The Hitchcock Project-Morton Fine and David Friedkin Part Two: The McGregor Affair [10.7]

by Jack Seabrook

The second teleplay for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour by Morton Fine and David Friedkin was "The McGregor Affair," which aired on NBC on Monday, November 23, 1964. This episode was based on a short story of the same title by Sidney Rowland that had been published in the July 1953 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

In the late 1820s, a man named McGregor lived in Edinburg, Scotland, and worked as a porter, hauling heavy boxes filled with tanbark from Burke's cobber shop to the city's medical museum, where young men trained to become doctors. McGregor is fed up with his drunken wife, Aggie, who has stopped sharing her whisky with him. One evening, he notices a strand of hair trailing from one of the crates he carries. McGregor has heard the rumors that Burke and his partner, Hare, are resurrectionists, supplying bodies to medical schools, and realizes that if the boxes contain bodies and not tanbark, those bodies must have come from visitors to Burke's shop.

Andrew Duggan as McGregor

He inspects the box and sees that it contains the body of Effie Mattoon. He begins to think of a way to rid himself of his wife. McGregor's efforts to convince her to leave the house and get drunk at a tavern fail, so he gets her drunk at home and carries her body to Burke's shop, depositing it on the doorstep, where it is soon discovered by Burke and Hare, who bring her inside and murder her. The next day, McGregor visits Burke's shop and, that evening, he is given a very heavy box to deliver to the museum.

Having rid himself of his wife, McGregor enjoys his solitude and heads for a tavern, where he drinks himself into a stupor. Later that night, he becomes the next victim of Burke and Hare.

Published in the magazine's Department of First Stories, "The McGregor Affair" is preceded by an introduction in which the editor comments that he was attracted by the author's decision to keep Burke and Hare in the background and instead focus on McGregor. When the story was reprinted in the collection, Butcher, Baker, Murder-Maker, the editor noted that Rowland had done research on Burke and Hare for a true crime article but wrote this story instead. McGregor was based on John McCulloch, a real porter who carried corpses from Burke's shop to Dr. Knox's medical museum.

Elsa Lanchester as Aggie

Sidney Rowland (1922-2008) was born in New York, studied journalism, and worked as a newscaster in Columbus, Ohio, before moving to New York City to pursue a writing career. He instead had a long career in market research in New Jersey. In 1947-48, he attended the Columbia University School of Professional Writing and studied under Paul Gallico; however, despite his education and the success of "The McGregor Affair," The FictionMags Index lists no other published stories by this author.

The term "tanbark" is defined as tree bark that is used for tanning hides into leather. The tannins are removed for use and the remaining mulch is then discarded. It is this spent mulch that is supposed to be inside the large crates that McGregor takes from Burke's shop to the medical museum.

The team of Morton Fine and David Friedkin was an appropriate choice to adapt the short story for the small screen, since they had written a radio show for the series Crime Classics a decade earlier that told the story of Burke and Hare. The episode, titled "If a Body Need a Body, Just Call Burke and Hare," was broadcast on December 2, 1953, and is available to listen to online here. The radio play includes two bits of dialogue that are reproduced almost word for word in the 1964 teleplay.

John Hoyt as Dr. Knox

In adapting Rowland's short story for television, Fine and Friedkin expanded it greatly, adding characters and scenes to flesh it out for the hour-long running time and deepening the tale's emotional impact. They also cure a problem with the story's ending.

A bagpipe theme by Bernard Herrmann plays over the opening credits to establish that the story takes place in Scotland, and the first shot has a title card superimposed over it, setting the time and place as Edinburgh, Scotland, 1827. Life goes on in the busy street outside the McGregors' home, but John is trapped inside with his drunken, bedridden wife, Aggie, who won't share her whisky and who has not ventured outside in two years. McGregor speaks his thoughts aloud, both to a sleeping Aggie and to himself; he misses enjoying the outdoors with his bride.

Meanwhile, outside, we see Burke and Hare conversing on a street corner until McGregor approaches and takes a large box of tanbark to carry to the museum. He tells Burke that he has heard the rumors about him; this foreshadows the end of the show and is the first signal that McGregor himself is in danger. As he carries the heavy box along a country road, he talks to himself and rests in the shade of a tree. He delivers the box to Dr. Knox outside the medical museum and asks why he needs so much tanbark; Dr. Knox replies offhandedly that they "'spread it around'" and gives McGregor a coin as a tip.

Bill Smith as Tommy

Two medical students, Becker and Jarmley, carry the box inside, where they open it and see the corpse of a man. Becker questions its source and Knox reminds him that they need bodies to study and insists that no murder was committed. Some of the dialogue in this scene is lifted almost verbatim from Fine and Friedkin's 1953 radio play.

Outside, in the street, a woman named Elsie Muldoon offers to sell McGregor a match and implies that her body is also available, but he defers and returns home, where Aggie selfishly wants to keep both bottles of whisky that he bought. She is a mean, selfish drink, yet he seems devoted to her. Aggie passes out and he continues his monologue, beginning to think that he would be happy if she were gone.

In the morning, McGregor sits alone on a log by a pond until he is joined by Elsie, who has taken up with a handsome young man named Tommy. McGregor then has three fantasies that play out on screen like short, silent films (recall similar scenes in Hitchcock's "The Perfect Crime"): in the first, he tries to bash Aggie's head with a rock; in the second, he tries to drown her; in the third, he tries to hang her from a tree limb. Each scene is at once horrible and humorous, as his attempts at murder fail and he is shown as inept and no match for Aggie. Bernard Herrmann's music for these short scenes is perfect and Elsa Lanchester, as Aggie, is clearly enjoying herself and playing the part to the hilt.

Arthur Malet as Burke

We then see Burke and Hare place another corpse in a box and McGregor arrive unexpectedly. They nail the lid on in a hurry but don't do a good enough job so, when the porter sits in his favorite spot to rest, he sees a lock of hair hanging outside the box. Suspecting it contains a corpse, he pries off the lid and sees the corpse of Elsie Muldoon; McGregor realizes that the rumors about Burke and Hare are true and that the young woman was murdered. Tommy happens along inconveniently as McGregor is nailing the lid back on and Tommy helps him. They sit together on the box (think of Hitchcock's Rope, where a chest containing a dead body is used as a buffet table), and now McGregor is a liar, complicit in covering up the murder. He delivers the box and asks Dr. Knox if he'll ever stop needing tanbark. McGregor is planning the end of Aggie already, though it's not spelled out explicitly.

