Number 1461: Horror without the horrible

Only a few more days until Halloween. Fill up those candy bowls for the visiting trick-or-treaters, but save the best stuff for yourself. Pappy's rule for Halloween: the kids get the cheap stuff.

No cheap stuff for you today. I’m showing all the stories from Atlas Comics’ Marvel Tales #119 (1953). The tales run the gamut from a golddigger/serial killer to mummies from outer space to choosing a new life, to...well, read on.

Unlike most horror comics of the era there aren’t any vampires or werewolves, and the mummies aren’t even Egyptian mummies. All in all it’s a fun issue. There is some variety, even humor to some of the stories. Besides the total silliness of the plot of “When the Mummies Rise,” drawn by Russ Heath, there is a shaggy dog joke ending to “They Gave Him a Grave,” illustrated by Larry Woromay. John Forte’s art is perfect for the serial killer story, “Collector’s Item!” I got a laugh out of the Marilyn Monroe panel in “The New Life!” drawn by Al Eadeh. Mac Pakula wraps up the issue with a story of a killer who escapes earthly justice only to find it in space.

I could not help comparing the cover by an unknown artist to an earlier cover by horrormeister Bernard Baily for Mister Mystery #11.

As a morbid child I used to think of what would be the most terrible way to die. High on my list was being buried up to my chin and set upon by ants. Despite having a higher ratio of skulls to head, the Marvel Tales cover is tepid compared to Baily’s.

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Number 1460: The Phantom Ladies

A week ago I showed a story drawn by Frank Borth, and I included the splash panel for his first Phantom Lady story in Police Comics #17 (1943). I have that story today, and you can see what a superb artist Borth was, one of the top-notch talents at Quality Comics. The story, though, is filler; a bit of fluff.

The Phantom Lady, who is Sandra Knight, has a beau named Don, who doesn’t have a lot to do in that first story. He appears again in our second story from Phantom Lady #22 (1949). I don’t know why Phantom Lady, still Sandra Knight, moved from Quality to Fox Features and got a new costume. I assume the reason no one notices Phantom Lady is Sandra is because in those sexy costumes no one is looking at her face.

Sandra’s boyfriend, Don, is back in “The Case of the Robbing Robot,” with more to do in this story. He gets to dress in drag. The story has some humor to it, and is drawn by Jack Kamen in his pre-EC days.

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Number 1459: Shelly’s Hawkman

Sheldon Moldoff did the Hawkman feature for Flash Comics as on-the-job training. He started at age 18, and like many of his peers in those early days of comic books he swiped Flash Gordon poses.

I think the artist who created the costume (Dennis Neville?) put all of the subsequent Hawkman artists in a bind, because drawing him with the hawk head and wings was difficult and unwieldy. Years later the golden age Hawkman was given a superhero mask, but those wings remained.* I think an interesting critique of the Hawkman costume** is from 2011, by a commenter going by the name “meltdownclown” for Booksteve Thompson’s Four Color Shadows blog:

“To me, the wings always looked like rugs.

The wings will always be Hawkman's big problem. Those don't-try-it-at-home-kids nightmares are anchored to the center of his back by a harness that, by rights, should carve him into quarters in the first hard crosswind. And they must be great fun in any narrow space.”

You can see the 1942 story meltdownclown was commenting on in Steve’s blog here.

My post today is from Flash Comics #38 (1943):

*The original costume, hawk head and all, was resurrected by Joe Kubert for the silver age revival.

**Considering we’re talking about a comic book character, and in comic books all rules of realism can be broken.

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