Weird Fantasy #7

Credits:
Cover dated May/June 1951
Cover by Al Feldstein

"7 Year Old Genius!" - Art by Al Feldstein/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Come Into My Parlor" -  Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Across the Sun!" - Art by George Roussos/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Breakdown!" - Art by Wally Wood/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"7 Year Old Genius!" - Seven year old Rufus is not only a genius, but the smartest being on Earth. He has his parents bring him to the White House to meet the President. He is stopped on the way, but is encountered by the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of Defense has Rufus prove him genius to himself and many other people and does a background check, finding that Rufus is this way due to his father being exposed to radiation. Rufus is able to create a cure for cancer and other great things, but is pressured to develop a Hydrogen Bomb. He finds based on his study that such a bomb would destroy the Earth, so he refuses to provide it. He is viewed as a traitor as a result, and eventually relents, but gives falsified data. This results in him being discredited. Discovering some EC comics, he feels that only EC can publish his story and meets Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein, who show up at the end of the story. Meanwhile the government has finished the Hydrogen Bomb and plans to test it shortly. This story is okay, but very remiscent of "The Radioactive Child" from Weird Science #16, published about 6 months prior. It features cameos from Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein (who appeared in many early EC stories). It also features a Secretary of Defense character that was a frequently appearing character in many Feldstein-drawn stories.

"Come Into My Parlor" - A man named Stephen Lamb finishes up a report he has written on spiders. Suddenly there is a flash and a beautiful woman appears. Named Wanta, she claims that she comes from 4,000 years in the future. Wanta claims that there are no men in the future and that she and the other women of the future need to serve man. Stephen heads to the future with her where it is seemingly paradise. He can get as much food and drink as he wants and there are beautiful women everywhere. Eventually he gets drunk and Wanta leads him to a room where there is a spitfire grill. Stephen is tied up and put on the grill, as Wanta's civilization wants to literally cook and serve him. Stephen wakes up, with it all being a dream, but Wanta then appears for real. This story is inspired by Damon Knight's short story "To Serve Man" which later got adapted into a very well known Twilight Zone episode. The dream twist at the end seems tacked on, as if they needed an extra page to add to the story.

"Across the Sun!" - Humanity has sent a rocket to Mars, but it has vanished and never returned. A second rocket is set to head out, but minutes before the rocket is to blast off the original rocket returns. The crew from teh original rocket come down and say to not blast off. They tell their story, of how they were captured by a flying saucer and brought to a world that looked identical to our Earth, except that it has 2 moons. There, they meet the alien race that inhabits it. The aliens tell them that their planet is directly across the sun from the Earth such that it can never be seen. They say that they had gone to war with Earth many years ago and destroyed their civilization, which included the destruction of one of the Earth's moons. They tell the men to return to Earth and not head back into sapce or they'll destroy humanity again. Pacing's a bit poor on this story. Things go by very slow for the first 5 pages, then rush to a swift conclusion on the final page with an absurd amount of text in the last few panels.

"Breakdown!" - A woman named Mary comes to the FBI with her husband Donald, who has gone insane. She tells the men from the FBI of how one night at her farm, her brother Larry was visiting and they saw a strange light in the sky. Soon after a strange man named Mr. Trance showed up asking to use the phone. Mr. Trance stays the night, but Mary soon suspects something is wrong with him. Their dog is very scared of Mr. Trance, then soon falls over dead. Mr. Trance also doesn't cast a reflection in the mirror. Larry heads out to find Mr. Trance's broken down car but doesn't find it, only scorched marks in a field. Donald heads upstairs to see Mr. Trance but when he comes downstairs, he has gone crazy. Mr. Trance comes downstairs and explains that he is an alien being using a hypnotic shield. If his hypnotic shield isn't active, such as when he is asleep, his true form appears so horrific that it will cause a person looking at it to go insane. Larry pulls out a gun to shoot Mr. Trance while Mary and Donald flee. Larry kills Mr. Trance, but goes crazy upon seeing his true form. Back in the present, the men at the FBI reveal themselves to be aliens and remove their hypnotic shields, causing Mary to go insane. A fairly good story to wrap things up, the best in the issue. The aliens are pretty horrific looking, even if it is said in the story that they are merely the artist's renditions since their true form would cause the reader to go crazy as well.

