Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 149: Marvel/Atlas Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 134

January 1957 Part III

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Strange Tales #54

Cover by Bill Everett

"A Witch by Night" (a: John Forte) ★★1/2

"The Long Sleep!" (a: Gray Morrow) ★

"Something Strange on the Sand!" (a: Doug Wildey) ★

"Trapped in the Dark!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★1/2

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

"The Punishment of Paul Phillips!" (a: George Roussos) ★1/2

How's this for a coincidence? Ben is on his way to give a lecture on the idiocy of people who believe in witchcraft when he stumbles onto an honest-to-gosh witch named Abby. She's a looker and it's not long before Ben proposes but, it turns out, the lady has a dark side as well. Whenever she gets mad, things tend to break. While nothing startlingly fresh, "A Witch By Night" is a nice break from the happy endings we've been force fed lately. Ben is stuck in this relationship and, even though it's never spelled out, he's going to take a long walk off a short pier if he even thinks about leaving!

After a heist gone wrong, Ted Pauley needs to disappear fast so he convinces a scientist to put him into suspended animation for forty years! When "The Long Sleep!" ends, Ted awakens an old man, sure the police have lost interest in him. He heads to a local library and looks through the newspaper archives, discovering that the police never had a clue about him. Can a story be hilarious and boring at the same time? I'm here to answer that question with an emphatic "yes!" In the equally dull "Something Strange on the Sand!," prospector Sal Fargo stumbles across a small village in the desert where time seems to have stood still. The secret, Sal discovers, is a big chunk of uranium and, before you can say "Radiation never hurt no one!," Sal is plotting his heist. The climactic twist, where the village is either a mirage or a madhouse (or both) is head-shakingly bad.

Joe Morse was a dirty rotten swindler, a con man who preyed on the elderly but, one night when he's running from the cops and "Trapped in the Dark!," Morse must face his old victims in a nightmare of guilt and boredom. The climax, where Morse discovers he's not been facing old ghosts but rather stumbled into a hall of mirrors, is somewhat clever but the rest is just a series of panels designed to waste space. Scripter Jack Oleck is biding time until a better gig rears its head.

In the supremely goofy three-pager, "The Man Who Talked!," a ventriloquist loses his dummy overboard while on a sea journey and loses his mind, confined to a hospital bed and jabbering out one liners. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on an uncharted island, a primitive tribe finds the wooden prop washed ashore and is amazed by its ability to speak (the dummy is spouting the same gibberish as his master!). The natives place the doll on an altar and worship it as a God. I have to give this one an extra star just for its wild twists; it's certainly more unique than the rest of the pablum in this issue.

Heartless prosecutor Paul Phillips is about to put the screws to an innocent man in court when suddenly he... has a toothache! The judge grants a recess and Phillips heads to his dentist, a man he naturally hates. Though he's been given an anesthetic, Phillips feels the pain and swears he'll kill the offending dentist. Back in court, the lawyer is about to make his closing speech when... he's arrested for the murder of his dentist! Phillips is quickly found guilty and sentenced to death. As the gas swirls around him, Phillips has an epiphany; has he really been a bad guy all his life and if given a second chance could he mend his ways? Faster than you can say "CCA," Phillips wakes up in the dentist chair. It's all been a dream! He heads back to the courthouse and tells the judge he wants more time to investigate the case. This man might be innocent after all. "The Punishment of Paul Phillips!" has a hokey happy ending and another of those unbelievable 180-degree personality changes; poor George Roussos has nothing to work with but talking heads.-Peter

Uncanny Tales #51

Cover by Bill Everett

"In the Dead of Night" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo(?)) ★1/2

"I Lived Forever!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★

"The Island of Captain Galt!" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Where Did Joe Go?" (a: Gray Morrow) ★1/2

"The House on the Hill!" (a: Werner Roth) ★

"The Unwelcome Stranger" (a: Bernard Baily) ★1/2

After he suffers what his doctor considers a breakdown, frazzled atomic scientist Barrett Henderson lets his family talk him into a vacation up at their palatial estate in Grattan Hills. The first night there, Barrett is lying in bed when he discovers the bed and everything around him has grown to a huge size. Or has he shrunk?

