Strange Mysteries
Entry updated 15 September 2025. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
Canadian Comic (1951-1955). Superior. 21 issues. Artists include Iger Shop. 36 pages, with four long strips and a short text story each issue. Strips in #19 and #21 strips are reprinted from Journey into Fear #1 and #7 respectively, and are not discussed below; #20's strips are from Strange Mysteries #1.
As with many Horror comics, sf stories were not uncommon; curiously, some of the early ones have little or no horror content. Aside from those discussed below, there are other tales with borderline sf elements – Werewolves, Vampires and, in particular, Zombies; non-sf tales regularly involve ghosts, witches and the vengeful dead (see Supernatural Creatures). Like the other horror comics in the Superior stable (Journey into Fear and Mysteries Weird and Strange) the artwork is, at best, unremarkable; the tales themselves, such as the first three discussed, can be incoherent in plotting and characterization. However, several stories do have female characters who are more dynamic than is typical of the era (see Feminism; Women in SF). Strange Mysteries was a minor horror comic, occasionally gruesome; its best story is probably "The Dimensional Knife".
In "The Lost World Below" (#1) an "atomic rocket-ship" (see Spaceships) is accidentally launched with its owner and his brother aboard; arriving at a planet, they are sucked into "a strange funnel like entrance" to find an Underground frozen world in which lies a woman encased in ice, dressed vaguely like a Viking (her helmet's horns are curled); their "radiation batteries" melt the ice and she awakens (see Suspended Animation) and agrees to travel with them. But the air in their spaceship leads her to realize Earth's atmosphere will be inhospitable, so she takes a jetpack and returns to her underground world. "Planet without Death" has a dying Scientist ask to be sent to the planet Cholors, where there is no death. Though restored to health he learns that instead of dying the inhabitants (see Aliens) eventually take root and turn into trees, so he returns to Earth with a local woman: however, she is unhappy because the scientist is married; then her people say they will declare war on Earth unless she is returned, and she flies home, but not before poisoning the scientist. In "Fleshless Horror" (#3) a female journalist interviews a reclusive woman, who proves to have no flesh on her skull or limbs (this is not explained). The woman has a laboratory where she intends to steal the journalist's face and arms but – possibly distracted by the other's fatalism – she has an accident, causing an explosion which somehow restores the flesh to her skeletal parts. The two women become friends. In "Peril from Afar" a female Earth scientist warns the lord of Jupiter of an impending Martian attack; Mars retaliates by turning a heat Ray on the Sun that "filtered through it Earthwards", overheating our planet. Jupiter saves us by building a "super magnet" to pull the Earth out of the ray's path. "Rat Men of Paris" (#4) has a gravedigger discovering a civilization of humanoid Rats; as usual in such circumstances, their queen is much more human than her subjects (see Clichés). In "Terror's Prisoner" a scientist knocks out a hitch-hiker and puts his brain in a gorilla (see Identity Transfer). There are more apes in "Marauding Monsters!" (#6), when a scientist working on bringing the dead to life is forced to resuscitate a dead gangster; unfortunately the serum was not perfected and, though revived, the criminal becomes an ape-man.
"Through Wicked Eyes" (#8) has glasses which show the wearer how someone will die: in effect, a specialized Time Viewer, though here working by Magic. "The Dimensional Knife" (#10) impales itself in the apartment wall of a bitter man, who notices "a date on the blade: 139,000,000,000,000 A.D." (see Far Future). Discovering those stabbed with it disappear, thus leaving no evidence, he kills his enemies – but one night dreams of a creature in an otherwise lifeless world operating Technology that brings the victims to him, realizing "I've been supplying human livestock to a vampire-Monster of the future!" He wakes, and is stabbed by the knife. In "Revenge Can Be Fatal!" a cuckold vows revenge on the man who took his wife, but discovers he is dead and brings him back to life (by scientific mean) so he can murder them himself; unfortunately the man kills him first. In "The Dead Speak!" (#14) two scientists attempting to reanimate the dead resort to grave robbing; however, wanting the glory for himself the senior one murders the other, not intending to revive him; by extraordinary coincidence he does, and revenge is had. "Horror Unseen" (#15) has a scientist trying to make synthetic glass, when a laboratory explosion turns him into that substance (he suspects this was achieved by his unsuccessful formula combining with one of his body's chemicals). Now Invisible he robs banks, using make-up to pass as normal in his everyday life. [SP]
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