How many tales of tragic time machine tomfoolery do you believe exist in the realm of sci-fi / horror comic books? I couldn't even begin to fathom how many there are just posted right here on this blog alone-- but I'm sure it's a lot! And yeah, the best ones always seem to involve some crumb bum crook trying to escape the law by violently taking advantage of an innocent scientist. And with that said --here's one more that literally checks every single one of those exact dadburn bloody boxes! From the March '52 issue of Suspense #15, with artwork by the eternally great, Werner Roth.
5 comments:
Another cliche of these stories -- and a lot of "crook stumbles upon scientist" stories is that the scientist always works absolutely alone absolutely in the middle of nowhere in an absolutely haunted victorian mansion.
There has certainly been many, many scientific advancements done by a single guy in his own lab but building that Time Machine? Fabricating that metal alone takes something on an industrial scale! It's dumb to poke holes in quickie horror comics; this is all suspension of disbelief and it's fine but that always cracked me up. These guys build entire future tech in their remote ghost houses!
I like how the artist keeps the humans of the future blacked out, it makes it a bit more spooky and does somewhat serve as a fake out, though it's a one panel fake out (are they cannibals in the future? Vampires? etc.)
I'm guessing this wasn't Stan because Nazis were mentioned instead of communists!
"You've found the perfect, flawless escape from the police!" Unfortunately for him, there is no statute of limitations for murder. I recall one horror comic book story where a murderer of the nineteenth century places himself in suspended animation/a death like trance who awakens to the modern day, only to be arrested and charged with his crime of murder from a century ago.
The idea that a time traveler ages as fast inside the time machine as outside was an interesting idea. If that were the case, then a time traveler would have to equip their time machine with a suspended animation capsule to prevent old age.
As Brian mentioned, we never learn what the people of a century from now are like- vampires, androids, space invaders who conquered earth long ago.
This was a unique sci fi story, a welcome addition to THOIA.
This is a pretty good twist. And, come to think of it, why wouldn't something sent forward in accelerated time age in acceleration?
Now the only question is how Mr Mad Scientist had planned to mitigate the effect for himself in a few hours.
I guess that, if time travel ages the subject in exact proportion to the distance between outset and destination, well then, all that has actually been accelerated is the subject's perception of time passing. Right? The remote scientist might have just induced a coma; that would also erase the feeling of time passing even as the subject's body ages. I suspect a coma is definitely something a scientist in some spooky and remote Queen Anne Victorian could whip up all by himself.
I'm pretty sure I understand the definition of machine, too. Even in its simplest form, a machine does something. If I were to stumble upon a midnight scientist talking about his machine traveling though time, and that machine was just a capsule with a trick door, I'd suspect the coma before the the sci-fi. I mean, the gas chamber and the Iron Maiden are similar time travel machines, I guess. Close the door and in a hundred years you're a skeleton.
I love the way way the rock thrown through the window at the bottom of page three creates a shattered halo in the glass around our antagonist at the bottom of page four. That feels like clever, semiotic character building and foreshadowing all rolled in one.
This is actually a really creative twist that I have not seen elsewhere regarding the consequences of time travel. I wonder if this is normal to the people in the future if this is basically how time travel works in this universe. “Another dead body. When will these fools learn that time travel is impossible?” 🤣🤣 I also love how these eccentric reclusive scientists are almost always some old guy with a beard and glasses wearing a lab coat. Just for once I want a hot reclusive eccentric scientist or a foxy lady one. Anyway, I like the 2nd panel of Karl hiding in the shadows on the second page and the fourth panel of the last page where he’s pleased with how things have turned out.
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