Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 134: Atlas/Marvel Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 119

September 1956 Part II

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Marvel Tales #150

Cover by Bill Everett

"I Plunged Into Darkness!" (a: Mort Drucker) ★★

"The House of Shadows!" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★

"The Shrinking Man!" (a: Bob Powell) ★1/2

"The Man from Nowhere" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"Ultimate Weapon" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★

"I'll Live Forever" (a: Gray Morrow) ★★

A psychiatrist sees a troubled young man who continually dreams about darkness. The shrink tells the man that he must put him under hypnosis to get to the root of the problem. During the session, the doc discovers that his patient was enjoying a solo mountain-climbing expedition when he fell into a crevasse. With death staring him in the face, he was saved by a beautiful ice princess and immediately fell in love. Her father forbade the union and stole the memory of the man, sending him back to the "real world." 

Now the head doctor struggles with the responsibility of telling his patient the truth. If he reveals the secret, he knows the man will head back up the mountain, but if he keeps mum, the sleepless nights will continue. Meanwhile, in a distant ice castle, the same paradox affects the Ice King. His daughter tosses and turns; should he restore her memory? Nice Mort Drucker graphics highlight the romantic fluff known as "I Plunged Into Darkness!"

Midville is home to a gen-u-wine mystery, a house that sits atop a grand hill but always stays in the shadows. What is the secret of "The House of Shadows!"? The secret is that the script is a load of hooey, with each page descending faster and faster into a paroxysm of inanity. From the "Why didn't I think of that?" department comes "The Shrinking Man," wherein an egghead is working on a top secret formula and is unaware of the anger building up inside his ape-like assistant, Gene, who wants to exploit the breakthrough for $$. The two men have a scuffle and the gas is released, shrinking the men quickly. There's a happy 1956 Atlas ending, though, and the twist is that the gas actually made the lab bigger, not the men smaller.

At least "The Shrinking Man!" has pleasing graphics. The same cannot be said of the inept "The Man from Nowhere" (surely, the most generic title in a land of bland), which details the mishaps of a "brilliant but careless" lab assistant who stumbles upon a spell that will summon a genie. The magic being, it is presupposed, will bring the klutz fame and fortune. But the dope doesn't draw a full circle around himself and that enables said genie to touch him. Everyone knows that the touch of a genie grants the bidder the exact opposite of what he wishes for. In the end, we see the poor sap in conversation with a quartet of tramps, begging for some food. The Winiarski art made me summon Visine. 

"Ultimate Weapon" is a nonsensical three-pager about a brilliant but eccentric scientist who's on the verge of a breakthrough and is kidnapped by agents from "Uralia" (that's Russia spelled sideways). The stinkin' commies promise the professor unlimited supplies and solitude to work but we know different, don't we? And so does the egghead, it turns out.

In “I’ll Live Forever,” Alex Hartley has long dreamed of immortality and the gift is almost dumped in his lap in the form of an island hidden somewhere in the Amazon. Though the journey is long and arduous, Hartley finally finds his island of youth but the locals inform the man that if he wishes to live forever, first he must spend a lengthy amount of time as a slave. Once his stint is up, he requests his reward but is told there’s a catch: he must live forever as a slave or return to the States a free man who won’t live much longer. In a cheesy final panel, Alex opts for freedom and delivers a preachy monologue about his decision. The Gray Morrow art is striking but the story is nothing new. In fact, it might live forever, recycled over and over. -Peter

Mystery Tales #45

Cover by Sol Brodsky

"The Man in Black!" (a: John Forte) ★1/2

"Shadow on the Sand!" (a: Syd Shores) ★

"He Stayed Down Too Long!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★1/2

"The Secret of the Old House!" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★

"Secret of the Oraquiis!" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) ★1/2

"No Bars Could Hold Him!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★★

Ruthless businessman Lurton Gaxton thinks he's big stuff but, after humiliating one of his workers, he finds out differently when a mysterious stranger curses him and Gaxton finds himself smaller than an ant and fending off terrifying obstacles such as a kid on a bike. Don't worry though because, in the age of Atlas redemption, Lurton sees the error of his ways and swears he'll be a better man. Suddenly, he's back to normal size! "The Man in Black!" is the latest in a string of limp "shrinking man" yarns that do nothing with the hook. 

