Beyond, The
Entry updated 22 April 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1950-1955). 30 issues. Ace Magazines, Inc. Artists include Lou Cameron, Frank Giusto, Warren Kremer, Jim McLaughlin, Kenneth Rice and Mike Sekowsky. 36 pages. Usually 4 long strips, 2 one-page strips entitled "True Tales of the Supernatural" and a two-page text story per issue.
The Beyond was primarily a supernatural Horror comic, dominated by stories involving ghosts (see Supernatural Creatures), Satan (see Gods and Demons), Vampires, Werewolves, witches and Zombies. Ancient Egypt – particularly mummies – dreams, Precognition and ghost pirates are also not uncommon; a harpy makes an appearance; the most frequent sf trope is the Mad Scientist. Plots often show the inspiration of other stories.
#1 opens with "The Werewolf Strikes", where a Scientist seeks but fails to develop a cure for his lycanthropy. He employs another scientist to help him, keeping him ignorant of the reason – but when he attacks this young man's girlfriend he is shot and killed. Other #1 stories are "The Reluctant Ghost", in which three people hold a séance and summon a ghost – "You call me forth now? This moment out of all eternity?" (see Eschatology) – and order it to grant their wishes; it agrees, "I shall comply with your requests – exactly as each of you commands me." This does not go well for them (the story is reprinted in #30). A similar lack of wisdom is shown in "The Phantom Puppet" when a puppeteer creates a Jack the Ripper puppet, which turns out to be alive. "Master of the Undead" has an author researching zombies; he goes to Haiti to meet Decasta, who uses mind-control to mentally enslave (see Psi Powers) his victims – then kills them, so creating the undead. Almost turned into a zombie, the author awakens in the USA, wondering whether it was a dream. #2 has the "Mystery of Lunablanca" where a female vampire – in a skintight bat costume – holds a young woman in bondage to impersonate her during the daytime; but a photographer using infra-red film sees the image of the true vampire, kills her and frees the woman. In "Valley of the Scaly Monsters" the titular Monsters kidnap a blonde woman and make her their queen; in "The Shrieking Terror" a man turns into a werewolf to kill those who mistreat animals. In #4's "The Spell of the Hypnotic Chord" a composer's hands are crushed, so those from a recently executed knife-thrower are grafted on (see Medicine) – but the latter's ghost still controls them and has vowed revenge on the jurors who convicted him (this story is also reprinted in #30).
Other stories include "Scourge of the Scorpion Cult" (#6), where the side-effect of a cure for scorpion poison turns the recipient part-scorpion. "The Doorway to Yesterday" (#7) has a reporter undergoing Time Travel by magical means to Ancient Rome and forced to fight a gladiator. In the same issue, "Creatures of Yesterday" has archaeologists finding themselves in an Underground Lost World (the light provided by phosphorescent rocks) with Dinosaurs and cavemen (see Lost Races). "The Winged Spectres of Dismal Swamp" (#8) has butterflies with human faces – imprisoned souls – pinned to a board by a swamp dweller: a visitor frees them and they take revenge on their tormentor. In "Leopard Girl's Dread Domain" (#10) what appears to be a traditional Sheena, Queen of the Jungle jungle girl turns out to be a were-leopard (see Shapeshifters), one of a tribe that evolved from cats (see Evolution); also in #10 is "Release from Satan's Scourge", where a Magic book used by the Black Duke to imprison supernatural creatures plaguing England in the Middle-Ages is dismissed as mumbo-jumbo by a visiting American, who thinks it amusing to read the incantations supposed to free them; the demons duly return. Fortunately the Black Duke can be summoned and matters are resolved. "Recruits for the Legion of the Undead" (#11) has the dead coming to life in a city morgue, due to a Mad Scientist who has combined science and voodoo, Hypnotized vagrants, subjected them to his "death repellent process" – which included injecting them with a formula made from vulture blood – then sent them to their deaths.