Back at home, Aggie is unusually nice to her husband, reminding him to kiss her later and complimenting him on the haggis he made that morning. Yet when she passes out drunk, he rationalizes that he must kill her in order to be happy. In Burke's shop, he and Hare enjoy themselves with drinks and two young women, while outside McGregor deposits Aggie, still unconscious. Burke and Hare hear her loud snores and investigate; Hare sends the young women away and he and Burke bring Aggie inside, another body for Dr. Knox.

Michael Pate as Hare

At home, McGregor revels in his freedom but fears being questioned by the police. He has gone from innocent participant to willing participant to active participant. There is a knock at the door, but it's not the police--it's Tommy, still looking for Elsie. McGregor paints a dismal picture of Elsie's future, using Aggie's decline as a model. Along comes a new young woman, selling matches just like Elsie, and Tommy is attracted by her beauty, immediately forgetting his last girlfriend. McGregor visits Burke, looking for work, and that evening he drinks at the tavern, waiting for nightfall, when he can take Aggie's body to Dr. Knox.

Burke asks McGregor to tell Dr. Knox that he'll visit him soon to discuss the new price of tanbark, as McGregor carries off the box containing Aggie's body. After a short rest, where McGregor speaks aloud to his late wife, he delivers the box and gives Burke's message to the doctor, though this time he refuses the coin tossed to him as a tip. The porter returns home and imagines he sees his wife lying in her bed, smiling at him. He buys more whisky at the tavern and meets the new match girl on his way back home. He warns her of the dangers of the street and she accompanies him home, but he tells her that he misses his wife and grows angry when she lies in Aggie's bed.

Betty Harford as Elsie Muldoon

Alone, McGregor remarks that he is lonely and misses Aggie. As written by Fine and Friedkin, McGregor is a more complex character on the small screen than he is in Sidney Rowland's short story; he regrets killing his wife and feels bad about not having said goodbye to her. He visits the medical museum and pounds on the door, demanding to be allowed in to say a final goodbye to Aggie, but Dr. Knox intercepts him and insists that the box contained only tanbark.

At the tavern again, McGregor is blind drunk and allows himself to be taken away by Burke, who has spoken to Dr. Knox and learned that McGregor is now aware of the contents of the boxes he has been carrying. Ominously, Burke and Hare walk off with McGregor. In the show's final scene, another man, who resembles McGregor, delivers a box to Dr. Knox; his students open it and see that it contains McGregor's body. They argue that his death was for a good cause, and the show ends.

Michael Macready as Jarmley

The conclusion of the short story has McGregor become the next victim of Burke and Hare for no particular reason, and the twist ending is simply that the man who delivered the corpses to the medical museum will be the next corpse to be delivered. In the TV show, Fine and Friedkin do a better job of plotting, setting up McGregor's doom early on, as he begins to suspect what's really going on with the boxes, and then tracing his dawning realization of the truth. We see him use his knowledge to his own ends when he sets his wife up to be murdered, and we witness his remorse and the way it causes him to speak incautiously and seal his fate. When Burke and Hare come along at the end of the TV show to collect and kill McGregor, it makes sense--they are covering up their own crimes and eliminating a potentially dangerous witness.

William Beckley as Becker

"The McGregor Affair" is a great hour of television, where a strong, well-plotted script is brought to life by great acting, solid direction, and a haunting musical score. David Friedkin uses a number of creative shots throughout the show, such as a slightly tilted camera for one of the scenes in Burke's shop and fuzzy edges in the triple fantasy of McGregor's when he imagines ways to murder his wife. The choice to have McGregor speak his thoughts in monologue rather than in voice-over is interesting and succeeds because of the skill of the actor Andrew Duggan, who convinces the viewer that this simple-minded Scotsman would do nothing else but speak aloud and address himself by name as he processes his thoughts ever so slowly. The result is a haunting, enjoyable show that makes its central characters the poor, forgotten folk of history rather than the famous murderers, something the editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine admired about Rowland's short story.

Janine Gray as the second match girl

As John McGregor, Andrew Duggan (1923-1988) is superb. After serving in the Army in WWII, his screen career began in 1949 and lasted until 1987. He appeared in the film of Rod Serling's Patterns (1956) and was a regular on three TV series: Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60), Room for One More (1962), and Lancer, (1968-70).

Elsa Lanchester (1902-1986) gives an effective performance as the lazy, fat drunk, Aggie. Born in London, she studied dance with Isadora Duncan and began acting on the stage following WWI. She married actor Charles Laughton in 1929. Her long screen career lasted from 1925 to 1980 and her most famous role was probably that of the title monster in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). This was her only appearance on the Hitchcock series; she later appeared on Night Gallery.

Iris Bristol as Rosie

Dr. Knox is played by the familiar character actor John Hoyt (1905-1991), who was born John Hoysradt and who was on screen from 1946 to 1987. Among his many appearances in classic films and TV shows were When Worlds Collide (1951), Spartacus (1960), and Roger Corman's X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963). On TV, he was seen in two episodes of the Hitchcock series, as well as on The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, and The Night Stalker.

Bill Smith (1933- ) plays Tommy, the young man who is attracted to the young women selling matches. His long screen career spanned the years from 1942 to 2014, starting as a child actor and including an interruption when he served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He played many small parts, often in exploitation films, and appeared in one episode of the Hitchcock show, as well as on Batman and The Night Stalker.  There is a website devoted to him here.

Harriett Harper as Glynis

Hare is portrayed by Michael Pate (1920-2008), an Australian actor who worked in radio drama in the 1930s, served in the Australian Army in WWII, and began appearing on film after the war. He came to the U.S. in 1950 and returned to Australia in 1968. His screen career lasted from 1940 to 1997, and he appeared in two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, along with appearances on Thriller and Batman.

Arthur Malet (1927-2013) plays Burke. He was born in England and was on screen from 1956 to 1998. He was seen in two episodes of the Hitchcock show, including "Coming Home," and he was also seen on Night Gallery and in the film, Young Frankenstein (1974).

