The Marvel/Atlas
Horror Comics
Horror Comics
Part 149
June 1957 Part I
by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook
Cover by Bill Everett
"The Secret of the Pet Shop!" (a: Mort Drucker) ★★
"No Way Out!" (a: Angelo Torres) ★★
"Something is Outside the Door!" (a: Bob Powell) ★★★
"Thru the Dark Tunnel!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★
"The Secret!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★
"It Comes Out at Night" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★★
How does Mr. Allen make a profit from his pet shop when he practically gives away his merchandise to all the neighborhood brats? When pressed, Mr. Allen will confide in folks that he lives for the joy in a child's eyes and that he has a "private means" of his own to make ends meet. Four local hoods begin noticing Mr. Allen's way of doing things and force the old man to hand over his private stash. Bad idea.
In the jungles of South America, Joe Foss is working on a railroad when he accidentally breaks through a rock wall and discovers a city of gold behind it. Thinking nothing of his co-workers, Foss sets off an explosion to make the hole larger, chops chunks off the gold buildings and then sets to work getting his haul out of the city. That's when the ancient Incan tribe shows up. "No Way Out!" has some spectacular Torres art (again, think Williamson, Krenkel, and even Frazetta, style-wise) but the script goes nowhere... literally. The final panels are of the tribe marching Joe back to their city for some undisclosed fate, as if there should be a fifth page of content
He and pal Fred Selby (the only bachelor in town) get separated in the forest when it starts raining and Harry finds himself in a strange cave. Exiting the rear, our he-man discovers a sunshiny day. Figuring Fred headed on home, Harry plans on minimizing the damage by painting the kitchen for the rest of the day but, once entering the house, he meets up with the Mrs., who walks right by him without a word. More ominous is the exact duplicate of Harry painting the kitchen. What gives? Who knows? "Thru the Dark Tunnel!" is another of Carl Wessler's magical scripts that gives no explanation for events and then gives no apology. There's a Harry-twin, a dark cave, a happy ending (Harry journeys back through the cave, heads back home, and everything is normal again), a cautionary lesson for rebellious hubbies, and come up with your own reasoning, ya dumb eight-year-old kid.
Combining two of the favorite pastimes in the Atlas Universe of 1957, "The Secret!" sees a quartet of stinkin' Commies drilling through a stone wall to find out what the big new American military weapon could be. The men are astonished when two American agents/scientists (?) materialize before their eyes and admit the big secret is invisibility!
Years pass and Grayson grows up to be a respected astronomer, blazing new trails for science. As an elderly man, now retired, he looks up to the stars and remembers his gift for flight. Up, up, and away he goes right to another planet, where he is welcomed home by the officials who placed him on Earth to study our culture. Billy Grayson is finally home! I have to say that "It Comes Out at Night" (a really dumb title, but I guess better than the obvious alternative, "The Man Who Could Fly to the Stars With No Problem Breathing!") is a whole lot better than my cynical synopsis. Sure, there's more than a hint of Superman mythos, but our uncredited scripter does a good job of keeping sappiness at arm's length and the climactic reveal comes off as heartwarming rather than maudlin. The Doxsee work adds an exclamation point.-Peter
Cover by Bill Everett
"Bring Back My Body!" (a: George Woodbridge) ★★
"It Hides Under the Ground!" (a: Syd Shores) ★★
"They Can't Find Me!" (a: Manny Stallman & Bob Fujitani[?]) ★1/2
"The Blinding Flash!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★
"The Face in the Darkness!" (a: Howard O'Donnell) ★
"He Sits in the Fog!" (a: Ted Galindo) ★★
Craine has a special power; his spirit can leave his body and he can drift anywhere he wants while his body remains in a yoga-trance. Rather than do something good for mankind, Craine decides he's going to kill Burton. Why? Because Burton gets all the attention down at the clubhouse and that really irritates Craine.
