Friday's Favorite OTR

 Bold Venture: "An Invitation to Death" 1/14/52

A man wants to kill the four men he falsely believes killed his wife. One of those men is Slate Shannon.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Boris Karloff doesn't NEED to Speak to be Scary

 

In between directing Frankenstein in 1931 and The Invisible Man in 1933, James Whale's brought an adaptation of J.B. Priestley's novel Benighted to the screen. The movie version is titled The Old Dark House and, by golly, even though there's no monster, it fits atmospherically into the Universal Monsters cycle. Thought to be lost for years, it isn't as well remembered as the Monster films. But, by golly, it should be.

The novel has a theme of post-war disillusionment running through it. The movie has an element of this, but I think tones that theme down significantly in order to emphasis it's brilliant mix of horror and comedy.

A married couple and a friend are caught in a violent storm while driving and are forced to take refuge in a creepy mansion located in the middle of nowhere. Soon after, they are joined by another couple.

The regular inhabitants of the mansion--the Femms-- have all taken Masters Degrees in Being Creepy. An elderly brother and sister are the owners of the mansion. Their butler--Morgan--is a scary looking mute who--we are warned--becomes quite dangerous when he's drunk.

Gee whiz, Boris Karloff (who plays Morgan) is good at being scary. This is the second film in a row he terrifies you without being given a word of dialogue. 

The rest of the cast is wonderful, including Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughten, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart and Ernest Thesiger. The stranded motorists are tossed into a strange situation that's both frightening and absurd. We learn that the Femm siblings have a 102-year-old father who lives upstairs. We learn that there's a locked room upstairs with... well... someone else living inside. And we learn that Morgan is indeed dangerous when he's drunk.

As he does in movies like The Bride of Frankenstein, Whale seemlessly mixes horror and comedy. The result leads us to a fantastic conclusion, with Melvyn Douglas' terrified yet still determined character confronting yet another Femm sibling--an older brother who might possibly be visiting from Crazy Town. 

Here's two videos. The first is the movie, though I don't know the copyright status and can't promise it will be here if you are visiting this blog in the far future. 

And here's a video giving us a superb analysis of the film--much more detailed than what I've written here:

Narrow Escapes and a Random Lost Civilization

                                                          art by Don Heck and Marie Severin

X-Men #44 (May 1968) takes us back to the Pietro/Wanda situation that began back in Avengers #47 several months earlier. We are getting to the tail-end of the story arc--2 issues of X-Men (including this one) and then a final issue of The Avengers will wrap it up. 

The credits are complicated, so let's just get them out of the way. Roy Thomas plotted the book, then Gary Friedrich wrote the script. Don Heck did the layouts, then Werner Roth did the finished pencils. 

In the last issue, the X-Men has been captured by Magneto at the villain's island HQ. Toad, naturally, is sucking up to Magneto and insisting the X-Men simply be killed. Pietro, though, argues that they should be kept alive. Though the con Magneto ran on him and Wanda earlier in the story arc was a good one--convincing the siblings that he had set aside his murderous ways--it's starting to get to be a bit of a stretch to accept that Pietro still trusts him. 

But Magneto does agree to keep the heroes imprisoned, with each of them attached to a devise or cage that nullifies their powers. But someone has carelessly left a disintegrator ray near Angel's cage, allowing him to free himself. (This seems contrived, but it will eventually be explained.)

Cyclops, in fact, suspects its a trap and tells Angel to just run for it and get help from the Avengers. Quicksilver tries to follow (he claims to have "recently gained the power of flight, but it seems that he just uses his superspeed to jump really far), but Angel outflies him.

It's a long flight back to New York City. Angel is caught in a storm and lands on a rock to rest. But the rock then rises up and reveals an island. Inside is a super-civilization guarded by a guy in a winged suit called Red Raven.

