Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 154: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 139

March 1957 Part I

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Adventure Into Mystery #6

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Wax Man!" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★

"Who Goes There!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★1/2

"Secret of the Glittering Glob" (a: Syd Shores & Christopher Rule) ★★1/2

"The Man Who Wasn't!" (a: Dick Ayers) ★★1/2

"The Eye That's Never Shut!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★1/2

"The Day of the Wreck!" (a: John Forte) ★★★

Professor Edward Decter looks into a microscope, sees a tiny man pointing at him from the slide, and turns to wax! The police want to know how something like this could happen but Dexter's colleague (who also seems to be named Dexter) has no clue. When the cop asks why the biggest brains in science can't figure this mystery out, the egghead replies, "Look what it did to Dexter. You want to be the next one who takes a peek? Fair point.

When the police leave, Dexter giggles at how dumb the police are and lets us know that there never was an Edward Dexter; Dexter simply made a wax dummy of Dexter and propped it up in the lab. His insane plot is to be the only man brave enough on the planet to look into the microscope (at a blank slide) and the notoriety will make him famous and land him a big grant. He calls the Daily Bugle to report the news. Just before the big public demonstration is to be held, Dexter has a "final private rehearsal," takes a peek into the microscope, and is horrified to see a wax dummy of himself propped up across the lab. 

Deciding for some reason that he's being punished for his own bad behavior, Dexter heads out into the streets to convince people he's a fraud, with no luck. Back at the lab, the local wax museum curator wonders what the big fuss is. Since Dexter was a famous celebrity, he'd made a wax dummy of the professor for exhibition! "The Wax Man!" has one of the looniest plots in Atlas history but features  some first-class artwork by newcomer Doxsee and what may be the first mention of the soon-to-be-famous Daily Bugle newspaper. This story proves just how untrained the local New York police were in 1957.

An ex-con, searching for the loot he hid in a ghost town years before, runs into the ghost of his dead cellmate. "Who Goes There!" is as contrived and nonsensical as the first story but doesn't supply the goofy fun. Much better is "Secret of the Glittering Glob," wherein mining engineer Burt Rogers discovers Earth's "rarest substance," Gravium, and muses to a reporter that the small bit pulled from the drill site might be worth five million. That night, noted criminal Lou West and the nicest-dressed hoods in America head to the lab with an eye to making the Gravium their own. Bad idea--as Lou soon learns, the Gravium wants to go home. Fanciful yarn with some sharp pencil work by Syd Shores that is reminiscent of 1940s strips. 

In a far-off, stinkin', commie country, party member Anton Kovack begins questioning his loyalty to a vicious, conniving government and invents a machine that transports prisoners who are about to be executed to a far-off land. When the party leader discovers Kovack's act of treason, he sentences Kovack and his wife to death. But, of course, before their executions, Kovack and the Mrs. vanish and reappear in the free zone of Germany! I'm not a fan of the Stan Lee commie-baiting fantasy yarns that permeated his funny books in the 1950s, but the lazily titled "The Man Who Wasn't!" has got some extra imagination and what might be the best Dick Ayers art of the decade. Unlike Bill Gaines, Stan was perfectly happy to toe the government line and avoid rocking the boat. No thinly veiled "witch hunt" strips in Stan's comics, no-sir-ee. End of rant (for now).

"The Eye That's Never Shut!" is a three-pager about a thief who steals the gem from the fabled One-Eyed Sphinx of Greece and then faces a harsh retribution in the story's clever climax. Last up is "The Day of the Wreck!" starring Duke Eldon, whose college friends berate him for spending so much time with Betsy. Nope, Betsy ain't a dame, Betsy's a car that Duke's built from scratch; the kid pours every waking minute into the heap and it pays off. Very soon, Betsy is blowing the competition off the highway. Then Duke meets Kathy and his attention is diverted from his steel and chrome love. Betsy ain't happy about that at all. To say, "The Day of the Wreck!" resembles Stephen King's Christine would be an understatement. A very solid issue.-Peter

Astonishing #59

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Eyes of Mala-Tor" (a: Bernard Baily) ★

(r: Creatures on the Loose #26)

"The Girl Behind the Glass!" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★

(r: Strange Tales #177)

