Star Spangled DC War Stories Part 64: September 1964

The DC War Comics 1959-1976
by Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook

Joe Kubert

G.I. Combat 107

"The Ghost Pipers!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Dogtag Guard!"
Story by Kin Platt
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

Peter: Jeb Stuart (the ghost) warns Jeb Stuart (the tank commander) that the Jeb Stuart (the tank) will encounter someone who will attempt to "pipe them out of the war." Taking this to mean an enemy who will blast them to bits, Jeb keeps alert. But even after weathering a couple of major attacks, Jeb continues to hear the Colonel's warning. Then, the men come upon an Irishman blowing bagpipes on the battlefield. He asks them to follow him and leads them to a strange tableau: a World War I battlefield. The Haunted Tank does its part and blows away the bad guys, then finds itself right back in the present, with the piper still in the lead. When the latest battle is done, the crew meet up with another piper, who tells them the story of the ghost. The young man had enlisted in the army and met up with the same fate as his brother did in WWI. Both swore they would lead a tank into battle but both were killed before their dreams came true. Now "The Ghost Pipers" can rest.

Even though this is a series about a Haunted Tank, I never get a supernatural vibe, but this entry is nice and eerie (especially the dead eyes on the pipers). I'm not a fan of the expository but I'm glad we got one here as it's not clear until the final panels that we're actually dealing with two different pipers. Kubert's doing a great job as always but I'm with Jack in missing Russ Heath (who won't return until #114).

Jack: I was blown away by Kubert's cover and art on this story. It starts with a great splash page featuring three vertical panels showing a bagpiping soldier coming closer to the reader and the fine work continues to the end of the tale. It was a little jarring to have what seems like the same scene occur twice, but I liked the idea of two ghost pipers. Kanigher relies less than usual on the ghost of Jeb Stuart this time, and that's a good thing.

Peter: One of the most stringent rules in the superstitious ranks of WWI American G.I.s is the safekeeping of dogtags. Just before his squadron heads out for battle, the rookie is handed a wooden box and told to guard it with his life. If anything happens to the tags, it would spell doom for the owners. The green G.I. dodges tanks, planes, grenades, and prehistoric monsters to keep hold of the wooden box. In the end, his squad comes back safe and they salute their newest hero. "Dogtag Guard" is another gimmick disguised as a story. If the men wanted their tags to be kept as safe as possible, why put them in a wooden box? Our poor rookie looks like he either hasn't slept in weeks or is hopped up on heroin, thanks to the wide-eyed art of Andru and Esposito.

"You're getting sleepy..."

Jack: Prehistoric monsters? No way! It's funny how Platt populates the squadron with a cross-section of immigrant names: Connors, Duwalski, Faschetti, Samuels and Weed sound like the partners in a law firm! Though the story features a nice selection of WWI machines, it is marred by the repetition of the word "dogtags," which I counted no less than 25 times in 10 pages.

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 146

"The Fighting Guns of Easy!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"No Score for a Frogman"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: "The Fighting Guns of Easy!" narrate the tale of Easy Co.'s attack on a farmhouse. Sgt. Rock destroys a Nazi machine gun nest with a grenade, then the guns of Easy bring down an attacking plane. That night, in a sudden snowstorm, the guns face a Nazi infantry march and a new recruit makes a run for it. Rock tracks him down on a frozen lake, where the rookie gives his life to help destroy an enemy tank.

If there has ever been a worse Easy Co. story than this one, I'd be surprised. Kanigher drags out his old gimmick of talking guns, but this time they don't let up! Rock's gun drops the "g"s at the end of words just like its owner, the seasoned guns poke fun at a new gun, and even the Nazi guns answer back with a German accent. The action is by the numbers and the loss of the new recruit is poorly handled. Dear Mr. Kanigher: no more talking gun stories!

Kubert makes the best of a bad story.

Peter: On the second page, we get a panel of Rock firing his Tommy gun but, other than that one quick glimpse, this story focuses on the weapons and keeps the human characters off-panel. The story is unique in one other way: all the dialogue is "spoken" by the weapons. We've had talking tanks and guns and horses and latrines before, but never a story told entirely from the perspective of a non-human character. Unique does not always add up to good, though, and "The Fighting Guns of Easy!" just makes me groan and roll my eyes. Kanigher's dialogue, usually so deep and insightful (well, all right, with the exception of War that Time Forgot and Gunner and Sarge) is downright hilarious. My favorite line comes from the aforementioned Tommy: "Then the moment came that made my bore warm with pride!" I'll bet Bob was waiting for years to work that into a script.

Jack: Submarine commanders, fighter plane pilots, and gun-toting marines all have places to mark to display their enemy kills, but there's "No Score for a Frogman," or so thinks an underwater fighter who laments the lack of a place to tally his victories. In rather short order, he saves his brother's sub by destroying an enemy sub, saves his brother's plane by blowing up an enemy plane, and saves his brother's hide by using an enemy tank to an enemy tank and ship. In the end, his victories come to light and his three grateful brothers paint silhouettes on his frogman suit. It's rare that a dopey Hank Chapman story like this outshines a Sgt. Rock story, but it happens in this unusually poor issue of Our Army At War.

