The Marvel/Atlas
Horror Comics
Horror Comics
Part 144
April 1957 Part III
by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook
Strange Stories of Suspense #14
Cover by Bill Everett
"Beware... a Martian" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo) ★
"Someone is in the Trunk" (a: Dick Ayers) ★
"When His World Vanished" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★★
"All Through the Night" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★
"Child's Play!" (a: John Tartaglione) ★
"Inside the Hidden Well!" (a: Doug Wildey) ★★
You know that oddball vagrant who's been living in the small shack on the outskirts of Raffington? You're not going to believe it, but he's really a Martian! At a town hall meeting, the grizzled, bearded old man dispenses with his disguise and introduces himself to the populace as Nardo the Martian!
Nardo insists that he loves the town and really digs the people who live there. Just give him a little time and he'll prove it. Within days, he's not only holding down a job at RR McGowan Manufacturing but also dazzling the boss with his business acumen. But, unknown to Nardo, there's one very unhappy Raffingtonite looking on from the fringes: Horace Vail, who swears he'll bring down the outer space man no matter the cost.
Jerry Slade has been breaking into the rooms of the people he boards with over at Ma Pearson's Home and pawning the valuables for lots of dough. Poor old Mrs. Pearson has no idea Jerry is behind the robberies but something must be done... and quickly. Jerry salivates when his landlady explains that he'll need to share his room with another boarder for a brief time. More booty to loot.
Once his new roommate is off to work, Jerry rummages in the man's oversized trunk when, to his shock and horror, an image leaps out at him. "Someone is in the Trunk." I'll save you the wear and tear on your eyeballs (and patience) and spoil that the "image" is actually Jerry's face reflecting back at him from a mirror inside the trunk. Terrifying! The Ayers art is dreck but giggle-icious in spots, such as the panel of Jerry running (see above), which reveals just how oddly the human body can bend.
"When HIs World Vanished" begins as a fairly intriguing and suspenseful crime drama but then changes lanes midway so that the story can actually fit into a sf/fantasy title. The switch is abrupt and lame and torpedoed whatever interest I had in Rene Lacoeur and his predicament. Robert Q. Sale's art is sketchy and ugly in spots, but serviceable.
Everett Marley mocks his wife, Lois, for her belief in the supernatural until an incredible event hits him right in the face. Coming home from the office the next day, Ev discovers there's a strange woman feeding unfamiliar kids in his kitchen. The woman is clearly not Lois but she identifies Everett as her hubby. Bewildered, he goes to work the next day and a similar conundrum occurs with his co-workers! What the heck is going on?
In the three-page "Child's Play!," a respected professor finds himself testing out toys at a research center. Then, one day, a mysterious gizmo from the future arrives in his in-box. What could this thing be? It's not worth your time to find out. In the finale, "Inside the Hidden Well!," American troops run across a deserting Afrika Corps soldier and take him prisoner. While searching for water, the soldier runs across the fabled oasis that Achilles drew his power from. Once he has several sips, he feels as if his body is made of steel. He heads back to camp to prove he's immortal. Long story short, he gets shot in the heel and dies. "Hidden Well" wins best-of-issue honors simply because it contains a bit of imagination. It's cliched, fer sure, but I'm starving for even a morsel of originality.-Peter
Cover by Bill Everett & Carl Burgos
"You Used to Be Me!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★★
"Murder on His Mind" (a: Pete Morisi) ★1/2
"The Door That Wouldn't Open!" (a: Marvin Stein) ★
"The Voice of Doom!" (a: Gray Morrow) ★★1/2
"Volcano!" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★
"It Walks in the Night!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★
Radio "ham" Joe Talcott has zeroed in on a frequency from outer space but his other "ham" buddies don't believe him. Or won't. Could be that Joe is a pompous, self-serving, egotistical ass and the fellas don't want to spend another minute with the guy. "But hold on a sec, my bosom buddies..." Carl says, with a tone of elation, "Let's fix that Joe real good. We'll beam in on that alien frequency and pretend we're invaders from space!"
Frank Evans grows up hating and envying rich John Wilson, he of the fancy Caddys and mansion on the hill and swears someday he'll have everything that Wilson owns for himself. With that goal in mind, Evans goes to science college and becomes the most brilliant professor in the world; he invents a mind-switching gizmo and (like every other mad/brilliant Atlas scientist) uses it for selfish reasons. The mad doc switches brains with Wilson and quickly regrets it.
The setup is laughable but, for some reason (lack of sleep?), I never saw the twist coming and the Stallman art is pleasing as well. It does make one giggle when one thinks about all the dough Evans could make with his invention but instead insists he must own everything the other guy possesses.