Lefty Gibson has been sitting in the blazing sun, staring into the distance like a "Shadow on the Sand!" What's he waiting for? Let me tell you what happened two years ago! Lefty and Matt break out of prison and come to Solville to hide out. Matt swears he just needs a little sleep and then they can hit the road. They take a room at a local boarding house and Lefty quickly falls in love with the landlady, Judith. The feeling is mutual and they decide to marry but this doesn't sit well with Matt, who's finally taken a (very long) siesta and is ready to hit the road. 

Lefty explains that he and Judith have already had three kids and bought a nice house with a white picket fence while Matt was sawin' logs and he ain't goin' nowhere; Lefty will take his chances with the law. Matt grabs Judith's Pop and heads out on the road (but forgets to take a car!!!) just as the cops show up. Lefty does his stint in the hoosegow and returns to Solville to claim his filly but discovers the whole thing was actually a mirage. There was no Judith! When Lefty was kissin' those soft, purty lips, he was only kissin' air. How depressing is that? The climax to "Shadow on the Sand!" is extremely random, I'll admit, until you realize 90% of the post-code stories made no sense whatsoever. No surprise this one was penned by Carl Wessler.

Equally silly is "He Stayed Down Too Long," wherein Mason is lord over a small tropical island, commanding the natives to dive for pearls while he flexes on the beach. Then a spaceship crashes on the beach and a man from Mars emerges, telling Mason he shouldn't be so mean to the natives. A kerfuffle ensues and Mason exits with the understanding that he's not really the strongest man on the island. The Robert Q. Sale art is okay but the script is inane and ends abruptly.

Making everything else in this issue look like quality is the truly inane "The Secret of the Old House!" Three lame heathens break into a supposedly haunted house and find a chest full of rubies and diamonds. But are riches beyond your wildest dreams worth your vitality? "The Secret of the Old House! might just be the perfect analogy for reading every single post-code Atlas horror story. Well, minus the rubies and gems, that is. 

Harris and Barnes are on the cusp of a great discovery; the Oraquiis are a tribe that has never been studied or documented. And, Harris notes quickly, they've got a lot of rubies and gems stashed in a nearby tomb/temple. Using his keen wit and a native robe, Harris gains access to the treasure but is thwarted by the Oraquii God and is discovered the next day, disemboweled and hanging upside down from a cross for all to see. If only. Actually, "Secret of the Oraquiis!" ends with Harris wandering the jungle with no memory of what happened to him. Quite the mystery. 

Uniquely, a three-pager concludes this issue and, equally uniquely, it's the only story worth a read this issue. "No Bars Could Hold Him!" details the career of "The Great Gordoni," a magician and thief who continuously breaks out of any prison the law builds for him. Once he gains freedom, he pulls heists until he's caught. And on and on. Gordoni finally meets his Waterloo in the Sheriff of Crystal River, who's been hoping for Gordoni's presence in his town. When the lawman busts the magician mid-heist, he pops him in a special prison cell that ensures the genius trickster will be behind bars for at least twenty years. Sure, it's Ditko and that makes just about anything readable but "No Bars Could Hold Him!" is charming and the twist is a delight. Give Carl Wessler his props just this once. Just in time to rescue Mystery Tales #45 from the birdcage!-Peter

Mystic #51

Cover by Bill Everett

"Man in the Dark" (a: Lou Morales) ★1/2

"No One Will Ever Know!" (a: Marvin Stein) ★

"Think! If You Dare" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★1/2

"Behind the Door" (a: Lou Cameron) ★1/2

"Wings in the Night!" (a: John Forte) ★

"The Imperfect Plot" (a: Gray Morrow) ★★

The "Man in the Dark" cries out from his lonely jail cell, recalling that he was a rebellious youth who grew up to be an unrepentant criminal. Every time he was locked away, he caused trouble, until finally he was exiled to a desolate, sunless planet where he was kept in a single cell prison in the only building on the sphere. Mystic 51 starts out with little promise; the big surprise at the end of the story is that it's the year 2062 and the prisoner is really alone in darkness.

