Wow, it's already Mummy Monday again, --time to open up another time-rotted tomb of ancient horrors! And this one is absolutely loaded with eerie Egyptian god freaks, as well as various bad decisions on the parts of our heroes. But it's a fast paced, fun yarn none the less, plus Bob Forgione (again already, too!) adds a healthy dose of cleavage to the chase so that kooky Mr. Karswak doesn't have to! On top of all that, dig the ghastly cover decap design, and rather lovely B/W table of contents page, both courtesy of Lou Morales. From the October - November 1952 issue of The Thing #5.
5 comments:
Well, at least the Egyptians look fairly normal and real (bar Pasha's unfortunate Ottoman title and fez), which was fairly unusual for the 1950s. And I always love a story where the villain gets away with it.
This is one of those horror stories that really straddles the line between adventure / superhero / horror, which goes to show how moldable adventure is in comics. Small tweaks separate horror from crime, etc.
The monsters were all basically bruisers with cool monster animals heads, and might as well have been the ani-men from Daredevil!
I love these tales with professors that not only poo-poo the ancient curse but go about running spells for laughs. Nobody deserves to get murdered by an ancient pharaoh more than these guys!
I like how the monsters rip open Mona's shirt but doesn't muss a single strand of her hair!
Lot of fun. Love the monsters, love the bizarre Egyptian mishmash of time periods and locations, etc. My favorite bit is page 4, panel 1, there's a FRAMED PAINTING of King Mentu (and the already lit torches!)
We're getting mixed signals from the professor, he claims that the Egyptian curse is bunk, then decides to try to bring the mummy back to life with the aid of Egyptian magic. It's either believer or non believer, prof, pick a side and stick with it.
Concerning Howard Carter, who uncovered and opened King Tut's tomb, the supposed curse of violating the tomb never seemed to find him. If a curse can't even strike down the guy who violated the tomb, then what good is an Egyptian curse anyway?
It seems to me that the Fifties were the golden age of Charlton, art and story wise.
As always, thanks for the great posts.
Speaking of mixed signals from Professor Ambrose, he seems to mean it when he claims he isn't planning to steal anything, whether it's for academic reasons or the other kind.
It's too bad that just "acting like a jerk" gets him killed!
I don't understand anything about unwrapping mummies, but it's accidentally funny when Ismael and Mona decide to do that on the spot. I know it moves the story along, but I'm guessing that must be incredibly unscientific.
Whether or not it would be a little controversial (?), I kept expecting Ismael and Mona to not only survive but end up a couple at the end.
Then, I almost expected a "Scooby-Doo" kind of non-supernatural ending, maybe with Ismael the villain all along!
It's slightly funny that Mentu gives the order to kill Mona as she's accidentally posing for a "cheesecake" picture! (In a way, every picture of her is like that, but that's one of the obvious ones.) Unlike countless revived mummies, he evidently doesn't fall for the heroine, does he?
Yeah, mummies are a little like Russian dolls. There's a tomb, of course, with pictures of the subject on the walls. Therein you'll find a stone crypt with carved images of the inhabitant. Crack that and discover a large wooden coffin with paintings of the cadaver you seek inside. Lift the lid only to uncover the sarcophagus, carved in the shape of the deceased, their portrait in golden paint inlaid with precious stones. Bust through this layer! Because you are going to want see the intricately woven dried reed basket that houses the clay and batting cocoon encapsulating the papyrus wrapped, linen-wound shroud of the desiccated ancient cadaver, itself hollowed-out and filled with sachets of withered herbs and ceramic jars of powdered guts. It might take a while to get all the way to the middle using your hands, as they apparently did in the precode era! It's one of the reasons we use CT scans and photon X-ray imaging now.
I dig the large portrait of Karnak overlooking that melee in the splash. What a wild purple mummy! I'm also smitten with page seven. The exotic geometry of Forgione's Egypt, already beguiling, is increasingly complimented by psychedelia in the form of eddying water and the rise of witchy pink clouds. It's glorious.
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