Peter: With all the action this frogman sees, it's a wonder there's still a World War II to be won. And, heck, what a coincidence: this guy runs into all three brothers in one day!

Andru and Esposito

Star Spangled War Stories 116

"The Suicide Squad!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"Baker's Dozen!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Irv Novick

Peter: A disgraced Olympic bobsledder joins the Army and his first mission pairs him with the brother of the man he accidentally killed years before in a tragic bobsledding incident. It's not long before Barry Mace realizes that Vic Morgan still seeks vengeance for his dead brother and the two are at each other's throats constantly while making their way out onto the "frozen wasteland" where ships are being mysteriously destroyed by enemy missiles. Mace and Morgan, aka "The Suicide Squad!", must travel a treacherous toboggan slide and jettison themselves onto the missile silo but encounter deadly roadblocks: prehistoric dinosaurs from the forgotten stone age. The pair manage to destroy all monsters and missiles and make it back to base in one piece, with Morgan assuring Mace that he'll be along on every mission from here on out to make sure Barr doesn't panic.

Well, if not inevitable, it was ideal that Bob Kanigher finally decided to throw a little something new into the dino-mix. After 25 War That Time Forgot entries, the formula had long since dried up. We've had carnival acts, circus acts, trapeze brothers, carnival and circus brothers, and just about every other combination of the same month in and month out. Does the new fabric make for a better suit? Not really, because at the core, this is just another "soldiers-pinballing-from-one-dino-to-another" tale, but it at least gives one hope that at some time in the future we'll be applauding rather than snoring. Here, in fact, the dinos are more of an afterthought. Vic Morgan, who perpetually holds a .45 to Mace's head while they're out on the ice, hardly registers that they're surrounded by forty foot carnivores. He's more interested in reminding his partner (over and over and over) that, in his eyes, Mace is a murderer. The final panel, where Vic shows his feelings have not changed one bit, despite having his life saved by his enemy, is a good send-off and bodes well for future chapters with these two (unless the emphasis then becomes "you killed my brother" ad nauseum).

Tobogganing. It's just that easy.

DC has gotten quite a lot of mileage out of the title "Suicide Squad." Several groups have been formed using the moniker (this incarnation has nothing to do with the super-villain team that will hit the big screens next summer) and the histories are complicated and, frankly, boring, but if you wish to read more, this is a good summary. This World War II Suicide Squad is not the same SS that graced the pages of SSWS #110 and 111 and we'll see a revolving character carousel during its nine-issue run (with Mac and Morgan starring in four of those adventures).

Jack: Here's a classic Kanigher line from this story:

Cats on the battlefield.
The mind boggles!

"I felt like an aimless juggler trying to toss a hot potato in the teeth of an audience out for blood . . ."

I was wondering how the Russians could have built a missile silo and been firing missiles without running into a dino-sized problem, but at the end of the story it's revealed that their sub was destroyed and the missiles were left unmanned and on "auto-fire." The timing of this story made me look up the 1964 Winter Olympics, since I suspect Kanigher wrote this early in 1964. It seems a Polish-born British luge racer died in a training run days before the games started; this could have influenced Kanigher to write this story.

Peter: The superstitious Baker Company refuses to accept a rookie, the 13th member, and faces all sorts of mishaps before coming to their senses. "Baker's Dozen" is a really, really, really dumb comedy/drama, one of those annoying wastes of time where the men in the midst of war pay more attention to trivial details (like black cats) than to the exploding bombs around them. What C.O. would allow this sort of thing to run rampant? Irv Novick does his best Joe Kubert imitation here.

Jack: I can see Novick in this story but someone else has to be inking, because it doesn't look like Novick all the way through. Maybe Jack Abel inked it? It's much softer than Novick's usual work.

In our next hair-raising issue,
Pooch gets his own series in the House of Mystery!
On Sale Oct. 26!

The Hitchcock Project-Robert C. Dennis Part Seven: "Help Wanted" [1.27]

by Jack Seabrook

How important is it to you to have a job and what would you be willing to do to keep it? Lie? Cheat? Steal? Perhaps murder? That is the question that faces Mr. Crabtree in Stanley Ellin's short story, "The Cat's Paw."

As the story begins, Crabtree applies for a job he saw in the want ads. He is 48 years old, unmarried, and recently laid off after 30 years with the same firm. Two weeks pass and he receives a phone call telling him he has been hired, under terms so appealing he can hardly believe it. He is to have a private office where he will spend six days a week preparing reports that summarize financial information gleaned from a stack of periodicals.

He reports to the small office, which features an immense window whose sill comes just above his knees. Months pass and one day he walks into his office after lunch to come face to face with his employer, who uses the assumed name of George Spelvin. The employer is a wealthy and powerful man who tells Crabtree that he is being blackmailed and that he hired Crabtree to murder the blackmailer.

Crabtree is shocked to learn that his job is only a front and that he was selected solely to carry out a violent crime. If he does so, he may continue working; if not, he is fired. The plan is that the blackmailer will enter the office and ask for an envelope that a friend has left for him. Crabtree will hand it to him and, after the man has placed the envelope in his pocket, Crabtree will push him out of the window to his death. He will then close the window and go back to work.