In smaller roles:

• Betty Harford (1927- ) as Elsie Muldoon, the first young woman selling matches whose hair spills out of the box McGregor carries; on screen from 1951 to 1991, she was in five episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "The Manacled," and she was seen on The Twilight Zone and as a regular on The Paper Chase (1978-86). Coincidentally, she also played roles on radio in the 1950s and was in the cast of Fine and Friedkin's "If a Body Need a Body, Just Call Burke and Hare."
• Michael Macready (1932- ) as Jarmley, the medical student who keeps repeating "'I agree'"; he was on TV from 1958 to 1978 and appeared in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970). This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock series.
• William Beckley (1930-2015) as Becker, the medical student who expresses concern about where the bodies come from; born in London, he was on screen from 1962 to 1991. He was on just this one episode of the Hitchcock show and also was seen on Batman and Night Gallery. He was a regular on the series, Dynasty (1982-1989).
• Janine Gray (1942- ) as the second young woman selling matches; born Janine Glass in Bombay, India, she had a brief career on screen from 1960-69 and also appeared on The Avengers. Her blond, blue-eyed beauty assured that her photos would be associated with this episode, even though her part is small.
• Harriett Harper (1942- ) as Glynis, the woman with Hare in the scene where Burke and Hare drink and watch two young women dance; she was on screen from 1963 to 1973 and later married director Nicholas Roeg.
• Iris Bristol (1931- ) as Rosie, the young woman with Burke in the same scene; she made some appearances on screen between 1961-64 but is mainly known as a model in men's magazines, pinups, and nude films.

"The McGregor Affair" is not yet available on U.S. DVD but may be viewed online here.

Sources:

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

"If A Body Needs A Body Just Call Burke And Hare: Crime Classics: Crime: Old Time Radio Downloads." If A Body Needs A Body Just Call Burke And Hare | Crime Classics | Crime | Old Time Radio Downloads, www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/crime/crime-classics/if-a-body-needs-a-body-just-call-burke-and-hare-1953-xx-xx.

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

"The McGregor Affair." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 3, episode 7, NBC, 23 Nov. 1964.

"Obituary of Sidney Rowland: Poulson-Van Hise Funeral Home." Poulson & Van Hise Funeral Directors -..., poulsonvanhise.com/tribute/details/835/Sidney-Rowland/obituary.html.

Rowland, Sidney. "The McGregor Affair." Butcher, Baker, Murder-Maker, Alfred A. Knopf, 1954, pp. 272–282.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Feb. 2020, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: "Crimson Witness," starring Peter Lawford, Martha Hyer, and Joanna Moore!

Star Spangled DC War Stories Issue 179: December 1976--The Final Battle!

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

Kubert

G.I. Combat 197

"Battle Ark"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Sam Glanzman

"No Grave for a Spy"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Peter: Jeb receives a garbled message from command, something about a lamb at Lamaux, then the ghostly General gives Jeb an even more cryptic message about saving the lamb from the tiger. As the poor commander is digesting all these semi-messages, the tank approaches a small boy standing in the snow, holding a lamb, asking for a ride to Lamaux. An epiphany hits Jeb Stuart (the tank commander) like a bag of stale French pastries! The tank picks up the boy and rolls on. Very soon, they run across a young girl standing in the snow, holding what appears to be a blanketed child, asking for a ride to Lamaux. The "Battle Ark" stops, picks up the girl, and rolls on.

"Battle Ark"

Reaching Lamaux, they discover that the town is in ruins and guarded by a German Tiger. More light bulbs appear over Jeb's penciled skull. While our favorite tank commander is pondering their significance, the Tiger opens fire, but our boys are too smart and, through a little trickery, they send the Tiger to tank heaven. The pretty young girl unwraps her bundle, revealing a stained glass lamb for the church window. Another mission accomplished for the Haunted Taxi.

"No Grave for a Spy"

Sad that that would be my last impression of Bob Kanigher's mighty Haunted Tank and its crew but, of course, any originality, suspense, or character development was thrown by the wayside years before. The Sam Glanzman run has been particularly brutal but, going over my notes, the series as a whole never showed much growth outside of the core principle: a ghost that haunts a tank. That General has been disposable 90% of the time anyway (the only example to the contrary I can think of, off the top of my head, would be the "Alaric" arc in #161-162, where the General took part in the battle), so most of these scripts could be straight-ahead war stories. We covered 108 Haunted Tank stories and the series would continue until G.I. Combat was discontinued in March 1987 (288 issues!). The "OSS" back-up, "No Grave for a Spy," is about an undercover agent searching for Rommel's fuel cache in the blazing desert. It's an exciting little thriller with decent art by Estrada. The "OSS" series would, likewise, continue for years in the title.

Jack: As usual, the best thing about this issue of G.I. Combat is Joe Kubert's cover. The Haunted Tank story is just a retread of what we've read dozens of times before, with Sam Glanzman art that barely seems professional. This was the worst continuing series we had to suffer through. I didn't think the backup story was exciting and I won't miss Ric Estrada's art, though it's better than Glanzman's. The coming attractions for issue 200 say there will be a crossover with Sgt. Rock and the Losers. I'll have to imagine how that went!

Kubert

Our Army at War 299

"Three Soldiers"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Frank Redondo

"Death Salute"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ric Estrada

Jack: "Three Soldiers" have just joined Easy Co., and their nicknames are Rabbit, Heavy, and Stevedore. Rabbit is tall, thin, and nervous, while Heavy is short, fat, and apprehensive. Only the muscular Stevedore seems ready for action. Easy Co. is shelled and the three new men are buried alive in rubble; when they are dug out, only Stevedore seems unshaken.

Bulldozer helps Rabbit while Jackie Johnson helps Heavy. A surprise attack by a German machine gun nest in some woods causes Rock to take the lead and fight back, but who is behind him supplying much-needed cover fire? It's Rabbit, who suddenly found his courage when he saw Rock in danger. Similar heroics issue from Heavy when Rock is injured during a battle at a bridge over the Rhone. Finally, it's Stevedore's turn, but he freezes up during a fight with a Nazi tank and Rock saves him, explaining after the smoke clears that each man reacts to trauma differently, and Stevedore's reaction to being buried alive took time to manifest itself.

"Three Soldiers"

As our last Sgt. Rock story, "Three Soldiers" is a pretty good one. In it, Kanigher demonstrates that he knows how to set up a situation and play it out as expected. I was hoping that he wouldn't go down the obvious path of having Stevedore be the one who wasn't able to fight when the chips were down but, at this stage in Big Bob's extremely long career of writing comics, I guess surprises may have been behind him. Still, it's a tale well told and the character of Rock, along with his regular supporting cast, continues to make this series better than anything we're seeing from the Haunted Tank.

A young man whose father was killed in a WWI air battle grows up dreaming of avenging his Pop, so when he becomes a fighter pilot in WWII and visits an outdoor museum of WWI planes, he has a strange experience. When he climbs into a Spad and takes flight, is it a dream? When a Fokker Triplane confronts him and he battles it, is he imagining things? When his gun jams and he faces certain death, what the heck is going on? In the end, he seems to be flying alone in the sky, still alive, with no sign of the enemy ace. Yet his recurring nightmare will now end.

