By the way,
spoilers, spoilers everywhere in this review. I’ll try and avoid them for the
most part, but some of these are impossible to discuss otherwise.
13) “Locked In” by Unknown and Bob Powell
from Menace #11: Jennifer Marlowe is
a journalist whose specialty is interviewing wealthy hermits. She considers
them foul, barely human creatures afraid of the world. But is she really
interviewing all these people just for stories, or does she have an even odder
agenda? And even further, has she considered that some of these hermits refuse
to leave…because they can’t?
While I think you can see where this will all
lead, this one is highly entertaining even before the horror elements come into
play just from seeing the interviews. And when the horror elements arrive,
they’re definitely worth waiting for! Also, man does Bob Powell do a great job
drawing both the hermits and their spooky hovels.
12) “They Wait in their Dungeon!” by Stan Lee and Russ Heath from Menace #1:
Warden Drury
is one mean son of a bitch:
12) “They Wait in their Dungeon!” by Stan Lee and Russ Heath from Menace #1:
Well here’s a story where a bunch of hardened death row criminals obviously meant to be seen sympathetically are horribly abused by a representative of the law and succeed in enacting a gruesome revenge on him! Except here, the criminals aren’t the point of view characters, but the scumbag warden himself! Maybe the anti-comics crusaders would have had better luck if they accused these comics of encouraging kids to become inhumane law enforcers? Anyway, this is a sadistic little gem that fans of old-time prison movies like The Big House (1930) should love.
11) “Men in
Black” by Stan Lee and John Romita from Menace #3: Poor Jim Horton. He’s a hard-working man who bears all
of life’s indignities with honor and maturity:
He’s a loving
husband:
He’s
concerned about his community:
‘Yep. Nicest
guy in the world. Be a shame if anything happened to him.
This story
was clearly Stan’s attempt to compete with EC’s “preachies” about issues like
racism appearing Weird Science and Shock Suspenstories. The thing is
though, those “preachies” by Feldstein and Co, while occasionally heavy-handed (by
modern standards), were intelligently written, honest and thought-provoking
stories that only complete and total morons could misinterpret. Above all else
though, they tried to show some class.
This story
has none of that. It’s an overblown mess which just screams “RACISM IS BAD”
over and over and nothing more; even the grizzled bartender tells Jim that his
racism is “sick”. Jim’s gruesome fate, while creative, ultimately has no impact
because it has no bearing on his crimes. Well, okay it does have impact, but
only because of how gruesome it is.
It’s artless, classless, gutless and ultimately tasteless. But it’s just so entertainingly artless, classless, gutless and tasteless. Not until Bruce Jones’ “Banjo Lessons” in Twisted Tales would comics produce another anti-racism story so repulsive for all the wrong reasons.
10) “Burton’s
Blood” by Stan Lee and Bill Everett from Menace #2: It’s the year 1998, and as nuclear war ravages the
planet, one being relishes the constant death and destruction around him; that
being is John Burton: Vampire!
With corpses
piling up left and right, he doesn’t even need to hunt anymore!
However, with
less and less places to hide in due to buildings being demolished (and because
people of the future are still afraid of vampires apparently), Burton decides
to hibernate for a few centuries, and wakes up thousands of years later in a
futuristic city:
Since all
future people have perfect bodies, Burton begins looking for someone to feed on,
and decides to follow an obese fellow and make him his first meal. However, Burton’s
about to find out that he’s missed a lot these past few centuries…
As you can
tell from my plot synopsis, this is a pretty inventive idea for a vampire
story. Also, along with the prose story “Place of Meeting” by Charles Beaumont,
this is one of the earliest post-apocalyptic/futuristic vampire stories I know
of; a sub-genre now commonplace in films like Underworld and Daybreakers.
I very nearly included this one on my list of top 11 vampire stories in comics,
but two things excluded it. One was a coloring choice used to drive home the
twist ending which I felt was a little much, and the other was a question this
story posed which kept bugging me….how come Burton wears a vest with no shirt
underneath?
The world may never know.
9) “Your Name
is Frankenstein” by Stan Lee and Joe Maneely from Menace #7: The Frankenstein Monster claws his way out of a murky
quicksand bog after years of digging. Lonely and desperate for a second chance,
he attempts to reach out, only to once more be rejected:
8) “Genius”
by Stan Lee and Joe Maneely from Menace
#4: Before there was Stewie Griffin; there was Gerald Morsden:
Gerald grows
up acclaimed as the smartest boy in the world, graduating university at the age
of six, and quickly becomes a giant in every field he applies himself to:
Like all
people who are born on top of the world though, Gerald soon grows bored, and
begins using his vast intellect and telekinetic powers to commit horrific acts
of evil just to amuse himself:
However, one
day, he gets a signal from an extraterrestrial being; a female extraterrestrial being:
Desperate to
be among an intellectual equal, Gerald builds a rocket and flies to the stars.
