Monday, October 26, 2020

Monday Madness / Halloween Horror THE SPECTRE "Hit and Run!"

Our final pre-Halloween entry...

...is from the final issue of The Spectre's stint as a horror host de-powered from being one of the DC Universe's most powerful characters!
Here's one of the stories you'd find under this kool Nick Cardy cover for DC's Spectre #10 (1969)...
Wow!
No wonder God "demoted" the Spectre!
Writer Steve Skeates and artist Jose Delbo showed that, despite once being a near-omnipotent entity, the Ghostly Guardian is still...only human!
BTW, this issue also had an usual text feature...its' own obituary by DC's resident historian, Mark Hanerfeld!
The Spectre did return, and sacrifice his...existence...to save both Earth One and Earth-Two in the Justice League's annual team-up with the Justice Society in DC's JLA #82-83 (1970).
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The Spectre
(which reprints this tale...but in black-and-white!)

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Space Force Saturdays SPEED CARTER: SPACEMAN "Slaughter on a Star!"

The 1950s, when heroic astronauts fought for Truth, Justice, and the American Way...
...in outer space, as seen in the second (of three) tales from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #1 (1953)!
Y'know, this series has "video game franchise" written all over it!
Written by Hank Chapman, illustrated by Joe Maneely, who managed to jam what, today, would be a multi-issue 100-page-plus series into only five pages...and make it work!

Friday, October 23, 2020

Friday Fun / Humor in a Jugular Vein CRAZY "Zombie!!"

As All Hallows Eve (Halloween to you under-60s) approaches...
...I'm in a "shambling undead" mood, so here's a never-reprinted, tawdry tale about...you know...

For the record, we ran "Wolf Man" last week!

Veteran writer/artist Bill Everett seemed to enjoy going from his usual realistic style to a much more-detailed variation of Bill Elder's work on EC's MAD and Panic, as this story from Atlas' Crazy V1N4 (1954) displays.

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Thursday, October 22, 2020

Reading Room / Halloween Horror UNCANNY TALES "Escape from Mars"

Here's a never-reprinted sci fi/horror tale from the 1950s...
...from a Weird Science/Tales from the Crypt clone!
Illustrated by Joe Sinnott (best known as the inker for a large part of the Fantastic Four's Silver and Bronze Age run), this tale from Atlas' Uncanny Tales #15 (1953) actually has a scientific basis (sort of) for the conclusion!
The Perseid Meteor shower occurs every late summer/early autumn.
The unknown writer of the tale took advantage of that ongoing event to anchor this rather fanciful story in reality.
But, in doing so, the scripter made a major mistake!
Since Mars is much further from the Sun than the Earth, it takes longer (about 1.88 "Earth years") for the Red Planet to orbit the star called Sol!
Unless the Martian calendar's "year" is less time than a complete orbit around the Sun (as ours is), their "September" and ours wouldn't coincide on an annual basis!
Plus, as a morality tale, the story fails miserably!
Spiro (who killed to get the ticket) and his wife, Cinda, get what's coming to them.
But all the other Martians on board the ships are, as far as we know, innocent!
They don't deserve to die!
And Dictator/Scientist Vleben will continue to murder the surplus population without punishment!
One of the great things about the EC Comics sci-fi/horror line was that justice, however bloody and gruesome, was always served!
However, the many clones, like this one, simply "went for the jugular" without the emotionally-satisfying balancing of the scales of justice!
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