of an issue. How did Marvel Tales get so bad? Wasn't it the flagship title?-Jack

Next Week...
Another Huge Package of Reprints
Begs the Question...
Were the 50s Better Than the 60s?