Unfortunately for Gerald, he apparently never read William Campbell Gault’s
story “Fog”…
Besides being
notable as a pre-X-Men mutant story
by Marvel, Genius also has the
distinction of being one of the funniest things Stan Lee ever wrote. The
dialogue is hilarious, and so are Maneely’s facial expressions:
6) “On with the Dance” by Stan Lee and Russ Heath from Menace #2:
I also wasn’t kidding when I mentioned Black Swan. Sure the stories have
nothing in common other than being horror stories involving ballet dancers, but
I’ll be damned if Mona doesn’t look like an evil Natalie Portman!
I always knew she was a witch (and thanks Worth1000)
5) “Nightmare!”
by Stan Lee and George Tuska from Menace
#5: In a small coastal town at the turn of the century, fisherman Hunk
Gillem’s existence is not a happy one. Day after day, night after night he
drinks himself into a drunken stupor for two reasons; one is to forget while
awake, the other is so that his drunkenness will prevent him from dreaming:
He has a very
good reason. After murdering a romantic rival, he has nightmares where the
man’s corpse pursues him through a graveyard, corners him, and then throws acid
in his face:
However,
Curly the bartender; the closest thing Hunk has to a friend, offers him a drug
which will prevent him from dreaming, and Hunk takes it. Will this end his
nightmares?
It doesn’t.
Enraged (I’m going to go ahead and spoil this one), Hunk decides to kill Curly.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t really have much of a case. You see, Curly’s little
drug worked perfectly:
“Zombie!”
from the same issue is justifiably revered, but this story may have it beat
in the scares department, if not in terms of art or storytelling. Sure,
depicting Hunk’s acid-scarred face in the dream sequences as a skull (instead
of you know; an acid-eaten face) might be a little extreme, but it’s tough to
deny the visceral effectiveness of the scene either! (and I think I have an
explanation for it)
One of the
things that make this story memorable is its focus on Hunks’ pathetic,
guilt-ridden existence and his attempts to forget, by drinking, taking long
walks and sleeping. Even if it wasn’t for the twist, it’s clear the guy already
is in Hell; just one of his own making.
But what
elevates this above other horror stories about people in Hell who don’t realize
it is just how well-built up the twist is. Hunk and Curly are the only characters to
have any dialogue, none of the other characters we see talk, and the town
appears deserted. Even the depiction of Hunk’s skull makes sense; after all
he’s been dead and in Hell for untold years. I also like how when Curly is
revealed as the devil, he isn’t depicted as having horns, red skin, a goatee or
anything, he just smiles evilly and his hair, which just resembled normal curly
hair as drawn by any cartoonist, is emphasized in a horn-like way. And re-reading
the story, you really don’t see the twist coming. You just think he’s what he
appears to be; a curly-haired bartender.
Who says 5 page horror comic stories with hack
plots couldn’t be subtle?
4) “In the
Cardboard Box” by Unknown and Joe Sinnott from Menace #10: Elderly stroke victim Mr. Winters is mute and confined
to a wheelchair, but all of his needs are taken care of by his housekeeper.
That is, until she has to leave him to visit her daughter, which happens to be
on a dark and stormy night, with a strange man named Peters who carries around
a cardboard box, and the news reporting that a maniac is on the loose who
likes to collect his victims’ heads…
And Peters
sure does want to keep Winters from the news…
But then a
policeman arrives, a huge burly man not wearing a uniform. He can be trusted
right?
Except one
thing, the last person killed was a policeman, whose badge was taken…
Unlike the other Menace stories which focus on the supernatural and science fiction,
this one derives its impact from not featuring any fantasy elements; it’s a
straight up suspense story that would have made a fantastic episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Add moody art
by Joe Sinnott and an ending which, while standard for this type of story,
comes off as a genuine shock regardless (and best of all, holds up upon
re-readings), and you have a winner.
3) “Checkmate!”
by Stan Lee and Gene Colan from Menace
#6: For Stefan Krag, world’s #1 chess champion, life has always been little
more than a game where he has to think of a strategy to get himself out of a
tight spot.
He’s applied
it to everything from his match with Europe’s former champion Corzebetti:
To a match
with a super-computer:
And most
recently to the murder of his unfaithful wife Carla (who was 6
years old when he was 18):
Krag assumes
a new identity and skips the country, and lives happily for a while until his
funds run out, and he’s faced with the fact that the only thing in life he’s
been good at is chess, how can he make a living? Krag becomes
a chess tutor, but lives with the indignity of having to not play his best or
risk exposure:
Then one day,
he runs into Corzebetti, and is forced to play against him in a bet made by the
mafia. If he refuses to play, he’ll die, if he wins, he’ll be exposed.
