Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 162: Atlas/Marvel Post-Code Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 147

May 1957 Part II

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #57

Cover by Bill Everett and Carl Burgos (?)

"The Man in Black!" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★

"Smash-Up!" (a: Syd Shores) ★1/2

"The Man Who Stole the Sun!" (a: Marvin Stein) ★

"When Vernon Vanished" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"It Happens at Night!" (a: Fred Kida) ★

"Someone is Following" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★1/2

In an attempt to further his control over his people, Buloff the dictator declares a national holiday in his own name and proclaims that all his subjects must smile on this day of celebration. Though his flunkies warn him this might actually cause more consternation than celebration, Buloff stands firm.

While the festival is going on, "The Man in Black!" suddenly appears on the street, sporting one of the most frowniest frowns ever to grace a human face. When he learns of this act of disobedience, Buloff orders his guards to arrest the man but when they attempt a capture, the protestor disappears. We discover that the stranger was actually from another dimension where everything is the counterpart to Earth (his frown is a smile, etc.). The man in black is gone but the seeds of rebellion have been planted.

Yeah, that climax is pretty silly and a whole lot of preach but I gotta say this tale sure sounds familiar, as if ripped from the pages of today's headlines. We thought Atlas might score a bullseye on space flight and time travel someday but it turns out the prediction of a dangerous, egotistical dictator who loves to slap his name on everything he comes in contact with and sends secret police out to do his dirty work was the most on-the-money prophecy ever.

Two men crash their small plane in an uncharted territory of the Yucatan jungle and discover an ancient race of men who drink from a fountain of youth and really hate outsiders. After being captured, the two explorers escape and briefly debate heading back for some of that fabulous water but decide that it's a beverage no normal man should drink. "Smash-Up!" begins with an exciting adventure into the jungle and sorta sputters out right in the middle of a debate about ancient races and eternal youth. The Syd Shores art is so-so, with some panels showing a certain style and flair while others look like poor Syd fell asleep on his pencil and just sorta made lines on the paper.

Joe Hill is jackhammerin' a city street when he suddenly falls through the asphalt and discovers a hidden world underneath. Joe meets the people of the underground city and learns that they derive their heat from a giant diamond that sits in the middle of town square. In the great tradition of Atlas explorers before him, Joe decides that the gem can make him a rich man above ground so he makes plans to steal it. Like those pioneering thieves before him, it does not go well for our protagonist. I can see our (uncredited) writer sitting in the Atlas breakroom, spinning the "The Man Who..." wheel and landing on "...Stole the Sun" and then coming up empty for an original plot. I did laugh out loud when Joe broke through to this fabulous Verne-ian city after barely cracking the surface of the road. How did no one ever run across this paradise before?

Rod Mitchell is assigned to investigate the strange disappearance of Lloyd Vernon so he heads to Vernon's hometown to sniff out some clues. While he's there, he falls in love with Vernon's daughter and, alas, discovers the "vanish without a trace" gene is hereditary. "When Vernon Vanished" is one of Carl Wessler's worst scripts ever (and that's saying something); a silly romance tale without one iota of energy or wit. The Winiarski art matches the script's mediocrity to a T. Equally dreadful is the three-page "It Happens At Night," where a down-on-his-luck investor (down to his "last ten thousand!") receives what he perceives to be messages from the neon lights in a building across town. His wealth becomes massive but, in the inevitable downer of a climax, a patrolman informs the once again destitute former millionaire that the building in question was shut down years before. 

The graphic style of Richard Doxsee (reminiscent of George Evans) elevates the finale, "Someone is Following," from the usual Atlas Stinkin' Commie pap into a striking visual journey. "Red Scourge" Ah Ling comes to Hanchu to crack down on resistors to the Commie way. He orders his thugs to burn down a temple to show who's boss but then must deal with a superhuman shadow man who thwarts the evil military presence and restores peace to Hanchu. The twist is both expected and clever. Doxsee has come right out of left field and, in the three months since he made his debut with "Inside the Pharaoh's Tomb" in Journey Into Unknown Worlds #54, he has become one of my favorite Atlas artists.-Peter

Marvel Tales #158

Cover by Carl Burgos and Sol Brodsky (?)

"I Saw the Hidden People" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Secret of the Black Stone" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Man Who Moved!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★

"Nightmare's End!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"Lost... One World!" (a: Bernard Baily) ★

"They Think I'm Dead!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★★

The penultimate issue of the first incarnation of Marvel Tales begins with "I Saw the Hidden People." Evan Ralston moves to the country to get away from it all and start a farm but discovers his crops aren't growing as fast as he'd like. So Evan goes out and buys a crop-dusting plane and gets to work with the fungicide; usually chemicals can produce a few nasty side effects but Evan gets a whale of a result. When he finishes dusting, a town materializes where his motley crops stood.

