Number 1355: “Spending the days with Bill, and the nights with horror!”

Forbidden Worlds, ACG's companion to Adventures Into the Unknown, ended its run at #34 (1954), the last issue before the Comics Code kicked in. It was replaced for three issues with Young Heroes, a more Code-friendly book, numbers 35-37. But Young Heroes didn't last, and Forbidden Worlds came back with an issue dated about a year after #34, continuing the numbering from #35. Confused? Comic books used to change their names but not their numbering (trying to get around a postal regulation for second-class mailing permits), but sometimes they were caught and had to re-number. That may be what happened with Forbidden Worlds

Okay, that's our comic book history lesson for today. Within the pages of FW #34 are a couple of stories that show a change in direction for ACG’s supernatural titles to fit into the new Code, and a last blast from their pre-Code past. The newer-styled story is “Day of Reckoning!” which is science fiction with art attributed by the Grand Comics Database to Paul Gustavson, and the catchy-titled “My Fanged and Fiendish Darling” is a werewolf story, common in ACG’s titles until the Code. It's drawn by Emil Gershwin.

“Fanged and Fiendish” is very odd. A married woman and single man share a secret; they are both able to sit at home and send their “wolf-beings” into the night to rip and tear innocent passers-by. No credible reason is given for Karen taking up such a lycanthropic lifestyle except that she is “...so lonely that maybe even terror is welcome!” It’s a crazy plot, but that wasn’t uncommon for ACG.

The Grand Comics Database gives Ken Bald credit for the cover.

Number 1354: The homicidal maniac

Looking at this Zebra story from Green Hornet Comics I asked myself, “Superhero or crime comic?” Since the subject of the story is a crazed killer with a female accomplice, it seems more crime comic. I counted the panels (yes, I have been known to do things like that), and found that of 63 panels, the Zebra appears in only seven, including the splash. It fits into my Crime Wave series.

If serial killers looked like Maurice they’d be easier to spot. Maurice’s tongue lolls out and he giggles. He doesn’t care who (or what, check out the bug squash) he kills. It was not untypical for a Zebra story to regularly feature some grotesque villains. With Bob Fujitani's deft drawing in an Eisner-style, the killer is portrayed in all his psychopathic fury.

From Green Hornet Comics #26, 1945:

Creatures of the Bomb!

"The murderous fury of the crushing hand of doom struck as the creatures rose from the graves below." Eerie Pubs liked this Moe Marcus tale from the February 1953 issue of Witches Tales #17 so much that they gave it a redraw and retitled it as "Doom Creatures" in Terror Tales as well as Strange Galaxy.

Number 1353: War Gods of the Deep

In the sixties I made a point to see movies with Vincent Price, especially movies based on stories by Poe. So why did I miss War Gods of the Deep, based on Poe's “City In the Sea”? I don't know. I wasn’t aware of it, or was busy doing something else, I guess. I’ve still never seen the movie, and can't comment on it. But the comic book adaptation, which came out in 1965, is well done. The artwork is credited by the Grand Comics Database to John Tartaglione, inked by Dick Giordano. There's a lot of photo reference in the panels, but at least the characters look like the actors in the movie.

Dell had a weird numbering system for comics in the Movie Classics line, and this one is considered to be #900.