What move
could our "hero" possibly make to get himself out of this one?
Ever since Marvel Masterworks started
reprinting their jungle and war comics, I’ve been curious as to whether they’ll
ever start reprinting their crime comics. Because if “Checkmate!” (which is pretty
much a crime story, with the only element of the fantastic being the brief
match against a computer) is any
indication of the heights they can reach, I’d be very interested in reading them.
This is one story that EC would have been proud to have included in Crime Suspenstories, and is perhaps the
most intelligently scripted of all the Menace
stories. It’s not horror per se, but it’s damn good.
2) “Zombie!”
by Stan Lee and Bill Everett from Menace
#5: “You stand motionless under the moon in the silent swamp….you haven’t
moved for days! Your mind is a blank, and your glassy eyes stare ahead
unseeingly! You’re a zombie!”
“Suddenly a
familiar command registers in your dead brain…just one word”:
“You turn
slowly and begin to trudge toward the source of the unspoken command”:
The zombie
we’ve been following is a stooge of a voodoo master, who orders the zombie to
go and steal money for him.
Unfortunately, Mardi Gras has made the city
packed, and the poor zombie has to return empty-handed:
However, the
voodoo master has an even more sinister plan in mind this time…
You don’t
often remember horror comics for their prose, but “Zombie!” is just such an
instance. This may be the most atmospheric writing of Lee’s entire career, and
compared to the humorous “Genius” story from the fourth issue, shows his range:
Everett’s art
is no slouch either; his art here is a study in contrast. The juxtaposition of
the slimy swamp adorned with rotting trees and the brightly lit Mardis Gras
parade in town verges on the poetic. The scenes of our hideous protagonist
surrounded by brightly-dressed revelers and the incongruously
cartoonish-looking but evil zombie master are also fascinating in how the hideous
undead being commands our sympathies while the characters that look like
Chuck Jones drawings repulse us or amaze us with their stupidity:
The scene
where the zombie is whipped brutally, but feels nothing, is striking in its silent,
repressed pain. The zombie may feel no rage or pain, but the reader does for
him.
“Zombie!” may
be a fairly typical story about a monster that turns on his master, but it’s a
brilliantly executed one. Lee’s writing is good, Everett’s art is beautiful,
and the treatment of the zombie as the protagonist
of the story is handled fascinatingly. The Zombie was later given his own black and
white series called Tales of the Zombie
in the 70’s, and while it’s emphasis on giving the zombie an “origin” (as well
as the unpardonable sin of altering Everett’s art) may have destroyed the blunt
simplicity of this story, I have to say; of all the one-shot horror characters
Marvel has revived, few deserved it as much as the zombie did. This is one
story which truly deserves the term “masterwork”.
1) "The Witch
in the Woods” by Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott from Menace #7: A young boy reads an issue of Uncanny Tales late at night, totally absorbed by the story. But
unbeknownst to him, a hand is slowly opening the door behind him…
It’s no
monster! It’s someone far worse; his horror comics-hating father!
With its
charming depictions of wretched poverty and child abandonment,
Dark and
scary forest,
And fiendish
old hag with a yearning for the flesh of children,
Who of course
ends up roasted alive in an oven:
Junior would
love to hear the rest, but unfortunately, dad can’t seem to finish it:
When most
people discuss anti-Wertham stories by Stan Lee, it’s usually “The Maniac” from
Suspense #29 that comes up. Marvel Visionaries: Stan Lee even
reprinted it.
No, not that horror comics hating father
That said, I
think this story makes its point better, and in a much more amusing way. It
doesn’t exaggerate the violence in Hansel
& Gretel, and it doesn’t try and make horror comics look completely
innocent either (obviously, there was some very inappropriate stuff coming out,
as this whole list proves!), but it does point out the generational hypocrisy
that went into criticizing them from people who had grown up on stuff that was
arguably as bad. And as any well-read person knows; Grimm’s fairy tales in
their original forms could be some sick shit.
Wertham
argued against stories like this by saying that no fairy tale was ever as
gruesome as the stuff comics were churning out, and while I have to admit there
were a lot of horror comics I wouldn’t want my kids reading if I were a parent,
I can’t say I’d want them reading stories like “The Juniper Tree” or some of
the stories that made it into Grimm’s
Grimmest either.
So for managing
to be a spot-on satire of the 1950’s anti-comics crusade, this story gets my
nomination as the greatest Menace story
of them all.
Happy Halloween!
An excellent way of celebrating Halloween, sir! Good show.
ReplyDeleteBy the by - I don't know if you remember this, but about_faces has (tentatively) green-lit that mass review of "The Long Halloween". Just hop on over to my LJ (not his, mine) if you want to sign up for a spot!
(BTW, this is lego_joker).