He meets a few people on the town's main street and one, a gorgeous babe named Dolores, explains that the town is called Oronaldo and that it disappeared one hundred years ago during the gold rush. Yep, this here town is awash with gold! As Evan explains, you can't keep a town that suddenly appears out of nothing a secret for long. Especially if that town is carved in gold. "I Saw the Hidden People" is not that bad of a tale (penned by Our Man Wessler) but the art is a seesaw of decent and awful. Forte can pencil a really nice dame but some of his characters suffer from odd anatomy (see that splash for proof--both men look as though they've become victims of a head shrinker).

In "Secret of the Black Stone," a sculptor discovers a strange black rock that he takes home to make statues out of. He accidentally discovers that the rock can give him power to make other men do his bidding. His grand vision of robbing candy stores is dashed by a really smart cop who immediately figures out what's going on and shuts down the mad sculptor. The script is just as bad as most of the drivel pumped out by Carl Wessler but we should be able to count on a decent bit of work by Paul Reinman. Not here, where the artist seems rushed and uninterested. But then I was uninterested, too, so I don't blame the guy.

Spin that wheel!!! "The Man Who..." lands on "Moved!" this time. If you think that's anti-climactic, read on. Winston J. Cobb is an entrepreneur, a man who's mastered the business of transporting people, and the man in front of him is wasting his time. Mr. Groves is trying to sell Winston J. on a new form of transportation: teleportation. Cobb asks for a demonstration but when Groves waves his hands and says "Voila!," the big man is still in his office. He tells Groves to leave and the man promptly does, in thin air as a matter of fact. Then Winston walks out his office door and realizes he's on a deserted Pacific island. At least this one is only three pages long.

Joe Lester's been having a really bad dream every night. He's the passenger in a car driving through the city when a figure darts out in front of the car and, just before the driver runs the shadow down, Joe whips out his medal he received for placing 13th in a first grade geography test. Danged if that medal doesn't stop the driver from killing that pedestrian every time. But the nightmares are taking their toll on Joe's health and his girl, Fran, is worried sick about her guy. Thank goodness they've both got a swell friend in Harry, who comes over to make sure the couple are coping. If only Joe and Fran could see into Harry's dark heart. He's got his eyes set on making Fran his squeeze and no bedridden pansy will get in his way. 

Harry steals Joe's medal to further erode his friend's mental state, but the joke's on Harry. He's the guy in the dream and without that special medal to stop the car's driver from pulling a hit-and-run, Harry becomes roadkill! By this time, effective twists were long gone and "Nightmare's End!" doesn't stray from the formula one iota. 

Floyd Nolan is just as stupid as every other Atlas thief; he steals thirty grand and tries to hide it in the basement of the boarding house where he lives and accidentally receives a whopper of an electric shock. He awakens to discover one month has gone by and he quickly devises a way to hide the moolah and escape police suspicion at the same time: shock himself 150 years into the future. I could have told this nitwit that something would go wrong. "Lost... One World!" (obviously "The Man Who Could Use Electricity to Transport Into the Future!" was already being used) makes little to no sense (how does Floyd know the shock won't kill him this time, let alone propel him farther into the future?) and is adorned by what look like grade school doodlings.

In the finale, "They Think I'm Dead!," a circus midget (hey, it's the uncredited writer's word, not mine, so take it up with him!) named Captain Small (!) stumbles onto a formula that can transform him into a normal-sized man. When he gains those extra feet of tallness, he wants no one to know who he was in his previous incarnation, so he fakes his own death. Ironically, he's arrested for murdering his former mini-self! After serving his time in jail, he's released and finds he can't get a job. Ironically, he wishes he was a midget again (oof, there's that awful un-PC word again, sorry!) and hits the road as a silent hobo. I'm not going to go out on a limb and proclaim that "They Think I'm Dead!" is a great comic book story, but it beats the hell out of its competition this issue and the ironies are effective. Otherwise, you can throw Marvel Tales #158 into the slab without so much as cracking the spine.-Peter

Mystery Tales #53

Cover by Bill Everett & Carl Burgos

"The People Who Couldn't Move" (a: Dick Giordano) ★1/2

"That's What You Think!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★

"I Died Too Soon" (a: Marvin Stein) ★1/2

"The Hired Hand" (a: Manny Stallman) ★

"He Lived Again" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★

"What Happened in Room 14?" (a: John Forte) ★★

Jack Tyler may be down to his last dollar, but when he arrives in Wardsburg he promises himself that he'll leave as a rich man. At City Hall, he hits on pretty, blonde secretary Marsha Bentley and quickly secures a job from Mayor Hoskins, who will pay $40/week for Jack to wind the clock in the tower every day at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. That evening, Jack and Marsha admit they're already madly in love with each other before Jack goes to wind the clock.

