Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 193: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 178

February 1961

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #65

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Am the Brute That Walks!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #1)

"Fear in the Night!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #1)

"Kragoo!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #1)

Ninety-pound weakling Howard Avery can't take his girlfriend Sally anywhere without having sand kicked in his face by brutes and nincompoops. Sally says she doesn't mind that Howard is a frail little string bean, but there's a bit of an edge in her voice that convinces him otherwise. How can Howard Avery solve his problem?

Luckily, Howard is not only a snappy dresser but also a brilliant scientist (who'd a thunk?), so he heads back to the lab, situated somewhere between his kitchen and his Murphy bed in his teeny-tiny apartment, and immediately cooks up a potion to help him grow muscles, pronto. Unfortunately, the formula works better than he thought and very soon he's looking down at his apartment building as a furry orange beast. "I Am the Brute That Walks!" exclaims the unrecognizable Howard. 

Sadly, the same disease that has gripped so many brilliant but troubled scientists in the Atlas Universe takes hold of Howard's insides and he takes a lengthy journey of destruction through the city, leading him to Sally's apartment. He'll show her who's a spineless worm! Howard has a problem keeping his words to thought balloons and the police overhear the Brute telegraphing his mission to kidnap poor Sally. They get there first and accompany the frightened woman to the precinct, where she's kept in a cell for her protection.

The Brute sees Sally's Edsel parked at the station house and destroys the building, but Sally escapes. He chases her into a nearby amusement park where, naturally, Sally boards a roller coaster (1961 statistics showed that amusement park rides were the best places to hide from giant monsters). Again, the huge but clumsy Brute misses his chance and Sally escapes into the "Tunnel of Horrors." As he is reaching for Sally in the dark, the potion wears off and The Brute becomes wimpy Howard again. Sally mistakenly believes her beau has destroyed the monster and swears she'll never introduce him to friends as her brother again. Howard, realizing that there are some places where man was never meant to roam, burns his notes and settles into life as a scrawny but satisfied and brilliant scientist.

I've alluded to it before but it bears repeating that all the brilliant minds in the Atlas Uni practice biochemistry at home rather than at more conventional locales. We finally get a giant Atlas monster that doesn't wear briefs and perhaps the most startling aspect of Howard's change-O formula is that it allows him to regain his human form with clothes intact. How does that work? I love how Sally jumps on that roller coaster to evade capture. It would be my first instinct to hide under the ride, but I've never had to run from a giant orange gorilla before so what do I know?

Steve Ditko's minimalist art is the best thing about "Fear in the Night!," wherein two space travelers find themselves shipwrecked on a remote planet and must escape a giant monster while rationing their life-giving "oxygen-concentrate" pills. One of the men is a robot and you won't guess which one it is unless you've read some of Stan's previous scripts. In our last (and certainly least) entertainment for the issue, "Kragoo!" is a warrior from another planet sent to Earth to conquer, rape, and pillage by assimilating himself into another being. Once he's settled in, the alien will be able to use his hypo-powers to enslave the human race. He's warned by his superior that he can only transform one time, so make it a good vessel. The dope picks what he thinks is a strong, healthy male but discovers too late that his new home is a stone statue. Don Heck was an adequate, at times superior, artist, but it should have registered with Stan fairly early that Heck could not design a monster to save his life.-Peter

Strange Tales #81

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"The Scarecrow Walks!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

"A Giant There Was!" (a: Don Heck) ★

"I Went Too Far Back!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Thing in the Cell!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #5)

Evil businessman Jarvis Cragstone owns the mortgage on the farm belonging to the Smiths and when the government needs land for nuclear testing, Cragstone jumps at the chance to make a quick buck. He tosses the kind-hearted Smiths off their farm and, as they leave their home, they say a prayer for their scarecrow, who has helped them for so long to ... scare off crows, of course. The Smiths head for an unknown future as the suits move in and transform the farm into a test site.

The Delta-Ray bomb goes off and incinerates everything within miles, everything except the straw man, who somehow keeps it all together and exits the other side a rejuvenated, some would say better scarecrow than ever before. The blast has not only given the sack of weeds a brain but also expands his height twenty-fold. The straw man heads out on the range to find his destiny. After ignoring several ranches and necking teenagers, the scarecrow finds what he's looking for: the office of Jarvis Cragstone! With a little persuading, Cragstone agrees to give all the proceeds of the farm sale to the Smiths. Sack of dough in hand, the scarecrow finds the Smiths camping in the wilderness and leaves them the bag of green. He then reverts back to his normal size and intelligence, leaving the Smiths to ponder the wonders of the world.

There's nothing original in Stan/Larry's script for "The Scarecrow Walks!," including the old standby of immediate change due to radiation, but it earns an extra star for originality in its monstrous protagonist. It's also rare for one of these monsters to have nothing but good intentions. Not once does our straw super-being stop at a jewelry store or candy shop to do a bit of looting. The panel of the scarecrow walking through the desert with a huge sack of cash in its gigantic hand (the bag would be larger than Jarvis, mind you) is a Kodak moment.