Looking to get out of the country in order to avoid the service, 25-year-old Otto Krantz uses his make-up genius to apply prosthetics that help him look like a man in his 60s! Then, while researching how old men talk and behave at a nearby museum, he overhears two elderly gentleman discussing Odin's Chariot, a mythological vehicle used to transport dead men to Valhalla. One of the old guys remarks how he'd give most of his fortune to own the chariot.
"They Can't Find Me!" details a disenchanted military scientist who's working on an invisibility formula but can't get anyone to pay attention to his theories. Then the stinkin' Commies arrive at his door and promise him the moon if he'll only steal the American government's top secret Process X-9 and bring it to their headquarters. Now he's pissed at both sides so he gives the men a little demonstration of what he believes will be the most revolutionary weapon in the history of mankind. He takes his serum and stands back, daring the men to see him. They all laugh because he's clear as day. Too late, this nitwit egghead discovers his formula makes him invisible only to himself!
"The Blinding Flash!" is a total groaner about an egghead who invents an "Atom Power Machine" that can project one's image into the past. There, ostensibly, the image can change the future. The scientist can't get anyone interested in his gizmo (everyone is "too afraid of the consequences") until a two-bit hood needs to go back in time and find the lighter he dropped near a safe he cracked. Hilarity and huge coincidences ensue.
In "The Face in the Darkness!," wealthy businessman and part-time mystic arts enthusiast J. Alfred Torgan searches high and low for a swami who can actually connect him to the dead. When he reveals a seer to be a fake, he runs them out of town. But when he stumbles upon Swami Leon, he gets a strange feeling that this guy is for real. Truly awful writing (slowly... piece by gauze-like piece, like a cloud buffeted into a strange configuration by high winds in a storm-blackened sky...) and amateurish art make this one to skip at all costs.
Last up is "He Sits in the Fog!," wherein Carter tries to convince his business partner, Prentice, to float him a loan against the company's assets. Prentice refuses, citing several recent similar loans and a high probability that Carter's gambling debts might bankrupt the company. That's when Carter turns to murder. He fixes Prentice's breaks and, just like that, Carter is sole owner of their business. As he boasts of getting away with murder, a fog surrounds him and gets thicker; we learn eventually that Carter has died in the gas chamber. That final panel is quite effective but the build-up is odd; the protagonist brags about getting away with the crime but we're never even let in on the investigation of the case. We simply move from the act to the punishment. Still, that grim climax beats anything else in this mediocre issue of Journey Into Mystery.-Peter
Journey Into Unknown Worlds #58
The captain of a ship called the North Star has a plan: he'll steer his ship into a "Graveyard" of weeds in the Atlantic and collect the insurance money, certain that he and his first mate will be rescued by the Rose Wilson. As the ship is drawn into the weeds, the crew abandons it, but the captain and first mate stay aboard to make sure it's hopelessly stuck. They finally exit in a small rowboat and are dismayed to see that the Rose Wilson is also among the ships in the graveyard.
Abner Gough runs from his miserly uncle's house, clutching a valise of stolen cash and worried that he will be discovered to have killed the old man. In the fog, he encounters a mysterious man who says that the police are on his trail and hands him tickets to a ship headed for Paris! Abner is unable to enjoy Paris, certain that everyone is watching him and that they know what he's done. The shadowy figure gives him tickets to Rome, where the same thing happens, then to Athens, Cairo, and Johannesburg. Finally, the figure reveals himself to be a dead ringer for Abner, who realizes he can't run from himself and turns himself into the police. They don't know what he's talking about, since the coroner said that his uncle died of a heart attack!
"Who Waits in the Fog!" suffers from the Atlas curse of having too many twists, none of which are particularly interesting, and from the mediocre stylings of Frank Bolle, which don't make any of the fog-enshrouded mystery evocative.
An amateur chemist named Amos Kirk accidentally invents a gas that allows him to become "The Thought Stealer!" He can see what other people are thinking and, like every other Atlas character, decides to use this newfound ability to get rich quick. After trying to blackmail three strangers, it turns out that they were all innocent and Amos misread what he saw in their heads. Unfortunately, one of them turns out to be a detective, and he sees to it that Amos's blackmailing days are over.
