Comic Book Review: Dark Mysteries Vol. 1 by Various Artists
This is another of the PS Artbooks softcover collections of pre-Code horror comics, collecting the first five issues of Dark Mysteries from Master Comics, published in 1951-1952. These comic books may have been read by the youth, but the shaping underwear ads indicate an older intended audience including women. Let’s take a look at these lurid tales.
“The Curse of the Sea Witch” by Arthur Framson starts issue #1 with a nautical horror yarn. It seems that quite a few years ago, Caleb Dodge sailed on the Sea Witch with his partner Ira Sumner. After a particularly lucrative voyage, Caleb murdered Ira so as not to split the takings. Ira cursed both the Dodge lineage and the ship itself. When Caleb tried to throw the corpse overboard, the ship’s gaff suddenly swung out of control, impaling him with his victim and forcing them both overboard. (This was witnessed by the crew.)
The proceeds were taken by Caleb’s son, cutting out the Sumner heirs. Not that it did him much good, as he and his son eventually died aboard the Sea Witch in horrific ways. The ship was put in dry dock after that, considered truly cursed. Caleb’s great grandson, also named Caleb, was too young at that point to get the full meaning, and as he rose to the role of shipping magnate, dismissed the old stories as superstition.
Until he wanted to build a yacht, and wanted the old wood paneling and timbers that just weren’t available in 1951. His toady Captain Snow suggests repurposing the wood from the Sea Witch, and despite the shipwright’s warnings, Caleb agrees. Frequent accidents during the construction, some fatal, do not deter the last of the Dodges.
As one might expect, the maiden voyage of the new ship is doomed, with the momentary red herring that the great-grandson of Ira Sumner, also named Ira Sumner, is a stowaway on board. The most notable thing about this story is that it’s early art by Wally Wood before he got snapped up by EC. It’s rougher than his prime stuff, but still interesting to look at.
“Horror of the Ghostly Statue” by umm, “Hy Fleshman”? is the final tale in issue 5. It is the 19th Century somewhere in Middle Europe. Young, handsome Karl is a delivery man for wealthy merchant Ernst Collier. He is in love with the beautiful and talented sculptor Karen Vinter. She returns his interest, and has carved a fine statue of her favorite fellow.
Unfortunately, Ernst also has a thing for Karen. He calls it love, but it is more possessiveness and jealousy of his well-formed employee. Ernst presses his suit, pointing out the economic advantages he can offer his bride. Karen isn’t impressed; in addition to being older and uglier than Karl, Ernst has a cold, grasping personality. Which may explain why a rich man is still single.
Karen finishes her sculpture and goes to the fair with Karl. While there, she sees a chisel for sale that awakens something in her. The shopkeeper, who claims to be from India, says that it’s alright to display the chisel, but it must never actually be used as legend has it the thing is cursed.
Shortly thereafter, the horse that Karl was using to tow his delivery cart goes mad and “accidentally” kills him. While Karen is grieving, Ernst buys up the mortgage on her father’s small business and house. He starts tightening the screws, and Karen very reluctantly agrees to marry the creep. Like many men of his ilk, Ernst is convinced Karen will grow less cold once she experiences his love up close.
In despair, Karen uses the allegedly cursed chisel to smooth out a rough spot on the leg of Karl’s statue. It slips, and creates a scratch. The next day she learns Mr. Collier has broken his leg. And curiously, the scratch on the statue has become a crack. Three weeks later, Karen uses the chisel again and a tiny piece of the statue’s head is chipped. Mr. Collier suffers a concussion, coincidence perhaps, but the missing piece of the statue has grown.
When Ernst has recovered, he shows up drunk at Karen’s studio while she’s weeping and embracing the statue of her lost love. He lets slip that he deliberately made Karl use a mad horse, and to crush Karen’s defiant spirit, he snatches up the chisel to destroy the statue. This does not go well for him. Not exactly a happy ending, but Karen is much better off.
Other notable stories include…
“The Ghoul of Death” by Goldfarb Baer, in which a doctor is experimenting with brain surgery to cut the evil part of a man’s mind out, thus turning them good. To this end, he picks the most horrible convicted murderer available from prison volunteers. The operation works, sort of. Unfortunately, it turns out the criminal was possessed by a demon that lived in that part of the brain, and escapes into the doctor’s nurse. Oops!
“Book of the Grey Dragon” by Lou Cameron has an expedition looking for the lost tomb of Genghis Khan. They find it, and the titular book, which contains a spell for raising the dead. Naturally, the fools read this aloud, and Genghis Khan rises again with an undead army. The day is saved by the racist trope of the Asian man lusting after white women.
“Ghosts from Mars” (no listed author) is the most bizarre story in this volume. Flying saucers disgorge a plague of ghosts of Mars-men on the Earth. The ghosts aren’t so much malevolent as overcrowding and nearly impossible to get rid of until it’s discovered that they are harmed by human blood. It turns out that there’s no more room for ghosts on Mars, so the aliens were using Earth as a new garbage dump. There’s a temporary solution at the end, but the Martians will be coming back with more….
“Bargain with a…Worm” (no author listed) has an embezzler approached by a creature of uncertain origins, though it calls him an “Earthling”, that looks like a discarded sack. It offers to trade him what he needs in exchange for access to his thoughts and dreams. Since his boss is about to do an audit, the embezzler has little choice but to accept this bargain, wishing for a large amount of money.
The human makes two mistakes, first, he keeps calling the creature “worm” instead of “Master” as it prefers. Second, it turns out the boss already had proof of the embezzlement, and though the books are even now, demands “interest” for the borrowed funds. The fool goes back to the creature for more money, but can’t stop disrespecting it. The ending is described as even by horror comics standards it’s too horrible to show.
“Terror of the Cat-Men” by Doug Wildey starts with an American engineer heading to Argentina to work on a bridge project. He is eager to reconnect with an old friend/love rival who’s been living down there a while. But when he checks into the hotel, his friend has gone out…and never returns. Could it have something to do with the mysterious senorita and her pet cat the engineer keeps seeing? Yes, yes it could.
There’s also the mandatory text features in each issue, a couple of forgettable stories, and a couple of “weird facts” columns.
Content note: These are horror comics, after all. Death, frequently gruesome, murder, torture, gore and corpses in various stages of decay. Period racism and sexism, depiction of ableism.
This is not the primo pre-Code horror, with uneven art, and stories that frequently fall flat, but the comic had a respectable run and there are good nuggets here and there. “Ghosts from Mars” is definitely worth taking a look at, I recommend checking this out from a library if you can find it.