Stories about WWI air battles have often been the highlight of our journey through the DC War Comics, but "Death Salute" is not one of them, mainly due to the overly cartoony art of Ric Estrada. Kanigher's Gallery of War stories have been up and down, sometimes providing much-needed adult relief from the more childish lead stories in the comics, but Estrada is no George Evans and his depictions of WWI planes are not impressive.

"Death Salute"

Peter: Our last Rock to ponder on this voyage is, sadly, a predictable one. The minute you meet two scared chickens and a pompous bully, you know who's going to come out on top, in Kanigher's world, by the end of the story. Yeah, it's as textbook as Kanigher ever got, but it still has a bit of charm to it and Frank Redondo edges more and more toward a Heath influence rather than Kubert. To be totally honest, I couldn't make heads or tails of "Death Salute." So, the kid loses his nightmare because the ace who slew his father in battle gives him a pass in his dream? Okay. An odd "Gallery of War," then.

Our Army at War changed its title to Sgt. Rock with #302 and had a long and healthy life, outlasting all the other war titles. It was finally put to rest with #422 in July 1988 (the final issue was penciled by Joe Kubert and inked by his son Adam!). Jack and I dissected 207 Rock stories, if my tally is correct. Rock continues to be a major player in the DC Universe, resurfacing now and then in some mini-series (Kubert's The Prophecy from 2006) or guest appearance. Robert Kanigher died in 2002; though I poked and prodded Big Bob all during our journey, I stand in awe at the body of work he produced. Thousands and thousands of scripts for characters such as Wonder Woman and the Flash and, of course, for the war line. You might say he was the Stan Lee of War Comics.

Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 170

"A Bullet for the General"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by George Evans

"Marines Are Born Not Made"
Story by Murray Boltinoff
Art by E.R. Cruz

Jack: The Chinese Army is spending too much time chasing a murderous, looting warlord named General Lin, so they don't have enough manpower to go after the Japanese Army. The Losers are assigned the task of finding and executing General Lin! Ona wants to help, but she is told that it's no place for a girl and she must stay behind.

The Losers are flown into China, where they meet up with Captain Yang, a secret agent from General Lin's staff, who will help them locate the general. Moving through the snowy landscape on horseback, the Losers witness the atrocity of men, women, and children who rebelled against General Lin and were murdered on the spot. When the Losers finally reach the general's camp, they are shocked to discover that he is a woman and the sister of Captain Yang! None of the Losers can bring themselves to execute a girl, but when Lin tries to escape, "A Bullet for the General" is conveniently provided by the fearless and merciless Ona, who stowed away on the plane and who has no qualms about shooting and killing a female.

"A Bullet for the General"

Our last Losers story is probably the best thing we'll read this month, mainly because of George Evans's dynamic art. Kanigher's script includes sexism (Ona is left behind and the men can't shoot the female general), racism (the usual nonsense about Japs and chop suey), and just plain stupidity (if they had just tied up General Lin, they could have brought her in with no problem). Still, it's a fun story and a good sendoff for a series that reached some real highs under Severin and some real lows under Kirby.

In Boot Camp, Sarge is frustrated by a new recruit who can't seem to learn to shoot and always misses the target. Proclaiming that "Marines are Born Not Made," Sarge tells the man he'll never succeed. When they ship out, Sarge is disconcerted to see that the man has been assigned to his battalion, but when they hit the beach at Saipan, the same man saves Sarge's life in an unexpected way: he thinks Sarge is an enemy soldier and takes a shot at him, but his aim is so poor that he mistakenly hits a real enemy soldier who was sneaking up behind Sarge!

E.R. Cruz's art elevates this four-page quickie above the disposable level into an amusing story where Sarge learns a lesson.

"Marines are Born Not Made"

Peter: The second that Ona is put in her place as a weak woman, you know who's going to ride to the Losers' rescue. But the dame's explanation of how she came to be in the right place at the right time doesn't float for me. Just another silly coincidence in this series, which we leave now after having lived through 48 installments, both very good (the Severin run) and very bad (take a bow, King Kirby). As with the Haunted Tank, I'm not sure this series ever lived up to its potential but then, at times, it was surely better than the Gunner and Sarge strip that preceded it. Speaking of Sarge, I mistakenly believed that "Marines Are Born Not Made" was our first glance at the origin of the Gunner and Sarge team but, alas, that was not to be. OFF will see only 11 more issues (all performed by the same Kanigher-Evans team) before feeling the ax in October 1978. In hindsight, I think the most interesting use of the Losers as a team was by Darwyn Cooke in The New Frontier, an "alternative history of the DC Universe," wherein the team is sent to the War That Time Forgot island on a top-secret mission. In Cooke's vision, the entire squad is wiped out by dinosaurs.

Jack Sparling & Vince Colletta

Weird War Tales 49

"The Face of the Enemy"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Leopoldo Duranona

"A Rite to Die!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ricardo Villamonte

"The Day After Doomsday!"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Steve Ditko & Vince Colletta

"Mark of the Conqueror"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ernie Chan & Bill Draut

Peter: In a remote German village, a small platoon of soldiers get the word that the war is over. They round up surrendering Nazis but the town's burgermeister refuses to surrender and insists the Germans will fight until they're dead. At that moment, a grenade is hurled at the soldiers and the captain is wounded. One of the G.I.s, Moore, a soldier who has never killed, takes chase, hoping the assailant will give up peacefully. Alas, the German fires on Moore and the G.I. is forced to kill him. Upon inspection, Moore finds that the Nazi is a young boy. Not only have we seen the plot of "The Face of the Enemy" umpteen times (especially in the Sgt. Rock strip), but we also must question what's so weird about a young Nazi? Sick, I'll admit, but not weird or supernatural.

"The Face of the Enemy"

In "A Rite to Die!" a murderous Nazi seeks shelter in a church, only to find it harbors priests of the black arts. Well, we should be happy they weren't vampires, right? A young hippie hears a rock band playing on "The Day After Doomsday!" How can that be, since he's the last man left on Earth? Well, it turns out the rock band is a trio of guitar-strumming mutants giving off radioactivity and the hippie dies from the exposure. No, seriously. Do you see the smile creeping across my face as I realize this is the last Day After Doomsday I ever have to read?  In a distant future (or on another planet), a dictator wipes out all rebels in hopes he can hand his rule to his son one day. "Mark of the Conqueror" is mind-numbingly dumb. It's never clear whether this is our future or not, but Oleck was obviously riffing on the Planet of the Apes films here, as this world is ruled by gorillas. There's a twist at the end but it's a cheat, as most of the information is withheld from us until the moment of the "shock."