We can always count on Mort Drucker to turn in solid work and this story is no exception. The plot is one we've seen before.
Mason makes it to Tibet, in search of the cave of light, where anyone who enters will live forever. The High Lama says the cave is not for ordinary men, but when Mason holds him at gunpoint, the Lama leads Mason to the cave, where he meets the wise old Li Orn. Feeling rays of light passing through him, Mason feels immortal but is shocked when Li Orn explains that his life will end the moment he leaves the cave. Uncertain as to the truth, Mason is stuck inside, as if Li Orn had said: "I Dare You to Move!"
Mystic #60
Curtin and his gang have to get away fast, even if it means forfeiting half a million bucks. They charter a plane and head for Haiti, but engine trouble means a crash landing in the water, where they are rescued by an old sailor who has a treasure map tattooed on his chest. Curtin and his gang force the man to take them to a nearby island, where they dig down fifty feet before finding millions of dollars in gold and jewels. The tattooed man fades away and reveals himself to be the ghost of Captain Kidd; too bad Curtin and his gang are so far down that there's no way to climb out!
Cover by Carl Burgos
"Graveyard" (a: Richard Doxsee) ★★
"Who Waits in the Fog!" (a: Frank Bolle) ★
"Age of the Iron Men!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★1/2
"The Thought Stealer!" (a: Mort Drucker) ★★1/2
"He Hides By Night!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★
"I Dare You to Move!" (a: Ross Andru & Mike Esposito[?]) ★★
Richard Doxsee could have done more to illustrate this story, perhaps showing more of the abandoned ships in a moody way, but instead he chose to depict numerous panels of the captain and the first mate talking to each other. At least the story has a beginning, middle, and end, sans Martians or Commies.
In the year 2026 (!) engineer Marc Braydon creates humanoid robots that begin to take over the jobs of mankind. As the decades pass, the "Age of the Iron Men!" takes hold and robots gradually enslave humans until people revolt and turn on their machine overlords in 2056. But wait! It's only a movie! The robots in the audience are anxious that humans might really revolt, unaware that underground meetings are already underway.
I'm not well-versed enough in the history of science fiction to say where this idea originated, but I have to hand it to Carl Wessler and Joe Maneely for telling a captivating story in a mere three pages. It's fun to read it 70 years later and compare what happens in the comic to what has happened in real life.
After a robbery, Freddy Galt kills his partner, Joe, and goes on the run with a satchel of stolen loot. Thinking the police are on his trail, "He Hides By Night!" and follows a shadowy figure into a cave, squeezing his thin frame through a crevice. Night after night, the figure's arm reaches through the crevice to pass Freddy food until Freddy is too fat to exit and the figure reveals itself to be Joe's vengeful ghost.
Bottom of the barrel stuff, this story features some of the worst art we've seen from "Solly" (as he signs his name on page one) Brodsky in an Atlas comic.
The GCD questions whether Mike Esposito inked Ross Andru's pencils this time out, and I don't think so, since the panels don't have the usual cartoony look that we see from that duo. Instead, it has the feel of a page by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, oddly enough--see the panel reproduced here.-Jack
Cover by John Severin
"The Children's Hour!" (a: Gene Colan) ★ 1/2
"The Mystery of the Tattooed Man!" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo) ★★ 1/2
"You Only Live Twice!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★
"What Happened to Doctor Dorrm" (a: Sid Check) ★★1/2
"The Changing Man!" (a: John Forte[?] & George Klein) ★★
"Nothing Can Save Us!" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★1/2
Hiding from the law, Duncan Larkin and two partners in crime hide out at the home of his Aunt Alice and Uncle Jim, chasing away the children who play outside. The first time the kids return, Duncan chases them away again, but the second time, when he hears their voices by the nearby swimming hole, Duncan finds not children but gremlins, who drag him into a hole in the ground. The cops soon arrive to take away his colleagues.
