Tales to Astonish is one of Marvel's Monster books. During this period, Marvel published quite a few Monster titles which contained monster-hunting stories or science-fiction/horror morality plays in the tradition of Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits. The monsters were always aliens or giant monsters resulting from science gone wrong since the Comics Code forbid most real horror elements including vampires, werewolves, and zombies.
This issue contained four stories:
"I Dared Defy the Floating Head!", art by Paul Reinman, is the story of an alien invasion that wasn't. A giant floating head demands the evacuation of New York City, and destroys a warehouse as proof of his powers, but an enterprising young boy figures out, its the plot of criminals, doing it all with mirrors to clear the way for a crime wave. The story wasn't bad, but the ending was telegraphed.
"I Live Again", art by Steve Ditko was probably my favorite tale from this issue. "I Live Again" is a continuation/sequel of Ditko's "I Spent Midnight With the Thing from Bald Mountain" from the previous issue. In that story, a sculptor creates a beautiful, golden statue embodying all that is good and a crude leaden statue embodying all that is evil. The two come to life and engage in a brutal fight throughout the castle which culminates in the "The Thing", the evil statue, falls from a battlement into the ocean. When "I Live Again" begins, the Thing, survives and surfaces. He studies mankind to prepare to dominate it, and makes his way to America to take it over. He proves his strength and power repeatedly on his trip, but chooses to rest in the wrong place and traps himself forever. The ending I did not see coming with this once, and Ditko's Gothic art style, is a thing of beauty. The panel in which upon arriving in a Florida swamp, the Thing purposefully engages a giant alligator is my favorite. There is just something about the way Ditko drew reptiles.
"I Am the Genie", pencils by Kirby, inks by Ditko, is about a criminal who finds a genie. He uses it for acts of terrorism in preparation of ransoming the world, before making a critical error in wishing. Anyone who has seen Disney's Aladdin has a good guess as to how this ends. The art is very good, but Ditko's art overrides Kirby's. I wouldn't have known it was him without the credits from The Grand Comics Database.
"Mummex--King of the Mummies!" is the cover story. A giant mummy, dubbed by the porters on a dig, "a demon mummy--Mummex!" rises from a tool and travels across Egypt searching various other tombs and dig sites. Only a lone brave archaeologist follows Mummex to try and determine why Mummex is searching all of the tombs. He never finds out, but he does discover after it leaves earth that Mummex is not from this world. While talking to another member of his race, we discover that Mummex, whose people wear bandages as a space suit, was looking for stranded members of his race. I like the cover, but the story itself was fair. The non-talking Mummex has no personality and doesn't interact with anyone, and the reveal that he was an alien was no surprise as even though we are only on issue 8, its well-established that the monsters are almost always aliens.
The next issue on the Marvel Silver Age track will be Strange Tales #74 as I enter April, 1960.
No comments:
Post a Comment