The Haunt of Fear #21

Credits:
Cover dated September/October 1953
Cover by Graham Ingels

"An Off-Color Heir" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Dig That Cat… He's Real Gone!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Corker!" - Art by Jack Kamen & Bill Elder/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The High Cost of Dying!" - Art by Reed Crandall/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines


"An Off-Color Heir" - An artist named Laura meets a man named Gilbert and they fall in love. Gilbert convinces her to marry him and come with him to his mansion in New Orleans. The mansion is in a remote location and has portraits of his ancestors including one of a Baron Gilles De Rais who seems familiar to her. The mansion has many rooms, but Gilbert refuses to let her go in one of them. Eventually Gilbert starts growing a beard. Laura finds some hair dye in the bathroom one day and realizes he is going gray. Eventually she steals his keys and goes into the locked room, finding numerous corpses in there. She then realizes where she had seen Gilles De Rais before. She rubs off some of the white paint on his beard, revealing blue behind it. Gilbert then reveals himself behind her, showing his own blue beard and holding a razor. He says De Rais was the original bluebeard and he is carrying on the family tradition, A fairly good story, inspired by the bluebeard serial killer folktale.

"Dig That Cat… He's Real Gone!" - A homeless man named Ulrich is approached by a Dr. Manfred who tells him that he can help make them rich by giving Ulrich the 9 lives of a cat. Manfred performs an operation on Ulrich, killing a common cat but transferring its 9 lives to Ulrich. Through his multiple lives, Ulrich and Manfred are able to make a lot of money by showing Ulrich doing crazy, life threatening stunts and taking all wagers against it. Ulrich soon becomes greedy however and purposely gets the two of them in a car wreck. Manfred dies, but Ulrich comes back yet again. Now on his own, Ulrich hires a man to ensure his body won't be embalmed, but the man ends up robbing him and taking one of his lives. Now down to his last life, Ulrich has himself buried alive. However it isn't until he's buried that he remembers that the cat gave one of its lives during the operation and he only had 8 lives, not 9. Ulrich dies for real this time. A very good and original story, which was adapted as one of the first couple of episodes of the Tales from the Crypt TV show.

"Corker!" - A woman named Janet goes to a swami with her fiance Peter. Janet recently underwent a major personality change where she started seeking out evil things. She also has felt some suicidal tendencies. She has tried traditional therapy to no luck. The swami believes that she is infected with a lamia, a type of devil. Upon hearing that she witnesses the hanging of a man during which time his head got tore off, the swami thinks that a decapitation lamia infected her. He says this type of lamia is impossible to remove unless she is beheaded. Janet runs off and Peter chases her. She jumps into an oncoming subway and is decapitated. Peter is then infected himself by the lamia. Another Jack Kamen collaboration, this time with Bill Elder. A fairly good and original story.

"The High Cost of Dying!" - This story takes place in Paris in the 1800's. A poor man named Henri carries around a body with him. Flashbacks reveal that Henri's wife Suzette died in her sleep. A new ordinance requires all bodies to be buried within 24 hours or they will be sent to the conservatory of medicine to be dissected by medical students. Henri is too poor to bury her, especially with his two starving children. An officer tells Henri that the Commissioner of Health makes 75 francs per body and that Henri should consider bringing Suzette to the conservatory himself to pocket the 75 francs. Back in the present, Henri brings the body he is carrying to the conservatory and receives 75 francs. The next morning Henri eats with his children, buys them new clothes and they hold a funeral for Suzette. In the conservatory, it is soon discovered that the body Henri brought them was that of the Commissioner of Health. Another strong story to wrap up this very good issue. Some really good artwork from Crandall here and a sympathetic main character.

Crime SuspenStories #13

Credits:
Cover dated October/November 1952
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Hear No Evil!" - Art by Johnny Craig and Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"First Impulse!/Second Chance!" - Art by Sid Check/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"A Question of Time!!" - Art by Al Williamson/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Forty Whacks!" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

"Hear No Evil!" - A woman named Rita meets a wealthy man named Fred who is deaf, and communicates by having people write down everything for him. She decides to marry Fred for his money, and often belittles him out loud, knowing that he can't hear her. An amount of time goes by, and Rita starts carrying on an affair with a friend of Fred's named Vance. When Fred gets in a car accident, he comes home and almost catches them together. Rita decides to poison Fred through his coffee, but Fred switches cups with one intended for Vance, and he dies instead. A distraught Rita confesses to the police and is taken away. Fred then turns on some music, revealing that he had recovered his hearing after being in the car accident. A rare team up of Johnny Craig and Jack Kamen in this story, which was there only team up in EC.