Vaudeville performer Frank Mason has wandered into a life of crime and now imagines the voice of his partner, Johnny Mason, ringing in his head, urging him to give himself up to the cops. Frank deep sixes that idea and promises to ventilate Johnny once he gets his hands on him. Breaking into "the old theatrical warehouse" where Johnny shacks up, Frank is surrounded by the cops and forced to surrender. One of the cops remarks that Frank must be insane thinking the man is hearing the voice of Johnny Mason, Frank's ventriloquist dummy!
I could see the climax coming right from the get-go thanks to the various "clues" the scripter threw in my face, but "Murder on His Mind" is almost worth the read to catch a glimpse of what 1950s cops were really like. Mason gets a stiff right in the breadbasket from two nattily dressed detectives. I thought that only happened in Manhunt.
Okay, pay attention, cuz I ain't repeating myself. Frankie Walford is a good-for-nothing bum who's been living off his genius inventor-guy father. His pop tells him if he goes straight and stops hanging out with JDs, the new gizmo the old man is working on will net him millions. "Pshaw!" exclaims the young louse. Pop dies and leaves his newest invention to junior, but there's a proviso: the kid, now 24, must prove his soul is full of love and he no longer wants to rob pizza vendors for fun and pocket change.
Pop's lawyer swears to Frankie that the old man isn't kidding; the thing he invented could revolutionize time travel (or something like that), but it's hidden away behind an impenetrable door. The only way the door will open is if Frankie proves his worth. Good luck with that. "The Door That Wouldn't Open!" is yet another badly illustrated snoozer about a brilliant Atlas scientist. In 1957, there were more time machine inventors than there were color TV sets in New York. Why didn't these guys get together and form a club to blow off a little steam instead of disrupting the natural timeline?
And that's exactly what the trio do. The prank comes off so well that Joe runs off screaming into the night, never to be seen again. The mates congratulate Carl on a job well done but the joke's on these two dorks: Carl is an alien readying an armada to invade Earth. Thank goodness he was tipped off to Joe's discovery! For three pages, I thought "The Voice of Doom!" was going to end with the obligatory "I meant to disguise my voice as a Martian but my tire blew out and I never made it to the microphone. Jeepers! Joe's telling the truth!" but thank goodness we got a bit of a variant for once. I enjoyed that last second twist almost as much as I enjoyed Gray Morrow's art, very much like George Evans in spots.
Speaking of time travel, Giovanni, the lead protagonist of "Volcano!," has developed yet another form of time travel: a pill. Giovanni has become obsessed with a treasure his ancestor left behind just before Vesuvius erupted and he's keen on traveling back and nabbing the big prize. In the end, our hero becomes a hero when he foregoes the treasure to save some children who are about to be lavalized. Another conceit of the comics code: all brilliant but selfish scientists must see the error of their ways before that final panel.
In the final saga of this special "Brilliant Atlas Inventors of 1957" issue of Strange Tales, a brilliant inventor creates a new form of plastic that can change shape with just a thought. While the egghead is demonstrating the elasticity of the goop to a pair of plastic company owners, one of the trio wills the plastic to take on a gorilla form. Then the ape walks out the door... The Reinman art is, as usual, nice to look at but, seriously, I've had it up to here with messages tacked on to stories about money-hungry creators. Let the innovators make a little dough once in a while.-Peter
Strange Tales of the Unusual #9
Cover by Bill Everett
"They Meet at Night!" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★1/2
"Prophet of Doom!" (a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2
(r: Chamber of Chills #14)
"A Matter of Life or Death!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★
(r: Creatures on the Loose #32)
"Mind Reader!" (a: Bernie Krigstein) ★★★
"Stowaway in the Sky!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★
"Captured by the Cave Men!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★
An old farmer named Morse sees something fall from the sky behind a copse and goes to investigate. He finds a man named Shoreham, who insists he saw a Martian spaceship land and overheard the Martians say that they had visited Earth a thousand years ago and can only come once per millennium. They're here to capture a human to take back to Mars as a specimen! Morse plays along and follows Shoreham as they approach the ship; suddenly, Shoreham leaps up and knocks Morse unconscious. Morse awakens on the Martian rocket ship, en route to the Red Planet, and happily anticipates returning to the home he left a thousand years ago.
Just because an ending is surprising doesn't make it satisfying. Why did Morse trick Shoreham into thinking him a human farmer? Why does Morse think that "it will go hard with him [Shoreham] when we arrive"? Is it because he's bringing home a Martian rather than a human? I need answers that "They Meet at Night!" fails to provide.