"A Giant There Was!" is a silly melodrama about a thief who breaks into a curio shop and discovers magic beans. Tossing them out the window, he watches in amazement as a beanstalk grows high into the clouds. Remembering the children's story, he climbs the beanstalk and indeed finds a giant's castle at the top of the stalk. Thoughts of priceless gems and rubies fade as he discovers it's all an elaborate trap for thieves. Too elaborate for my tastes; it would be so much simpler for the giant to squish his prisoners than to feed them. And let's talk about the raw sewage disposal problems for a castle in the clouds. That's the truly horrifying aspect of this loser.

It's 1971 and, yep, time travel is possible. A jealous lab assistant decides he's going to go far into the past and with his revolver he'll become the most powerful man in the world. But this dope didn't factor in that if you go too far into the past you land in the future, an era where guns are no good against human beings. At some point, the law of averages decrees that Stan will pump out a decent time machine saga, but "I Went Too Far Back!" ain't it.

A truly wretched issue of Strange Tales comes to a much-awaited close with the supremely dopey "The Thing in the Cell!" Hans Vogel, gendarme in the European village of Bork, fines every traveler who drives through the town ten dollars (yes, I agree, an odd fine for a European village, but let's not dwell on that), not for personal financial gain but for an ego-related matter. Once Hans has saved up six million American dollars, he has a huge, state of the art prison built in the middle of town. Why would Hans need a prison in a crime-free zone? Because it's always been his dream. 

Well, Hans's dream becomes a nightmare when he arrests a vagrant walking through Bork on the wrong side of the road. The stranger insists that Hans should let him go because "they are coming to get him," but the Inspector ignores the man's pleas and throws his prisoner in a cell for ten days. Sure enough, "they" in the form of chubby, hairy aliens arrive to take their friend back to Planet X in the Vortex 7 Solar System, but they can't get the darn cell door open. With no other option available, they steal the entire prison. Hans is discredited by the village of Bork and sent packing, regretting his past behavior and pondering the sheer bigness of the galaxy. So the aliens couldn't find a way to pick a lock but they've got the tech to pull up the whole building and, what, stash it inside their spaceship? I'll accept a lot (walking scarecrows, giant snails, etc.) but this is a bridge too far.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #14

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Created the Colossus!" (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #17)

"I Am... Gorak!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #16)

In a certain, unnamed country behind the Iron Curtain, a sculptor is ordered to build a huge statute as a symbol of the government's power. After months of toil, he can exclaim, "I Created the Colossus!" A flying saucer crash-lands outside the sculptor's workshop and the crablike alien that emerges from it uses mental telepathy to tell the sculptor that it has to protect itself until it can be rescued. The alien enters the statue, which starts to move, much to the shock of the government officials who arrive on the scene.

"The Colossus Lives!" and nothing--not an electric fence, not artillery fire--can stop it. The sculptor cannily invents a tale and tells the representatives of the tyrannical government that the giant statue's purpose is to stop the dictatorship. It heads for the bay, where gunfire from submarines has no effect. This being 1961, the next step is an H-bomb.

But the tyrant's fighting forces can't defeat "The Power of the Colossus!" Jets are scrambled and the big granite guy takes flight himself, crushing planes in his hand and forcing the bomb to explode in outer space. A flying saucer finally arrives and the alien exits the statue to return home. The Colossus may be still now, but the sculptor warns the government agents that they had better change their ways or it will return and cause more destruction. Guess what? They make peace with the West!

This three-part story runs eighteen pages and, at the end, the editor asks readers if they'd like to see more full-length stories. My answer is yes! The Colossus tale is not bad. Kirby does his usual thing of drawing as many big pages as he can, but the extra length allows for more story development. Reading these late '50s/early '60s Atlas comics is certainly an education in seeing how all of the pieces of the classic Marvel super hero comics started to come together. The Colossus resembles the Thing in some ways.

A master of illusion announces that "I Am... Gorak!" and does a lot of talking as he wows his audience. He is deemed to be the world's greatest magician, but he has a secret. When jealous folk begin to attack his reputation, Gorak proves his mettle with amazing feats and eventually reveals that everyone else is but a figment of his imagination. But wait! Gorak doesn't realize that he's just a character in a comic book story, and he must vanish when the story ends!

The self-reflexive conclusion does nothing to improve what is essentially five pages of a character talking to himself. Ditko is wasted here.-Jack

Tales to Astonish #16

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"Here Comes... Thorr the Unbelievable" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #3)

"My Touch Means... Doom!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Tower of Shadows #8)

"Save Me from the Mole Men!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #3)

"I Am the Victim of the Sorcerer!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #3)

A henpecked archaeologist named Linus and his shrewish wife, Helen, fly to a newly discovered island in the South Pacific that features unusual statutes that look like giant heads made of stone. While digging around one of them, Linus accidentally triggers it to come to life and, sure enough, "Here Comes... Thorr the Unbelievable," who announces that he is (yet another) scout for an alien race that is just waiting till the right moment to conquer the Earth.