After a brief (and pretty cool) fight, Raven explains the situation: The secret island city is the home of a race of Bird People. When he was a baby, Raven was the lone survivor of a plane crash and was raised by the Bird People. After Raven grew to adulthood, the winged guys unwisely decided to attack the rest of the world. Raven gassed them all unconscious and put them in suspended animation cylinders. The island has risen up out of the ocean because it's time for them to wake up. Raven, though, intends to put them asleep for another 20 years. (By the way, Raven is later retconned into being a construct based on the World War II-era character--but that's a story for another time.)

Angel objects to this plan, thinking that the Bird People technology might benefit mankind. Raven knocks him out, re-sinks the island, and uses an anti-gravity ray to keep Angel afloat until he wakes up again. When he does wake up, Angel resumes his flight to find the Avengers.

So the book advances the main story arc a little, but most of it is given over to a side story. But this is fine, since its a good story and adds another interesting element to the Marvel Universe that other writers can dip into if they ever want to do so. The Angel/Raven fight scene is fun as well. 

Next week, we'll move to the next issue of X-Men, in which the main story arc will begin to gain speed. 

What I Read This Month: October 2025

 

Cover Cavalcade

 OCTOBER IS MARTIAL ARTS MADNESS MONTH!!!

A year after the song came out, everyone was still loving Kung Fu Fighting in this 1975 cover by Dick Giordano.

The Book My Dog Ate! (and books my wife made me read)

 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Philo Vance: "The Poetic Murder Case" 8/24/48

Someone is murdering the city's top theater critics and leaving a poem pinned to the bodies of each of his victims.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Prince Raynor, Part 2

cover art by E.K. Bergey

 Read/Watch 'em In Order #187

Just five months after the first of Henry Kuttner's Prince Raynor stories appeared in Strange Stories, the second would appear in the August 1939 issue of that magazine.

"The Citadel of Darkness" is set just a short time after the end of Raynor's previous tale. He, his Nubian servant Eblik and the woman warrior Delphia have fled their decimated homeland. They've found a band of addition survivors, but those guys were apparently wearing Red Shirts and they are all dead and dying when the new story begins.

They've been killed by a bandit gang led by Malric. Delphia was captured and taken to a nearby castle. Raynor and Eblik pursue, meeting a wizard named Ghiar along the way, who gives Raynor a magical talisman to aid him. 

But Ghiar has his own agenda. After bloodshed and magical shenanigans in the castle, Ghiar takes possession of Delphia and takes her to his own fortress--intending to drain her life force to extend his own life span. Raynor and Eblik pursue.

But breaking into that fortress means passing through a succession of dangers that will test Raynor's endurance, his loyalty to his friends and his courage. Along the way, Malric and his remaining bandits show up to throw off everyone's calculations. 

But along the way, Raynor has gained a very... well, unusual ally that might just allow he and his companions to get out of magical fortress alive.

It's a great story--full of action and tinged with horror in a way that is reministant of fiction by Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Eblik and Delphia don't get to do much themselves, which is a bit of a disappointment. But I'm sure they'll get to be more active in later stories.

Oh, wait. There were no later stories. Why weren't there more Prince Raynor stories, Kuttner? You had a good thing started here! Gee whiz!

Read the story for yourself HERE. 

Beanbags, Part 2

 

cover art by Ben Brown

Beanbags #2 (Spring 1952) picked up right where the first issue left off, with Beanbags and his friends shipwrecked in the land of Disturbia, only to discover that it rains Zanymulch, the substance the U.S. government had sent them to acquire.

But then they see a group of men shove a woman off a cliff into the water. The men seem indifferent to Beanbags' accusation of murder. But soon, we get the back story. It involves...

You know what? It can't be done. The first issue was at least able to pretend it had a logical plot--though it didn't actually fool anyone. This second and (sadly) final issue leaps headfirst into absurdity. I'd be here all day trying to summarize the plot.

