Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 190: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 175

November 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #62

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #11)

"There is a Brain Behind the Fangs!" (a: Don Heck) ★★ 1/2

(r: Fear #6)

"I Can't Escape from the Creeping Things!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Fear #8)

Joe Harper is busy minding his own business when his buddy Fred calls him up to tell him that his "machine" is on the fritz. Joe tells his wife he has to go out and help Fred but, of course, the old ball and chain doesn't believe him. Sigh. On his way to Fred's place, he passes by Old Blacktree Swamp and notices a giant silver something floating in the water. Joe hops out of his truck and investigates.

What he finds is a really big huge mammoth Hulk, a creature obviously from another world (the nearby smoldering wreckage of its spaceship is the first clue), on the cusp of death. Knowing that every living being (even a Hulk from another world) is precious, Joe drags the multi-ton beast to his pick-up and heads back to his workshop, where he hooks the thing up to his Electrofitastic Voltage Regulator™. A surge of electrical power enters the Hulk's body and the creature begins to stir.

Joe asks the visitor who he is and what he came to Earth for and the monster explains his name is Xemnu and that he escaped from a prison planet and crash-landed here en route to another galaxy. Too late, Joe realizes he probably shouldn't have resuscitated the Hulk without getting a few facts first. The Hulk guffaws and continues his plan for complete domination of the solar system and beyond. The monster has the power to hypnotize and intends to make the entire population a slave to his demands. With a full workforce at his beckon, Xemnu will soon have a replacement spaceship powerful enough to take him to Star System LOL of the Fifth Galaxy on the Left. The mad beast also admits to Joe that the ship will blast off with such force that the Earth will be destroyed.

The Hulk becomes a Titan!

Xemnu is grateful to Joe for bringing him back to life so he doesn't hypnotize him. That's where he makes his fatal blunder. His spaceship construction goes perfectly right up until the time he is about to blast off but Joe uses a little small town ingenuity to screw up the Hulk's plot and the creature is sent into space to circle the sun forever. The entire world becomes unhypnotized but Joe wisely avoids bragging. That is, until he sees his shrew of a wife again and can't help himself. This guy never learns!

The first of the multi-part epics that would become a foundation of the Atlas science fiction/fantasy titles, "I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!" (an ironic title since Joe was the only free man on Earth under Hulk's reign) is a fun and completely dopey yarn. The extra pages do give a little more room for Stan to breathe but you can see at times that he really doesn't know what to do in those bonus pages. There's a whole lot of padding and information spread over multiple panels that usually would be dispensed in one single frame. As rote as these things can become (and they do), I still have a soft spot in my brain (some would say several such soft spots) for these "Marvel Monster Epics," having devoured Dwell, Prowl, and Roam as a wee lad. Xemnu's exile doesn't last the promised "forever" and we'll get a sequel in JIM #66. 

Speaking of which, when the time came to reprint "I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!" in MOTP #11, there was another character in the Marvel Universe who had gained a bit of fame and, to avoid confusion for the Zombies, Xemnu was re-christened a "Titan" rather than a "Hulk." Rascally Roy Thomas, ever the comic book scholar, remembered the beast's JIM tales and wrote a sequel (acknowledging Xemnu's previous adventures!) featuring the Defenders for Marvel Feature #3. Yes, the New Hulk vs. the Old Hulk!

Frank Miller (no, not that Frank Miller) becomes convinced that dogs have evolved in intelligence just as much as man but they're putting on a show so that they can surprise their masters and rule the world someday. Frank brings his theory to his best friend, psychiatrist John Redfield, who scoffs at his buddy's exclamations and insists he can prove him wrong. John has Frank bring Fido, Frank's dog, to his office and proceeds to hypnotize him, asking the canine some very pointed questions. When the dog does nothing but roll over and play dead and bay at the moon, Frank is convinced that he was a little hasty in his proclamations. Nearby, Pharaoh, the shrink's pet cat, laughs at the two morons and gets back to its plan for world domination. "There is a Brain Behind The Fangs!" spotlights some really nice work by Don Heck (almost Colan-esque in spots) and sports a fun twist in its tail.

Silas Bleede makes his millions off the misfortunes of others (one might say he "bleedes" them dry) and, once retirement comes, he moves to a small European village where he buys a huge estate. The only blemish is a tall tree that blocks his view of the mountains so, despite protestations and warnings from his neighbors, Silas chops the damn thing down. That night, branches crawl through Silas's bedroom window and chase him all through his mansion. With nowhere to run, trapped in the basement, the befuddled gazillionaire exclaims "I Can't Escape from the Creeping Things!" and promises he will let the tree grow back and not interfere. The branches retreat and Silas admits defeat, returning to America. As usual, there's not much to the script but Steve Ditko manages to ramp up the chills, making the CCA-approved strip as close to creepy as he possibly can. All in all, a pretty decent issue.-Peter

Strange Tales #78

Cover by Jack Kirby & George Klein

"A Martian Walks Among Us!" 