"First Impulse!/Second Chance!" - A woman named Helen suspects that her boyfriend is cheating on her with her sister, Joan. She follows them and witnesses them buying a ring. Thinking they are going to get married, she pulls out a gun and when they get home, she shoots them. As they die, she realizes that they were actually buying an engagement ring for her, and her sister was merely helping her boyfriend pick it out. In the second story, things pick off as Helen's boyfriend and Joan are able to explain things, so Helen doesn't shoot them. Joan drives Helen's boyfriend to the station as he is going on a trip, but in actuality they run off together, and Helen's suspicions were revealed to be correct. Another one of EC's "quickies" which appeared most often in Crime SuspenStories. Sid Check makes another rare art appearance.
"A Question of Time!!" - The local sheriff finds a woman named Lila dead. He goes to see her husband Harry, figuring that he did it. The entire town knew about Lila fooling around with other men, but nobody told him about it. They all assumed he'd find out someday and do something about it. Harry refuses to confess, and the sheriff leaves. Later, Lila, who is still alive comes home, and knowing the truth, he kills her. This is a rather confusing story when you read it and isn't the most interesting one either (the vast majority of the story is simply Harry and the sheriff talking). It was later redone in EC's picto-fiction comics.

"Forty Whacks!" - A young woman named Fanny finds an axe in the attic, and enraged with her overbearing parents kills them both with it. When the police take her in, she blames the axe. At the police station, the head detective is greeted by his wife and son. His wife tells her about Lizzie Borden, who infamously murdered her father and step-mother with an axe. His wife tells her that she had moved to this town and had lived in Fanny's house. At that moment, their son looks at the axe, which is revealed to be the axe that Lizzie Borden used, and goes crazy, killing his parents with it. Obviously inspired by the real life incident of Lizzie Borden killing her parents with an axe, which was also featured on the cover of this issue. A rare instance where Graham Ingels did not do the Old Witch's story in Crime SuspenStories.

Two-Fisted Tales #41

Credits:
Cover dated February/March 1955
Cover by Jack Davis

"Code of Honor!" - Art by John Severin/Story by John Severin
"Mau Mau!" - Art by Bernie Krigstein/Story by ???
"Carl Akeley!" - Art by Wally Wood/Story by Jerry De Fuccio
"Yellow!" - Art by George Evans/Art by George Evans

Today I cover the final issue of Two-Fisted Tales. By this point in the comic's run, it had gone through another stylistic change and featured a variety of war, historical and adventure-type stories. It was a more interesting style than the John Severin/Colin Dawkins heavy presence that dominated the comic for the previous year. Unfortunately sales were not good and it ended up being the final issue.

"Code of Honor!" - A man named Stephen Graves Ashley is a deadly marksman. He is frequently in duels, for which he has never lost. This is largely because he takes offense at the most minor things and forces people to face him on in a duel. When a man named Benton calls Ashley a murderer, he challenges him to a duel. Ashley easily kills him in the duel, as well as another man who tried to convince Ashley to call off the duel and got called into a duel himself. Ashley later travels to Louisiana and encounters a Frenchman at a dance named Jean Le Poer whom he also challenges to a duel after he tries to step in during a dance with a young woman. Being in the New Orleans area, Ashley soon realizes that he will have to duel with swords instead of a gun. Ashley's cousin warns him about dueling Le Poer, which he ignores. Ashley quickly loses his duel to Le Poer and is killed, not knowing that he is the deadliest swordsman in France. A fairly interesting story to start the issue with a lead character who is easy to dislike. It is good to see him get the comeuppance in the end.

