Tales from the Crypt #45

Credits:
Cover dated December 1954/January 1955
Cover by Jack Davis

"Telescope" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Carl Wessler
"The Substitute" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Murder Dream" - Art by Bernie Krigstein/Story by Carl Wessler
"The Switch" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Carl Wessler

Outside of the final story, which is one of my favorite EC stories of all time, this is a rather dissappointing issue. It was originally intended to be the final issue of Tales from the Crypt, although one final issue was published, containing the contents of the comic that was originally meant to be EC's fourth horror comic, The Crypt of Terror.

"Telescope" - A man is in a shipwreck; he and a rat are the only ones to survive. Using a piece of driftwood, they manage to make it out and land on a small deserted island made of little more than sand. At first, they provide company for one another, but the lack of clean water and food soon make the two bitter enemies. The man is fearful of sleeping should the rat try to eat him. He also makes attempts to kill the rat so he can eat it. The local natives refuse to come by, believing he is an island devil. One day the man manages to strike a seagull with a fish in its mouth with a rock, but the rat gets to it before he does and starts swallowing it. The man chases the rat back into the ocean and starts eating it himself, but is attacked by a shark. The natives arrive and kill the shark and find a bizarre sight - inside the shark's mouth is the man's head; in his mouth is the rat's head; in its mouth is the bird's head and in it's mouth is the fish's head. Overall this is a so-so story at best and is a bit dragged out; an interesting looking final panel is about the only notable thing in it.

"The Substitute" - A french prisoner named Henri Duval plots to escape from the Penal Colony where he is being held. Henri finds poisonous Hellebore plant and creates himself a poisonous dart out of it and other materials. He then kills the governor of the Penal Colony with the dart and gets it pinned on another prisoner. Henri helps with the construction of a coffin for the governor, which he puts holes in. The night the coffin is to be transported, Henri removes the governor's corpse, mangles it, then gets in the coffin himself, planning to escape once he returns to France. What he doesn't realize is that the governor has been set to be buried at sea, and the coffin is soon thrown into the ocean, resulting in his death by drowning. An alright story, but it is is essentially just a rehash of the story "Escape" from The Vault of Horror #16, with the protagonist dying of drowning instead of being thrown in a crematory.

"Murder Dream" - A man has dreams of trying to rescue a woman named Cathy. Flashbacks reveal Cathy moving into a house in the English countryside with her husband Howard. A caretaker named  Claude also lives there. Further flashbacks showing Howard preparing to go away. The dreams continue as our protagonist tries to save Cathy, who is seen being murdered by Claude, an axe wielding maniac. Eventually our protagonist sees Cathy sitting by a coffin. He awakes and heads to Cathy and the coffin, which contains Howard. Our protagonist, revealed to be Claude, grabs ahold of Cathy and kills her with an axe. This story was one of the most surrealistic ones done by EC; such stories were usually provided to Krigstein, who did similar surrealistic stories like "Pipe Dream" and "You Murderer"

"The Switch" - Carlton Webster is a wealthy, but very old man who has started up a relationship with a beautiful young woman named Linda, to whom he's kept his wealth a secret. Carlton proposed to her, but Linda tells him that his face is too old and wrinkled. Carlton goes to his doctor who tells him of another doctor named Faulkner. The German Faulkner tells Carlton that he can perform surgery to make his face look young by literally transplanting that of a handsome young man to whom a large amount of money will have to be paid. Through Faulnker, Carlton is able to find a man named George Booth who agrees to exchange faces with him. Carlton returns to Linda, who still refuses to marry him, saying his body is too decrepit. Carlton heads back to Faulkner and goes through surgery again, taking Booth's torso. Linda once again rejects Carlton's offer of marriage, this time blaming his scrawny arms and legs. Carlton goes through one more surgery that wipes him out financially so as to exchange his arms and legs with Booth's. He looks for Linda, only to find that she has moved to a fabulous penthouse. There she reveals that what she was looking for the whole time was someone wealthy, and introduces him to her new husband, George Booth. A fabulous story, one of my top 10 favorite EC stories of all time. It builds upon previous EC body/youth exchanging stories such as "Death Must Come" from the first issue of this comic and "Nobody There" from The Haunt of Fear #16. The story also had a very well done and faithful adaption on the Tales From the Crypt TV show.