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Where Monsters Dwell #3)

"The Fantastic Menace of Mento the Mighty" (a: Don Heck) ★

"The Gargoyle!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #3)

"Dear Reader: What Would You Have Done If You 

Were the... Worm Man?" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Tower of Shadows #6)

A scientist comes across a spaceship on a lone stretch of road and witnesses the occupant exit the UFO. Before he can escape, the man is captured by the alien and the thing takes the form of the scientist, explaining that he is from Mars and is scouting Earth for an invasion. He can take on the form of any human and intends to set the world up for the upcoming Armageddon. For some reason, the dim-witted Martian also reveals the only way to distinguish him from a human being is by using infrared rays.

Once the Martian's hold on the scientist has diminished, he tries to warn the authorities but is met with derision and pelted with tomatoes. Knowing he is the only man who can save the Earth from the Martian onslaught, he very quickly invents an infra-red device that can sniff out the chameleon and confronts him. After a terrible hand-to-hand battle, the Martian is killed and our protagonist drops his disguise, revealing that he is a Venusian protector of Earth. As long as there are commies, Stan will use Martians to subtly get his views across. That's the message of "A Martian Walks Among Us!" Seems a bit short-sighted of the Martian not to kill our unnamed hero when he has the chance. That twist, where we discover that the alien has been defeated by another race of aliens, is about used up, no? Laughably, once he disrobes, his body is completely different than his human disguise. Dig those scrawny legs!

In "The Fantastic Menace of Mento the Mighty," a well-meaning scientist becomes obsessed with the power of his brain, using it to move objects and create fearsome monsters. In the end, his creations prove his downfall. Here's an exception to the Atlas rule that anyone who stumbles upon a dominating skill will use that power to attain great wealth. Mento is a rich, bored, brilliant genius who becomes convinced he can do anything with a mere thought (when he looks at a woman in a cafe and she looks back at him!) and then launches his plan to rule the world for no particular reason.

The world's homeliest man sees a want ad for a local carnival requesting ugly men. With no other jobs available, our unattractive schlub answers the ad and discovers too late that the tent he enters is actually a spaceship that blasts off for parts unknown. Waking up at the end of the journey, he's taken to the queen, a real babe, who explains that she's bored with the attractive men on her planet and wants something different. Yep, the climax of "The Gargoyle!" is another variation on the old "beauty is only skin deep" twist. In "... (yadda yadda yadda) The Worm Man," a spy takes a pill and becomes very small in order to steal super-secret documents from a brilliant scientist. The agent's espionage is upended by the actions of a rat and he's faced with an impossible decision: call out for help or remain teensy weensy forever. Ditko but rushed Ditko.-Peter

Tales of Suspense #12

Cover by Jack Kirby & George Klein

"I Alone Know the Dread Secret of Gor-Kill, the Lurking Demon!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #1)

"I Must Find 'Those Who Lurk Below'" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #2)

"The Monster in My Cellar!" (a: Reed Crandall) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #4)

"I Met the Thing on Midnight Island!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #4)

A blob of gas from outer space lands in a body of water held back by the Krakow Dam and absorbs the water, becoming a fearsome water creature. The monster menaces a nearby town, crushing houses and flooding streets, but when the townsfolk follow it back to the dam it disappears. After this happens a few times, the town layabout, Hans Grubnik, figures out that the monster is composed of water. He steals some dynamite and blows up the monster before it can reach the ocean and become unstoppable; for his efforts, Hans is jailed for stealing explosives.

"I Alone Know the Dread Secret of Gor-Kill, the Lurking Demon!" is all wet. It's full of the usual Kirbyisms, like groups of people looking upward in horror with someone pointing. The inhabitants of the town are pretty dumb not to realize that the monster is made of water. I fail to understand how dynamiting water would do anything. Maybe Gor-Kill will return.

On a 19th-century penal colony on an island, a prisoner named Pierre is given a special task by the cruel guard, Kragok, who tells Pierre to clean up ancient ruins under the prison. Pierre discovers a book and begins to read "The Legend of the Earth Dwellers," about an ancient alien race that came to Earth but found it too hot. They built powerful machines to dig below the surface and built a city far below to live in peace.

Convinced the story is true, Pierre digs and digs until he finds one of the machines. Kragok laughs at Pierre, since he planted the book for the prisoner to find, but the jailer is shocked when the machine begins to work and Pierre disappears below the Earth! The prisoner is welcomed by the underground alien race and Kragok spends years digging in vain, searching for the land of peace and contentment.

Ditko's art is even better than usual on "I Must Find 'Those Who Lurk Below!'" In some panels it looks like Frazeztta's work. The story is okay and the end is unsatisfying, but the art is the real draw.

A writer of sci fi tales promises his editor a great monster tale, so he goes home, sits down at the typewriter, and begins to write a story as if it's really happening to him right now. Imagining a tall, reptilian, one-eyed creature in his basement, the writer is startled to hear a noise from below! He explores and finds the monster he created in his own basement! A locked door doesn't stop it, but when the writer realizes that the thing is a creation of his own mind, he thinks it back out of existence and vows never to write another monster saga.