"Mau Mau!" - A pair of white men, McBan and Quantock are in Kenya, working on the filming of a movie. They recruit a member of the local Mau Mau tribe, Limuru, who acts as a consultant for them, and immediately pays dividends by killing a Mau Mau terrorist who approaches them. In the camp, they soon meet another Mau Mau tribesman, Hinga, who repairs their power generator for them. Limuru warns McBan and Quantock about Hinga, who he say swill do evil things. When one of the men is killed by a beast, Limuru tells McBan and Quantock that it was actually a Mau Mau ritual murder, and he blames Hinga. Hinga soon escapes. Limuru is used in a scene to play a Mau Mau oath giver, but when he does so, he riles up the Mau Mau tribesman for real, and they attack.  They are saved by the local military, which incidentally is led by Hinga. A so-so art job from Krigstein, and probably the weakest story of the issue, although its not bad.

"Carl Akeley!" - This story is a historical telling of certain events in the life of Carl Akeley. It starts with his childhood, and then moves into his time as a skilled explorer in Africa. During one incident he is charged upon by an elephant and slammed into the ground. He surprisingly survives despite his major injuries. During another expedition he is attacked by a leopard and manages to fight it off with his bare hands. The story ends revealing that his ultimate fate was dying due to a mosquito bite. Two-Fisted Tales featured a number of tales covering particular people from a historical perspective, and this story was similar in vein, but rather than focus on a particular major war figure, it featured an explorer. An interesting take, with some good art from Wood.

"Yellow!" - This story features a pair of plane pilots during World War I, Stone and Curry. Stone is consistently nervous while in flight and becomes a bit obsessed with outdoing Curry. This is particularly the case after Stone makes a call out of someone being yellow after the death of a fellow pilot. Stone becomes obsessed with matching and beating Stone. He soon surpasses Curry in kills, despite how frightened he is and then helps save Curry in battle. Afterwards when Curry thanks him, Stone says that his call out of him caused him to focus so heavily. It is then that Curry reveals that it wasn't Stone he was calling yellow, but himself. One of the better George Evans World War I plane stories, with some characters and a storyline more interesting than the typical historical fare.

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.

Tales from the Crypt #24

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

"Bats in My Belfry!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Living Death!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Midnight Snack!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"Scared to Death!" - Art by Wally Wood/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines

One of Tales from the Crypt's most well known covers starts off this issue.

"Bats in My Belfry!" - A stage actor named Harry goes deaf. This results in the end of his acting career and a lot of financial stress for he and his wife, Joan. Harry goes to see a blind friend, John, who reveals that he went to a man who was able to give him cat eyes that permit him to see. Harry heads to see the man, who provides him with the hearing organ of a bat. Upon returning home, with hearing abilities greatly in excess of that of a normal person, Harry is able to hear Joan talking to her lover on the phone. He later notices strange things happening to him. He wakes up in the closet, hanging upside down, notices hair growing on his face and a membrane growing beneath his arms. He returns to see his friend John, who he finds turning into a panther. Harry realizes he is turning into a bat. His wife and her lover plot to kill Harry for his life insurance, but he manages to overtake the lover in an alley. Now fully transformed into a vampire bat, he drinks the lover's blood, then returns home and does the same to his wife.  This story was the inspiration for the Tales from the Crypt TV episode "Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow". The episode had nothing to do with that original story, making me wonder why they didn't name it after this story. It was in the final season of the show, and was still a rather poor episode though.

"The Living Death!" - Two medical students, Lester and Arnold are close friends, even going after the same woman, Laurie. The two head into seperate fields, with Lester focusing on curing illness through psychological means, while Arnold focuses on surgery. Lester is set to marry Laurie, but when she develops a tumor the two conflict over whether to operate on her through psychosomatic means or surgery. Arnold wins out, but she dies during the procedure. Years go by. Arnold develops a brain tumor, and with no one who can operate on him, he goes to see Lester. Lester desires to prove to Arnold that he could have saved Laurie many years before and puts Arnold into a hypnotic trance so he cannot die. Upon leaving however, Arnold is it by a car and is killed. His body doesn't die however, nor even start decomposing. People don't believe Lester at first, but do as time goes by and nothing happens to Arnold. Months pass. Arnold calls out for Lester to help him with the pain. Lester mistakenly says "Laurie", the word he has chosen to break Arnold out of the trance. This causes Arnold to die for real, and he immediately decomposes. This story was inspired by the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar".