"Just Make a Wish!" (a: John Tartaglione) ★1/2

"Behind the Veil!" (a: Vince Colletta (?)) ★

"Who is the Master?" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★★

"The Trapped City!" (a: Dick Ayers) ★1/2

A kindly explorer, searching for diamonds in Africa, helps out a native tribe when a flood threatens to wash away their village. In return, the adventurer is given a statue named Mala-Tor and told the figure has certain powers. That's evident when the explorer stumbles over a cache of diamonds in a field. For many years after, the statue watches over the man, rewarding him with wealth many times over. Then, one night, a thief breaks into the man's house and steals Mala-Tor but doesn't get far when the statue orders a tree to (gently) grab the guy. The police arrive and (even more gently) haul the robber away. "The Eyes of Mala-Tor" is about as harmless and unfrightening as a horror strip can get; the final panels, where the tree captures the purple-trousered criminal and then sets him down once the police arrive, are in stark contrast to a few years before when that tree would have squeezed the life out of its victim.

Deep-sea diver Jonas Case stumbles across a domed city below the bottom of the sea but, more important, he sees "The Girl Behind the Glass!" and she sees him. An explosion sends him to the hospital for a few weeks, but just as soon as he's discharged the obsessed Case grabs an oxygen tank and (obviously ignoring the human-crushing depths of the ocean) swims down to the dome. Case is delighted to see the gorgeous gal swim up to him but his ardor comes to a screeching halt when he sees the girl has gills and razor-sharp teeth. He zips to the top of the dome, lays explosives, and heads up to the surface, swearing he'll never dive again. I love the panel where, when Case wakes up in the hospital, he asks his surgeon if he's ever heard of cities beneath the ocean. "Why, no, but I have heard of Atlantis!" exclaims the doc as Case slaps himself upside the head.

Dodgy businessman Salinger (portrayed brilliantly by Ernie Kovacs) cheats a man out of his "Just Make a Wish!" contraption but gets his just desserts when the machine turns out to be a bust.

Con man Felix Jordan is convinced he can do what so many others before him couldn't: steal the jewels of the sheik of Wazar. Jordan heads out into the desert and convinces the sheik that he cares not a whit for the vast treasures found in the sheik's boudoir and wants only to marry his daughter. The ruse works, but once Jordan gets a look at the face "Behind the Veil!," he grabs the jewels and hightails it. When he gets the haul to a jeweler to appraise, they open the sack and find only sand. The sheik cannot be fooled!

In the three-page "Who Is the Master?," Professor Norton discovers that canines can read the thoughts of their human masters and may just be waiting for the day when they can take over the world. It's a gentler version of all those "Nature Strikes Back" flicks and novels that permeated the media landscape in the latter part of the 1970s. It's harmless fun, but it posits a question it never even tries to answer; since we never see the dogs talk or even exhibit extraordinary behavior, this could all be chalked up to a nutty professor.

Last up, a freak accident involving an air-purifying spray reduces New York City to Munchkinland and one of the two remaining "giants," "petty New York City employee" Eliot Jones, happily claims the mantle of Big Man in Town. Jones declares martial law and reigns over Manhattan like a despot. But, in Atlas Universe of 1955, these situations usually end in a non-violent resolution. And that's just what happens in the anemic "The Trapped City!," featuring the same kind of leering, mean-faced Dick Ayers villain as in "The Man Who Wasn't!" Not nearly as much fun.-Peter

Journey Into Mystery #44

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Menace of the Green Men" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo) ★1/2

"While the City Sleeps!" (a: Doug Wildey) ★★

"The Strange Power of Henry Grey" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★1/2

"The Taboo" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★

"The Outcast!" (a: Vince Colletta) ★1/2

"The Haunted Halls" (a: Frank Bolle) ★1/2

While stealing cash from the cash register in a warehouse, Steve Palmer accidentally kicks over a kerosene lantern and sets the place on fire. He runs out of town and into the woods, where he is surprised to see a slew of green men from another world hanging out in a cave. In a flash, Steve gets the idea to blame his crime on "The Menace of the Green Men," and soon, every crime he commits is attributed to the aliens. When the cops try to capture them, the aliens disappear into thin air! Eventually, the authorities figure out that the green men were never really there and were just images beamed from a planet light years away. Steve is arrested after stolen jewels are found in his home.