It seems like it's been awhile since we've seen anything from Reed Crandall and I say welcome back! "The Monster in my Cellar!" breaks no ground and is predictable, but the great EC veteran's panels are always welcome.

A sailor named Rick Jordan finds a message in a bottle that reads, "Help--I'm stranded on Midnight Island"! Rick rushes to said island and explores it but finds only a big, apelike monster with fangs. Rick manages to escape back to his boat. The next day he tries again but finds only the monster on the island. At night, he sees a spaceship land on the island to take the monster away. Finally, dopey Rick realizes that the beast wrote the note.

Forget the story and enjoy Don Heck's sharp artwork, which looks like it could fit well onto the old Sunday adventure pages in a newspaper. Heck may not have possessed Kirby's natural comic book talent, but his draftsmanship was certainly more accomplished.-Jack

Tales to Astonish #13

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Challenged... Groot! The Monster from Planet X!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #6)(Weird Wonder Tales  #19)

"I Found the Abominable Snowman!" (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Chamber of Darkness #7)

"My Friend Is... Not Quite Human!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #6)

"I Found the Hidden World!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Tower of Shadows #8)

A guy named Leslie and his whiny wife Alice are driving home from a party one night when they see something come out of the sky and land in the forest. A few days later, Alice reports that two of their trees are missing and a friend's wooden fence has disappeared! Leslie heads to the forest to investigate and finds a giant tree monster that attracts wooden objects to its body. Soon, the monster is heading for town; it announces that its name is Groot and it wants to take the town back to Planet X for experiments.

"I Challenged... Groot! The Monster From Planet X!" says Leslie, who tells the creature that he'll come up with a way to destroy it. Fire doesn't work--Groot is too tough to burn. As Groot wreaks havoc, Leslie is bent over a microscope in his lab, soon announcing "Eureka!" He sneaks up to Groot, lets out a bunch of termites, and before you know it, the monster from Planet X is finished.

Alice is a complete jerk! On the way back from the party she tells her husband that she wishes he were more manly and rugged like someone named George. When they see the spaceship crash, she's too tired to go take a look. When Leslie says he's going to the forest, she remarks that the walk will toughen up his muscles! When he's working in his lab to find a way to defeat Groot, she complains that he's weak and spineless. Only when he defeats the monster does she have a change of heart: "Oh, darling, forgive me! I've been such a fool! I'll never complain about you again! Never!" Yeah, right. Leslie should sprint back to the lab and invent something to get rid of Alice.

In a Calcutta dive, Big Carl Hanson overhears a man bragging about the rare and valuable photo of the Abominable Snowman that he got. Too bad the picture is said to be cursed! Big Carl basically mugs the guy in an alley after dark and takes the photo but then decides he'll cash in big time if he goes to the Himalayas and finds the real Snowman. Big Carl takes a train to the mountains, where every native to whom he shows the photo says it's cursed.

Not the brightest bulb, Big Carl hires a camel and a guide and goes up into the snowy mountains, searching for Bumble. Even the locals tell him to quit due to the curse. Does Big Carl listen? Nope. Eventually, it snows so much and his hair and beard grow so long that he himself becomes the Abominable Snowman pictured in the photo.

Even I remember the earlier version of this dumb story, from Strange Worlds #1 in December 1958, not even two years before. That version was drawn by Ditko and he inks this one. They should have left it alone.

A lonely sculptor named Gustav carves gargoyles to serve as figureheads on ships in France in the year 1799. One day, Napoleon and his men knock at the door; the general demands that the sculptor carve a wooden figure of Josephine, so Napoleon can be reminded of her when sailing. After some vociferous resistance, the sculptor agrees and carves a wooden figure of a beautiful woman. The statue comes to life at midnight on the eve of a full moon and Gustav is smitten. He delays giving the figure to Napoleon and visits a gypsy who gives him a potion that will turn him into wood so he can stand forever next to his beautiful statue. He stiffs the gypsy, which is never a good idea. At midnight, Gustav turns to wood and the female statue becomes flesh and blood, victim of a spell by the angry gypsy.

We all saw that one coming, didn't we? Still, Ditko's art is terrific in the ineptly titled "My Friend Is... Not Quite Human!" He's ready to start drawing Spider-Man very soon.

A scientist named Linus Whitehead posits that another world lives inside every TV set but dies before he can prove it. An ex-con named Joe who learned to repair TV sets while in prison decides to test the theory. After six months of experiments, he's visited by Frankie, another ex-con, who blames Joe for spoiling his plans to escape. Frankie turns on the experimental TV set to make noise to cover the gunshot when he blows Joe away, but before he can pull the trigger, Frankie is grabbed by a monster and pulled into the TV set! Joe is almost dragged in too but turns the box off just in time. Ever since that day, he wonders if he dreamed it.

I like Don Heck's art but he's not great at drawing weird dimensions or scary monsters, which is a problem when those are keys to the story's climax. The monsters in "I Found the Hidden World!" have pink fur and fangs and appear to be wearing shorts with suspenders. Not exactly the stuff of nightmares.-Jack

This Thursday...
Return With Us To An Ancient Time
When Mel Was Still Relevant!