John Qualen as Crabtree

Sometime later, Crabtree is visited by two policeman, who question him and inform him that a man committed suicide by jumping off the roof right above him. A suicide note was found in his pocket. They leave and he resumes his work.

"The Cat's Paw" ends subtly, with a conclusion that requires a moment's reflection. One must conclude that Crabtree decided to go through with the murder, despite his reservations. His decision to do so shows how important it is to him to maintain a steady, paying job, even after learning that his work is utterly meaningless. He had no proof that the man he murdered was a blackmailer; rather, he took the word of his employer at face value and carried out his instructions to the letter, committing what was, in effect, a perfect murder.

The story's author, Stanley Ellin (1916-1986), was a highly respected writer of short stories and novels in the mid-twentieth century. This was the first of eight episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to be adapted from his short stories, including "The Faith of Aaron Menefee," adapted for television by Ray Bradbury. The term "cat's paw," which provides the story's title, may be traced back to a fifteenth century fable called "The Monkey and the Cat" by Jean de la Fontaine and refers to a person who is used unwittingly by another to accomplish the other's purpose. That definition fits Crabtree's situation perfectly.

The name "George Spelvin" that Crabtree's employer uses is the traditional pseudonym used in American theater. It was first noted in a program in 1886.

While "The Cat's Paw" is an excellent story, one may question the motives of the main characters. Is it believable that Crabtree, a single, middle-aged man, would be willing to commit murder to keep a meaningless job? Can the reader accept his employer's motive for killing the blackmailer as one simply driven by greed? These issues were of interest when the story was adapted for television, both from the standpoint of dramatic believability and out of concern for the sensors.

Lorne Green as Crabtree's employer

Ellin's story was published in the June 1949 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which probably appeared on newsstands a month or two before that date. The tale must have been sold to television at or prior to the time of publication, since an adaptation was broadcast live on the CBS TV series Suspense on June 14, 1949. The teleplay was by Reginald Denham and Mary Orr, the episode was directed by Robert Stevens, who would go on to direct more episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents than anyone else, and it starred Otto Kruger. It is available for free viewing online here.

This version has important differences from the short story. Crabtree is being evicted from his apartment because he has not paid his rent. He is jobless and all of his money goes toward paying the bills for his daughter to be treated in an expensive sanitarium. When he first arrives at his office, he discovers a cat with a note telling him that the cat's name is "Discretion," since it will keep him company and prevent him from being tempted to talk to anyone else about his job. His employer, whom he calls "Mr. X," tells him that the blackmailer is his wife's first husband, a man who had been thought dead.

In exchange for committing murder, Crabtree will receive a generous pension for life when he retires at age 65. After Mr. X makes his proposal and leaves, Crabtree has visions of his landlady, Mr. X's secretary (who offered him the job), and Mr. X, all giving him reasons to commit murder. Unlike the story, where the murder is implied rather than shown, in the TV show we get to see what happens. In this version, a man comes to the office and Crabtree hands him the envelope. The man then sees Discretion, the cat, and becomes terrified; he is so afraid of cats that he backs through the open window and falls to his death. As a result, Crabtree never carries out the crime and his meek and mild personality remains intact.

Madge Kennedy as Laura Crabtree

Crabtree thanks Discretion for saving him from having to make the decision about whether he would commit murder in order to keep his job. He then calls Mr. X and tells him that the man's death was an accident. Mr. X tells him to keep working and not tell the police. In a surprise ending, the real blackmailer then enters the office. It seems that the man who fell out the window was an innocent bystander who was collecting contributions to try to bring back Prohibition! Crabtree tells the blackmailer to go to the man he has been blackmailing and tell him that his plan for murder has gone astray.

The production of "Help Wanted" on Suspense suffers from a performance by Otto Kruger that borders on comedic, as well as from the other problems typical of 1949 television shows: poor lighting, acting that is more suited to the stage than the screen, and limited ability to move the camera. The script, however, begins to address issues that existed in the story. By giving Crabtree a daughter with medical problems and financial needs, he has a stronger reason to want to keep his job than mere pride. Also, by making Mr. X the victim of a blackmailer who threatens to disclose news that would ruin his family, the plot for murder becomes more understandable, if not excusable. While the scene where the man backs through the window out of fear of a cat is ridiculous, the twist ending that finds the real blackmailer still alive is ironic and satisfying.

Right before the fall from the window

Reginald Denham (1894-1983), who co-wrote this teleplay, was born in London and worked as a playwright. He also acted, wrote and directed films from the 1930s through the 1950s. His third wife was Mary Orr (1910-2006), who co-wrote this teleplay; also an actress, she wrote the short story that was the basis for the classic film, All About Eve (1950).

The CBS TV series Suspense, which ran from 1949 to 1954, featured a number of episodes that would be remade for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which began airing in 1955. "Help Wanted" was among them. The Hitchcock version has a teleplay credited to Robert C. Dennis, based on the Mary Orr and Reginald Denham adaptation of a story by Stanley Ellin. The onscreen credit shows that Dennis based his script on the teleplay written for Suspense in 1949.