The Haunt of Fear #8

Credits:
Cover dated July/August 1951
Cover by Al Feldstein

"Hounded to Death!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Very Strange Mummy!" - Art by George Roussos/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Diminishing Returns!" - Art by ???/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Irony of Death!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"Hounded to Death" - A woman named Ann is married to an older, wealthy man named Edward. Edward owns many hounds, which he starves so they'll be ready to go on a hunt. During the hunt, one of the men, Steve, who has a bad heart, stays behind with Ann and the two quickly embrace. The two carry on an affair behind Edward's back, but one day he comes home earlier than expected. Steve fakes a heart attack, pretending to be dead, and Ann asks Edward to drop him off by the side of the road to avoid scandal. Instead Edward, who knows that Steve is still alive, throws him into the pen with the hounds, who devour him. Steve's partially eaten corpse comes after Edward however, to seek revenge. A good art job by Ingels, featuring one of EC's most common horror tropes, the corpse coming back to take revenge.

"The Very Strange Mummy!" - An expedition led by three Americans takes place in Egypt. The group comes across a tomb up on a cliff. Inside they find a perfectly preserved mummy inside a sarcophogus that they open. That night, one of the Egyptian natives is killed and two puncture marks are found on his neck. One of the archaeologists thinks it is a vampire, which the others don't believe. When the natives hear that the mummy's tomb was opened they all flee. That night one of the archaelogists is the next to die. One of the others heads inside the tomb and translates the hieroglyphics on the wall which reveal that the mummy is a vampire that was sealed up in the tomb. The vampire almost kills her but is forced inside by the dawn. With it asleep, a stake is driven into its heart, killing it. This story combines a couple of horror monsters into a single one, but is otherwise an only average story, that might have fared better with a better artist.

"Diminishing Returns" - A man named Vincent Beardsley is able to convince a wealthy man named Hagen to head to the Jivaro Diamond Fields where they hope to find a number of large diamonds. Beardsley has a secret deal with the Jivaros however whereas he is given a diamond for each head he brings the Jivaros. Hence, when they arrive, the Jivaros soon come upon them and Hagen is taken captive with his head being shrunk by the Jivaros. Beardsley returns to the US and plans to con another man but receives a wrapped package which contains Hagen's shrunken head in it. The head comes alive and is able to kill him by biting him in the neck. This story is the sole one from the new trend for which the artist is unknown. Its only a so-so art effort at best. The story itself is a bit of a rehash of previous stories such as "Jivaro Death" from Two-Fisted Tales #19 and "The Maestro's Hand" from The Crypt of Terror #18.

"The Irony of Death" - An ambitious man named Jeffrey Slag works as a superintendant at an iron and steel works company. He marries the daughter of the owner, then kills the man, making it look like an accident. The man is dumped into a vat of iron which Slag keeps. Slag uses the iron to make various things, including a safe, chairs, a shovel, etc... always gloating at what his former boss has become. Eventually the last remaining ingots of the iron vanish, upsetting Slag immensely. As part of an advertising campaign an exhibit of the uses of iron throughout the centuries is used, including a torture chamber. Slag decides to try it out by standing in an iron maiden. Suddenly the iron maiden closes on him, killing him. It is soon revealed that the missing ingots were used to make the iron maiden. Another average story; a similarly themed one titled "99 44/100% Pure Horror!" would later appear in The Vault of Horror #23", a story also drawn by Davis.

Crime SuspenStories #8

Credits:
Cover dated December 1951/January 1952
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Out of the Frying Pan..." - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"A Trace of Murder!" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Escaped Maniac! - Art by George Roussos/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Partnership Dissolved!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines (hosted by the Old Witch)

"Out of the Frying Pan" - A man named Hank commits murder when he finds another man with his wife. The man he kills hits him in the head with a garbage can prior to getting shot, causing Hank to go temporarily blind. Hank is brought to a hospital until his blindness is cured, but is expected to go to trial and get the electric chair once he gets better. One of the fellow patients, an old man named Charlie is constantly telling the other patients of the goings on of the park that he can see from the window next to his bed. Hank, with his eyes slowly getting better knows he has to make a run for it soon and plans to steal the car of a man that Charlie says always parks across the street at 9:00. The night before he is set to be taken to jail, Hank jumps out of the window and tries to make a run for it, only to realize that Charlie was lying the whole time, and there was nothing but a brick wall outside the window. He is immediately captured and taken off to jail. The inspiration for this story was an anecdote from Bennett Cerf's book "Try and Stop Me!" I've never read the original anecdote but found another, superior telling in the book "More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark", a book that most horror fans who grew up in the 80s and 90s like I did have probably read. In that version an old man grows jealous of his roommate who is always talking about the things happening that he can see out the window. The protagonist ends up murdering his roommate by causing him to misplace his medicine, but when he is moved next to the window all he sees is a brick wall.