There's a back story involving a love affair between a woman with two heads and a man with no head. There's a giant sea serpent that turns out to be a vegetarian. There's a trip down into the ocean, where everyone can breath without explanation, and where King Notzo Mportant gets into a fight with Neptune over some pretty mermaids and Davy Jones runs a pastry shop. And there is, eventually, a submarine trip back to the U.S. with the Zanymulch, only to catch the attention of a mad scientist who needs the Zanymulch for a trip to the moon.

As with the first issue, a few of the gags are forced, but a lot of it is funny, with Ben Brown's artwork--including his exaggerated expressions and fluid action lines-- giving it all real charm. 

The series was cancelled at this point. (I found a reference saying that the book was tied to a novelty toy line that flopped, but could not find confirmation of this.) Did Beanbags and his friends end up on a rocket flying to the Moon? Almost certainly they did, but that story is forever lost in Comic Book Limbo.

Oh, well. Next week, we'll get back to the Marvel Universe to find out how the X-Men are faring against Magneto. Until then, enjoy the final recorded adventure of Beanbags HERE. 

My Book Reading Crimes!

 Should I quietly go to prison or go on the run as a fugitive?

Cover Cavalcade

 OCTOBER IS MARTIAL ARTS MADNESS MONTH!!!

A 1977 cover by Al Milgram.

Teen-Age Baseball Stories (1948)

 A look at my newly acquired copy of 1948's Teen-Age Baseball Stories, along with my SHOCKING ON-CAMERA DISCOVERY that I may now be a criminal!

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Hopalong Cassidy: "Clean-Up of Caribou Mesa" 11/3/51

Hoppy and his sidekick California are tasked with sneaking into a well-guarded rustlers hideout and rescuing the girl they hold hostage. They have a plan, but events do not unfold according to that plan.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Skip Week

 

The necessity of finishing the Jack Kirby article I was asked to write and preperations for resuming the Edgar Rice Burroughs podcast makes a skip week unavoidable. But if anyone prefers to believe that I'm not posting on Wednesday and Thursday this week because I'm busy using brilliant deductive reasoning to solve a murder--- well, I'm okay with that.

The Naval Adventures of Gordon D. Shirreffs

 

Cover Cavalcade

 OCTOBER IS MARTIAL ARTS MADNESS MONTH!!!

This Ron Wilson cover is from 1977.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Challenge of the Yukon: "The Wolf Cub" 6/12/47

The story of a trapper who adopts an orphaned wolf cub gives us a twist on Aesop's fable of "Androcles and the Lion."

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Prince Raynor, Part 1

 

cover art by Rudolph Belarski

Read/Watch 'em In Order #186

A few years ago, I took a look at Henry Kuttner's four stories about Elak of Atlantis. But Elak isn't the only Sword and Sorcery hero Kuttner brought us. In the April 1939 issue of Strange Stories, we are introduced to Prince Raynor. The story is titled "Cursed be the City."

Kuttner gives Prince Raynor an interesting world in which to go adventuring. It's set in a civilization that existed many of thousands of years ago in what is now called the Gobi Desert. The setting serves the same purpose that Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age--a civilization that existed before recorded history that allows for the inclusion of magic, ancient gods and now-forgotten cultures.

Raynor is the son of the king of Sardopolis, a city that was called the Jewel of Gobi. At least until it was conquered by the brutal Cyaxares, a rival king. Raynor is sent off to be tortured--but not before he watches Cyaxares murder his dad.

Fortunately, his friend Eblik the Nubian is still free. He springs Raynor. The two men find a dying priest--the last surviving priest of the sun god Ahmon. From the priest, they get a talisman that can be used to release an even more ancient god--the god that Ahmon had displaced when Sardopolis was founded millennia ago. 

If they can release the ancient god, they will have vengeance against Cyaxares.

It's a great story. Raynor and Eblik are a good team and they are eventually joined by a woman warrior named Delphia. The quest to release the god is both exciting and spooky and there are aspects to Cyaxares' character that make him interesting--and possibly a returning villain for the next story.