Critics, including Edward Hoch, have pointed out similarities between Ellin's story and the classic Sherlock Holmes story, "The Red-Headed League," in which a man is hired to sit in an office and copy an encyclopedia. He does not know that the reason for his hiring was to allow a crime to be committed elsewhere; he was told that he was hired due to the particular shade of his red hair. Perhaps Robert C. Dennis had this in mind when he revised the teleplay for "Help Wanted," since he made important changes that solved some problems that existed in the Denham and Orr version.

"Help Wanted" aired late in the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Sunday, April 1, 1956, and is the definitive version of the Ellin story. Instead of a daughter in a sanitarium, Crabtree now has an invalid wife and needs money for treatments and an operation to cure her. While he is still the same mild-mannered character that he was in the story and on Suspense, he has a hidden streak of potential violence that emerged when he was told that he was being laid off from his prior job. We learn that he got very angry at the personnel manager who delivered the news and that he might have killed the man on the spot had he not been restrained.

The view from Crabtree's office window

Though his employer is never referred to by name--neither as George Spelvin nor Mr. X--the man tells Crabtree that "For your wife's sake, Mr. Crabtree, I think you'll have to do it." We see that his wife is responding to treatment and, when the fateful day arrives and the man comes to the office seeking a contribution, Crabtree gets angry and tells him to leave, blaming him for costing him his job and depriving his wife of her health. Crabtree leaps up from his seat in anger and the man accidentally falls out of the window, startled by the sudden movement in the confined space.

There is no cat this time and, with the knowledge that Crabtree is prone to sudden outbursts, the scene works perfectly. Outside, we see the employer witness the death and hurriedly put an envelope addressed to Crabtree in a mailbox. We know that it is the $5000 payment that he had promised, which replaces the promise of a pension in the prior TV version. He telephones Crabtree, who tries to explain but is not given the chance. When the real blackmailer comes, Crabtree tells him that he has come too late and will have to take up the matter with the man he is blackmailing. Crabtree says that he no longer works there and hurries out the door, ending the episode on a completely satisfying note.

By making a few minor changes, Dennis solves all of the problems found in the prior TV version and delivers a story that plays well on the Hitchcock series. Credit is also due to James Neilson (1909-1979), the show's director, whose shot and setup choices allow the story to unfold quickly. Neilson had directed 33 episodes of Janet Dean, Registered Nurse in the 1954-1955 television season; that show's producer was Joan Harrison, who was the associate producer of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and who probably brought Neilson along with her to her new assignment. This was the first of 12 episodes he would direct for the Hitchcock series, including Henry Slesar's "On the Nose."

Crabtree is played perfectly by John Qualen (1899-1987), who was born in Canada and who had a long career on stage and onscreen stretching from the 1930s to the 1970s. He was a regular member of director John Ford's stock company and appeared in such films as The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Searchers (1956). He appeared in thee episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Shopping for Death."

Lorne Green (1915-1987) is appropriately menacing as his unnamed employer. Like Qualen, he was born in Canada as Lyon Green, and his onscreen career lasted from the late 1940s until his death. As Lorne Greene he became famous for his starring role on Bonanza, which ran from 1959 to 1973; he also starred on Battlestar Galactica in the late 1970s. This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock series.

Malcolm Atterbury as the blackmailer

Crabtree's ailing wife Laura is played by Madge Kennedy (1891-1987), who was a star in silent films. She retired in 1926 but came back as a character actress in 1954 and made movies for another twenty years or so. She appeared in six episodes of the Hitchcock series, including Fredric Brown's "A True Account."

Appearing in a brief role at the end of the episode as the real blackmailer is Malcolm Atterbury (1907-1992), who had small parts in Hitchcock's North By Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock series, but he was seen twice on The Twilight Zone, most memorably in "Mr. Denton on Doomsday."

The Alfred Hitchcock Presents version of "Help Wanted" is available on DVD here or may be viewed for free online here.

Sources:

Ellin, Stanley. "The Cat's Paw." Great Tales of Mystery and Suspense. Compiled by Bill Pronzini, Barry Malzberg and Martin Greenberg. Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1981. 239-253.

"Galactic Central." Galactic Central. 3 Oct. 2015.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville: MD: OTR Pub., 2001.

"Help Wanted." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 1 Apr. 1956.

"Help Wanted." Suspense. CBS. 14 June 1949.

IMDb. IMDb.com. 3 Oct. 2015.

Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 3 Oct. 2015.

Do You Dare Enter? Part Sixty Three: September 1975

The DC Mystery Anthologies 1968-1976

by Peter Enfantino and
Jack Seabrook

Luis Dominguez

Ghosts 42

"The Phantom Frigate"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by E.R. Cruz

"Nightmare of Death"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Fred Carrillo

"The Spectral Sentries"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Lee Elias

Jack: In 1823, Captain John Terry's ship was run aground when smugglers on the Chilean coast doused the lighthouse. Vowing revenge on Juan Mateo, the chief of the smugglers, Captain Terry goes down with his ship. Fast forward to 1960, and Juan's great-great-grandson Hugo has fallen on hard times. Things only get worse when "The Phantom Frigate" appears and the ghost of Captain Terry aims his ship's cannons at Mateo's village, destroying it. Coincidentally, a huge earthquake killed thousands that night. Was it the tremors or the ghostly cannonballs that did the damage? Personally, I think it was the ghost ship. Science is so overrated.