"Midnight Snack!" - A man reads horror stories late at night. Suddenly his feels dizzy and finds himself out in the middle of town. Hungry, he stops by a restaurant but the scent of cooking meat repulses him. He leaves the restaurant and has another dizzy sensation, waking up in a graveyard. Having a shovel with him, he digs up the body of a recently buried corpse. After another dizzy spell he awakens finding the body partially devoured. He grabs the corpse and starts running, being chased by an agngry mob. He trips and falls, but then awakens at his home, believing it all to be a dream. When he opens his refridgerator however, he finds a partially devoured corpse inside. He realizes that it wasn't a dream, and he's a ghoul. Bit of a drawn out story with an obvious conclusion; this is the weakest story of the issue.

"Scared to Death!" - A man named Ralph is brought to a party held in the honor of a young woman named Cora, whose uncle Alex is quite wealthy. With Cora being the heir to her uncle's fortune, Ralph decides to start a romance with her, and eventually marries her. Not liking the way Alex is treating him, Ralph is able to convince Cora to let him kill her, and he strikes him one night while he is out on a stroll, killing him. Alex's death has a grave effect on Cora, who suffers a heart attack and becomes bound to a wheel chair. Ralph decides to kill her as well, figuring he can do it by inducing another heart attack. He tries to convince Cora that her uncle Alex is back from the grave and wants revenge. He is successful and she has a heart attack and dies. Moments later however, Alex's corpse arrives for real. He grabs ahold of Alex and carries him into the middle of a pond where the mud, acting like quicksand, quickly consumes them. Some only so-so artwork from Wood here, but overall a fairly good rotting corpse story.

Panic #1

Credits:
Cover dated March 1954
Cover by Al Feldstein

"My Gun is the Jury!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein
"This is Your Strife" - Art by Joe Orlando/Story by Al Feldstein
"Little Red Riding Hood" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"The Night Before Christmas" - Art by Bill Elder/Adaption of Charles Clement Moore poem

Today I cover the first issue of Panic, EC's own copy of the very popular Mad. The introduction at the start of the issue jokingly states that Mad was a ripoff of Panic, which sat around unpublished for over a year. In what you wouldn't think to be that offensive a comic, it caused 2 major controversies.

"My Gun is the Jury!" - Mike Hammershlammer, a detective investigates the murder of a man who was shot. Throughout the story he comes across a number of beautiful women whom he shoots, saying that they were criminals involved with other crimes. He is also invited by a woman named Stella to come to her apartment but passes up on it, wanting to continue his investigation. Eventually he comes to see her and realizes she was involved in the crime with the various other women. He shoots her, but then realizes she was a man. Mike removes his cap, revealing that he was a woman. A parody of Micky Spillane stories which was quite an inspiration for Feldstein. This story resulted in a bit of controversy for EC when both EC's business manager, Lyle Stuart, and receptionist, Shirley Norris were arrested over selling "disgusting" literature. The case was thrown out of court rather quickly.

"This is Your Strife" - This story is a parody of the "This is Your Life" show. A man named Melvin Melville is brought to the stage and a number of people from his life are brought before him. each asks if they found his wife, who dissappeared many years ago. It soon becomes very apparant based on these people that Melvin murdered his wife although nobody realizes until the end of the story when her bones are brought out and everyone realizes that he killed her.

"Little Red Riding Hood" - The extremely beautiful Gwendolyn moves to town, but ignores all the guys coming after her, instead focusing on the geeky Melvin. Melvin asks why she is interested in him and she tells her of her childhood, during which she was the real Red Riding Hood. She is told to head to her grandmother's house. There she finds a wolf laying in her grandmother's bed. A woodsman arrives and shoots the wolf. Back in the present, Gwendolyn reveals that the wolf really was her grandmother, and that when they mature her family turns into werewolves. She turns into one and kills Melvin. This story is a Grim Fairy Tale, the sole one to not appear in one of EC's horror comics.