Linus tricks Thorr into summoning its fellow aliens in a big yellow spaceship and, after they land, the archaeologist uses dynamite to blow up the island and save the world. Guess what: giant stone statues can't swim, and they sink to the bottom of the ocean. At long last, Helen realizes that her husband is a brave man!

The most interesting thing about this story is surely the name of the alien, who refers to himself as "the mighty Thorr."

Desperate to get the money he needs to pay for an operation to cure his ailing wife, bank teller Bill Howard steals money from his cash drawer and drives into the New Mexico desert, police chasing him. He unknowingly wanders onto an atomic testing site and soon discovers that "My Touch Means... Doom!" When police approach Bill, he jumps off a cliff rather than harm them. Suddenly, he wakes up and is back at the bank. It turns out he was hypnotized by the psychiatrist hypnotist bank guard who was testing Bill. That evening, the teller learns that the surgeon will operate on his wife free of charge!

This issue is quickly becoming a test lab for the near future at Marvel--in this story, a man wanders onto an atomic testing site and gains superhuman powers. The idea of making him a hero/monster with unusual adversaries remains unrealized, as does the idea of a continuing series, but we're getting close.

A cruel middleweight boxer known as the Crusher enjoys beating the stuffing out of his opponents in the ring but wishes he were a heavyweight so he could punch even harder. He hears about new pills guaranteed to make a person gain weight, so he steals a bunch and downs them, only to discover that he's gaining weight so fast that no floor can support him! He crashes through layers of Earth and rock until he must cry, "Save Me From the Mole Men!" when furry denizens of the underworld begin to use him as their punching bag.

It's a dumb story with unattractive art, but once again a piece of the Marvel puzzle is seen! These mole men look nothing like the ones the Fantastic Four would soon face, and we've actually seen mole men at Atlas before, but it's still interesting to watch the early stages of development.

A ragged man walks the foggy streets of a city, unable to remember his identity yet aware that some inexorable, evil force keeps drawing him toward it. Unable to get anyone to help him, the man finally allows himself to be drawn toward his fate. He passes through a door and walks down a hall toward a light source, finally disappearing into vapor and unable to escape his fate. Later, two men in an art gallery are disturbed by a painting called "The Sorcerer's Betrayer," which depicts the ragged man cowering before a magician.

"I Am the Victim of the Sorcerer" isn't much different than "I Am... Gorak!" in this month's Tales of Suspense--both feature a main character who talks a lot and ends up a character in a work of art. Ditko does a decent job but the story is just filler.-Jack

On Thursday...
The Boys Discuss the Genius
(and the Drawbacks) of Kubrick

Next Week...
The Debut of
the Original Hulk!!!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 192: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 177

January 1961

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #64

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Dared to Battle... Rorgg, King of the Spider-Men!!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Fear #3)

"I Found the Lair of... the Lizard Men" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces # 6)

"I Must Find Korumbu!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Fear #3)

"Who is the Ape Man?" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

Fourteen-year-old Tim wastes all his time reading those awful Atlas post-code funny books--y'know, the ones about giant termites and three-eyed cyclops and all that rot? His Pop has had enough of Tim's lollygagging and Tim's girlfriend, Ann, is about to give him the boot when a strange phenomenon hits their "small New Mexican town." The entire burg is covered in a thick, impenetrable spider's web. Soon after emerges its creator, Rorgg, King of the Spider-Men!

Rorgg explains that Plaintown is a test site for invaders from a distant galaxy. Rorgg and his spider-men have traveled on a long, long, really long spider-web stretching from planet Rorrgo to Earth. They will determine if the human race is easy to conquer and then radio the next armada to finish the job. But Tim, the brightest in his class thanks to reading all those Atlas comics, puts the invasion to a halt by spraying Rorgg with a stream of DDT. The giant spider keels over dead and the other spiders head home with their thoraxes tucked between their legs. The men ruffle Tim's hair and wonder how they couldn't see the obvious defense from the get-go. Tim goes back to reading Tales of Suspense #15 with Ann impatiently awaiting her turn. I love the goofiness of "Rorgg, the Giant Spider Who Had Eyebrows"; just the fact that DDT works on beings from a dimension or galaxy trillions of light years away gives one hope for our future, no?

Hardened criminal Eric Kane busts out of an African prison camp and ducks into the jungle, looking for shelter. He finds it in a deep mountainside cave. With nothing to lose (and no flashlight!) he heads deep down into the abyss, finally stopping when he lays hands on something slimy in the dark. Eric screams "I Found the Lair of (pregnant pause) the Lizard Men!" Soon, Eric finds the lizard chaps are actually pretty friendly (and also very stupid and gullible) and they show him their principle source of light, a huge diamond! Knowing he'll be king of the heap up on the surface world, the con grabs the rock and hoofs it. Alas, it isn't long before he learns the secret of the lizard dudes: the diamond itself is what transforms a man into a lizard! Now Eric sits alone, alienated from his scaly brethren, wondering if his curse will ever be lifted. So were the other lizard men actually humans from the surface world who had been changed just like Eric or... what? Don't look for answers, my friend.