Peter: I love a salty sea saga but this one's not much more than a vignette and it stars the most incompetent ghost in DC mystery history. Captain Terry's haunt exclaims "It took me a century to track down a Mateo but here I am!" The guy's a ghost! Aren't they supposed to have supernatural tracking powers (ghostly GPS) or something? And then he mows down just about everyone in the little fishing village except Mateo!

Jack: Ian and Claudine Tracy are bicycling through Wales in 1959 when they seek refuge from a storm in a railroad signal station, where the grumpy signal man appears to throw a switch and purposely cause a train wreck. Yet the wreck disappears as soon as the storm ends. The Tracys learn that it occurred 18 years ago and the ghostly signalman hanged himself after he was blamed for the catastrophe. Oddly enough, the Tracys find a cardboard box in the signal station containing newspapers about the crash and a hangman's noose! Peter, what do you make of this "Nightmare of Death"?

For this to happen . . .
oh, never mind.

Peter: This one's a howler (and, I assume, the funny parts weren't meant to be funny). Beginning with one of the most generic titles ever presented between DC Mystery covers (what's next? "The Horror of the Terror!"?) and culminating in an inane "twist" that makes no sense. I can see the trains and old man Fitch and maybe even the switchman's shack being specters but what about the storm that Ian and Claudine are stuck in? How could that be a specter? My favorite bit is Ian's discovery, in the box of Fitch's knickknacks, of the noose the switchman used to hang himself! How did that get there, Carl?

Jack: It's March 1917, and the Winter Palace at Petrograd is under siege. The czar and his family are taken by the Bolsheviks but Count Leonov escapes with the crown jewels, intending to use them to restore the royal family to the seat of power. He does not get far, though, before "The Spectral Sentries," ghosts or skeletons of those he had put to death, seal his doom in an avalanche. Talk about a muddled story with terrific art! The funniest part of this one comes when Leonov shoots a traitorous soldier and the man instantly turns into a skeleton. Leonov doesn't miss a beat and goes back to admiring the crown jewels. Now that's a man with his eyes on the prize!

A man not easily distracted!

Peter: I have no idea what's happening in that climax but I'm pretty sure our favorite DC Mystery writer (sarcasm) was equally befuddled. Is Carl, simultaneously, trying to scare us with his skeletal figures and offer up a rational explanation for why a corpse can fire a rifle? Lee Elias contributes strong visuals.

Bernie Wrightson

House of Secrets 135

"The Vegetable Garden!"
Story by Michael Fleisher
Art by Leopoldo Duranona

"Big Fish in a Small Pond"
Story by Michael Pellowski and Steve Skeates
Art by E.R. Cruz

Peter: Harriet loves tending to "The Vegetable Garden" with the neighborhood children but her greedy niece, Marion, and Marion's husband, Bill, want to put Harriet away in a home so they can inherit her fortune. Constant prodding doesn't work, so the devious couple put their plan into overdrive: they tell the mothers in the neighborhood that Harriet is unstable, kill her bird, and destroy her prized roses. The latter finally pushes the old woman over the edge and she agrees to move to an old folks' home but, before she can move, she overhears her conniving in-laws boasting about how well the plan worked. The boasting turns violent, though, when Bill accidentally kills Marion and tries to hide the body. Harriet stabs Bill to death and buries the pair in the garden.

Michael Fleisher borrows heavily from the classic EC tale, "Poetic Justice"; the first three-quarters of "Vegetable" are a blueprint of the earlier story. And it wasn't as though "Poetic" was dead, buried, and forgotten in a pre-code haze; it had been the highlight of the film Tales from the Crypt only a few years before. Harriet is the female Grimsdyke to a tee and the circumstances leading up to the violence are too similar to ignore: parents warned about unseemly senior citizens and a pillaged garden. What was this guy thinking? Separate that fact from the rest of the story and you've got an average "greedy relatives" drama, notable only for its creepy Duranona art (which, again, is probably better represented in black and white than color) and its darkly comedic final panel (reprinted here).

Jack: A mediocre story from Fleisher is paired with sub-par art and we see the writing on the wall for DC horror comics. Within a few months, the list will be cut substantially, and none too soon. Look at that last panel. Are we supposed to take from that that Aunt Harriet buried a hand here and a foot there? Is she a worse artist than Leopoldo Duranona? Does she expect little hand and foot plants to sprout? That reminds me of "Green Fingers," from Night Gallery. Perhaps I just don't like seeing anyone named Aunt Harriet treated cruelly. What would Dick Grayson say?

"Big Fish in a Small Pond"

Peter: Land baron Sam Spietz loves buying up properties for nothing and selling them for big profits but Sam can't get the Swansons to sell their old, decrepit pet store for any amount of money. This particular parcel is worth millions to Sam so he's willing to go a little bit farther than usual to acquire the gem. His assistant, Savin, tries to convince Sam that he can get rid of the old timers through black magic but Sam ain't buying it, so Savin decides to moonlight.

