Oh my, did you guys think that last post was the final THOIA entry of 2022? No no no... we have one more visitation from our favorite vampy Atlas era heroine, Venus, via the October 1951 issue of Venus #16! This is Everett once again doing some fine work, though maybe not as iconically horror driven visually as he would later become. There are still some nice chilly moments to be had here though, errr, I mean as chilly as things can get down at the creepy old crematorium! Everyone have a great New Years Eve, we'll see you ASAP in 2023 as we dispose of the awful ashes of 2022 with--
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A fun little super-hero story, with one of those escape hatch stories for the villain (he'll be back!)
A lot to like in the art; the splash is great (I mean, attempting to heat a room that big would be impossible but I'm giving them artistic license!). The pile of coffins, the bones, and the ash/fire logo, all together make a really striking splash.
Aside from the good girl art (personally, I think Della is prettier than Venus, IMHO) Everett was really good at about everything -- from cars, to coffins, to industrial buildings. A lot of times you get an artist that's good at drawing the good girl art but then is terrible on everything else.
Everett also draws a great villain -- he looks very satanic. At first I thought he had pointed ears but it's the way Everett draws them to look like that. It's a hint, very well done!
You'd think that by now, Satan would find himself a more clever alias than say, spelling his name backwards. I caught that one the moment his name was first mentioned by Venus. It's never really specified if the victims really signed any papers or if they were all given that pill, but I'd presume if there were any papers to sign, would it be ones where they'd unknowingly be signing away their soul to the devil? I mean, people usually fail to read the fine print these days. The panel where Satan proves who he truly is by jumping into the furnace is my favorite. It's just so ridiculously awesome.Not to mention Venus admitting to the police,"Uh, yeah, I guess that actually was the devil since you couldn't find his remains afterwards!" Also, Della is pretty cute herself.
Della seems to be Lois Lane in glasses, only she isn't trying to discover anyone's secret identity.
That character saying "cut it out, Jane. You can carry even sorrow too far, you know": in most stories that would indicate that the two of them bumped off the dear departed, in which case Natas would definitely have had good reason to remove at least one of them. But there's no follow up to it so one can only wonder why the comment was made. As things go, Santa
doesn't really have any reason to kill these people, especially in such a convoluted fashion. You'd think StanA could just have dragged them off to hell but maybe even the devilish business is going to the dogs these days.
I want to dwell on the moment when Della--who knows the plan, but who wasn't actually able to see Venus make her escape--watches Dr. Natas wheel her coffin into the flames. Surely there must be some little voice in the back of her head somewhere worried that things had gone wrong, that the chauffeur had been late, that Venus was still trapped in that box struggling to get out. That must have been a long moment for Della, who wouldn't know for sure that everything had turned out okay till she hooked back up with Whit outside.
Or maybe Whit took this opportunity for a cracking April fools joke. "Della, what are you doing here? I'm supposed to go in and let Venus out of that box!" Ha ha, that's a good one, Whit!
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