He might be wealthy, but Hugo Barge (get it? big as a barge!) is also morbidly obese and cruel. After a series of chest pains, Hugo visits the doctor and receives the bad news: he has to stop eating so much! Diets won't help, pills and solutions won't help, and after he visits Europe for "miracle cures," Hugo throws up his fat arms and screams, "Arrrrgh! There must be an easier way to lose weight than giving up my Doritos Nacho Chips and Coke!" A gypsy overhears the fat man whining and tells him there is a foolproof solution: he must visit Korumbu in the swamp. 

Hugo makes his way through the figs and reeds to Korumbu's wagon and confronts the gypsy witch doctor, informing him that if he doesn't fork over the magic potion, he'll tell the cops where the gypsies are hiding. With one gulp, Hugo downs the liquid and heads back to the village, where he begins losing pounds by the minute. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that, should Hugo Barge stop eating, he will waste away to nothing. Suddenly, Hugo is screaming "I Must Find Korumbu!" Written in decidedly un-PC times, "I Must..." is a perfect example of what comic book scripters could get away with in 1960 as opposed to now. Today, no editor would green light a script with prose as "insensitive" as No two ways about it--Hugo Barge was just plain fat! But unlike most fat people, he was also the meanest man in town! Everyone knows how jolly fat people were back in those days. Fabulous Ditko art (as always).

In the finale, strongman Bruno Storme delights in torturing Kazar, the circus gorilla, for no apparent reason other than Bruno's not a good guy. But Kazar's trainer has got a little something in store for Bruno. By 1961, these comics were safer than TV sitcoms, with no one perishing or suffering much more than bruises. At one point, Bruno picks up Kazar's trainer and tosses him like a rag doll at a nearby metal cage. In the pre-code era, that trainer would have been dead, but here he just shakes it off and thinks, "Why, I'll get that son of a gun one of these days!" Paul Reinman's work, once a pleasure to look at, now stands out like a sore thumb from the art of the other three regulars. It's old fashioned and sketchy.-Peter

Strange Tales #80

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"What? What? What Was Gargantus!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Creatures on the Loose #17)

"The Things from Dimension X!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Creatures on the Loose #17)

"The Door They Dare Not Open!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

"Trapped in the Room of Shadows" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #22)

A deep sea explorer takes a bathysphere down further than anyone has gone before and is surprised to find that his son Billy stowed away onboard. Suddenly, they encounter a humongous creature that appears to be half human and half reptile! The monster is curious about where the bathysphere came from, so it rises to the surface, where it walks onto shore, talking to itself and remarking about its surprise that anything lives above the water.

The creature walks to the airport, where it encounters jet planes, then to the zoo, where it picks up an elephant, then to the outskirts of the city, where the National Guard tries to blast it to Kingdom Come. Nothing works until the creature suddenly collapses, unable to breathe for long out of water.

"What? What? What Was Gargantus!" follows a familiar pattern. There is a splash page where the creature menaces the city, followed by a couple of pages of setup, followed by the creature emerging and heading toward a population center. Eventually, like the Martians in War of the Worlds, a change in atmosphere is fatal. Yawn. The art is rudimentary and the main human character never gets a name. Even the monster's name is a problem--on pages six and seven, it refers to itself as "Gigantus" and a caption on page seven calls it that, but when it keels over, the main character calls it "Gargantus" in the last two panels.

After being fired from his job at Paragon Labs for working on his Dimension Connector during business hours, Lynwood rents a small cabin in the mountains and tries to finish his project. That night, as he sleeps, warriors from Electra cross into our dimension, determined to conquer our race! They zap Lynwood and yak about their plans for world domination until they step out into the night and are confronted by giant, shadowy figures! The aliens are so scared that they scamper back to their own dimension, vowing never to return.

After destroying his machine to forestall any future invasions, Lynwood steps outside, where he sees enormous footprints that lead to nearby Mt. Rushmore. Did the giant stone figures of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt come to live and save our planet?

I must admit I did not see that one coming! "The Things From Dimension X!" benefits from decent art by Don Heck, whose aliens are green and scaly, with horns on their heads, four arms, and big, oval holes in their torsos that I guess are supposed to be their mouths. Heck's monsters are often underwhelming, but these are pretty cool. The conclusion, where the Mt. Rushmore statues come to life, seems like something from an Atlas comic of a few years' before this.

The warden at a modern European prison believes that prisoners will respond positively to fair treatment, so he has the bars removed from their cells and hopes they'll stay in place by word of honor. A tough con named Bruno Zuknik arrives and thinks this is ridiculous, so he breaks his vow and exits by "The Door They Dare Not Open!" That door leads him onto a spaceship and he is taken to another planet to serve out his sentence doing hard labor. After that, his memory will be wiped and he'll be returned to Earth. It turns out that the kindly warden is actually an alien in disguise who has come up with a clever way to supply his planet with free workmen!