That night, Savin conjures up demons and sends them to the pet store, unaware that the Swansons already left town on vacation. Sam Spietz makes the mistake of picking just this time to burn the pet store down but, before he can, the demons arrive and possess the shop animals. Two days later, the Swansons open their shop to find the pets loose in the store and Sam floating in the aquarium. Certainly better than the opener (but not by much), "Big Fish in a Small Pond" concludes with an expository, letting us know what happened to Savin, ostensibly because the writers forgot about that aspect of the narrative. E.R. Cruz's art is good, but unfortunately there's really not much for him to draw other than people standing around and talking. Not a lot of action here.

Jack Didn't we read a similar story not too long ago? Those demonic animals are not particularly terrifying, which is also a problem with Bernie Wrightson's cover. This is a weak issue of one of the good titles--what does that mean for Unexpected and The Witching Hour?

Luis Dominguez

The House of Mystery 235

"Wings of Black Death"
Story by David Michelinie
Art by Nestor Redondo

"The Spawn of the Devil"
Story by Maxene Fabe
Art by Ramona Fradon

Peter: In plague-ridden 14th Century Europe, con man Geoffrey Pitt finds that the public's fear has wiped out his "trade." Discovering that he can be paid 100 gold pieces a day for cleaning up corpses from the street, Geoffrey goes to the end of the village and consults with the wizard Asmodeus. Pitt asks the magician to cast a spell to render him immune to the plague and Asmodeus agrees, provided he's paid half the gold every day. Pitt reluctantly agrees and pays the man his fee for several weeks before growing greedy. Geoffrey murders the wizard but is pestered by Asmodeus's crow, which seems to be spreading an all-new plague in the village. It's not long before the villagers are banging on Pitt's castle door with torches demanding to see Asmodeus. When the wizard is not produced, the mob becomes convinced that Geoffrey Pitt is, in reality, the magician disguised. They toss him in the fire and the crow flies away, seemingly happy. Not a lot to be said about "Wings of Black Death." The story just sort of lies there (and it's a story we've seen countless times) and there's no reel oomph in the climax. Redondo's art is very atmospheric in spots.

Jack: You selected my favorite panel to reproduce! The setting for this story is unusual and it is very well told, at least until the last page, which is a bit of a letdown. Still, Nestor Redondo is perhaps the best artist still drawing for the DC Horror line by this point, so the pages look terrific. If only Michelinie could have come up with a better ending! This may end up in my top ten of 1975, partly due to lack of competition.

Peter: Mary Parsons wants a child badly but her husband will agree only to an adoption. Since Mary has had a mental breakdown recently, the adoption agencies are not knocking at her door. However, she and her husband meet with kindly old Doc Morton, who hooks them up with a genuine baby (ostensibly kept in a storeroom in his office!). Mary notes that the baby is a bit on the ugly side but beggars can't be choosers and she takes little Billy home. Quicker than you can say Damien: Omen II, the toddler is levitating cakes, climbing the walls, and snapping the dog's neck (an incident that, curiously, happens on the "spoiler splash" but not within the narrative) and Mary has lost her marbles again. She urges the Doc to take the monster back but no dice. Mary then overhears Morton talking to Billy about behaving or the world will find out that the kid is actually the demon, Belial. Exiting the building, Mary feels she has no other choice than to toss Billy in front of a speeding taxi. "The Spawn of the Devil" is dead and Mary is hauled off to the loony bin. Doctor Morton smiles, showing a full set of razor-sharp teeth.

I'm of two minds about this one: the topic is very edgy (and, to be fair, appearing a year before The Omen would hit screens) and I'm always amazed when something along the lines of a child murder got past the notoriously righteous CCA. "The Spawn of the Devil" is edgy, but it's also packed with lots of ludicrosity, including a baby with fangs, a couple that thinks nothing of a doctor who can produce a baby from his back room, loopy art, and an inane final panel (if Morton is actually Billy/Belial's father, then why is he smiling after witnessing his son's death?). And about that art: I dig Ramona Fradon's work most of the time--it's so different from the rest of the DC Mystery bullpen--but it ain't happening here. The drooling, fanged monster kid elicits laughs more than creeps.

Jack: Peter and I both keep notes on the stories we read, partly to help us come up with the best and worst at the end of each year. I use a rating of 1 to 4 for story and the same for art. If I could give out "5"s, this story would earn them with ease! It's crazy, funny, and scary, all at the same time. I've said it before: Ramona Fradon's art is a revelation. This is the breath of fresh air--or is it brimstone?--I needed to get through The Witching Hour! By the way, if you note the similarities to this plot and that of Nightmare At Twenty Thousand Feet, maybe Shatner could play Mary if this is ever made into a TV show!

Ernie Chan

Secrets of Haunted House 3

"Pathway to Purgatory"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Swinger"
Story by Mike Pellowski and Maxene Fabe
Art by Ramona Fradon

Jack: Duke Alain's forbidden love for his beautiful ward Catherine drives him to extremes. He blames his own crippled legs for Catherine's lack of romantic interest in him, so he embarks on a "Pathway to Purgatory" when he tortures a witch and murders her daughter in order to convince the hag to use her powers to restore his lower extremities to full vigor. To his surprise, Catherine still has no intention of breaking society's taboo, so Alain again utilizes torture and murder to convince the bishop to go forward with the wedding.