The event happens several times and Barrett is about to accept his doctor's diagnosis: he's losing his marbles. In the end, we find out that his relatives are trying to drive him mad by switching houses on him. While Barrett sleeps, they carry him over to a house which has really big furniture and then, in the morning, they carry him back. What's their motive? Whoops! I guess our uncredited scribe forgot to put one of those in there, so what we're left with is a really dumb family going to extremes to send their most celebrated member over the deep end.

While vacationing in the Colorado mountains, Dr. James Haney runs across a man who claims he is immortal. A rock slide outside their cave entrance leaves both men trapped, so to avoid boredom, Haney insists on hearing more about the man's long life. "I Lived Forever!" is short on thrills but does have an interesting climax, wherein Haney learns that immortality isn't such a swell thing. 

In the hilarious "The Island of Captain Galt!," the titular yachtsman wrecks his boat on an uncharted island but everyone on board is saved and the ship is salvageable. When Galt investigates the tiny piece of land, he discovers a bounty of gold. After the yacht is patched up, Galt gets on his short-wave and calls his friends to come get him, then forces the others to sail away without him. The tiny ship encounters Galt's rescue ship along the way and the ship's captain boards, inquiring as to the whereabouts of the Captain. When he hears the story, he reveals that the island the group landed on is actually a piece of Atlantis that rises above the waves now and then but only stays submerged for seven days. And this is day seven! Ulp! The calm demeanor in which the Atlantis twist is revealed made me chuckle out loud. That's worth something.

On the morning he's to contend for Heavyweight Champion of the World, Joe Danner manages to drive his car off a high cliff and winds up in the hospital with various life-threatening injuries. In the hallway, the doctor lets Joe's wife know that they'll be able to save him but the pug will never fight again. Joe, in a dazed stupor, overhears his crying wife sputter out, "Don't worry about anything, Joe! I'll get a job at Macy's and pay all the bills! I told you not to take that car out for a spin but you didn't listen to me! I wonder how much life insurance I've got on you!" Knowing he'll be disgraced if his wife has to go back to work, Joe throws off his blankets and bandages and heads down to the arena for his ten rounds against Harry Judd.

The contender puts up a decent fight but the champ is too much and wins by a narrow margin. Upon hearing of the fight, all of Joe's friends and family rush into his room, only to find the man sleeping. But how could he be in two places at the same time? The bout is nationally televised and millions tune in. Won't there be questions? Won't the Boxing Commission become involved? Your guess is as good as mine. Pulp typist Carl Wessler never thought to offer up an explanation for "Where Did Joe Go?," as he was already onto the next script. 

In the three-page "The House on the Hill!," out-of-work John and his family take refuge in a deserted house and discover their luck has changed. Thousands of miles away, a similar scenario unfolds with a different family.

Back-stabbing John Nash wants to climb the corporate ladder down at the atomic plant he works at but he's not a patient man, so he begins framing his co-workers, effectively axing the competition. Then one day, while Nash is inspecting the Cyclotron, a stranger arrives in the room, a man with no name or memory. Nash's boss is smitten with "The Unwelcome Stranger" and immediately gives him a job higher than Nash's (after all, I'm sure it's extremely easy to get a job down at the local nuclear facility sans references!), which royally pisses our protagonist off. He swears revenge and thinks he gets it. In a weirdly random reveal at the climax, we learn that the stranger is actually an older Nash come back to the past for some unexplained reason. And that perfectly sums up this issue.-Peter

World of Fantasy #5

Cover by Bill Everett

"Fade-Out!"(a: Bob Powell) ★★

"The Man Who Plunged!" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Death Waits Below!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★

"Smaller... Smaller... Smaller!" (a: Vince Colletta) ★

"Back to the Lost City!"(a: Dave Berg) ★1/2

"Beware the Eyes of Arch!" (a: Bernard Baily) ★★

Frank Sutter is angry at the thought that his uncle must have left the bulk of his estate to Frank's cousin Paul. Wandering down to the cellar, Frank tests one of his uncle's inventions and is thrown five years ahead to the year 1961. After four hours, Frank finds himself back in 1956, where Paul introduces Frank to his pretty fiancee, Ruth. Frank concocts a scheme to get Ruth and returns to 1961, where he frames Paul for robbery by showing the police a photo of Ruth that the burglar dropped at the scene. The photo is signed, "To my darling husband." Paul is arrested and Frank returns to 1956, but when his uncle's will is read it turns out he left half his estate to Frank. Soon, Ruth tells Frank she's broken up with Paul and wants to marry Frank, who realizes that in five years he'll go to jail as Ruth's husband!

