Fantastic Fears
Entry updated 8 January 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1953-1954). Nine issues (but see below). Four Star publications. Artists include Jack Abel, Steve Ditko, Iger Shop and Robert Webb. Writers of scripts include Bruce Hamilton and Ruth Roche. Usually four strips and a two-page text story per issue.
Fantastic Fears featured Horror stories, mostly with supernatural elements, but some were borderline sf. For instance, #2 has "Fiends from the Crypt", where a policeman discovers green-scaled humanoid Monsters in Rome's catacombs. They come to an agreement: in return for their breaking into bank vaults and stealing gold he will find them victims to devour; but years later when he tries to break with them they take his wife and daughter, then him. #2's other tales are typical of the comic's non-sf stories: Little Red Riding Hood has moved with her grandmother to the USA, where a hunter rescues her from a Werewolf only to discover she is a Vampire. A man, unaware he has died in a car crash, is surprised at others' reaction to a Zombie walking among them. A snake charmer transforms a woman and her boyfriend into human-headed snakes when he learns they are after his money: they bite him, only to realize they have killed the only person who could turn them back.
The other stories with sf elements are "Druid's Castle" (#3), where druids' ghosts (see Supernatural Creatures) are sacrificing people in a local graveyard (see Religion): the lady of the manor sends for an Occult Detective (see Carnacki), who has devised Technology that can temporarily turn people into ghosts, enabling him to negotiate with them – unsuccessfully as it turns out, but they foolishly kill his dog, whose ghost then keeps them away. According to the Grand Comics Database the script for this was by Frank Belknap Long. #4 has "Black Death", where a couple are ship-wrecked on an Island of ants the size of large dogs (see Great and Small): they are eaten alive. With a script by Bruce Hamilton, "Stretching Things" in #5 was Steve Ditko's first sale (though not his first published work): Lawrence Dawson has brittle bones, but his doctor has created a cure that works too well (see Medicine), his flesh and bones behaving like rubber (see Superpowers). Realizing this will be to his advantage, he murders the doctor and begins a life of crime – but the medicine wears off leaving his body distorted, so he goes to another Scientist who has a formula to soften bones and flesh. But when Lawson discovers the scientist knows his doctor and of their research he kills him before learning the formula's correct dosage: the police find Lawson melted on the floor. "Dragon Egg!" in #7 has an ancient egg brought to a museum, from which a giant reptile hatches, causing destruction until killed by the army, though not before laying another egg. #8's "Green Horror" has Martha Thorton finding a cactus in the desert are replanting it in her garden: it grows into a vaguely humanoid shape, to which her husband develops an aversion and so takes an axe to it – which the cactus grabs and uses to kill him. Months later it jealously throttles the widow's boyfriend – then, tearing its roots from the ground, enters the house and embraces the widow, crushing her to death. #9 has no sf stories, despite the cover showing a Mad Scientist feeding steak to a couple in a cage: "Deadly Wish", the story it supposedly illustrates, lacks these elements and concerns a wimpish character unknowingly making a deal with the Devil (see Gods and Demons).
The comic was then renamed Fantastic for #10 (1954) and Fantastic Comics for #11 (1955) – not to be confused with Fantastic (1952) nor Fantastic Comics (1939-1941). Additionally, the Fantastic Fears tagline "tales of stalking terrors" became "tales of enchantment" (#10), then "amazing adventures" (#11). These changes were probably a response to the moral panic arising from Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent (1954) (see also EC Comics). In #10 these changes are largely cosmetic as the stories are much the same (severed limbs, a clown family who scar their babies' faces into a risus sardonicus), but in #11 the horror is largely toned down; it also has a cover showing a giant Robot destroying a city – which has nothing to do with its contents. [SP]
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