HORRIFIC #3 (JANUARY 1953)

 A pre-Code horror comic, perhaps a bit mild compared to others of the day, although you may not be able to tell because of the bullet hole in the head on the cover...

"Devil Claws"  Pianist John Darling was a giant in the music world, but after a successful concert he had too much to drink in celebration.  After the car crash he waked in a hospital to find that both hands had been amputated.   Reeling in despair, with metal claws instead of hands, he cuts himself off from friends, including lovely Mary.  Later, on a dark night (it's always on a dark night, isn't it?), he is approached by a stranger who claims he can give him a new pair of hands; the satanic-looking man's card reads "HENRY JONES  SUTGICAL SPECIALIST. "  John's new pair of surgically attached hands look as ugly as possible, but he can once again play the piano, and play if wonderfully.  But his new hands have a murderous intent of their own, and when Mary comes to see John...

"The Silent Clock" is a tale filled with dinosaurs and was drawn (or written) buy someone who knows squat about dinosaurs -- a brontosaur looks like a tyrannosaur and a tyrannosaur looks like a triceratops.  No matter; they're all extinct now anyway.  In a small town in Oklahoma, water is running uphill, time stops and clocks refuse to run, and gravity has been reversed!  Investigating this strange phenomena are newlyweds Helen and Tom... A violent storm, the Earth opens up, and Tom and Helen (and their car) fall into the abyss.  They wake up -- unharmed and sans car -- into a strange world of the past.  They see the large footprint of a tyrannosaur and realize they are at least 50,000 years in the past.  (Not only does this take get the dinosaurs wrong, it botches uo the evolutionary timeline).  Then they are chased by a giant mastodon.  Escaping that, they face the feared tyrannosaur/brontosaur; they escape this time because a triceratops/tyrannosaur comes along to do battle with the other giant whatever the heck that lizard is.  Will they ever return?  Or will they become (golly gee) Adam and Eve in this poorly thought-out timeline?

"Death's Cargo"  Joe finds himself lost on what should have been a familiar beach road.  He spies a derelict vessel and goes aboard, hoping that someone there can give him directions.  The only person aboard is an old, gaunt sea captain, who offers him some baked clams.   While the old man prepares the clams, the ship slips silently out to sea.  It's the Voodoo Queen, a ship that had sunk fifty years before.  The captain makes Joe sign the ship's articles... A ghostly crew appears, and on shore, people are amazed to see the phantom ship heading for the rocks.  Joe survives the crash, but for how long?  His leg is broken and he is clinging to wreckage.  The ghost of the captain prevents rescue from the shore and then pulls Joe into the briny deep.   The captain is carrying a grudge, you see, because Joe's grandfather was the one who caused the Voodoo Queen, a slave ship, to sink fifty years before.  (Yeah, timelines are meaningless in this comic book, as can be seen from the previous story.)  Bur dawn appears, and with it, the ghost's power fades before Joe could be fully and truly drowned.  The enxt day, Joe, who had a broken lag, remember?, is pictured walking about.  **sigh**

"Forbidden World"  "Dense forbidding Osivius was considered void of life...but by sheer chance, Captain Ozone's space ship landed and was plunged into a battle for life against a fantastic foe who called themselves the Shirdlu Gamm."  The Shridlu Gamm are giant bird creatures who kind of resemble the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz.  They swoop down and capture two of Captain Ozone's Space Patrol Guardians, including the lovely Alice (the other captive is Mike, but who cares about him?) and take them to their giant cave/palace.  Ozone tries to rescue the pair but is captured after killing a number of the Shirdlu Gamm, and all three are to now be thrown to the Kraakii -- giant lizard critters with sharp teeth.  But the bird people did not reckon on the Earthlings' antigrav devices, not their demo grenades...Soon the Shirdlu Gamm learn the error of their ways and peace is established and we learn that technology thrives because we were not born with wings.  Huh?

Okay, so Horrific was not very horrific and, for the most part, was trite and banal.  Youi can't win them all.  Perhaps, though, you could look at this issue kindly and gloss over the inconsistencies and the factual errors and logical missteps.  Viewed that way, this issue is a hoot.  And some of the artwork, probably from the Iger Studio, is not that bad.

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