Click HERE to read it. 

 

Beanbags, Part 1

cover art by Ben Brown

 I do enjoy writing about short-lived characters who have long since disappeared into Comic Book Limbo. Travelin' Toughie, Sir Spot the Lion-Hearted Leopard, Tommy the Time Traveling Cat, and Super Rabbit were all fun characters in their own right, enriching (if only by a tiny bit each) the history of graphic storytelling. 

Well, let's momentarily rescue Beanbags from Comic Book Limbo as well. The young kid (I think--he might be a short grown-up) had a series of wacky adventures detailed in two issues of his own comic book published by Ziff-Davis in 1951 & 1952.

When I first glanced at Beanbags #1 (Winter 1951), I had the impression that the characters (though not the art style) might have been inspired by Herge's Tin-Tin. But after reading it, I'm left with more of a Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy vibe. But even Wash Tubbs never had adventures quite this silly. The writer, by the way, is unknown. The art is by Ben Brown.

The story opens with a hideous smell coming from a garbage barge. The smell spreads over New York City, stalling cars and withering leaves on trees. The military dispatches their best pilot to investigate.

The smell causes the plane engine to conk out and the pilot, rescued by Beanbags and Beanbags' pal Bozo, tell him the smell is caused by Zanymulch, a very healthy food dish that Bozo has cooked up. For reasons never explained, Beanbags, Bozo and the lovely Idabella don't notice the smell. Perhaps they are just used to it.

More investigators, this time in gasmasks arrive. They learn that the recipe for Zanymulch can only be found in the country of Zanytopia. The story isn't really clear on how Bozo was able to make some Zanymulch without the recipe, but what the hey.

The government sends the boys to Zanytopia to find the recipe. Idabella, who is soft on Bozo, stows away and comes along. 

Parachuting into Zanytopia, the three meet the king, who lives alone in his castle and is treated with contempt (and occasionally with violence) by his subjects. His only job, it turns out, is making huge batches of Zanymulch. He brings the trio to his castle and demonstrates making the stuff, but something goes awry with his cooking--the castle blows up.

Beanbags talks the king into fleeing the country and coming to the USA. They escape on a leaky ship that is then destroyed by a storm. The issue ends with the group stranded in a land called Disturbia,where they meet a talking bird named Dismal Duck and learn that it rains Zanymulch. 

And that's it--continued next issue, which we'll look at next week. 

A fair number of the gags in this issue are forced, but Brown's art is lively and there are enough sincerely funny moments to carry the story along. It is a parody to adventure comic books and comic strips combined with slapstick humor and, in the end, its fun to read. Beanbags isn't as awesome as Tommy the Time Traveling Cat and Sir Spot, but he still acquits himself well. 

You can read it yourself HERE. 

Cover Cavalcade

OCTOBER IS MARTIAL ARTS MADNESS MONTH!!!

A very kinetic Gil Kane cover from 1977.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 The Falcon: "The Case of the Gangster's Girl" 3/4/51

A woman wants the Falcon to get her abusive gangster boyfriend sent to the slammer. Soon, a murder gets in the way of the Falcon's scheme.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Martian Horrors of Clark Ashton Smith, Part 4

 

cover art by Margaret Brundage

Read/Watch 'em In Order #185

Smith's last trip to Mars takes us to the same version of the Red Planet as we visited in "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" and "Dweller of the Gulf." In other words, it's a planet you don't necessarily want to visit.

But it's fun to read about other people visiting it. "Adventure is bad luck happening to someone else," after all.

"Vulthoom" was published in the September 1935 issue of Weird Tales.  The two protagonists are two Earthmen stranded on Mars. They are lured down into vast underground chambers, where they are sort-of introduced to Vulthoom, an alien who came to our solar system many millennia ago. Vulthoom, who often takes thousand-year-long naps, has become a sort of legend in Martian culture--an representation of evil.  There is good reason for this.