Once again, an Atlas twist comes not out of left field, but out of a far stranger place. "The Children's Hour!" features fair to middling art by Colan, which means it's better than what we get from most of the Atlas regulars. Why do gremlins play outside the home of Aunt Alice and Uncle Jim? Your guess is as good as mine.
Al Williamson and Ralph Mayo do stellar work on "The Mystery of the Tattooed Man!," which makes up for the plot. I'm not sure four men could dig down fifty feet in the course of a day, especially after surviving a plane crash and time in the water, but I'll stop quibbling and enjoy the visuals.
The cops interrogate a man with amnesia who was found with a silver cigarette case in his possession. Accused of killing Paul Winslow, the man runs for it, climbs a bridge, falls into the water, and vanishes! Suddenly, he's observing the events of a week before and understands that his cousin caused amnesia by tripping him and is now trying to frame him for murder. The man turns out to be Paul Winslow himself, and when his memory returns he clears everything up for the police.
Far from a classic Bond novel or film, "You Only Live Twice!" in this instance is yet another piece of birdcage liner created by the dynamic duo of Carl Wessler and Robert Q. Sale. Sale's characters are just plain ugly and their poses sometimes defy human anatomy. It's so bad it's almost proto-Underground Comix.
Beneath the waters of a hidden lake, somewhere in Africa, live a race of fish people who have long had to limit their population growth due to lack of space. Brilliant Dr. Dorrm leads them to the surface in airtight tanks; they ride to the nearby sea and enter it, certain that it will provide all the room they need to expand and prepare for world domination. If only they'd realized that they can't survive in salt water!
It had to either be air or salt water! The highlight of this three-pager is the terrific artwork by Sid Check, whose fish people look back to (or forward to) the denizens of Atlantis in Sub-Mariner comics. The panels underwater are colored blue and black, which makes the panels above the lake seem even more bright and colorful.
Burt Carter returns to his wife Lil after disappearing for three days and explains how a bolt of lightning made him "The Changing Man!" Burt was riding home one night on a bus as a thunderstorm roared outside. He was looking at the other passengers and imagining that their day jobs were easier than his. A bolt of lightning hit the bus and suddenly Burt found himself in the body of a man he thought was a clerk--he's really a steeplejack, washing windows on a skyscraper! Burt falls and finds himself in the body of the next man, who digs tunnels through rock way below a river! Burt is trapped in a cave-in and finds himself in a third body; this guy is a test pilot! A fire erupts in his plane and he's back home in his own body, explaining what happened. But wait! There was another man on the bus! Burt suddenly finds himself transformed into the tubby driver, promising his wife he'll be back to normal tomorrow.
I got a chuckle out of the surprise ending, which makes no sense in light of what happened before (Burt did not change back to himself or return home any of the other times) but is fun, nonetheless. The GCS notes that George Klein did the inks and either Klein or John Forte did the pencils--I agree, since some of the panels definitely look like Forte's work but the strip as a whole does not.
Frank Emmons invents a TV that can tune in someone anywhere in the world, but he's annoyed that his teenaged brother, Barry, keeps tinkering with his inventions. When Frank gives a demonstration to bigwigs from the TV biz, he's shocked to tune in a man who appears to be in the polar region but is really in New York City in 1967! A young inventor's machine to provide cheap refrigeration to every home went haywire and now the ice is moving south from the North Pole, covering everything in its wake. When the man from the future tells Frank the name of the inventor of the ice machine, Frank runs into his lab and smashes Barry's new invention, disproving the claim that "Nothing Can Save Us!"
Jay Scott Pike turns in decent work on the last story in a pretty good issue of Mystic. No reader has any doubt as to the inventor of the icemaker, but the story moves satisfyingly from beginning to end and the art has a '60s DC feel to it.-Jack
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| Next Week... The First Casualty of the Atlas Implosion. RIP Spellbound! |
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