While many of you are participating in Super Bowl festivities this evening, let it be known that Mr. Karswell is instead going beyond the call of football, and working extra evil hard on the other side of Death's door! So far beyond in fact, that it's actually from the March 1952 issue of The Beyond #9. And what's this? Doth we detect a love story in the mix here as well? Hmmm, well, Valentine's Day is just a few hops, skips, and jittery jumps away too, so yeah, I guess this is a sort of lurid mini theme featuring lovebirds in peril or something...
6 comments:
It's funny how this one uses the "phantom hitchhiker" tradition, but takes it in another direction.
Nearly two happy endings in a row, which is fine with me.
Yes, another sexy skeleton!
This story has one strange bit about it -- did his aggressive driving cause the accident or did death cause the accident? It changes the trajectory of the story, and especially death with the "I'm a jealous woman" line.
I also like how death is only seen by him but puts on this weird play; why pretend to have a physical mask? Why the cat eyes? I just love to imagine that she's not only jealous but a big old ham and can't wait to just do all sorts of weird dramatic things.
BTW, Carole can do better, that guy *was* a jerk!
The Sandman Universe Death is a lot more fun and he'd probably have gone with her quite happily.
See, back in driver's ed they used to teach you to thoroughly check your tires for skeletal hand impressions before you go off on an angry tear. Just kidding; it's all a dream! But those few times I've been under general anesthetic I didn't really dream at all, frankly. It was way more like a nihilistic experience of utter void. But I guess there wasn't much in the way of treatment happening at this hospital anyway, come to think of it: No IV drip, no surgical bandages*, no heart monitor. Dick doesn't even seem to be in a care unit--maybe he's staying in the doctor's home? The whole story could just be some insurance scam.
My favorite panel--and surely the one I find scariest--it one one at the very end. The whole idea that Death stakes out the freeway like a cop behind a bush in a small town speed trap is pragmatic and creepy. I always thought of the Grim Reaper as being a personification of fate, but here she's more of an opportunist. Shudder.
*Oh sure, Dick dreams he's wearing bandages at the bottom of page eight--Dick knows how to imagine being in a hospital after a car accident--but by the time he finally wakes up there is no evidence of them.
Didn't see these plot twists coming. Good tale.
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