"The Night Before Christmas" - This story is an illustrated parody of the Clement Clarke Moore poem about Santa Claus. Containing very little dialogue, it is a series of comedic panels and sequences done in typical Bill Elder fashion. The story ends showing Bill Gianes as Santa Claus, with all the EC staff coming out of his sack. Surprisingly enough this story caused quite the controversy at the time and Panic was banned in Massachusetts for its offensive portrayal of Santa Claus here (which isn't that offensive).

Shock SuspenStories #15

Credits:
Cover dated May 1954
Cover by Jack Kamen

"Raw Deal" - Art by Jack Kamen/Story by Otto Binder
"The Confidant" - Art by Wally Wood/Story by Jack Oleck
"For Cryin' Out Loud!" - Art by Reed Crandall/Story by Otto Binder
"Well Trained" - Art by George Evans/Story by Carl Wessler

"Raw Deal" - A hospital patient, the sole survivor of a plane that crashed in the Pacific Ocean repeatedly screams out "I hate her!". A couple of doctors try to figure out what is going on with him and by giving him certain medication are able to get him to behave in a normal fashion. They soon find that he is referring to his wife, making them wonder why he hates her so. Through additional medication he eventually tells his story, of how he he met his wife and swiftly within a month they became married. They headed on a plane trip to Hawaii for their honeymoon, but on the way it crashed in the pacific, with them being the only 2 survivors. This surprises the doctors, as the man was the only one found. He recounts the experience of being lost in the middle of the ocean on a raft and how they had no food to sustain themselves on. Eventually his wife started drinking salt water, went crazy and died. The man slips back into his crazed state, but the doctors realize what happened to his wife, since he is not really saying "I hate her!" but rather "I ate her!" A decent start to the issue and the best story here, in an issue that is only so-so at best.

"The Confidant" - A mysterious man wearing a trench coat comes to a town where people are in search of a man who raped and murdered a 19 year old woman. The mysterious man claims to be here to see one of his children and takes a taxi ride to the darkest corner of town. The taxi driver follows him and finds him talking in an apartment to a man he believes to be the killer. He summons a number of other people and a mob grows, returning to the apartment. There they only find the mysterious man, who tells them that he can't tell them anything about the killer. The mob starts beating on him, and the man dies as a result. It is then that they find a note from the killer stating that he has to confess his crimes. They remove the trench coat of the mysterious man and realize that he was a priest. Not that good a story in my eyes as you think it would be so simple for the fact that the man was a priest to be made clear to the mob. Couldn't the priest have simply told them that fact instead of taking a beating until he died?

"For Cryin' Out Loud!" - A criminal named Marty steals $40,000 but becomes sloppy while hiding and is found out by a woman he meets at a restaurant. When she demand over half the money, he strangles her in an alley and flees. He repeatedly hears a voice in his head shouting out that he is a murderer. As he walks down the street people look at him in a strange way causing him to run off, thinking they can hear him. This happens repeatedly. Eventually he decides to head into a boiler factory with an extremely loud amount of noise to block out the voice in his head. This results in him going deaf, but the voice still shouts out. He can't take it anymore and says out loud that he is a murderer. As the story ends it is revealed that he had scratches on his face which is why everyone was giving him weird looks. This story was adapted into an episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV series, with some adjustments made to the story. Kudos to Crandall in finding ways to repeatedly cover up half of the protagonist's face until the final panel.

"Well Trained" - A detective named Tom comes home one day and finds his wife murdered, with the killer standing right over her. Tom chases down the killer and viciously beats him, but decides to not kill him and call the cops. Tom is obsessed with ensuring that the killer, who is named Mike, goes to the electric chair. He meets with him daily as he heals from his injuries telling him in great detail the process for him being executed. The daily abuse is enough to cause Mike to run off. Other cops try to shoot him, but Tom always stands in the way, desiring for him to die in the electric chair. Their chase brings them down to the subway where Mike runs on the track but is hit by the subway car as he steps on the third rail. As a result, Tom will never know if he was electrocuted on the third rail or was hit by the train first. A so-so story. I don't really understand what the big deal was at the end as Mike still suffered a rather horrific death. What does it matter if it was by being hit by a subway car instead of being electrocuted?