A bank president named Morse (apparently back from Mars already--see prior story) is visited by a man named Drew whom he fired four years ago for stealing. Now Drew announces that he's been studying in Tibet and can see the future. For example, Morse is about to faint (he does) and Drew is about to rob the vault in the confusion (he does). Drew walks out of the bank and boards a train, where he becomes a "Prophet of Doom!" when he has a vision of an impending train crash. He pulls the emergency cord and exits the train; moments later, the crash occurs and a piece of flying metal knocks him out. Drew wakes up to see police standing over him, having found the stolen loot in his pockets. They add that it was his tug on the emergency cord that caused the crash, which would not have happened had he not acted.
Jim Mooney turns in his standard, professional job on this tale, which fails to generate much excitement. I wonder how difficult it is to go to Tibet and learn how to foresee the future? It might come in handy with sports betting.
Tom Baker is a gardener who always buys the same products at Harry Farris's gardening supply store. One day, Farris talks Baker into buying a new product, a can of Lamond's Shur-Kil insecticide. Fifteen minutes after Tom leaves, Harry gets a call from the Lamond Chemical Company saying that they made a mistake and he'd better get that can back--it's "A Matter of Life or Death!" Harry races to get the police to help him find Tom, while Tom tries everything to open the impenetrable can--an axe, a drill, a steamroller--nothing works. Finally, he throws it far into the dump and it explodes! Harry arrives to tell him that the can was mistakenly filled with nitroglycerine!
Sol Brodsky's art is bad, but the panels that frame this story are worse since they feature Death himself as narrator. In the last two panels, he informs any readers left awake that it wasn't Tom's time to die. Apparently that's why he couldn't open the can. However, if it was filled with nitro and exploded when he tossed it in the dump, you'd think it would have blown up when run over by a steamroller!
In the fall of 1942, a Nazi sergeant named Hans Reuger is respected as a "Mind Reader!" and given an assignment: go to Newark, NJ, pretend to be an American G.I., and plant a time bomb in a munitions plane. Rechristened Harry Judson, the saboteur is dropped off by a submarine and paddles a raft ashore, where he meets Private Eddie White at a cafe. The two hit it off right away and Eddie says he put in for assignment to a U.S.O unit.
After spending lots of time together for a week, Harry tells Eddie his outfit is on the move, and the men agree to meet for the last time that night. Harry plants the time bomb and then meets Eddie in a hotel lobby. They exchange presents, but Harry tells Eddie not to open his till after midnight. At 12:01, Eddie opens his gift, a lollipop labeled "sucker." By 12:09, Harry is on a U-boat, where he opens Eddie's gift--the time bomb Harry placed at the munitions plant! The next morning, Eddie opens a letter and reads about his new U.S.O. assignment, where he will entertain the troops with his mind-reading act!
Forget the silly ending and just sit back and delight in four more pages of outstanding work by EC alumnus Krigstein, who is fast becoming the main reason to read Atlas comics of 1957. His draftsmanship is excellent and he's working twice as hard as anyone else in the shop, cramming small panels into his pages to try to make sense of another overly convoluted and wordy plot by Wessler. He does a darn good job and even creates some suspense at the end.
Ralph Healy is an aeronautical engineer who discovers Neutralium, a metal that floats on air and will revolutionize air travel. On his first test flight in a plane built with the substance, Ralph is held at gunpoint by two stowaways who want him to fly the plane behind the Iron Curtain. Ralph says no and two of his men are thrown out of the plane in midair. Appearing to agree to proceed to the Communist country, Ralph flies on, but when he lands, it's back in America. Turns out the two men tossed from the plane were wearing Neutralium suits and turned the plane around in midair from outside!
Groan. If the script weren't bad enough, we have to deal with more amateurish art by Winiarski. His panels look like they could have come from one of the backup (far far back) stories in an early 1940s comic.
On an archaeological expedition, Dr., Curt Ford wishes pretty Dr. Betty Cooper were less cold toward him. She thaws out fast when she falls down a deep hole and the duo are "Captured By the Cave Men!," members of an advanced species driven underground long, long ago by the more apelike ancestors of the human race. Curt throws a handy switch and he and Betty climb to the surface right before the big hole is sealed over and the menace avoided. Now it's Curt and Betty, no more of this "Dr. Ford" and "Dr. Cooper."
This isn't a particularly strange or unusual tale. In fact, the mediocre art by Tony DiPreta and the by-the-numbers plot are all too common in Atlas mags these days.-Jack
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| Next Week... The Jungle Drums of Gene Colan! |
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