Traveling across state lines to hook up with a minor is absolutely a monster level no-no, but some people have to learn the hard way! Wait a second, that's not what this story is about, --that's the other "Subway Terror" currently serving 15 years in prison. Anyway, the terrors presented in today's post are just as despicably awful, so hang on tight as Mister Mystery himself takes you down down down into an equally low level, where other unseen monsters live among us. From the Nov. '51 issue of Mister Mystery #2, art by Mike Esposito.
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This reminds me of a short story related to the Cuthulu Mythos and later adapted for an episode of the syndicated series “Monsters”… I can’t remember the title of each…
The origin of this tale is "Far Below" from the author Robert Barbour Johnson,
published in Weird Tales back in 1939.
It was later turned into an episode on the TV anthology show 'Monsters'.
The TV version and comic tale differ from the original story, but each offer a different take on the story of an underground horror.
This tale is kind of interesting, in a horror sort of way. The menace is somewhat contained; they know what it is ahead of time and how to deal with it. There's no "it means the end of the world" it's just an action adventure where the stakes are kind of low. I like it! It's different, it's open ended, and actually makes you think of next and previous stories about these creatures.
Hungry little buggers, ain't they?
Mr. Mystery was always fun to me; here is a guy in a jaunty top-hat and domino mask who smiles through a story of very Wally Wood type monsters that skeletizes humans in a couple seconds. He seems so, at once out of place, and then in the absolute correct place.
Page 4 & 5 are great comic pacing, great use of the format and the "void" between panels.
This is just what I come to precode comics for: Costumed skeletons, goopy-looking green bogeymen, lots of purple. Also the fat, emphatic, self-confident brush strokes of someone like Esposito (inked on the cover by Andru but not on the inside? But the outcomes look surprisingly similar).
I'm a little surprised to hear that this comes from source material. I haven't read Far Below, but usually when comics rip off... um... "are inspired by" a short story there is, you know, a full story. This is much more like a first act: Meet our hero, who after a traumatic event is privy to information that promotes him to a special unit of the police force. Then, his first night on the job, he comes face to face with his deepest fears. What will come of him? What will come of the city? How will things be resolved? The end.
It's not an unusual format for a five- or six-page comic, but it's pretty truncated for published fiction. Often, more fully realized narrative arcs are a signpost that we're reading something that started life in a more fully-baked format. Not this time.
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