We can blame Carl Wessler for the weak story, but it's unusual to see such mediocre art from Al Williamson. Can we blame inker Ralph Mayo? The green men never do much of anything--they just loll around in a cave looking kind of like plastic green army guys.

An animated doll is climbing through windows and stealing jewelry "While the City Sleeps!" The doll is really a midget named Zeno who is made up to look like a doll. He hooked up with a failed ventriloquist named Sylvester and pretended to be his dummy, but Zeno wasn't satisfied with a successful act and began committing robberies. Before the cops come to search Sylvester's apartment, Zeno takes a pill that is supposed to put him in suspended animation for 24 hours. After the police come and see a limp, seemingly lifeless doll, the chemist who gave Zeno the pill rushes in to announce that he mixed up the pills and Zeno will be out cold for 20 years!

There's a hint of "The Glass Eye" in this tale of a midget who masquerades as a ventriloquist's dummy; the short story was well known but the Emmy-winning episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents would not air till October 1957. It doesn't make sense that Zeno appears in Sylvester's act dressed as a dummy and then heads out to commit robberies dressed the same way. Wouldn't one of his victims be likely to say, "Hey! That's the dummy from that cheesy act!"? Sorry, I'm looking for logic in an Atlas story.

Henry Grey is a miserable man who hates everything and everybody. One day he discovers that his hateful wishes can be fulfilled just by thinking. Using "The Strange Power of Henry Grey," the miserable man attempts to ruin his boss's model plane business but merely ends up crashing a plane and breaking his own bones. Ed Winiarski's Henry Grey looks a bit like Lex Luthor but his schemes are much more modest.

Fleeing from the law in Australia, Mark Slade takes to the water, but a tropical storm requires him to be rescued by friendly natives from the South Sea islands. The natives take care of Mark, whose eyes are drawn to their big pearls. He challenges the native medicine man, Hua Lani, to a contest that Mark easily winds by demonstrating the wonders of matches and guns. After becoming chief poobah on the island, he makes the natives dive for pearls that he stores in a wooden chest beneath the floor of his boat. A shark attack leads the old medicine man to announce "The Taboo" and the natives refuse to retrieve any more pearls. Eventually, Mark realizes he's alone on a tiny island that is surrounded by hungry sharks.

I'll be darned if I can figure out what happened in this one. Somehow the medicine man got Mark to hop in a canoe and paddle out to the boat where his pearls were hidden. He appears to fall off and suddenly finds himself on the world's smallest island. It's no surprise that Carl Wessler wrote this. I don't envy Tony DiPreta trying to make sense of it in pictures.

A little boy named Paul Kiley is a confirmed telepath whose Pop warns him that his unique power may make him "The Outcast!" Paul grows up without friends, since no one wants their thoughts to be known; he gets a job with the police, probing criminals' brains. When a boy is trapped in a mine, Paul becomes a hero by transmitting thoughts to the boy to keep him calm until help arrives. Paul hopes that someday he'll meet more telepaths and wonders if the little boy is one, since he answered Paul's thoughts. Vince Colletta provides crisp, simple illustrations to help this three-pager along to a quick finish.

The Duke of Desmania dies and his nephew, Eric, becomes the new duke. He tells his cousin, Ferdinand, that he plans to open the old castle, which has been shut up for 70 years and which is said to be haunted. Ferdinand is next in line to be duke and murders his cousin in order to speed things up. He marches into "The Haunted Halls" but, when he emerges, everyone acts is if he's not there. When Ferdinand overhears a guard explain that anyone who enters the castle turns into a ghost, he realizes what has happened.

Sadly, the sixth and last story in this issue is no better than the five that preceded it. Journey Into Mystery  #44 is fit for the recycling bin.-Jack

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #55

Cover by Bill Everett

"Menace of the Humanoids!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

"King of the Glacier Men" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo)

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #38) ★1/2

"The Men in the Mole!" (a: John Forte) ★★

"The Ghost Wore Armor" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) ★

"Shangri-La" (a: Bill Everett) ★★

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #24)

"The Puppets of Pierre Garou!" (a: Reed Crandall) ★★1/2

George Gaines is an engineer in charge of the first satellite. He feels like he's being followed, but that doesn't stop his determination to complete the project, which also faces funding challenges. Walking home after working late one night, George encounters the "Menace of the Humanoids!" as outer space creatures knock him around. Reporters are nearby and respond to the scene, causing the humanoids to vanish into the shadows. The next day, George explains to his wife that the humanoids were really costumed thugs trying to stop the satellite project, but George won't give up, secure in the knowledge that reaching the stars will free mankind from the "shackels" (sic) of confusion, etc.