CCA approved?

The wedding night is less than satisfactory for the Duke, however, since Catherine runs screaming from the bedchamber and the villagers grab him and take him to the gallows, where he is executed. Only then is it revealed that the legs he was given by the witch are those of a goat! Jack Oleck redeems himself somewhat with this tale, which is a big step up from those he's been writing in mid-1975. Ruben Yandoc's art looks like it always does--all of his women look like they could be sisters.

Peter: Even though it feels padded at ten pages (there's a whole lot of dialogue goin' on here), I enjoyed this one. I never saw the twist coming and, sometimes, a good shock finale is all you need for entertainment. Jack Oleck proves he can still come up with a winner now and then.

CCA approved!?!

Jack: Carlton Phipps may be a rich playboy, but he's also a chicken, so he studies martial arts and earns a black belt. Walking through a bad part of town at night, he's itching for a fight and accidentally kills a cop, thinking him to be a mugger. He frames a passing tramp and the man is hanged for his crime, but his ghost soon starts to haunt Carlton, who has the strange feeling that he is being choked over and over.

Deciding to get out of Dodge, he flies off in his private plane, but bad weather forces him to bail out. Wouldn't you know it? "The Swinger" is hanged when his parachute snags on a tree limb. Not as knock down, drag out fun as "The Spawn of the Devil," but still very, very good. And that's a welcome thing in DC Horror stories by 1975!

Peter: Here, because of the dark humor present in the script, Ramona Fradon's art is perfect (as opposed to her work on "The Spawn of the Devil" in House of Mystery). I wish I kept a journal of twist endings because I'd swear that climax is a swipe from EC.

Luis Dominguez

Unexpected 168

"Freak Accident"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"The Patchwork Pal"
Story by Murray Boltinoff
Art by Flor Dery

"Who Killed Raggedy Annie?"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Jack: Approaching a well-guarded, highly secret government enclave, a super-spy kills a guard and puts on his hazmat suit, entering the restricted area with ease. The beating sun is hot, so he removes the hazmat suit and comes upon a race of hideously ugly humanoids. They knock him out and throw him in a pit, but some of the humanoid children help him escape, and he races back to be met by the guards, who promptly send him back among the humanoids. It seems they were the victims of a "Freak Accident" with biological weapons, and now that he has come in contact with them, he carries a dangerous infection. Soon, he begins to change into one of the humanoids himself. Predictable and dull, the only good part is the monsters that Alcala draws. I wonder if this was a file story, since we haven't seen his work in awhile.

Who else but Alcala?

Peter: If it gives us another look at the exquisite, finely-detailed, slammajammin' art of The Master, I'll wade through the worst of Kashdan's scripts. This isn't George's worst but it's not very good either.

Jack: Grumpy old Joe has a job carting body parts out of the hospital for disposal. When he suddenly turns cheerful, a doctor and a nurse sneak over to his house, where they discover that Joe used the spare parts to build "The Patchwork Pal," but when his little buddy failed to chat with him he knocked its block off! Yuck! I like Flor Dery's art, though.

Yecch!

Peter: There's not much surprise in a story whose "twist" is part of its title. That final panel is pretty grim stuff, though.

Jack: Parker has a headache that he traces to old Annie and a voodoo doll that she gave to young Jess. Parker kills Annie by tossing her down a well and continues his campaign to drive Jess's poor family off their land. Jess's father burns all of her dolls since, even though she's developmentally disabled, he thinks she's too old to play with dolls. Soon, Jess has a new doll, one that looks like old Annie. This one leads her to foil numerous schemes cooked up by Parker, until he finally has had enough and kidnaps the girl, intending to kill her. The doll tells her dad where she is and the cops arrive just in the nick of time to save her. Peter, Gerry Talaoc to me is like Ruben Yandoc to you--I can't get enough of him in "Who Killed Raggedy Annie?" and elsewhere!

Peter: Equal parts good Talaoc and bad. His human characters  (in particular, Parker) always seem to have some serious dental issues but Gerry can conjure up some horrifying images with the best of them. The panels of the Raggedy Annie doll lying on Jess's bed are pretty creepy. It's a strange, muddled script, though, as Jess's dad is introduced as a secondary heavy but then transformed into a caring dad by story's end.

Ernie Chan

Weird Mystery Tales 22

"A Death at the Races"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley
Art by Franc Reyes

"A Reckoning in Eden"
Story by Mal Warwick
Art by Bill Draut

"Meet My Murderer"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Teny Henson

Peter: Leonard Snively trains greyhounds for the races but feels underpaid and under-appreciated, so he murders his boss and hightails it into the woods. On the other side of the forest, Leonard stumbles onto a rundown old town where the people are strange but seemingly friendly. Snively tells them what he does for a living and they're fascinated. The next morning, Leonard wakes to find the town deserted. As he walks down the street, he is confronted by a band of very big and nasty monsters. They chase him through the streets until he hits a dead end. A fence comes down between him and the hairy beasts and, eventually, he learns that the town is racing monsters and he's the bunny rabbit. "A Death at the Races" is built around a really silly script, with a climax that might have been ironic if it wasn't so telegraphed. Snively appears to be a big, burly dope but thinks (in thought balloons) like a well-educated gentleman. I'm thinking Fleisher's glory days are now behind him, unfortunately, but hopefully he'll prove me wrong. Reyes's art, on the other hand, speeds along like one of the featured greyhounds with our first look at the creatures (below) a highlight.