And Next Thursday...
Shriek in Apathy at the
Sheer Inanity of Krang!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 189: Atlas/ Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 174

October 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #61

Cover by Jack Kirby & George Klein

"I Defied Gomdulla--The Living Pharaoh!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #12)

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

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #13)

"I Opened the Door to... Nowhere!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Tower of Shadows #1)(r: Where Monsters Dwell #17)

"The Curse of M'Gumbu!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

(r: Fear #7)

Thanks to a couple of young brats fooling around in an Egyptian museum, the giant mummy, Gomdulla, once again walks the earth! The gargantuan bandaged pharaoh busts out of the museum and disappears into the Egyptian desert. Getting wind that a sinister cult has arisen around the resuscitated behemoth, Interpol sends their number one agent to investigate.

Paul infiltrates the cult as they are performing one of their twisted ceremonies, with Gomdulla holding court over his tiny subjects. Believing the creature to be an inanimate statue, Paul whips out his .44 Magnum and arrests the high priest of Gomdulla. Suddenly, the giant mummy arises and begins tossing huge boulders at the astonished agent. Luckily, the high priest intervenes and shuts down the bandaged behemoth. Later, at the hospital, the high priest explains to Paul that Gomdulla was actually an ancient outer space visitor who was in hibernation. Paul, from his hospital bed exclaims "I Defied Gomdulla--the Living Pharaoh!" This is pretty juvenile stuff (yeah, I know, it all is), with not much action and some awful dialogue. The real problem is that, due to the sparse word count, by the time the action gets going, it's time to shut it all down. I suspect that this is what led Stan to authorize longer "giant monster epics." We will all be the richer. Gotta admit, as dumb as "Gomdulla" may be, the Kirby/Ayers art is striking in spots.

Bigot and snob (but very rich) Darius Zorn discovers a forest in a European valley that glows in the dark and he really must have it. The local villagers warn that if Zorn moves into the forest, the Gods will dry up their crops but the self-absorbed zillionaire won't hear of it. He pays an exorbitant price for the land and then moves in. Shortly after, he is visited by a "man in black" who warns Zorn that he faces peril if he does not move out. Scoffing, Zorn throws the man off his property but then pays the ultimate price when it turns out the man in black is, in reality, an alien from another dimension in a galaxy four quadrants south of France. The creature kidnaps Zorn and exhibits him in a zoo on another planet. "I Dared Enter the Haunted Forest!" is indicative of the vast majority of Atlas tales in 1960: no matter what it all comes down to aliens from another world. Don Heck isn't given much to work with but the art is not bad to look at.

On the run from the law, a burglar steps into a curio shop and forces the owner to open the mysterious door in the back room. Little does the criminal know that he will serve his time whether it's in the pen or it's in purgatory. Every door he opens leads to another door! "I Opened the Door to... Nowhere!" couldn't even get Steve Ditko interested this time out. We never learn what the secret of the never-ending doors is but that's about the only positive. Last up is the dull "The Curse of M'Gumbu!," about a tribe of young roughnecks in the Amazon who are tired of being reined in by their witch doctor and decide to quiet him forever. The witch doctor has something to say about that, though. "M'Gumbu" crawls along at a snail's pace and sports some very weak Reinman visuals. Another loser of an issue.-Peter

Strange Tales #77

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"The Return of Taboo!" (a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)

"I Am the Beast-Man!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #10)

"The Strange Magic of Master Khan!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)(r: Uncanny Tales #10)

"Am I the... Unhuman?" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

Even though the menace of Taboo was seemingly eliminated thanks to a very clever scientist (see Jack's rundown on the first "Taboo" adventure back in Strange Tales #75), the big glob of mud is back! That's right, even though Taboo was blown to smithereens in outer space, the thousands of bits of the creature drifted back into Earth's atmosphere, landing in several places around the globe. Slowly but surely, the pieces began to crawl towards Central Park, where the slop began to form... to shape... to metamorphosize... into Taboo!!!

Soldier's bullets... atomic submarines... cannons... nothing can stop the great god of mud! Taboo destroys half of Manhattan but slows his progress long enough to deliver an ultimatum to the ants below him... surrender or die! But New Yorkers are tough and, to paraphrase Churchill, "We will never, never give up to a pile of s%#t like you, Taboo!" The giant laughs and begins his destructive walk through New York again when a fearful sight appears in the sky: a giant spaceship made out of mud. "Could this have something to do with Taboo?", screeches a terrified onlooker! "Hahahahaha," chortles the giant, "The ship contains the rest of the invasion party!" 