An awful issue to complete our look at Weird War Tales, but then if I survey my notes, I can tell you that of the 139 stories published in WWT that I reviewed, only 39 received a 2.5-3.5 rating (none received the full four stars) so it was, sadly, a very average issue. WWT would see another 75 issues published, with the final number appearing in June 1983. The title continued its anthology format until #93, when a series known as the Creature Commandos ran sporadically through to the final issue. Now a bit of a cult oddity, the CC was a G.I.-style outfit made up of a werewolf, a vampire, a Frankenstein-like monster, a Gorgon, and the human Lt. Shrieve. Though I'm bound to regret it, I can see returning someday to cover the feature, possibly for the new print bare bones.

Jack: And that ends our mission! The last issue of Weird War Tales we read is suitably awful, from the predictable end to "The Face of the Enemy" all the way to the predictable end to "Mark of the Conqueror." Duranona's art in the first story is decent, but Ditko's work on the two-pager is a letdown. It's a toss-up as to whether this comic or the Haunted Tank series was worse at this point. I'd have to hand the title to the Haunted Tank, since it's just so bad, issue after issue, while a fairly good story sneaks into WWT every now and then.

THE BEST OF 1976

PETER

Best Script: Robert Kanigher, "The Execution" (Blitzkrieg 3)

Best Art: Gerry Talaoc, "The Henschel Gambit" (Star Spangled War Stories 197)

Best All-Around Story: "The Execution"

Worst Script: "The Gunner is a Gorilla" (G.I. Combat 189)

Worst Art: Literally anything by Sam Glanzman

Worst All-Around Story: "The Gunner is a Gorilla"

FIVE BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR 

  1 "The Execution" 

  2 "Target for Tonight--Me" (G.I. Combat 192)

  3 "The Henschel Gambit" (Star Spangled War Stories 197)

  4 "Shooting Star" (Star Spangled War Stories 200)

  5 "The Enemy" (Blitzkrieg 1)

JACK 

Best Script: "The Henschel Gambit" by David Michelinie

Best Art: "The Line" by Frank Redondo and Joe Kubert (Our Army at War 289)

Best All-Around Story: "The Line" by Robert Kanigher, Frank Redondo, and Joe Kubert

Worst Script: "The War That Time Forgot" by Robert Kanigher (G.I. Combat 195)

Worst Art: "The Gunner is a Gorilla" by Sam Glanzman

Worst All-Around Story: "The Blitzkrieg Brain!" (G.I. Combat 194)

FIVE BEST STORIES OF THE YEAR 

  1 "The Line"

  2 "The Rowboat Fleet" (Our Fighting Forces 165)

  3 "The Henschel Gambit"

  4 "Death Ride" (Star Spangled War Stories 200)

  5 "The Cure" (Star Spangled War Stories 202)

THE TEN BEST DC WAR STORIES 1959-1976

Peter: You might say, how the heck could you pull ten stories out of the more than 1500 we dissected over the last seven years (over 700 issues reviewed--you try that!) but, by golly, we did it! What I took away from this long journey is that the highs were really high but the lows were pretty low. There was only a small percentage of the DC war output that was egregiously awful, so the revelations of Kubert, Heath, and Talaoc are what I will remember.

Jack: What struck me in looking back over 17 years of DC War Comics was the precipitous decline in quality as the '70s wore on. Losing Kubert as a regular contributor to the inside of the books was a devastating blow; losing Heath also hurt. Replacing them with the likes of Sam Glanzman just didn't cut it. The consistently high level of quality in the '60s was impressive. Sure, there were a lot of bad stories, but there were a lot of good ones too and more than a few great ones. The late '60s were probably the most creative period, in my opinion.

PETER

Favorite All-Time Cover (Peter)

  1 "Killer of the Skies" (Showcase 57, August 1965)

  2 "Death Whispers... Death Screams" (Star Spangled 139, July 1968)

  3 "The Only Survivor" (Our Fighting Forces 87, October 1964)

  4 "Enemy Ace" (Our Army at War 151, February 1965) 

  5 "Battle Window" (G.I. Combat 102, November 1963)

  6 "The Slayers and the Slain" (Star Spangled 138, May 1968)

  7 "Burma Sky" (Our Fighting Forces 146, January 1974)

  8 "Danger Sniper" (G.I. Combat 89, September 1961)

  9 "Vengeance is a Harpy" (Star Spangled 142, January 1969)

10 "Head Count" (Our Army at War 233, June 1971)

Best Writer: Robert Kanigher
Best Artist: Russ Heath

JACK

Favorite All-Time Cover (Jack)

  1 "End of Easy!" (Our Army at War 101, December 1960)
  2 "Easy's Had It" (Our Army at War 103, February 1961)

  3 "Dogtag Hero" (Our Fighting Forces 67, April 1962)

  4 "Sergeants Aren't Born--!" (Showcase 45, August 1963)

  5 "Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!" (The Brave and the Bold 52, March 1964)

  6 "What's the Color of Your Blood?" (Our Army at War 160, November 1965)

  7 "A Penny for Jackie Johnson" (Our Army at War 179, April 1967)

  8 "Death Whispers--Death Screams"

  9 "Vengeance is a Harpy!"

 10 "3 Graves to Home!" (Star Spangled War Stories 150, May 1970)

Best Writer: Robert Kanigher
Best Artist: Joe Kubert

Next Week...
Corben Magic
and the Bruce Jones era begins!

And in Two Weeks...
After a Seven-Year Hiatus
Jack and Peter revisit the Dark Knight!

Journey Into Strange Tales! Atlas/ Marvel Horror Issue 58

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 43

May 1953 Part II
by Peter Enfantino

Everett

 Men's Adventures #21

"The Eye of Maru!" (a: Joe Sinnott) ★★★
"My Brother Must Die" (a: Carmine Infantino) ★1/2
(r: Chamber of Chills #19) 
"The Secret of the Flying Saucer!" (a: Fred Kida) ★
"He Makes Me Kill!" (a: Gil Evans) ★
"The Silent One!" (a: Fred Kida) ★1/2

After 20 issues of dynamic tales of war, suspense, adventure, and espionage, Men's Adventures joins our little party for a short while. MA began life (in the usual 1950s style) as a different book all together, with the first two issues titled True Western (December 1949) and the third, True Adventure. The three most popular genres in 1950s funny books were war, western, and horror/SF and MA filled all three bills at one time or another. Issues 4-10 leaned heavily on tepid adventure and commie threat tales but #11 saw the introduction of strong warfare dramas, penciled by Heath, Reinman, Sinnott, and Colan. With #21, MA dips its toe into the horror stream and will devote its contents to the eerie and supernatural for the next six issues before giving way to Torch, Cap and Namor for its final two issues.