It's a fairly clever story, but Paul Reinman's art isn't very interesting and his aliens have pink skin and heads that look like fish.

Sanford Kindwell, the richest man in the world, is also the most generous, and he is determined to find the fabled Wishing Stone that will let him help all mankind. He travels to Tibet, looking for the Stone, and is aided by a guide named Kroger, who secretly wants to steal some of Kindwell's fortune. After a long journey, they find the stone in a hidden cave, but Kroger grabs it away from Kindwell and a cave-in traps the rich man. Kroger escapes and wishes to be the richest man in the world. Suddenly, he feels his spirit moving into Kindwell's body, which means he's now the one who is "Trapped in the Room of Shadows."

The story is nothing new and the conclusion is no surprise, so it's Ditko's art that is the real draw here. In my opinion, he's by far the most exciting artist working at Atlas in 1961.-Jack

Tales of Suspense #13

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"Elektro! He Held a World in His Iron Grip!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #22)

"The Demon in the Dungeon!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #22)

"I Lived a Million Years!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"When the Earth Vanished!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #25)

Brilliant and really smart scientist Wilbur Poole builds the perfect computer, one that can out-think any human being. When he's finished and it's time for a beer, his personal revelry is interrupted by the computer, taking hold of Wilbur's brain and commanding him to build it a giant robot so that he can take his show on the road.

Helpless to refuse, Wilbur builds the metal behemoth and it breaks out of the lab, heading to the nearest metropolis and naming itself Elektro. There, the giant shows the population its power, atomizing entire cities with a blast from its gamma ray-filled hands. But the further Elektro gets from his creator, the less of a hold it has and Wilbur finally breaks the spell and manages to shut the monster down. Wilbur Poole contemplates the areas man was never supposed to enter and thanks God he has insurance. You gotta hand it to Stan and Jack in that they could come up with four giant monsters every month, but the novelty is beginning to wear off and each script becomes more and more formulaic. Must we have every such story end with a panel of the Earth filled with preachy word balloons?

A best-selling author needs inspiration for his new novel, so he rents a castle in Europe just outside a town where the villagers carry torches and believe in ghoulies and vampires. Just as the writer arrives, a man spots a ten-foot "demon" prowling through the forest and a few of his fellow Vasarians chase the creature to the scribe's castle, where it enters for shelter. The writer approaches the thing and it communicates with him telepathically. Turns out the big guy is just a little alien kid who got lost and his mom and pop come in a spaceship to rescue him. That leaves our best-selling author contemplating the bigotry of mankind. Will the human race ever look up into the skies and embrace someone different? I was just talking about formula and along comes "The Demon in the Dungeon!" If man isn't tampering with nature, he's turning a blind eye to a friendly hand. Don Heck seems to have a template for his monsters.

"I Lived a Million Years!" is a really dumb story about a Chinese dictator who becomes weary of the violence and tension around him. His solution: he forces his scientists to create a suspended animation tube that will keep him alive for one million years. Surely, violence will have been abolished by then and he'll be safe. Ya think? Why one million years? Why not five hundred? One thousand? What I want to know is what gave this dope the idea the world would become more peaceful rather than more dangerous?

Last up, I'm sorry to say Stan polishes off an old chestnut (yet again) for "When the Earth Vanished!" A warring race, the Goloks arrive on Earth to destroy mankind but find nothing but an abandoned white landscape as far as the eye can see. Well, if they can't own the Earth, no one can, so they set off their Ultimate Bomb and are caught in its fiery mushroom cloud. At that second, a little boy remarks to his mother that his ping pong ball has just exploded! Yep, these Goloks were just microscopic warriors! Who'd a thunk? My two-star rating is 100% attached to Steve Ditko's graphics.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #15

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Learned the Dread Secret of the Blip!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(r: Fear #2)(r: Giant-Size Man-Thing #2)

"I Dared Enter the Forbidden World!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Fear #2)(r: Giant-Size Man-Thing #2)

"I Am the Invisible!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Chamber of Darkness #8)

"I Defied the Curse of Tut-Ah-Anka!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

(r: Fear #2)

A radar operator sees a blip on his screen and soon cries, "I Learned the Dread Secret of the Blip!" It's a great big alien creature that looks like a bolt of lightning with arms and legs and seems to be draining all the electricity in the area. The man tracks down the Blip's location and it explains that it's peaceful and detoured to our planet to recharge its strength. Of course, other humans arrive and take potshots at the Blip, who grows angry at their primitive behavior and scatters them. The Blip locates a dynamo and is able to charge up before leaving Earth to return home. The humans lament their usual bad behavior toward harmless aliens.

We're scraping the bottom of the barrel now in an effort to keep coming up with giant creatures for Kirby to draw as the first story in these comics. The Blip doesn't do much before it leaves and isn't particularly interesting visually. At least we learn a lesson.