But Taboo is quite wrong, as the leader of the mud-men explains, the ship has come to take Taboo back to X-38, Third Planet from the Dimension on the Right. Turns out Taboo is an escaped mental patient (probably the bars on his cell were made of mud) and the boys are here to see that he makes it back safely. They apologize to mankind and lift off into space, leaving the onlookers to ponder our insignificance in the galaxy. "The Return of Taboo!" was just goofy enough to keep my attention. I love the panels where Taboo, his mud buddies, and even the spaceship are constantly dripping, leaving me to wonder if the army couldn't have whipped up some kind of giant Easy-Bake Oven to dry Taboo out. 

"I Am the Beast-Man!" tells the hilarious story of  a brilliant but evil genius who concocts a formula which transforms him into a dog, the best form in which to carry out a series of jewelry thefts. Our dopey amateur scientist lets us know every two or three panels that if he doesn't get back under the rays of his Dog-Man Transformer Ray™, he'll be stuck as a canine for thirty days. Just as he's pilfering the wall safe, the homeowner comes home and he's forced to flee. Unfortunately, our Man-Dog is picked up by the dog catcher and taken to the pound. Let me be the first to say that, even though this story is a dog, it got some sustained chuckles from this bored comic book reader. The title worked much better when it was used a couple months prior in Journey Into Mystery #59. Doubtless you'll remembered that beast-man, the commie who put on a bear suit and changed for the better.

Captain Hawk Gormey sets his eyes on the ship belonging to Master Khan and knows he will do whatever he must to own her. First he inquires as to a price but Khan tells him "no sale" so he stoops to less legal means. Gormey drugs the entire Khan crew and then he throws the Master himself in the brig before setting sail to the sea. But it's not long before one of his men tells the Captain that Khan has gone missing. 

Just then, they see the Oriental occultist standing on the waves. He laughs and tells Gormey that since he wanted the ship so badly he can have her now. The men watch in terror as the Master disappears and an eerie fog rolls in. It appears as though the ship is now standing still on a layer of ice. In the end, we discover that Khan's ship, with Gormey and crew still aboard, is trapped in a glass bottle. Nice little twist in the end (though I swear I've seen it before) but let's not kid ourselves, this is all Ditko, prepping for Doctor Strange in just a few years. "The Strange Magic of Master Khan!" is another of those strips that remained in my brain for 55+ years, courtesy of Where Monsters Dwell.

Standing in the shadow of his father and grandfather, two men who advanced the science of robotics, Gideon Burr boasts that he has made an even greater impact: an android so human that no one would be able to tell the difference. He is his own guinea pig and, very soon, he is conversing with an exact replica of himself. This proves troublesome when robots are outlawed and the police come to Gideon's door. But which one is the real Gideon Burr? For most of the running length of "Am I the... Unhuman?," the story is involving and clever but then a happy ending is foisted on us, I assume to avoid the clash with the CCA. That's a pity; Stan would have been better off leaving the end solution hazy.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #12

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Discovered Gorgilla! The Monster of Midnight Mountain!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #9)(r: Weird Wonder Tales #21)

"My Nightmare Has No End!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #4)(r: Fear #4)(r: Tomb of Darkness #19)

"Save Me! Save Me!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

(r: Fear #3)

"A Monster Waits Outside!!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Fear #3)(r: Chamber of Chills #24)

Convinced that the Missing Link last lived in Borneo, an archaeologist named Scotty rounds up some other scientists and heads to the island where natives reveal that the Link still lives and is worshipped as a god by local headhunters! Scotty and co. make their way to Midnight Mountain, where they scale a huge wall and come face to face with Gorgilla, the giant Missing Link, half man and half ape!

Gorgilla is busy attacking the archaeologists when a T-Rex shows up and the two creatures fight. Gorgilla wins and is worn out, but Scotty decides to leave him in peace and the archaeologists fly back to the U.S.

What a load of hooey! "I Discovered Gorgilla! The Monster of Midnight Mountain!" borrows liberally from King Kong. There's the trip to the mysterious island, the great big wall, and the giant ape man. He grabs a tree that one of the men is hanging onto and then battles a T-Rex. Thank goodness Scotty and co. decide to give up--otherwise, we'd have to see Gorgilla on stage in NYC and climbing the Empire State Building.

Each night, a man's happy dreams are interrupted by the arrival of a shadowy figure. Eventually, the figure materializes and identifies itself as an alien from the planet Zendu who has crossed dimensions to change places with the dreamer. The alien explains that, on Zendu, people live for 1000 years and robots do all the work. He is bored and wants to experience the challenges of living on Earth. The dreamer agrees to change places and, once the process is underway, the alien tells him that he couldn't stand the boredom. The dreamer arrives on Zendu, in the alien's body, while the alien wakes up on Earth, in the dreamer's body. Too bad he's in a jail cell on Death Row!

Heck's art is a bit rough in "My Nightmare Has No End!," but I did not see that ending coming, which is quite an accomplishment at this point in my journey through bad Atlas comics. It's unusual that neither character is given a name.

A brilliant scientist named Albert Poole wants to steal the plans for a new national defense project, but they are on a yacht on the water. Since radar detects anything more than ten feet above the water and sonar detects anything in the water, Poole decides that the best way to approach the yacht undetected is to rearrange his body's atoms so he can walk on water. After some failed experiments he succeeds, walks to the yacht, steals the plans, and walks home. Unfortunately, he must cry "Save Me! Save Me!" because his ability to walk on water makes him sink when he steps on land!