Vulthoom is now awake and has plans. He wants the help of the two Earthmen to carry out these plans, which would result in thousands of deaths and the horror of Vulthoom moving from Mars to Earth.

The protagonists are apparently helpless to either refuse to help or escape. In the end, Smith telegraphs the one way they can stop Vulthoom perhaps a little too obviously, but the story overall achieves its purpose in generating a sense of real dread.

In the end, the lesson we learn from Clark Ashton Smith is DON'T GO TO MARS! Maybe take a trip to Venus instead. 

You can read the story HERE. 

Framed for Murder

 

cover art by John Buscema

Avengers #52 (May 1968) is the last single-story issue before the book returns to wrap up the Wanda/Pietro story arc. This will require a diversion BACK to X-Men, as the arc does jump back and forth between the two books. I will refrain from whining yet again about how annoying it is to potentially force someone to buy another book they might not necessarily choose to buy in order to get the entire story. Well, actually, I did just whine again, didn't I? I just can't let it go. But for gosh sakes, Roy Thomas, the X-Men could have just guest-starred in the Avengers! It could have worked that way!

Roy Thomas is the writer and he does provide a strong script here, with John Buscema's superb art bringing that script to life. We begin with Panther (for the time being, he's not called Black Panther so he's not tied in with the then-active political group) sneaking into Avengers Mansion. 

He's already been recommended for membership by Captain America, so this is a way of demonstrating his capabilities by bypassing the various booby traps. He does so, but finds the three active Avengers (Hawkeye, Wasp and Goliath) aren't so active. In fact, they're dead!

Then someone else enters the mansion. This is SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell--one of my favorite Marvel Universe side characters. He immediately arrests Panther (who is not yet well-known outside Wakanda) for murder. 

(By the way, I didn't like the way the Marvel Cinematic Universe portrayed Sitwell. The race swap didn't bother me, but dropping his bowtie-wearing, nerdy, Nick Fury-worshipping, but still very capable persona was no fun at all. I also didn't like that he turned out to be a double agent for Hydra, though I suppose he might have been brain-washed at some point.)

Anyway, Sitwell calls the cops. The Panther accepts being arrested for the time being, hoping that the truth will come out without having to battle the authorities. Though he does make a break for it later on in the story when he feels he has no choice, his decision to respect authority is a key part of his personality and I like that Roy Thomas uses this situation to highlight this.

When Panther and the cops leave with the bodies, the Grim Reaper (in his first appearance) shows up, revealing in a flashback that he's the one who "killed" the Avengers. Between the flashback and his later monologing while fighting Panther, we learn that he's the brother of Wonder Man, who worked for Baron Zemo's Masters of Evil. Though Wonder Man redeemed himself before dying and was NOT killed by an Avenger, Grim Reaper blames the Avengers. He's put his first three victims in a death-like suspended animation, planning on capturing other Avengers and killing them all enmasse. Also, after three hours, the suspended animation becomes permanent.

I've crammed all this back story into one paragraph, but Thomas does spread it out over the course of the book. Also, the Reaper's flashback fight with the Avengers and his later fight with Panther are typically fantastic examples of Buscema's action-packed art style.

Panther does eventually escape the cops and return to the Mansion to figure out what's going on. He meets the Reaper, who is apparently killed when the two fight. 

Despite a painful shoulder wound, Panther takes the Reaper's scythe to the morgue, using it to revive the Avengers.

The Grim Reaper gets away for now, but the Panther is cleared of murder charges and is officially inducted into the Avengers. The team then elects to finish tracking down Wanda and Pietro. It's a great one-issue story, but its nice to finally get back to the main story arc.

Next week, we''ll take a break from this story arc and look at an obscure character from the 1950s named Beanbags. In two weeks, we'll jump to an issue of X-Men (curse you, Roy Thomas). The next two weeks after that will bring us one more issue of the X-Men and one more Avengers to finally tie up the story arc.