Haunted House Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "House!"

Here's a late Halloween...or on-time Dia De Muertos treat...

...one last haunted house tale to wrap up our Haunted House Reading Room series!

And it's a never-reprinted story at that!

In 1971, the Comics Code loosened restrictions on many of the banned horror comics tropes that caused the "Seduction of the Innocent" witchhunt of the mid-1950s that almost destroyed the comics industry.

Vampires, werewolves, maniac killers, and their ilk, limited to b/w magazines for the last couple of decades, returned to four-color comics...along with adaptations of classic horror stories and new tales by enthusiastic writers and artists who were big EC Comics fans and never thought they'd have a chance to create similar color comics again!
Marvel jumped back into the horror comic business with a slew of new titles like Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein,  Marvel Spotlight (which featured Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider, and Son of Satan, all of whom got their own books),  Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear and then his own title, a revival of Strange Tales with The Golem and Brother Voodoo, and a trio of anthologies, Chamber of Chills (a title used by Harvey Comics in the 1950s), Supernatural Thrillers, and a revival of Journey into Mystery!

Quite a bit of the new material from these anthologies (all of which went reprint in a year or so) has never been reprinted, so when we searched through the archives for rare haunted house-themed stories, this long-unseen tale from Marvel's Journey into Mystery V2#1 (1972) all but jumped up at us!

Enjoy this half-century old bit of long-lost comics history!

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Horror Comics of the 1950s

CoronaVirus Comics GIANT-SIZED DOC SAVAGE "The Man of Bronze" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Hero(s)...

Art by John and Sal Buscema

Learning of his father's death due to a rare disease, adventurer/scientist Doc Savage returns to his headquarters in New York City, where he is greeted by his five associates, each an expert in a different science or discipline.
Suspecting foul play, they are about to read the elder Savage's personal papers to ascertain clues, when an assassination attempt is made on Doc.
The group (except for lawyer Ham, sent on another assignment) now goes in pursuit of the gunman...

To Be Continued...Tomorrow,

back where it began, at...
Hero Histories!

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Doc Savage

The Man of Bronze

How the Black Panther Became the Black LEOPARD...then Went Back to Being the Black PANTHER! Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...The Black Panther changed his name to "Black Leopard" in Fantastic Four #119 (February 1972)...

...then, several months later, changed it back to "Black Panther" in Daredevil #92 (October 1972)...

Why?

When he appeared a month later in Avengers #105 (November 1972)...

...with the first cover caption since 1969 to use his super-hero name...

...even Hawkeye was confused...and the other Avengers were curious as well...

This was Steve Englehart's first Avengers story, and while most of it is Englehart's material, this particular aspect is clearly editor/departing writer Roy Thomas' doing.

Roy is an incredible continuity fan, and has never left a plotline unresolved if he could do something about it!

With this issue, the Panther became a full-time Avenger again until #126...

...when, after kicking a disguised Klaw's ass yet again, he departed for Wakanda to begin his own series in Jungle Action #6 (1973)!

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Essential Avengers

Volume 5
and

Essential Avengers
Volume 6

(reprinting the complete stories we excerpted here...but in black and white!)

Reading Room MARVEL PREVIEW "The Star-Lord: Who He Is and How He Came to Be"

The lead character of the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie (opening tomorrow) was quite different...

...when he debuted in the b/w magazine Marvel Preview #4 (1976)

How different?

Let co-creator Steve Englehart tell you...

You can read a follow-up article by Englehart explaining how things might have proceeded if he had stayed on the strip HERE.