Marlowe visits his old friend, Dr. Hawley, and is surprised to see how well he's doing. Nice house, nice clothes, servants... what's the secret. Hawley lets on that, while on an expedition in Africa, he had stumbled upon a tribe of natives that were going through a rough patch, health-wise. Hawley administered aid and the tribesmen recovered fully. To show their gratitude, the natives handed over a chest full of gold and gems and also a stone hand, "The Eye of Maru!" With their gift, they give Hawley a message: The Eye of Maru knows who is good at heart and who is evil.

Marlowe is intrigued and heads into the jungles of Africa to get his share of the booty. He beats his native guides to the bone, hustling them on, and they finally arrive. When Marlowe demands to see their leader, he's led into a small hut and inside is an old man. Marlowe raises his pistol, tells the old man what he wants, and orders him to raise his hands. Bad idea. Though the story of the black-hearted explorer is fast rising the charts of "Overused Atlas Horror Device" (#3 with a bullet), "The Eye of Maru!" has one thing going for it: the flawless Joe Sinnott art. Yes, this guy has been good in the past but here he seems to be presenting his case that, yes, he belongs in the conversation when Top Tier is being discussed. It's very Heath-ian and yet also quite distinctive, with Joe relying heavily on ink to convey atmosphere.

"My Brother Must Die" is yet another reminder that Atlas was in the business of reminding the little kids who the enemy was and how evil that entire country was. The Petroff Brothers must kill each other to prove their loyalty to the party and, hopefully, become part of the secret police. The uncredited writer (though I'd put a twenty down on Stan based on past experience) amps up the cut-throat nature of the Reds to the point of lunacy and then puts a very small supernatural bow on the package with an epilogue that finds all three feuding brothers in the after-life, musing on how purgatory is preferable to Mother Russia. Absolute drivel but for the work of Carmine Infantino, an artist who gets bad-mouthed quite a bit but who I find to have been a very unique talent. Carmine walked the line between scratchy and polished very well.

"The Secret of the Flying Saucer" is a disposable bit of fluff about a couple of clam-diggers who ponder whether clams have intelligence and then are scooped up by a UFO. The saucer tells the men, as it swallows them, that clams are going to take over the world. Stan loved to write these scripts based on huge coincidences but very few of them actually work. Equally lame (and bizarre) is "He Makes Me Kill!" about a hired gun who kills every night on orders from his mob boss. One night, he's ordered to murder a cop but the hit goes wrong and, rather than a long stint on Ryker's, the guy offs himself. It's at this point that we discover the narrator was actually the guy's gun! "He Makes Me Kill!" is the Atlas horror debut of Gil Evans, who contributed mostly to the Atlas combat titles over a span of two years and then disappeared. He'll make four more appearances here; his work is not bad, certainly preferable to Kida or Sedowsky.

The final story this issue is another loser, "The Silent One!," about Hugh, a con man who works his way into the confidence of a brilliant professor in order to gain access to the egghead's incredible inventions. When the doc's beautiful assistant catches the eye of Hugh, plans get sidetracked. The idea that a con man would go to such elaborate measures (including a phony resume that dazzles and fools the obviously not-so-bright professor) for a shot at unknown treasures of science is laughable.

Heath

 Mystic #20

"The Witch and I" ★★
"The Door That Never Opens" (a: George Oleson) ★★1/2
"The Slaves!" (a: Ed Winiarski) ★
"In the Wake of the Werewolf" (a: Sam Kweskin) ★
"His Dead Wife!" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★★

The Count Orescu has ruled over his small Romanian village with a iron hand, mostly due to the fact that his mother is a witch and she's offed all her son's enemies. Now, on her dying bed, the old witch gives her son her last charm, a faceless doll she claims is the Count's worst enemy. The witch dies and Orescu cheerfully burns the doll at the stake and screams in agony as his own body goes up in smoke.

The twist at the climax of "The Witch and I" is a welcome one since the first three-and-a-half pages are dull and the (uncredited) art is generic and crowded by dense text. The GCD puts forth a guess that the artist might be Art Peddy and, judging by a comparison of his other work, I'd say that's a very good guess.

George Oleson contributes some solid work to "The Door That Never Opens," a horror story formed around the building of the Bastille. The sadistic Provost of Paris tricks a kindly abbot into becoming the prison guard at the Bestille but the religious man has a trick of his own up his sleeve and Paris is soon looking for a new Provost. Though "The Door That Never Opens" has basis in reality, it's not dry or scholarly and its "just desserts" finale is a nasty one. "The Slaves" is a short-short about a strangler whose hands are narrating the story. The reveal is treated as if it's a surprise but anyone paying attention is hip to the gimmick from the start.

Burglar Larry Coe is ripping off an old house (oddly, it's more like a castle!) when he hears a scream and goes to investigate. An elderly couple is chasing a gorgeous (at least she's described as gorgeous in the text!) blonde around with a wooden stake, claiming the girl is a vampire and must be destroyed. Coe grabs the dame and heads upstairs to hide but at the stroke of midnight his pursuers transform into werewolves. He turns and discovers the blonde is a werewolf as well. Surprise! With a title like "In the Wake of the Werewolf," you can kinda guess a lycanthrope will make an appearance but not as the big reveal! Sam Kweskin is not an artist who should have been assigned to a horror story or a story featuring human beings, for that matter. Easily the worst story of the month.

Kindly Janush gifts his townsfolk with as much food as they can eat even though the Nazis are fast approaching. Janush can think only of the beautiful and young Estella, promised to him in matrimony by her grateful father. Estella and Janush are soon married and begin the long trek up the hill to Janush's castle but, the next day, sad news comes to the villagers: Estella had died on her wedding night. Janush becomes inconsolable and spends every waking hour at her coffin in the living room. Meanwhile, the Allied planes arrive to the delight of the villagers but their excitement turns to terror as Nazi anti-aircraft blows them from the sky. Somewhere in this village resides a traitor who is tipping off the Nazis with a wireless transmitter!