Jack: More and more, it seems like David Michelinie has moved into first place among DC Horror scribes as Fleisher's scripts continue to be weak. I was not impressed with Reyes's art, which seems too sketchy for me. I don't have a problem with dog racing, though I've never been to a dog track, so I had a hard time sympathizing with this story's message.

Peter: "A Reckoning in Eden" is a short-short about a rocket ship finding a replacement for Earth after three thousand years of space travel only to discover that there are already inhabitants and they look startlingly like sit-com characters. Warwick does what he can with just two pages but there's not much of a story and the climax is a bit confusing.

Jack: Warwick likes his sci-fi, doesn't he? I think the ending is supposed to tell us that inhabitants of Earth developed a faster mode of transportation and beat the ship to Eden, where they set up shop and developed a new California that was just as smoggy as the old one. Oddly enough, I like Bill Draut's artwork for this tale. It's a classic DC look that's much more finished than what Reyes does in the prior story.

Starring Suzanne Somers as
action-camera girl Tina Van Avery!

Peter: Famed photographer Tina Van Avery has taken shots of the most thrilling and daring adventures ever seen by man but one thrill evades her: Tina wants to photograph a ghost. One night, a thug breaks into Tina's lush apartment to steal her expensive equipment and, while in the act, strangles the girl. Days later, the police approach him and show him photos of his criminal deed. Tina had photographed her own murder! "Meet My Murderer" belongs in Ghosts (but I'd have to read it anyway, wouldn't I?) or, if taking the art into account, maybe Sinister House of Secret Love. Amazing that the ghost was able to snap photos of the murder even while Tina was still alive! Very kind of The Old Witch to explain to us exactly what happened in the previous panels just in case we're too dense to get it. That would have been helpful with the "Eden" story.

Proof that you don't have to be dead to have your own ghost

Jack: I had the same question as you, but if you look at the photos, I think a case can be made that Tina is already dead in the first one. In another panel, we see her ghost taking the pictures, so my take on this is that her ghost popped out of her body at the moment of her death and started snapping away. Of course, it would have been easier if she'd just haunted the robber into an early grave, but that would've deprived us of the twist ending.

Luis Dominguez

The Witching Hour 58

"Camp Fear"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by John Calnan

"The Witch of Raven's Pass"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ernie Guanlao

"Who Stalked By Night"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Frank Carrillo

Jack: Freddy's imagination and weird fantasies worry his parents, so they ship him off to summer camp, not realizing that it's really "Camp Fear!" At this camp, the boys are encouraged to look out for number one and treat everyone else with contempt. The worse they act, the better they are treated. Freddy gets with the program until his conscience gets the better of him and he fails to murder his bunkmate when they are out in a rowboat. Back at camp, he overhears that his bunkmate is alive and reporting the truth about Freddy's weakness to the head of the camp, who is a Satan worshiper. Freddy manages to escape, but when he gets home no one believes his story, and on returning to the camp they find it a burned out wreck. The real wreck is this story, in which the terrible plot is not helped by substandard art.

Peter: This sleazy, mean-spirited bowl of tripe is my front-runner for Worst All-Around Story of the Year. George just heaps unpleasantness atop unpleasantness, somehow forgetting that unpleasant doesn't automatically equal chilling or disquieting. I can just picture Kashdan at his typewriter rubbing his hands together and exclaiming "My loyal audience of nine year olds will love this one."

Jack: Rory Savage wants to buy a ranch owned by Herb and Jenny Lee because he knows there's oil below the ground. They won't sell, so he visits "The Witch of Raven's Pass" and asks her to kill them, handing her a photo of himself with the couple in happier times. She refuses, he shoots her, and a fire starts, burning the photo. Rory is killed in a fiery car wreck and Jenny--the real witch of Raven's Pass--is satisfied. Well, at least the art is better than that in the first story. The plot? Not so much. For some strange reason, Mildred (the fat witch) is drawn with a mouthful of sharp, pointy teeth.

Peter: Carl Wessler just keeps right on recycling the same old bilge issue after issue. One question though: Since Herb and Jenny were in that deadly photo with Rory, shouldn't they have gone up in flames as well? Yeah, I know; why do I bother asking? This is the first (and last) look we'll get at the art of Ernie Guanlao (1943-2010), yet another of the Filipino artists who stormed the DC Mystery Bullpen in the mid-'70s, thankfully nudging out the likes of Jerry Grandenetti, and elevating the titles (in the artwork department, at least) to something memorable.

Jack: Morty Macree, a mugger "Who Stalked By Night," decides to wear a skull mask to mug honest citizens. After a couple of muggings, the police catch up with him, only to see that his face now looks like the skull mask. Um, huh?

Peter: There's no answer to the question of why this guy's face would have been transformed by the mask. It just is. And that's the sign hanging above Carl Wessler's typewriter.

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