A caption under the last panel reassures the reader that Poole will be rescued and he'll have to live the rest of his life with the guilt of his treasonous act. What I don't understand is why someone who can walk on water would sink on land. I guess it's supposed to be the principle of opposites. Reinman's art is better than usual.

Major Ford is placed in a small cylinder and launched into space in order to test a man's reaction to prolonged isolation and confinement. As the hours pass he begins to get bored, then he becomes convinced that "A Monster Waits Outside!!" The monster breaks in and suddenly Ford is back on Earth, where he is told that he hallucinated due to solitude. But why are there giant scratches on the outside of the sphere, and where did the big red claw come from?

Yet again, an Atlas story prefigures an episode of The Twilight Zone. This time it's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." In both versions, a man in flight thinks he sees a creature, is thought to have hallucinated on return to Earth, and we are left with evidence that the monster really existed. It's fun to imagine Richard Matheson poring over Tales to Astonish for story ideas.-Jack

This Thursday...
The Dude Looks to
Us For Wisdom

And Next Week...
He is Groot!

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 188: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 173

September 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #60

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"I Learned the Monstrous Secret of Bombu!" ★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #9)

"We Were Trapped with the Silent Monster!" (a: Don Heck) ★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #11)

"I Found the Things from Nowhere" ★1/2

(a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko)

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #1)(r: Where Monsters Dwell #9)

"I Turned into a... Martian!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

(r: Fear #4)

Two adventurers crash their plane in the Amazon and are threatened by the natives. The pair are taken before the ancient god, Bombu, for their fates. Though the two men continuously scoff at Bombu's boasts and threats, they eventually come around to believing the creature is pretty darn powerful. Bombu can shrink an elephant to the size of a dog, transport skyscrapers to the jungle, and tempt the skies to storm. He explains to his two captives that he is actually an alien from another planet, sent here to scout for the obligatory invasion.

It's this last feat that turns out to be Bombu's undoing as his ferocious storm unleashes a lightning bolt that strikes down and kills the outer space visitor. Our two heroes look to the skies and wonder when the next Bombu will arrive. Though "I Learned the Monstrous Secret of Bombu!" is one cup of this and one ounce of that in the script department, the Kirby/Ayers visuals are a lot of fun. It's hilarious that this mighty menace feels the need to continually impress the two non-believers ("Wait, shrinking elephants doesn't impress you? Hold my beer!") as if his entire mission were based on convincing earthlings that there really is an armada on the way. And when will that invasion show up? Why have the Bombus left their poor emissary on his own for all these centuries? And my final question would be: if this Bombu is all that, why is he vanquished by a single lightning bolt? Doesn't bode well for the impending Bombu Brigade, does it? The Kirby/Ditko cover creature is much more imposing than the man-sized version.

Roderic Zorn, the world's greatest mining engineer, has decided he's going to dig a hole all the way to the center of the Earth. Why? Because he thinks he can. So he and a handful of workers (all clad in T-shirts and sports coats in order to survive the insane temperatures to be found at the bottom of a miles-deep hole) dig dig dig until they break through the very core of the Earth. Suddenly, a whole bunch of dragons burst through the wall of the mine and threaten the life of our intrepid explorers. Zorn, admitting that this catastrophe might be of his making and allowing how these dragons might find their way to the surface world and cause all kinds of damage before they're struck by lightning, sends his workers back up and lights a stick of dynamite. Roderic Zorn has given his life so that we might continue to read crappy comic books. 

Evidently forgetting they had just published the very similar "Rro, the Dragon That Was in a Big Pit and Came Up to Terrorize the World!!!" back in JIM #58 (also illustrated by Don Heck), Stan pushes on and gives us "We Were Trapped with the Silent Monster!," a captivating melodrama about a guy who likes to dig really deep holes for no reason at all (not even monetary it seems) and a pack of fire-breathing dragons who are silent for some reason. The latter is especially interesting because at no point does any of the knuckleheads who head down into the Earth's center stop and exclaim to his compadres, "Hey, youse guys, these monsters don't make any noise!"

A luckless baseball fan is trying to tune in to the seventh game of the 2001 World Series where the Arizona Diamondbacks defeat the Evil Empire of the New York Yankees (take that, Mr. Seabrook!) when a startling event plays over his hazy TV screen. It's a bit blurry but it seems to be two alien races battling each other for dominance. After calling every one of his friends in town and having them switch their dials 'round and consulting every issue of TV Guide he can find, our harried hero comes to the conclusion that this is no science fiction program but that his television set has become a receiver for coverage of war on another planet! "I Found the Things from Nowhere," he exclaims to no one in particular.