The entire village is searched but no machine is found. Finally, the authorities make it up to Castle Janush but their top-to-bottom search is for naught. As the police are leaving, Estella's ghost appears and tells the officers to open the coffin lid. They do so and discover it is Janush who has been alerting the Germans; Estella's coffin is a wireless! "His Dead Wife!" is an extremely odd and unsettling little story. The fact that Janush would murder the lovely Estella simply to create a safe place for the transmitter is evil in and of itself but then where is the woman's body? Tony DiPreta puts in another simple but effective job; Estella's ghost is a creepy figure indeed.

Everett

 Mystery Tales #11

"I Can't Stop Running!" (a: Sam Kweskin) ★★1/2
(r: Chamber of Chills #9)
"Love Affair" (a: Mike Sekowsky & Christopher Rule) ★★
(r: Crypt of Shadows #16)
"The Spice of Life!" (a: Al Eadah) ★★
(r: Where Monsters Dwell #24)
"Blackmail!" (a: Bill Benulis & Jack Abel) ★
(r: Giant-Size Man-Thing #3)
"Hang Until Dead!" (a: John Forte) ★★1/2


Master thief Marty Sneed heads into the town of Winton to search for Jasper Kane, owner of the exquisite Flame of Midnight diamond. The locals are averse to talking about the old man, other than to tell Sneed to turn back in the direction he came from and avoid the doom that awaits him. Rather than flee, Sneed finds the mystery tantalizing.

Once he finally finds the shack of Jasper Kane, he tortures the old man into giving up the location of the diamond. Believing Kane to be dead, Sneed enters a dark room and ascends an endless set of stairs. Suddenly, from behind him, the door closes and he realizes he's on a treadmill and the door has been replaced with a set of long, sharp spikes. When he stops walking, he'll be cut into ribbons.

"I Can't Stop Running!" is an odd and meandering little shocker that works because of, rather in spite of, its goofiness. There's no real line between Point A and Point B here; we never discover why Jasper Kane has "passed out" the stories of the diamond in order to lure victims to his house. He just does. Sam Kweskin's art is so much more effective here than in the "Wake of the Werewolf" story above but that might be because his style lends to stories set in dark houses.

"Love Affair" is about a gorgeous blonde, Diana, who has a crush on her boss. She's also got a convict husband who's about to be paroled and is about as jealous as they come. What Diana doesn't know is that her boss, George, has a hankering for her as well. Though the two never disclose their secret fondness for each other, they meet in each other's dreams. Unfortunately, so does Diana's husband who puts a bullet into George's head. The climax, where the "Dream George" is ventilated but the "Real George" shows the damage as well, doesn't really stand up to scrutiny but the story itself is not bad, in fact, it's rather charming. The Sekowsky/Rule art is about as generic as it comes, not awful but certainly not inspiring.

Bored to death and searching for "The Spice of Life," gazillionaire Ed Bean offers one million in cold hard cash to the person who can suggest something for Bean to do that he's never done before. A creepy old man shows up and tells Bean to bring the cash to his house the next night and he'll do something he's never done before. When Bean gets to the old man's ramshackle cobwebbed shack, he's tricked into affixing himself to a wall and the loon comes at Bean with a hatchet, informing him that he's about to do something he's never done before... die! "Blackmail!" is a silly bit of nonsense about a banker who's being blackmailed by an old friend who knew him in his younger days... as an inmate in prison. Now the guy wants some dough to keep his trap shut. Extremely silly climax finds the banker convincing his blackmailer he's poisoned him and getting the results he'd hoped for.

On death row, Harvey Emmet is scheduled to be the last man hanged in Greystone Prison before the facility is closed. But Harvey has other ideas. Using his keen mind, Harvey has been hoarding materials in his cell and is building another Harvey to take his place on the gallows. Once the guards take the fake Harvey to be hanged, the real McCoy slips out from his hiding place in his cell but discovers that the door has been locked. He watches quietly as his dummy is hanged and no one is the wiser. Unfortunately, the warden and his men leave the abandoned prison immediately afterward and Harvey Emmet is alone in his locked cell. Well, he's not alone for long. His dummy rises from the grave to keep him company.

"Hang Until Dead" is the type of story we pre-code horror funny book nuts would describe as "pure nirvana," a story so off kilter and lacking in common sense that you can't help but smile. Harvey's stash of materials for the dummy is amazing; in one panel, we see him using what appears to be a paint brush to apply makeup to the plaster head. Why the dummy comes to life at the end is anyone's guess. If I thought a Carl Wessler script could be deep, I would suggest that loneliness brought on the arrival but I assume it was just Carl saying "I've got it!" and tacking on a supernatural fade-out. In any case, it works.

Uncredited

 Uncanny Tales #8

"Bring Back My Face" (a: John Forte) ★
"Gravedigger's Ghost" (a: George Roussos) ★
"Day of Execution" (a: Joe Maneely) ★1/2
"If I Look I'll Go Mad" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★★
"The Big Blow-Up" (a: Mike Sekowsky) ★★★

Commie Yasha Mogoff is in love with Sonya, a beautiful but heartless Russkie (but then all Russians are heartless, correct, Stan?), who is in love with her Science teacher. Yasha concocts a soap that removes all features and leaves it in the Professor's washroom, hoping he'll have a chance with Sonya once she sees her beau has no nose, eyes, or mouth. Unfortunately for the dumb Red, a couple scientists happen upon a bit of Yasha's discarded formula and, figuring it to be a way to make soap even cheaper, put it into mass distribution. Yasha is caught and executed for treason by a squadron of faceless soldiers.

If it weren't for Stan's history of Red-baiting scripts, you could almost label "Bring Back My Face" as satire but I've a feeling Stan (in his editorial wisdom) was again trying to simultaneously sell a boatload of funny books and edjacate the nation's youth to the horrors of communism (Yasha grew up to be the perfect communist! He was stupid, narrow-minded, and bigoted! And he developed the perfect face to go with his perfect communistic personality... he became as ugly as sin...). "Bring Back..." reaches levels of ludicrosity only hinted at in Stan's previous diatribes (Russkies are shot, beaten, or threatened with Siberia in pert near every
panel) but more importantly the story is a bore. John Forte holds up his end of the job though, producing adequate graphics. Forte will become something of a regular, contributing 38 horror and fantasy stories during the Atlas pre-code era.

"Gravedigger's Ghost" is a disposable bit of nonsense about a cemetery worker who talks with ghosts, much to the chagrin of his employer. The boss makes the grunt promise never to talk to ghosts again and then meets with an untimely death. When his spectre appears in the cemetery, the worker honors the promise. More Stan Lee-scripted fluff, but at least with a Maneely glaze adorned to it, is "Day of Execution," whose hook (we assume the narrator is heading to the electric chair to die but he's actually the executioner) has been used countless times, and probably will be again.

