It's Halloween, so let's take a look at a rare horror comic book. How rare? A near-mint copy of issue #1 reportedly sold for $1,399. Skeleton Hand in Secrets of the Supernatural was a six-issue title published by American Comics Group from late 1952 to mid-1953; other titles from this publisher included the much longer lasting Adventures in the Unknown [the first continuous horror-genre comic book; 174 issues],and Forbidden Worlds [145 issues].
This issue contains four main stories:
- "Deathless Immortal" -- "To live forever -- that is the dream of many men, both good and evil!" Using the power of Black Magic, Largo the stage magician nearly succeeded. In order to stave off the demons from hell eager for his soul, Largo hypnotizes beautiful dancer Martha Starr to steal her youth -- don't ask. You know that Largo will get his comeuppance and the winged demons will take him to a place of eternal torture, because even in the realm of the supernatural -- CRIME DOES NOT PAY!
- "Sea of Retribution" -- "James Simon was a smart operator!" Yes, Simon was going to prison for a few years for selling defective steel plates to shipyards, but when he gets out, he'll have all that lovely cash he had hoarded to keep him cozy for the rest of his life. what he did not count on was the stranger in ancient garb who came to his cell and released him, taking him through the prison gate to freedom. The stranger is the ghost of John Paul Jones, and he has brought Simon to one of the Navy ghost ships that sank because of the defective steel Simon had sold. The crew of that doomed ship is there also...and they are pissed.
- "Death for Hire" -- ""Craig Shultz was dead -- the electric chair had seen to that!" But there's dead...and there's dead. Shultz's mobster boss hires a little "professor" to bring Shultz back from the dead, as a zombie! Zombie Schultz is sent to kill a pesky senator, but can you really trust a brainless zombie to do a job properly?
- "Monster of the Deep" -- "Ancient epics and sagas are fill with descriptions of horrible monsters that preyed om humans -- but the most awful of all was SCYLLA, the dread monster of the Straits of Messina!" In this brief tale. a small Italian fishing boat is taken over by a Soviet submarine; the Soviets want to use the boat to take them to shore so they can distribute funds to Communist saboteurs. But the boat takes them close to Scylla, who, as much as the monster likes to prey on humans, it likes to prey on Communists even more.
Also included are a brief text story, "The Ghost of Company C", and a brief one-page nothing-burger of a horror story, "The Corpse Under the Carpet."
Not the scariest comic book on earth, but perfectly suited for Halloween, which, -- after all -- tends to cater to predictable thrills. The artwork of okay, but nothing really great, although I found the portrayal of Scylla to be abysmal. (**sigh**)
Check it out.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=18915
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