On a hunting expedition in Africa, Derek and John find a medallion that features an engraving of a mastodon! Convinced the item holds the secret to locating the elephants' graveyard, they search the area and follow an aged elephant deep into the jungle, where Derek turns on John, shoots his partner in the leg, and goes on alone.

Derek finds a cavern where elephants go to die; it's filled with skeletons and valuable ivory. Sadly, it's also inhabited by Martians, one of whom dropped the medallion during an ill-advised excursion. The Martians explain that animals don't do well on Mars, so they bring mastodons to Earth to breed them and, when they die, the Martians take the useful ivory back to their planet. Derek is enslaved as a laborer indefinitely.

"I Dared Enter the Forbidden World!" is a bit misleading, since Derek really just enters a cavern and finds Martians and mastodons. The aliens' plan seems a bit complicated, doesn't it? They bring mastodons to Earth so they can take the ivory home? That's a lot of travel and work for not much reward. Don Heck's Martians look similar to his other semi-scary aliens and, like all good aliens, they wear pants.

Certain that discovering the secret of invisibility will allow him to dominate the world, Professor Karlos Konak visits Zuka, the witch, who gives him a pair of lenses that will cause invisibility when a ray of light is passed through them. Reversing the lenses causes reappearance. Konak returns to his workshop and successfully tests the lenses on a cat, but when he steps into the ray and vanishes, he is dismayed to discover that everything has become invisible to him and he can't find the lenses to switch them back!

"I Am the Invisible" consists of a splash page and four pages of a story that is dependent on its twist ending, which is a letdown. Ditko's art is reliably excellent.

On the run from the cops in Egypt, a crook doesn't listen to a warning about entering a certain place and is able to boast that "I Defied the Curse of Tut-Ah-Anka!" Laughing at the idea of a curse, the man succeeds in escaping from the police, wins the sweepstakes, and becomes the richest man in town after he returns to the U.S. and invests in the stock market. He moves to Europe, buys a castle, and settles into a comfortable life of leisure, not realizing that it's all a fantasy and he's really been in an Egyptian hospital ever since the ancient gas in the cursed tomb penetrated his lungs!

A clever twist is all this story has going for it. It makes one think, though--would it be so bad to be in the main character's position?-Jack

Thursday...
"It's a Hell of a Thing
Killing a Man, Kid..."

And Next Week...
The Coming of Colossus...
An Epic Three-Part... Epic!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 191: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 176

December 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #63

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"Goliath! The Monster That... Walked Like a Man!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #10)

"I Was Trapped by the Mole Men!"

(a: Don Heck) ★

"The Dangerous Doll" (a: Jack Kirby & George Klein) ★★

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #20)(r: Crazy #76)

"I Took a Journey Into Fear!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Fear #6)

A Hollywood special effects man is just shooting the bull with his assistant about giant monsters from other planets conquering man when, coincidentally, they receive word that a behemoth has just surfaced on the Atlantic coast. The Navy sends a warship out to meet the critter and the great, gilled goliath explains that he comes from Atlantis and is a scout for his race. The rest of the Goliaths intend to join up with him and conquer the surface world just as soon as he sends the green light.

Days later, Goliath is surveying New York, getting ready for the invasion, when he spies something huge in the ocean. He approaches and is dumbfounded to discover it is a blue man from outer space at least three times his size. It introduces itself as "Ulvar from the planet Centaurus II" and declares Earth his own. His buddies are on the way from Centaurus II and they love a good fight. Goliath concedes that his Atlanteans would stand no chance and slinks back into the ocean. A few days later, our special effects man is tearing apart the gigantic blue prop and bragging that mankind will always be ready to defend its territory.

"Goliath! The Monster That... Wore Men's Briefs!" is not a bad little epic saga (at least it feels like an epic even though it's only seven pages), with a clever twist, but I question how Mr. SPFX managed to build his prop so fast. Good thing the Atlanteans aren't known for their brain power since Goliath never even guessed this could all be a trick, not even when Ulvar never moved a muscle. This is another of those Kirby/Ditko stories I ate up as a pre-teen in the pages of Where Monsters Dwell.

After the death of his father, Sir Norman Ramsay inherits the family business, a series of mines (we're never told just what comes out of these mines) that pad his wealth very nicely month in and month out. When a group of miners arrive at Norman's house to request a raise in pay, he tosses them out on their sooty asses, telling them never to darken his door again. The nerve of these commoners!

Soon thereafter it's time for the boss to inspect mine number four and, as is his ritual, he demands that no one accompany him. Bad idea. Once deep into the mine, there's a cave in and Sir Norm is surrounded by underground beasts. Yes, it's at this point that our protagonist screams "I Was Trapped by the Mole Men!" The rough-skinned and hairy beasts throw Norm into a cage and discuss their next move. "Oh," sighs the despondent and suddenly remorseful Ramsay, "I sure treated other men like dogs and if only I could have a second chance I'd sure make up for my poor behavior." 