Another preachy tale leads off this issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds. Don Heck's art is solid, as usual, and the humanoids are pretty cool, but the story really goes nowhere.

Jaru is a cruel tyrant who has been exiled to the frozen north where he becomes "King of the Glacier Men" when his campfire thaws out cavemen who had been frozen in a nearby cave. Once a tyrant, always a tyrant, and soon Jaru has trained his new people in the art of war and sends them to attack his old kingdom. The cavemen have no chance against modern weaponry and return to the frozen north, where they return to their cave, accompanied by their new king, who freezes in place along with his people.

Warning! Danger! Warning! Another sub-par job by Al Williamson and Ralph Mayo illustrates another convoluted, wordy script by Carl Wessler. Hopefully, before long, the editor at Atlas will hold the Mayo and we can return to higher quality work from Williamson.

The Mole is a big digging machine working its way toward the center of the Earth and "The Men in the Mole!" are three fellows with nothing to live for who volunteered for a mission from which they would be unlikely to return. Art Townes, the navigator, would like to be tall and handsome; Jan Court, the scientist, would like to be young again; and Fred Mace, the engineer, would like to be reunited with his dead wife. The Mole reaches the Earth's core and the trio are shocked to encounter a river, daylight, and a city, whose inhabitants wear purple robes decorated with moons and stars. One by one, the men venture into the city and emerge with their wishes granted! It seems the city's inhabitants are sorcerers who were driven underground and they understand that "all a man is, exists in his mind."

I didn't mind the happy ending this time around. Who wouldn't like to find a hidden city where all your dreams come true? Forte does an especially good job depicting Townes, whose desire to be tall and handsome is granted.

Explorers searching the jungle for Spanish gold happen upon John Orlando, who was with a hunting party when he got lost. The group find a cave nearby with armor from conquistadors and figure that the gold must be in the cave. Later, at the cave entrance, they see a strange sight: a conquistador come back to life, and "The Ghost Wore Armor"! When the ghost approaches the men they shoot at it with arrows, only to discover, later on, that the ghost was Orlando and the solid gold armor was not arrow-proof.

It's never a good sign when I have to read a four-page story two or three times to figure out what happened, but that was the case with this one. I wonder if Atlas was on such hard times that they dropped their page rates; even the usually reliable Forgione and Abel turn in scratchy work here.

Wealthy Walter Grant is being flown in a small plane over the Himalayas when the vehicle is forced to crash land! Grant and the pilot awaken in "Shangri-La," where another American named John Simmons explains that they can live there in peace for centuries. Grant isn't buying it and insists on leaving, an arduous trek throw the snowy mountains that he barely survives. When he's back in civilization, Grant discovers, to his shock, that John Simmons set out to look for the hidden land four hundred years ago!

The story's not much and the twist ending holds little surprise, but Bill Everett turns in three nice-looking pages, making me wish he had more time to draw interior stories in addition to all those covers.

The children of Le Bain, a small city in France, are always delighted by the return of "The Puppets of Pierre Garou!" The old puppeteer has a way of creating incredibly lifelike puppets and putting on entertaining shows. During one performance, three hoodlums who are on the lam from the cops enter the tent and witness Pierre refusing to sell one of his puppets for 100,000 francs. Thinking the puppets valuable, the hoods visit Pierre after the show and demand that he tell them the formula to make his puppets. The old man demonstrates, step by step, while the hoods feast on grapes in a bowl on Garou's table. In the end, the men don't feel so well, and Pierre reveals that the real way puppets are made is by visitors eating magic grapes! The next day, Pierre's show includes three new puppets who look just like the hoodlums.

Reed Crandall provides lovely, carefully drawn panels in this story, which is most enjoyable until the cop-out in the final panel, where our pal Carl Wessler has Pierre confide in the reader that the spell wears off after a year and the hoods will then grow back to normal size. Still, an Atlas comic at this stage that includes art by Don Heck, Al Williamson, Bill Everett, and Reed Crandall is certainly above average.-Jack

Next Week...
It Ain't Henry Pym...
But He's Pretty Darn Close!