The thrills don't last, however and, while he's trying to bring the picture more into focus, suddenly the ball game reappears. "Oh well," our numb-skulled protagonist shrugs, "at least I'm in time to see the Yankees win Game Seven!" Turns out that, for whatever reason, this guy's set was picking up an intense battle between red and black ants in a hill outside his window. The only plus to this lame-brained tale is the striking contrast between styles of Kirby and Ditko and how the two were able to pull off collaborations despite the differences. Hilarious that this guy is so quickly convinced his TV must be picking up footage from another planet but never questions who is holding the video camera. The titles of these things are becoming increasingly more entertaining than the scripts. Watch for the sequel, "I Found the Things That Could Not Be Found!" coming soon.

Last up in this supremely dimwitted issue is the subtly titled "I Turned Into a... Martian!" wherein the first man to land on Mars is attacked by a monstrous creature and then, once back aboard his ship, finds himself switching places bodily with his assailant. The goal for the Martian is to land on Earth and do some conquering, but his plan is derailed in the end by the much brighter Earthman. Space travel was so much easier in the early 1960s when scientists were convinced that there was breathable air on Mars and an astronaut only needed a T-shirt, jeans, and a pack of Marlboros to do some exploring. Oxygen, who needs it?-Peter

Tales of Suspense #11

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Created... Sporr! The Thing That Could Not Die!" ★★★

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers)

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #2)

"I Know the Secret of the Flying Saucer!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

"Beware the Eyes of Igor!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"I Escaped to Another World!" (a: Don Heck) ★

A brilliant but pretty stupid scientist travels to Castle Frankenstein (for inspiration?) to work on his world-saving growth machine, a ray blaster that will increase cows, ducks, and even chicken nuggets to huge sizes. "No longer will a man have to order his wife to get him another beer from the fridge after I zap a six-pack of Moretti with my Huge-O Zapper™!" Alas, down in the village below, a crowd has gathered, egged on by the villager who lost his arm and daughter to the Frankenstein Monster two centuries before: "Ve haff to shtop dis shtranger from cooking up more terror!"

Just as our nameless genius is zapping an amoeba with his ray-gun machine, the villagers crash through the door and grab him (what they intend to do with him is anyone's guess), taking him to their (pretty useless as we come to find out) village jail. With no one to hit the "off" switch, little amoeba becomes big "Sporr!" and it destroys the castle and heads downhill for something to eat. When the townsfolk see the giant orange squid heading toward their homes, they naturally panic and head for the hills. Only Sporr's creator keeps his nerve, saving a little street urchin from being absorbed by the giant critter.

Dynamite does not even slow Sporr's gleeful journey of destruction. Luckily, our genius/idiot scientist remembers that amoebae are attracted to sugar (true fact, according to Google!) and he heads to the local sugar factory, coating himself with the stuff. He then goes out to the obligatory swamp and lures Sporr to its death in quicksand. The genius heads back into town where he swears he will never meddle in things man was not supposed to meddle with, while the townsfolk promise they'll toss their pitchforks and torches in the dump. 

I found "Sporr!" to be one of the most entertaining giant menace yarns of the new Atlas Age. So many giggle-worthy aspects: why does this guy feel the need to trek all the way to Transylvania and Castle Frankenstein to test out his theories on growth and did he feel a little embarrassed when the locals reminded him that it's actually Castle Dracula that's located in Transylvania and that Frankenstein's estate is actually about 1700 kilometers down the Larry Talbot Highway in Germany? An extra star has been awarded for the panel where frightened villagers stand above "Transylvania," watching Sporr destroy everything they've built, when one of their number calmly shouts, "Hey, guys, I just forgot... I lit the fuse on some dynamite before we left town. Let's see what happens!" Also, why would our smart/dumb egghead assume quicksand would kill a giant amoeba?

Like a lot of the Kirby/Lee giant monster stories on the horizon, "I Created... Sporr! The Thing that Could Not Die!" (or should that be "I Created Sporr, the Thing that Could Not Die... Until It Died!") is a story I read in that first wave of early 1970s reprint titles, in this case as the cover story of Where Monsters Dwell #2. Let's just agree here and now that Dwell and its sister pub, Where Creatures Roam, were the comic book equivalent of Doritos Nacho Cheese Chips for us pre-teen monster kids.

Steve Ditko saves the day yet again with his art in "I Know the Secret of the Flying Saucer!" wherein a UFO itself narrates the tale of a Martian invasion of Earth. The only novelty in the script is that, once the ships are cracked open, we learn there are no pilots. Mars just wants to know what we're up to so they fly back home without destroying any major tourist attractions. 

