THE CREEPING DEATH

I've always enjoyed plant horror stories and there were plenty of them during the pre-Code era. In this second issue of ADVENTURES INTO TERROR (Atlas, February 1951) with art possibly by Allen Bellman, a botanist receives a strange plant from a colleague in South America. As expected in a story like this, it soon grows out of control until . . .

MENACE, ANYONE?

While artists like Lee Elias, Warren Kremer and Don Heck were designing horrific covers that would become legendary in pre-Code horror comics, over at Atlas, Stan Lee was cranking out reams of stories. While they eventually became formulaic, no one can deny that they were nearly always well-written.

Publisher Martin Goodman was a harsh taskmaster and kept his staff at Atlas busy. As a result, the imprint sold more titles (18) and released almost 400 single issues (see FIFC reference page HERE) than any other publisher during the pre-Code years. One of them was called MENACE and ran for 11 issues from 1953-1954 before it was cancelled, another casualty of the Comics Code Authority.

MENACE

Vol. 1 No. 1

March 1953

Hercules Publishing Corp. (Atlas Comics)

Editor: Stan Lee

Cover: Bill Everett

Pages: 36

Cover price: 10 cents

CONTENTS

"One Head Too Many!"

Script: Stan Lee

Art: Bill Everett

"The Man Who Couldn't Move"

Script: Stan Lee

Art: George Tuska

"Poor Mr. Watkins"

Script: Stan Lee

Art: Werner Roth

"The Wait In Their... Dungeon!"

Script: Stan Lee

Art: Russ Heath

THE KISS OF DEATH!

The natural progression of Romance, Western and other themed comic books was to evolve into horror titles. This was repeated many times over when horror was noticed gaining popularity with a larger number of readers over other books that had traditionally sold well during the Golden Age.

One example that changed with the trends is EC's Moon Girl, who started off as a super-heroine in MOON GIRL AND THE PRINCE, then became MOON GIRL, then MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME! and finally A MOON, A GIRL . . ROMANCE.

In his excellent book, A HISTORY OF UNDERGROUND COMICS, Mark James Estren explains further:

"A trend toward crime and adventure comics was developing, and E.C. was in the forefront—staying in the field of love comics and Western stories as well. But the special E.C. style was emerging fast as the forties waned. It was a style that never took itself completely seriously; when an adventure comic did not make it after three titles were tried (Moon Girl and the Prince, then simply Moon Girl, then Moon Girl Fights Crime), the book was changed to a love comic with completely different settings and characters, but with an oddly familiar title: A Moon, a Girl... Romance. Moon Girl #5, by the way, had a story with a title that looked forward to the great horror comics of a few years later: 'The Corpse with Will Power'."

Moon Girl would finally merge with WEIRD FANTASY with issue #13.

Similarly, VENUS began as a romance title, then began a run of "Strange Stories of the Supernatural" with issue #11 (November 1950).

Today's story appeared in the last issue of the original VENUS series. The next time we see her is in Marvel's SUB-MARINER #57 (January 1973). The story and art is by Bill Everett. He also did the knock-out cover and you can see his signature obscured by one of the skeleton's shrouds in the background. A horror comic cover if there ever was one!

Coincidentally, Stan Lee must have liked the title as it was used again later in ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS #23 (October 1953).

Read it HERE.

GRAVEYARD GHOULS

You've heard of bats in the belfry? Well, now there's ghouls in the graveyard, and that's the name of this Stan Lee-edited "Crypt of Shadows" story from ADVENTURES INTO TERROR #12 (Atlas, October 1952) with art by Bernie Krigstein.

NOTE: The "Comics Code Authority" page has been updated to include the Revised 1989 version. It was to be the last one before the Code started petering out.

ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS

Atlas had the market cornered when it came to horror comics during the Pre-Code period, cranking out nearly 400 issues with 18 titles. ACG came in a distant second printing 123 issues (see publisher's data HERE). Publisher Martin Goodman's strategy was to flood the newsstands with his comics, and when one sold poorly, another one was waiting at the printer to take its place. A total of five of these horror/sci-fi anthologies appeared in just one the six-month period during January-June 1952.

ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS ran for 30 monthly issues from January 1952 through June 1954. Like the other anthology titles, it contained a mix of horror, science-fiction and fantasy stories. While not on the hard-hitting and visceral level of EC Comics, they were still by and large fairly well-written and heads above a lot of its competition in this department. The quality of the art was a mixed bag, but mainly above average compared to a number of other Pre-Code horror comics.

You may notice that the cover bears the seal of approval from The Association of Comic Magazine Publishers. The ACMP was formed in 1947 and was a precursor to the Comics Code Authority. It's also interesting to note that it came out just a few months after Avon published the first-ever horror comic with all-original stories, EERIE COMICS (the industry had already been given a drubbing by a concerned public with its crime comics). See more about the ACMP HERE.

This issue starts off with a couple of cover vignettes by Carl Burgos, creator of The Human Torch. One of his last gigs was to edit the infamous Eerie Publications. The artist for the main cover illustration has yet to be identified. So too, the script-writers for these tales for this and many other Atlas titles are largely unknown. On a side note, a book has just been published that discredits Stan Lee for a large amount of content he signed his name to. Well, he had every opportunity to do so with the stories in these Atlas anthologies but didn't. The artists are from the bullpen that churned out page after page of this entertaining material. Be sure not to miss the fourth story, "Bok-Tok Makes a Boo Boo" for its humorous, but cautionary tale.

In the shadow of the impending CCA nearly half of the Atlas horror/sci-fi anthologies were cancelled in 1954 (including this title) and the rest were neutered to comply with the CCA's guidelines.

ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS

Vol. 1 No. 23

October 1953

Animirth Comics Inc. (Atlas/Marvel)

Editor: Stan Lee

Cover: Carl Burgos (side panels); main cover artist unknown

Pages: 36

Cover price: 10 cents

CONTENTS

"I Am Death!"

Script: ?

Art: Joe Maneely

"Call of the Wild Goose"

Script: ?

Art: Al Eadeh

"An Old Man's Fancy!"

Script: ?

Art: Dan Loprino

"Bok-Tok Makes a Boo-Boo"

Script: ?

Art: George Oleson

"The Kiss of Death!"

Script: ?

Art: Manny Stallman