"The Gold Monster of Hell's Canyon" (#15) tells of Perez, a Spanish scientist who 400 years ago discovered caves of gold in the US Hell's Canyon. In the present day he captures a holidaying newly-engaged couple and explains he has discovered the power of "gold radiation beams" and "gold magnetism", which – aside from giving him Telekinetic powers – enable him to create monsters of gold that supervise his once human slaves. "I drain off their blood. This I store for my own use, as it is what has preserved me all these centuries [see Rejuvenation]. I remove their brains which I use in my experiments. Then I give them a transfusion of a gold solution that I have invented, and they become as you see them". A slave (part of whose brain remains), recognizes the fiancé as his son and the distraction he causes enables the fiancée to stab Perez. "The Terror of Dread Isle" (#17) has three people landing on Dread Isle to discover malicious fog creatures that have no form of their own but adopt the shape of visitors (see Shapeshifting), also acquiring their memories. The resulting confusion, with the three humans not knowing who is really who, drives them to their deaths. The mad scientist in "Calling All Ghouls" (#20) lost his medical license when caught grave-robbing, but continued his research and now can revive the dead for 48 hours.
In "Werewolf Blood on my Hands" (#21), werewolf terrorizes London and an ambitious Scotland Yard filing clerk sees the opportunity to become a detective (see Crime and Punishment); reading that if you inject yourself with the blood of a wolf you become a werewolf, he does so (there is an antidote) – initially he has self-control, but blood lust eventually overwhelms him. "Prey for the Vampire Horde" (#22) has a sound engineer abducted by the last of a mortal family of vampires: the family have an incantation that turns them immortal after death – but only if spoken by a family member. So the sound engineer is ordered to record him uttering that incantation: he builds a super-sonic transmitter to jam sound-waves, to affect the vampire's navigation when flying, resulting in his fatal crash. "Lair of the Black Widow" (#24) has Lucas Vilmar creating an antidote for "every known tropical poison", but the formula disappears and shortly after another scientist announces his own antidote: whilst accusing him of theft, Vilmar is accidentally bitten by a "black widow morbidus" and drinks the other's formula, assuming it is identical to his – it is not, and has not been tested on that species. Vilmar's lower body turns into a spider ("I'm a spider man"). He wreaks havoc but is eventually killed by a giant female black widow morbidus which presumably happened to be passing by. "Me – Beast!" (#26) has a student of the occult acquiring spectacles which show a person's true nature by giving them the head of the appropriate beast. Everyone he sees has such a head, until one day a woman's face stays beautiful; they wed, but one day she tries on the glasses and sees he has the head of a gorilla. "Strange Potion of Dr. Lorch" (#27) has a scientist creating a formula to "restore the vigor and super-human strength man enjoyed in the primordial eras when he battled the sabre-tooth tiger" – also adding 30 years to the human lifespan. He drinks it and becomes a powerful caveman, but loses his reason. When it wears off, he has no memory of what happened and so – despite repeated reports of night time murders in the vicinity – continues to drink it every evening. In "Waves of the Creeping Death" (#28) a scientist researching ultra-high sound frequencies has his grant cut off. Poverty causes his wife's suicide; he discovers the sound box he has been working on revives the dead and goes to the graveyard to revive her: unable to locate her grave, he revives a trio of murderers and so takes revenge on those who cut his grant. "Slaves of the Undead Brain" (#30) has Thorsen killing off his business partner – once the company's top scientist but now past his prime – disguising it as suicide. Before he dies the partner says he has prepared for this day. A short time later the strange Nemo appears, who shows he can renovate Thorsen's business so it requires no staff. Thorsen agrees, goes on holiday and on returning finds his offices full of Computers and Robots. He uses the Technology to murder business rivals, but then his robots turn on him. He attacks Nemo, but he is a robot too, one that explodes.
A "True Tales of the Supernatural" strip in #28 has a scientist instructing an assistant to swap his brain with a gorilla's, spend a week taking notes, then reverse the operation. Unfortunately the gorilla-brained human (who was not restrained) kills the assistant; the human-brained gorilla tries to intervene but doesn't know his own strength and kills his original body. The police arrive later and are puzzled to find a gorilla who has hanged themself.
The Beyond was an entertaining comic with good artwork; the narrowness of its remit inevitably meant the main tropes were overused. It is presumably no coincidence that its end coincided with the imposition of the Comics Code (see Comics); some online sources suggest that #27 (July 1954) was referenced in Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent (1954) but the latter's April publication date makes this unlikely. [SP]
see also: Baffling Mysteries.
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