As if fate had stepped in, Norm's foreman (the guy who tried to discourage his boss from going alone) crashes through the wall and fights off the mole men. He breaks the lock on the cage and grabs Norm, heaving him out of the underworld and back to the surface. With a handy stick of dynamite, the menace of the mole men is ended and Sir Norman ponders his place in this universe. From an unrealistic callousness towards his toilers to greatest guy in the world (the panel where Norm hosts the weekend weenie roast and balances twelve of the miners' kids on his knee was somehow left off the climactic series of amens), "Mole Men" is almost worth reading through for a good laugh. Almost. 

Ever since he lost his job at the plant, Timothy Jones is broke. The schlub is so poor he can't even buy his "lame" daughter a toy for her birthday. Luckily, as he's walking around one day in an open field (as all unemployed men do at one time or another), he happens upon a strange doll and takes it home for Cathy. Turns out the dolly is an alien from space and it has bad ideas about world domination. "The Dangerous Doll" has no qualms about letting Cathy see it move around and talk but Dad never has a notion that the thing is more than just a plaything. One night, the doll suddenly rises from Cathy's bed, sensing that "they" are coming and preparations must be made. 

Turns out, much to my relief, that Dolly is not the scout for Earth's invasion but just a precocious kid who flew off in the family spaceship and became stranded on Earth. His mom and pop land and reward Tim and Cathy for taking good care of their little brat. The Earth lets out a sigh. If you want to see what a big difference an inker can make, look no further than the job Ditko does for Kirby on "Goliath" and Klein's work here. Ditko has a cleaner style while Klein's is rougher. That's not a putdown, though; Klein's inks give Kirby's pencils a creepy vibe that enhances the atmosphere of the first few pages of "The Dangerous Doll." Oddly enough, we're never told the whereabouts of Mrs. Jones; is she dead or just "got a thing goin' on"? So many of these strips at this time were climaxing with the same dull panel of word balloons emanating from Earth, characters ruminating about God and the powers that be and man's inability to make a great cup of coffee and...

Last up is the best of the bunch, "I Took a Journey Into Fear!" It showcases Otto, a scientist so obsessed with time travel that he shoots a colleague and steals his lab equipment. Once the experiment proves a success, Otto finds himself trapped in a dingy dungeon, prisoner of a past barbaric race. Or something like that. Luckily, Stan/Larry deliver an effective climactic twist that made me smile. That's worth an extra star right there.-Peter

Strange Tales #79

Cover by Jack KIrby & Steve Ditko

"I Was In the Clutches of the Living Shadow"

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #31)

"The Ghost of Grismore Castle!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Vault of Evil #14)

"I Found the Perfect Hiding Place!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"The Thing on the Moon" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Journey Into Mystery #14)

Mystery writer Philip Lawson just knows that flying saucers are real but, dagnabbit, everyone laughs in his face and tells him he's crazy! Then, one day, while Lawson is walking through a field attached to his luxurious home (mystery story writers were paid much better then than now), enjoying his pipe, Lawson looks on in awe as a flying saucer lands nearby. What are the chances that a UFO would land right in front of the only guy on Earth who believes in them (and, indeed, was just pondering them!)?

Climbing out of his jeep, Lawson is assaulted by a group of aliens, living shadows, that tell him the story of their past. They've been landing on Earth for some time now and blending in with the shadows. That's how they've remained out of sight for so long!!! They take Lawson to a nearby mountain prison but he manages to escape and get word to the United Nations. At first the delegates scoff but when our reporter turns out the lights and the living shadows are there in the room, the men hurry to action. 

Most of the living shadows are rounded up but leader Kaa gets away in his spaceship, leaving an "I'll be back, suckas!" message in the clouds. Lawson and the military are left to ponder life and extraterrestrial invaders. "I Was in the Clutches of the Living Shadow" is not one of the more memorable Kirby/Ayers monster strips; the art is rushed and the story padded. I think Ditko might have been able to bring more pizzazz to this one than Ayers. I had to laugh when Lawson begins his long and boring story by confessing that, as a mystery writer, he could "sense when there was danger in the air" just before the UFO landed. A decade and a half later, Kaa would return to give The Incredible Hulk fits!

Practical joker Otis Norton is really getting on the nerves of anyone around him. One day, as he's walking with Victor, the pair walk past the haunted Grismore Castle and Otis wagers that Victor couldn't last a whole night in Grismore. Not one to turn down fifty bucks, Victor agrees and, that night, enters Grismore. A little hesitant, but he still enters. Meanwhile, oafish Otis has set the castle up with plenty of scary obstacles and it isn't long before Victor runs screaming from the building.

Willing to show who's got the most nerve, Otis heads into the dark house alone. He is immediately set upon by ghosts and ghoulies and soon flees from Grismore in a shaking panic. The next day, Otis tells his buddies that he's done with practical jokes as Victor stands nearby revealing (to us) that he's really a ghost. Though the script for "The Ghost of Grismore Castle!" makes no sense whatsoever, it's got some dynamite graphics from Mr. Ditko. The castle is stocked with cobwebs and even the ghostly sheets look cool. 