"A Trace of Murder!" - A man, Irving Fenwick, murders his wife Muriel by poisoning her with arsenic when she tells him she wants a divorce. He then kills himself. Across the other side of town another man, Felix Morley, plots to murder his older wife Emma such that he can be with his girlfriend Helen while still having Emma's money. Felix does research and discovers an untraceable way to poison Emma by mixing 2 ordinary, everyday items which he purchases. Felix successfully poisons Emma and gets away with it. After she's buried, a couple of local boys decide to have some fun and switch the gravestones of Muriel and Emma. Felix goes away on a trip with Helen and upon his return they get into an argument over money during which Felix reveals he poisoned Emma. Helen, afraid after he threatens to do the same to her, goes to the police. Felix is confident they won't trace the poison but the police dig up Muriel's grave due to the mixed gravestones. Upon being charged with murder Felix mistakenly blurts out that he used untraceable poison on Emma, confessing to the crime. This story shares some similarities to the other Kamen drawn story I've reviewed thus far and a great many more stories share similar themes. This story is ultimately a bit of a weak effort though, and the weakest story of the issue. Felix and Helen are described as husband and wife after very a short period of time, and Felix describes being set for life with Emma's money on one page then talks about running out of her money on the next after a single trip. That Felix was able to look up an untraceable way to poison someone at the library without much effort also came off as rather unbelievable.

"The Escaped Maniac!" - A man named Bert driving down the road in a rainstorm comes across a dishelved, unshaved hitchiker whom he lets in his car. Listening to the radio, they hear about an escaped maniac who broke out of a local mental hospital and is said to be hitchiking. The hitchhiker, Charlie, shows Bert his ID to prove he's not the maniac, although the radio later says that the maniac killed someone and stole their clothes and ID. Bert is further worried when Charlie turns off the radio in the middle of describing the maniac. Eventually they come across a farm house when the car dies and head inside. Bert, nervous that Charlie is going to kill him pulls out a knife and stabs him. Soon afterwards men from the mental hospital arrive and imprison Bert, as it ends up he was the maniac and Charlie was just some innocent hitchiker. The mysterious hitchhiker, a common horror story trope made a rare appearance here; infact this and "The Giggling Killer" from Crime SuspenStories #3 might have been the only hitchhiker stories EC ever did. Roussos did nearly 10 stories for EC during the new trend and along with Harry Harrison was the most prolific of those artists who never became EC regulars. His art is characterized by thick outlines and while a decent artist he was never really on the level of the EC regulars in my eyes.

"Partnership Dissolved!" - Herman Winkler, a meat wholesaler is approached by Dr. Paul Merrick, who shows him a solution made of papaya and a secret catalyst that partially digests meat. Due to the solution, they are able to buy cheap, tough meat and sell it as high grade meat, making a lot of money. Eventually Merrick is able to concentrate the solution and prepares a three month supply of the solution. Winkler, desiring to get Merrick's share of the profits, convinces him to go on vacation then locks him in a refridgerator the night he is to leave, causing him to freeze to death. Winkler then uses the solution on Merrick, dissolving his body. He tries to get the solution analyzed to find out the secret catalyst, with no luck. One day Winkler slips on his rug, which Merrick had slipped on before and told him to move, to no avail. Winkler's secretary gives him a glass of the solution, mistakening it for water, and Winkler's body dissolves into a putrid mess. For issues 3 through 16 of Crime SuspenStories, the Old Witch appeared with a horror story to end the issue. Its appearance was probably to help sales, since the horror comics were EC's best sellers, although the feature was eventually removed. Typically these stories would be less supernatural in vein than those appearing in the 3 regular horror comics, despite Graham Ingels, EC's best artist at gothic horror often being used.