After his task is done he tells Marsha he plans to rob the local bank and she reluctantly agrees to skip town with him. Days later, Jack notices the townsfolk rushing inside at the first hint of rain. Two nights later, he enters the bank to rob it, only to find local citizens, "The People Who Couldn't Move," standing around and not moving. The mayor yells at Jack for forgetting to wind the clock and, as soon as the winding is done, the townsfolk start moving again, rushing in out of the rain. Hoskins tells Jack that they're all robots he built 30 years before to do all the hard work for mankind. Jack drives off alone, figuring that Marsha is a robot, unaware that she is not and has also left town, assuming for some reason that Jack is a robot.

And so begins another Atlas issue with a lousy, mixed-up story by Carl Wessler that features some of the worst Dick Giordano art I've ever seen. Why isn't Marsha a robot? Don't ask me. She must have been awfully desperate to fall for a jerk like Jack in a matter of hours.

Jessup is disappointed when his rich uncle dies and only leaves him a pair of eyeglasses, but when he puts them on and realizes he can see the immediate future, he does what every other Atlas protagonist does and tries to come up with a way to cash in. Instead of heading for the racetrack or the casino like anyone with sense, Jessup goes to the bank and waits till he sees the guard go on a coffee break. He then forces the bank manager to put all the cash in the bag. Before he can leave, the guard returns and foils his plans, explaining that he noticed how Jessup's eyes looked scared but vicious when he put on the glasses. "Anyone could see he was about to do something bad evil."

Frank Bolle's art on "That's What You Think!" is even worse than Dick Giordano's was in the first story. Jessup is such a dolt that he deserves what he gets. It astounds me how many people in the 1950s thought of little else than how to rob a bank.

Frank Neely escapes from prison before his scheduled execution and heads for town, looking for Sheriff Joe Jessup. On the sidewalk, people walk by as if he's not there, and in Mike's Diner, everyone seems not to see or hear Frank. He hears a radio report that he was executed and exits, passing Sheriff Jessup, who seems not to see him. Frank runs out of town, certain he's dead. Sheriff Jessup and men with guns turn up and arrest him. The sheriff tells Frank that when he heard of the escape, he told everyone in town to put on an act, figuring that it would keep innocent bystanders safe.

"I Died Too Soon" continues this issue's string of losers. It seems like Atlas comics are at their last gasp. The story is poor and the art is nearly as bad.

Suddenly appearing on Earth as a scout for an invasion, an alien disguises himself in a three-piece suit and tie and shows up at a farmhouse, where an elderly couple take him on as "The Hired Hand" to do chores. He says a few magic words and splits wood, but the couple are not surprised. He chants an incantation and plows a field, but he still doesn't get a rise out of the old folks. He teleports instantly back to his home planet and reports, causing the general to abandon the invasion plans because the Earthlings must have secret powers stronger than those of the invaders. Back on Earth, the elderly couple (wait for it) wonder where the hired hand got to, lamenting their poor vision.

If you didn't see that one coming, you must be as blind as these old folks. Hand in your Bad Comic Fan card and go back to Comic School! Marvin Stein's art is on par with everything else in this issue.

Ben Thompson is hiking through the frozen north when a crevice opens up and he falls. He begs for his life, promising to reform, and is saved when a soft ledge breaks his fall. Ben recalls refusing to help an old prospector named Larson two days ago, when Larson offered to cut Ben in on his big uranium discovery for a bit of grub and Ben grabbed his map and sent him away hungry. Ben is saved by some hikers and immediately forgets his promise to reform. On his own again, Ben locates the place to dig for uranium and suddenly hears Larson warning him of another crevice about to open up. Ben thinks Larson is a ghost and runs off, falling off another cliff to his death and leaving Larson, who is perfectly fine and had been rescued by others, to ponder why Ben didn't take advantage of his second chance.

Empty moralizing, bad plotting, and shabby art are to be found in the pages of "He Lived Again." Is Atlas on fumes and using file stories that weren't worth publishing the first time around?

Columnist Ned Barker writes the Inside Broadway column for the newspaper and relishes in skewering talent and ruining careers. He sees the act of a magician named Presto the Great and the review that follows causes the performer's engagement to be canceled. One day, Ned sees Presto on the street and follows him to a shabby hotel, where he stays in room 14. Ned sneaks in and sees Presto practicing before a mirror and not doing badly at all. Suddenly, Ned is tossed into another dimension where Presto is a great magician staying in a fancy hotel room. Ned wants to promote Presto, but the columnist's appearance makes Presto lose his mojo. He can't send Ned back to his home dimension, so Ned is forced to wander the streets, jobless.

By default, "What Happened in Room 14?" is the best story in this poor issue of Mystery Tales, even though it's not very good. John Forte's people can tend to look wooden, as they do here, and I have to say that Ned Barker reminded me of myself and the way I've criticized this issue. At least I'm still in my home dimension. I think.-Jack

Next Week...
More Williamson/Mayo Magic!