He might be ugly but Harry Stubbs is a really smart guy; smart enough to build a time machine out of toothpicks, empty beer cans, and dead rats, anything he could find in the alley garbage cans. The plan is to steal the Crown Jewels, which are being exhibited in a nearby museum, hop in his (untested) time machine, and travel back to 100 BC. There he will sell the jewels and live like a king with hot and cold running chicks. Girls love money even if it belongs to a guy who looks like Ernest Borgnine. Harry grabs the jewels but sets off an alarm (who would suspect that priceless jewels might be guarded?) and runs from the cops. He hops in his time machine with the loot and hits "Go!" Unfortunately, the destination was not on the travel brochures. As I was reading "I Found the Perfect Hiding Place!," I kept wondering if Stan and Larry wrote the script in the Atlas lunchroom, both of them snickering and assuring each other that their target audience was too stupid to question how it is all these Atlas dopes could invent time machines but not keep a high-paying 9 to 5.

In 1970, the Earth is overpopulated and astronaut Dan Carter is tasked with visiting the moon to ascertain whether earthlings can survive and thrive in its atmosphere. Dan and his crew arrive and are on recon when they are attacked by "The Thing on the Moon." After some hellacious moments, a loud voice breaks the silence and announces that the moon was long ago claimed by the city of Atlantis and no other visitors are welcome. The giant is a robot security guard who's there to make sure there's no trespassing. The boys climb back into their ship and wonder if the robot was put there before or after the fall of Atlantis. The reveal is a good one but what startled me the most is the fact that NASA bothered to send Armstrong and Aldrin up in space suits with, like, oxygen and stuff. In 1960, you could still breathe on the moon without any aid. Makes you think.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #14

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Created Krang! The Most Fantastic Monster the World Has Ever Known! (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Fear #4)

"Behold! I Am the Master of Time!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Tower of Shadows #8)

"The Thing in Human Form!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Chamber of Darkness #8)

Professor Carter makes a presentation at the Science Institute, arguing that if insects were to grow to giant size, their strength and power could be harnessed to serve mankind. Carter is working on a growth serum but gets no support from the stuffy characters at the Institute and must make his way to Europe to locate the final ingredient from the bark of the Krakow tree.

Once in Europe, Carter sets up shop in an abandoned castle, aided by Ludwig, the caretaker. The serum is completed and Ludwig tests it out one night after Carter has gone to bed. Unfortunately, Ludwig uses too much fluid on an ant and it quickly grows to massive size! "I Created Krang! The Most Fantastic Monster the World Has Ever Known!" thinks Ludwig, and before you know it, Krang is menacing the professor and speaking due to rapid brain growth.

Really not such a bad idea,
if you think about it.

Krang wants the growth serum so it and other insects can take over the world. The giant insect chases Carter around for a while, eventually making its way to the nearby village but not doing much damage before Carter is able to defeat it by means of a giant anteater that he created using more serum. Good thing he thought to add something to the formula to make the anteater shrink back to normal size after an hour! In the end, the professor rips up his notes, having learned that there are some things man was not meant to know.

"Krang" is not bad and mainly serves as an excuse for Kirby and Ayers to draw panel after panel of a great big ant. I liked that Carter had to go to Poland, presumably, for the tree bark, and there just happened to be an abandoned castle with a helpful, hunchbacked caretaker on hand.

An antique dealer invents a time machine so he can go back in time and pick up items that will be valuable antiques when he brings them back to the 20th century. He heads back to 18th-century France, grabs a bag of stuff, and returns to the time machine, chased by angry villagers. He pulls the lever and nothing happens! Oops! Since there was no electricity in the 18th century, his electric powered time machine won't work.

"Behold! I Am the Master of Time!" features more gorgeous art by Ditko in service of a weak plot. First of all, when the guy builds his time machine, he remarks that he learned how to do it using an ancient book of black magic. Why would it need electric power? The machine looks like a big cube made of adobe. Second, Ditko must have realized that the story lacked visual excitement, so he drew a giant image of Father Time in several panels, though the character has nothing to do with the story.

Mars and Jupiter have been at war for five years when Martians discover than an Earth scientist has discovered a powerful new secret weapon. A Martian named Ogor travels to Earth to capture the scientist and grabs him during a costume party where no one realizes that Ogor's costume is not a disguise. The scientist, John, puts up a fight and turns out to be stronger than Ogor. John drags Ogor onto the Martian's spaceship and takes off, revealing--to no reader's surprise--that he's really a master spy from Jupiter! The Jupiterians had wanted to capture a live Martian warrior for years and concocted an elaborate ruse that worked.

As I've said before, Don Heck's strength as an artist did not lie in drawing aliens or monsters, but I enjoyed the surprise ending of this story, which was a tad more complex than the usual revelation that one character is really an alien. Zeno, the master spy from Jupiter, is "The Thing in Human Form!"-Jack

On Thursday...
"Are You Watching Closely?"

And Next Week...
Nope, He's Not
The Same Guy!