Carl Wessler's stories seem to pack about 15 pages of plot into four pages. I wonder if "Fade-Out!" would work better in a longer format? Is that a masochistic question? At least Bob Powell's panels are competent.

Albert Ellis wants to be left alone to daydream, but his wife nags him incessantly. While out for a walk, he sees "The Man Who Plunged!" falling off a cliff. Albert breaks the man's fall with his own body and, in return for saving him, the man offers to grant three wishes. Albert asks for two things: enough money to take care of his family's needs, and for his wife to stop nagging him. The problem is that, when he gets home, his wife has been struck mute and his neighbors blame him for buying up their mortgages and auctioning off their homes. Albert wishes everything back to normal and all is well, but at the cliff another man is witnessing the plunging figure.

So many of these Atlas stories have the germ of a good idea and then fall flat at the end. This one is reasonably well illustrated by John Forte but it's basically the umpteenth version of the old monkey's paw story, where wishes are granted and don't turn out as expected. The final panel, which sets up a recurring event, is unnecessary. The plunging man's face is always in shadow for no good reason.

When a plane carrying four men and $500,000 in loot catches fire over the jungle in Kenya, there's only one parachute and Casey grabs it and jumps out. The bag of money he's carrying opens and all the cash goes flying, but that's okay--when he lands he's treated like a god by the natives, who worship birds. There's just one problem--they take him to the edge of a cliff and expect him to recreate his flight!

Setting aside the very mid-fifties portrayal of the Kenyans, who carry spears and spend all their time gawking at the white man, this is a fairly good story with an unexpectedly ambiguous ending. Casey is left at the edge of the cliff, trying to figure out if he should jump to his death or reveal his mortality and become a slave to the natives. Quite a quandary!

A petty criminal named Danny steals an old man's life savings and the old man curses him by telling Danny he'll get "Smaller... Smaller... Smaller!" before he can enjoy the money. Danny makes a run for it and hides in a hothouse, where he sees giant-sized pieces of fruit hanging from trees! He calls to a passing police officer for help, unaware that the hothouse was the site of a professor's experiments with growing giant plants.

Raise your hand if you saw that ending coming! It's an Atlas trope--in fact, the same sort of thing happened in this month's Uncanny Tales!

Somewhere in the desert, two ragged, thirsty explorers see what appears to be the lost city of Ciba! Mason insists that it's a mirage, and, though Fields sees Incans, emerald necklaces, and plentiful water, Mason keeps telling him it's all illusion and finally drags the man back into the desert, where an old prospector finds them and takes them to a hospital. Mason sees an emerald necklace in Fields's room and rushes "Back to the Lost City!," unaware that Fields bought the necklace for his wife.

It's interesting to see Dave Berg's non-Mad work in the mid '50s; I can't decide if it's primitive and bad or primitive like underground comix art. The panel I've reproduced veers in the comix direction. Berg's art in this story is more interesting than the plot.

Arch Hanson has spent 20 years trying to understand how Medusa could turn things to stone, and now everyone has to "Beware the Eyes of Arch!" because he's figured it out. He turns his wife Helen's pet canary to stone with a look and insists that he can do the same to a person if he removes his dark glasses. Arch heads outside and crosses the street to enter the bank, where he is immediately caught by the cops. Back at his apartment, the cleaning lady tells Helen that replacing the real canary with one made of stone was just a little joke.

With employees like that, who needs an enemy? I did not see the twist ending coming, so the story gets two stars. Bernard Baily's art isn't great, but it's adequate to get from page one to page four without confusing the reader. And at Atlas at the dawn of 1957, that's nothing to be sneezed at.-Jack

Next Week...
Jack and Peter Put a Bow
on the 1960s Caped Crusader!