Norton gets a new pair of glasses but, when he dons them, he sees hideous creatures all around him. No one else sees them, though, and Norton is institutionalized in an asylum. He hangs himself and we learn that the creatures he's seeing are simply microscopic insects not monsters. The idea behind "If I Look, I'll Go Mad!" is cute (a variation on Robert Bloch's classic short story, "The Cheaters," from the November 1947 issue of Weird Tales) but, when you stop to think about it, it makes very little sense. Why isn't everything else Norton sees magnified to huge dimensions?  Still, it's certainly better than the three awful stories that preceded it.

"International underworld boss" Alyov Krinsky has assembled a crack team of shady characters in order to pull off the crime of the century. Unfortunately, Alyov isn't like most commies; he has a soft spot in his heart for the big dope named Boris, who once took a bullet for Alyov. Now, Krinsky tries to find odd jobs for Boris in order to keep him busy. Krinsky's plan is to have a pilot skywrite over the city a threat to drop an A-bomb; when the panic clears, the city will be empty and he and his thugs can steal to their hearts' content. Message written in the sky, city cleared out, Alyov and his crew empty out as many banks as they can. Suddenly Alyov notices something falling out of the plane and, as the A-bomb explodes, he really wishes he'd hired someone a little more reliable than Boris.

"The Big Blow-Up" is a helluva fun ride, ostensibly scripted by Stan (there's a book on Alyov's shelf that is "authored" by Stan Lee and we know all too well how dumb the Reds are in a Stan script, right?), that ends off with a great big guffaw. I've mentioned that I'm cold to Mike Sekowsky's work for DC but, again, he's aces here. The art has a simplistic, but effective style; think Alex Toth via Carmine Infantino.

Heath

Strange Tales #18

"John Doe!" (a: Joe Maneely) ★★1/2
"The Saucers Strike!" (a: George Tuska) ★★★
"Witch-Hunt!" (a: Larry Woromay & Matt Fox) ★★★
"Boris and the Bomb!" (a: Gene Colan) ★★★★

Professor von Klicht has but one goal in his life and that's to make a thinking robot. HIs fellow professors scoff and even his gorgeous daughter, Erika (who's dating a mafia hood), thinks he's off his rocker but von Klicht puts the pedal to the metal and begins work. Crafting an "exact copy of a human brain" to put in the steel man's dome obviously does the trick since, after a good dose of electricity, the robot is up and humming. The Prof. christens his new toy, "John Doe" and, finally, he receives the acclaim he rightly deserves.

Another new number one fan is Danny Slade, the mobster, who sees infinite possibilities open up with John. He nabs the Prof's daughter and John and heads out on the highway but, when he threatens his girl with a bullet, John Doe tears him to pieces. Danny's final bullets destroy John's brain and the Professor, when he arrives on the scene, wells up in tears.

It's no secret what Stan was reading the week he wrote "John Doe!" I'm surprised he didn't punctuate the "homage" with the title, "I, John Doe!" The Adam Link stories wouldn't appear in EC until 1955 so I'll give Stan credit for reading "real books" for his inspiration. Cribbing aside, the story is not bad and the art has a super Maneely sheen to it. I'd have loved to see Erika get her comeuppance in the end as she was the starting pistol for the unfortunate events that round out the story. She can't stand her pop, she's bored to death, and she's in love with a killer. This is one instance when the guilty party goes free in the Atlas Universe.

"The Saucers Strike!" begins as does just about every Atlas UFO tale, with a couple of farmers in a field witnessing the coming of aliens. But that's where the similarities end and, thankfully, this story heads down a more humorous alley. The aliens send out a weird sort of beam that is supposed to analyze our structure and help them to develop a "death ray" to conquer Earth but these are the BEMs that couldn't shoot straight and the beam hits a pitchfork.

The ensuing armada lands and its leader gives his ultimatum: surrender Earth or die a painful, fiery death. Luckily, they've landed in the field of a particularly strong-headed (and weirdly philosophical) farmer who tells the alien if he doesn't get his craft off his goldarned corn field he's going to get a knuckle sandwich. The spaceman fires his weapon and nothing happens and Farmer John lets one loose, killing the alien with one blow. Knowing they're licked, the invasion force heads back to their own world. A genuinely funny little sci-fi tale, with an almost Boy's Life vibe to it, "The Saucers Strike!" also comes complete with (what I think is) George Tuska's best art for the Atlas pre-codes so far. There's an obvious photo-realism going on here but, overall, the art is dynamic and exciting. Farmer John's monologue at the beginning of the story is a hoot.

An 18th-Century European village is terrorized by demons and an old witch is summoned to drive them away. With the help of a magic powder, all evil is banished but, once the dust settles, the old witch is brought before a nobleman and accused of dabbling in witchcraft. As the woman is burned at the stake, we see the nobleman's hooves below his robe. Stunning Matt Fox art (with an assist by Larry Woromay) is the highlight of "Witch-Hunt!," a very good Paul S. Newman-scripted shocker. Newman was a prolific writer who worked for most of the major publishers in the 1950s (pumping out hundreds of scripts for the war and western titles) and contributed over 40 stories to the Atlas pre-codes. That final panel is a killer!

At the testing of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb all systems are go until the countdown is finished and the bomb doesn't detonate. The only man capable of finding out what happened is Commie scientist Boris Kuzov. When he's gotten to the bottom of the problem he informs his higher-ups that the bomb has been deactivated and that the base is safe again. They'll try again the next day. As the "tens of thousands of people... politicians, soldiers, scientists..." flock back to the base, Kuzov announces on a loudspeaker that he is a Democratic sympathizer and that his entire family was wiped out by the Soviets and today he will finally get justice.  Turns out Kuzov had actually programmed the hiccup and has now reactivated the bomb. Our final panel shows ten square miles of incineration.

Wow! Very powerful anti-Commie propaganda. The Reds are again portrayed as lying, cheating, murdering scum - which they may have been - in the time-honored Stan Lee tradition. I don't pretend to know what the Russians were like in the early 1950s but I have to believe that we, as a country, had our faults as well. You won't find too many Stan Lee stories about the evils of the American government but then he was being paid to write this stuff at the height of the McCarthy witch hunts. Don't get me wrong, it's a taut, unnerving five pages, some of the best Lee has written (if it is Stan, that is). Obviously, I'm once again heavily swayed by the unstoppable Gene Colan, who can say so much more than words with his pictures. Overall, an outstanding issue of Strange Tales!

In Two Weeks...