Thursday, March 3, 2016
Wilson's Woman
THOIA returns after a brief hiatus (February was project overload month!) with a request from Tara "The Terror" who writes in expressing her relentless love for HAUNTED LOVE #1 (thank you!) while also inquiring about a rotten romance story she remembers reading a long, long time ago. Pretty sure I got what the mad doctor ordered for ya today, and though I don't usually post Atlas tales anymore due to blatant, greedy asshole comment abuse around here over the last few years, I'm making a exception because she asked nicely. Originally featured in the May 1954 issue of Mystic #30 (art by Doug Wildey and rockin' cover art by Russ Heath)
And MRAs everywhere wept.
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ReplyDeleteThis one's pretty sad. It's plain to see that the townspeople are the true monsters in this tale. I did kind of figure out right away that Wilson's "wife" must be a robot--plenty of old horror comic stories have ones where a lonely scientist makes himself a robot bride. Although I wonder why Wilson took her apart. Maybe he was giving her an upgrade or an adjustment?
ReplyDeleteAnd sometimes, even the end that you see a mile off is still very effective in the sheer inevitability of its long approach and arrival. Nasty stuff, that small town frontier justice. Doug Wildey, on the other hand, turned out some excellent stuff in this story. Splash page especially. And I have to admit, I've been missing those ruddy orangey Stan Goldberg color palettes around here, too.
ReplyDeleteSo many easy political jokes :)
ReplyDeleteFirst, Marvel, publish these in masterworks. I shouldn't complain because Marvel gave us a lot of Atlas material in beautiful packages; the collected Menace is one of the treasures of anybody's precode collection, but Atlas produced so much material and it's all ripe for reprinting.
Second, it's a bit hard not to think we've got a tale written by a bunch of big city New York writers having a laugh at the small town yokels, they are basically dismissive of "science" (as what, a field??) right off the bat! Now, granted, I'd rather hang out with the city slickers, but this thing has the deck stacked a bit.
I like how this tale hinges on the fact that the townsfolk, after hanging our scientist for murdering his wife, don't investigate the house to find the body, or at least call the cops! Once they did, they'd discover the robot and somebody would be able to take it apart to figure out it's workings, so science wasn't set back 500 years.
Wildly does some fine work here, there's a bit of other pre-code artist styles in his work, it's still great.
Speaking of investigating, if this were a longer story, there'd be no reason for that not to come up BEFORE the lynching, with him demanding that they produce the body of his "victim." And of course, she'd be right there in the house for them to see.
ReplyDeleteI immediately started wondering which "' 50s blonde bombshell" actress (or actresses) Mrs. Wilson might be based on. She doesn't really look like the MOST obvious one, but I can't really come up with any others either. (Of course, there's no reason to assume she's based on ANY female celebrity, it's just entertaining to guess about it.)
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ReplyDeleteTo me, any kind of harmless voyeurism (as opposed to the looking through windows kind) is all right, so I'm not so sure I wouldn't like living next-door to a Mrs. Wilson, even if I knew the secret. (Maybe the character on Page 3 would agree.)
ReplyDeleteneat story. I just love that last panel.
ReplyDeleteThere must be a whole category of weird story where the scientist lives in a small town, and most of the trouble comes from narrow-minded townspeople. That's the idea of "I Robot" (at least, the Outer Limits version - I don't really know any other version). Of course, in that story the robot is accused of murdering the scientist, and in this story it's the other way around.
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