Master thief Igor learns how to use hypnotism in order to up his game. He and his three henchmen then make a short 3-D film of Igor going through his hypnosis speech ("Look into my eyes... deeper... deeper...") and take it down to the local movie theater. They put the audience into a trance but are too stupid to avoid watching the film themselves. The climax shows the quartet in prison (same cell!), having completely forgotten what the heist was going to be in the first place. The novelty in "Beware the Eyes of Igor!" is that these four clods decide a movie theater is their prime target rather than, say, Bruce Wayne's charity ball. Last up is "I Escaped to Another World!" A jailbird sees a report on TV about a scientist who has built a time machine and decides going back 100 years in the past would be perfect for his situation. But, after breaking out of the pen and convincing the professor to send him back to 19th-century London. the dope accidentally murders his own grandfather (what are the chances?) and then ceases to exist. By this time, every outcome of time travel had been dished out in funny books, so why not continue to recycle, right?-Peter

Tales to Astonish #11

Cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

"I Found Monstrom! The Dweller in the Black Swamp!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) ★1/2

(r: Fear #1)

"I Was Face-to-Face with the Forbidden Robot!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Fear #1)(r: Dead of Night #10)

"I Dared to Look Into the Beyond!" (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #6)(r: Crypt of Shadows #18)

"I Wore... The Mask of Drothor!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Chamber of Darkness #7)(r: Dead of Night #10)

A novelist from up north takes his wife, Sara, and young son, Billy, to Bayou Country to soak up the local color. One day, as John is writing, his wife tells him that Billy has been gone for hours. John grabs his rifle and heads to the nearby swamp to look for the lad. He finds Billy, who tells his dad that "I Found Monstrom! The Dweller in the Black Swamp!" Sure enough, a giant creature rises from the mud and begins to lumber after father and son, who escape only when an alligator chomps onto Monstrom's leg.

John and Billy rush home, where Sara joins them in the car and they barely avoid being squashed by a giant foot. The sheriff doesn't believe the writer's story until another man confirms it. As Monstrom lumbers through the town, wrecking things left and right, it starts to rain, and the creature is scared by a bolt of lightning. The townsfolk realize that it's afraid of fire, so they light torches and chase it back to the swamp, where it sinks back into the muck.

Little do the Earthlings know that Monstrom is down there with his spaceship, which crash landed on our planet ten centuries ago! He's super-intelligent and realizes that we're just too dumb and scared to reason with. It's back to suspended animation for Monstrom until humans evolve some more!

This is a pretty standard monster tale until the last panel on page five, where Kirby draws a view of the Earth from outer space. The regular Atlas reader at this point begins to shake with fear, afraid that we're going down that road again. Sure enough, the final panel on page seven is more than half filled with captions, explaining that Monstrom isn't really bad, he's just a misunderstood alien. Was this the way Stan and Jack got around the ban on horror comics?

By 1967, robots had been banned for five years because they were considered dangerous. Ralph is unhappy about his inability to provide a good life for his wife, Anne, so he happens on a brilliant scheme to capture an illegal robot and become a hero! But where to find an illegal robot? Ralph heads for the warehouse where robots are kept after they've been deactivated. He restarts one and uses his Apple watch to monitor its progress until he loses track of it near an abandoned castle.

Ralph scales the castle wall, enters the fortress, and is able to exclaim that "I Was Face-to-Face with the Forbidden Robot!" He throws a chain around the machine's neck and gets an electric jolt in return; later, Ralph hurls a spear at the robot, which chases him. In desperation, Ralph throws his lantern at the hunk of metal and ignites a fire. The robot saves Ralph and is destroyed; though Ralph is hailed as a hero, he confesses that robots got a bad rap and the laws banning them are rewritten.

Lather, rinse, repeat. This is one of the dumbest stories yet! Ralph's plan is idiotic and the idea that he has to scale the wall of a castle to search for the robot is bizarre. Oh, and when confronted with a robot in a castle, what better to do than throw a chain at it, hurl a spear at it, and toss a lantern at it? Of course, the payoff is that the robot was just misunderstood all along, and Ralph's moronic plan ends up canceling the ban on robots. At least Don Heck's art is decent, though I can't imagine what he must have thought when he was handed this script.

Derek is a scientist in the year 2050, when people routinely pass through a time tunnel to travel into the past. No one thinks travel to the future is possible, but Derek is determined and works until he invents a time machine that will go forward rather than backward. Clutching a pennant that reads "2050 A.D.," Derek zips forward 1000 years, only to find a primitive planet with no inhabitants. He sadly plants his little flag on a hill and returns to his own time, convinced he's gone into the past like everyone else. If only Derek had looked a little further, he would've seen the marker that explained that mankind left Earth in the year 3045, looking for a larger, more fertile planet.

Kirby and Ditko do a decent job of illustrating a story that is reasonably interesting until the twist ending, which we've seen many times before. "I Dared to Look Into the Beyond!" is a misleading title. I enjoyed the panel of Derek sitting in his time machine, which looks suspiciously like the one Rod Taylor used in the movie, which was released around the time this comic came out, holding his little "2050" flag.

A mask maker named Markas is depressed because his former fame has disappeared and now he only makes masks for parties. He reads the ancient legend of Drothor, an ugly man  who long ago turned to the Black Arts. Markas creates a mask of Drothor and dons it, convinced that he can commit robberies with abandon because no one will recognize him. Sadly, the cops follow him home and, when he pulls off the mask, his face still looks like that of Drothor!

Thank goodness that Ditko gave his all when he drew "I Wore... the Mask of Drothor!" The story is as dumb as they come. The splash page is a winner, though.-Jack

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