Monday, May 16, 2016
A Grave Situation
We're getting back into stories from Charlton's The Thing series, and if you thought the tales I posted earlier this month (and last) were freakin' weird, wait until you get a load of this bloody WTF head scratcher of vengeance! From the May 1953 issue of The Thing #8, art by John Belfi.
A fun story of the standard type where all the deaths are tied to a certain method. The story seemed to be going somewhere with Ramon and just ... forgot. What Ramon the sea (actually, ocean, but what do bodies of water know?) brought into form to grab the treasure? Or some other type of spook (who can be hit over the head.) It seemed a weird element.
ReplyDeleteI like the artwork here, some of the choices the artist made, like the thick, single black eye brows gave our villain the right thuggish look.
I need one of those shots that fixes a split open throat, clears the brain, and brings out a confession but for only a couple minutes. That's comic book science, right there!
Hey, we'll just keep this traumatic throat injury guy in the back of a cab all night, letting some street doctor inject dopamine at random. I got ten bucks says he doesn't live through the night.
ReplyDeleteMan I love The Thing.
Medical attention, schmedical attention..man up,fella!
ReplyDeleteA neat twist on the tale would have been if the cab driver had been Ramon in disguise. Why would Ramon bother to take the guy to the police rather than just toss him off a pier? Maybe Ramon felt like granting the guy one last wish before getting his revenge.
ReplyDeleteOne plot hole - but in a GOOD way, I think - is how you never find out Ramon's whole connection to things. You find out he's waited centuries to get to the treasure because "something" has prevented him, and that's it. (I was sure he'd turn out to be one of those cursed pirate crew members like in so many similar stories, but it doesn't happen.) And of course he sinks when they toss him in, but he evidently comes back, like some "merman" character.
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