After thirty years of searching, greedy explorer Jeff Peters finds the Golden City and vows that "No One Will Ever Know!" He arranges for the men who financed the expedition to leave after an Indian attack, but when Jeff returns to the city and brings back a pack full of gold, he is told that it is only fool's gold. He gives up exploring and wanders off alone, unaware that the clay in the boots he left behind yielded diamonds and he would have been rich! Marvin Stein's scratchy artwork dooms this story, which has a twist ending similar to many we've seen before.

An inventor named Wynn Laird invents a machine that can read men's thoughts. He sells it for $4,000,000 to Bontaro, a benevolent dictator who soon begins to jail everyone who has a bad thought about him. When it all gets too much, Laird is tossed in the dungeon, only to be let out to repair the machine. He switches a couple of tubes around so it tells the opposite of what people are thinking and soon Bontaro's guards turn on him and depose the dictator. Harry Lazarus's art is about average, which makes it right in line with the art in this issue's first two stories, if not a hair better. We've seen almost the exact same plot before, and not long ago.

Fuller has invented a machine that brings random objects from the past to the present. Each time he uses it, he wonders what will be "Behind the Door." His wife warns him about the danger of his experiment, but he doesn't listen. He builds a machine big enough to fit a person, presses the button, and disappears. From inside the machine steps his ancestor, who wonders what he's doing there and why his picture hangs on the wall. By bringing his ancestor forward into the present, Fuller has obliterated himself.

Before I looked at the art credit, I wondered if Dave Berg drew this one, since Fuller has a pipe clenched between his teeth. Lou Cameron is the artist, and his work is average, like everything else about this issue so far. The end of the story was telegraphed early on.

A flood threatens a town by a river until an unknown man signals a convocation of eagles to drop enough sticks and stones to build a levee. The man disappears after the town is saved. Another time, a forest fire erupts and signals eagles to build a rock barrier, once again saving the town. This time the townsfolk surround him and demand to know who he is. He identifies himself as Felix Talon and, over the ensuing years, he gets eagles to save the town from a series of disasters. Finally, an ornithologist climbs a steep cliff wall to the shack where Felix lives and asks him for his secret, but Talon orders the man away. Years pass and the ornithologist sees Talon fall. Climbing up the cliff to try to save him, the man finds Talon dead. Opening his shirt to check for a heartbeat, he discovers that Talon was an eagle!

The GCD doesn't credit a writer, but we know better, don't we? A mess like "Wings in the Night!" could only be the work of Carl Wessler. Atlas comics are so bad now that even the big surprise ending is botched by the lack of a drawing of the man with an eagle's chest--we see the ornithologist looking down, then he looks up at a bunch of eagles. Even John Forte, whom Peter likes more than I do, couldn't muster much interest in this dud.

After building a powerful transmitter, Erik Tanning succeeds in speaking to someone from the far reaches of space! Lucky for him, it's a woman named Ursula, who happens to be the daughter of the ruler of the planet Zanbora! In the 1956 version of Tinder, they hit it off right away. Erik loses interest in his blonde fiance Claire and happily builds a spaceship, using plans provided by his long-distance lover. Without even saying goodbye, Erik heads into space and flies fifty light years until he lands on Zanbora. Ursula, who is, in fact, a babe, is shocked and appalled when Erik emerges from the spaceship, since he has aged fifty years and looks every day of his new age of 90! "You're nothing but an ugly, old man," says the fickle Ursula, and Erik sits by his plane, head on his hands, pondering an outer space nursing home.

I read this issue hoping that Gray Morrow would swoop in to save the day at the end, but it was not to be. "The Imperfect Plot" is as bad as the five stories that preceded it. At least Mystic is consistent--consistently mediocre.-Jack

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