Strange Suspense Stories

Entry updated 15 July 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.

US Comic (1954-1965). 58 issues. Charlton Comics. Artists include Jon D'Agostino, Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio and Bill Molno. Script writers include Joe Gill and Carl Memling. 36 pages (except #37, a double issue). Usually 4-5 long strips per issue, plus 1-2 short strips (occasionally non-fiction) and a short text story. #75-#77 are dominated by Captain Atom stories (eleven in all) reprinted from Space Adventures.

Fawcett had previously published a Horror comic called Strange Suspense Stories (1952-1953; five issues, numbered #1-#5) which had no sf content. Charlton then published a comic with the same title in 1954 (seven issues, numbered #16-#22); after #22 the numbering continued with a title change to This Is Suspense (four issues, numbered #23-#26), before reverting to Strange Suspense Stories (1955-1965, 51 issues, numbered #27-#77). When that ceased, the numbering continued with Captain Atom (in fact #75-#77 had been titled Strange Suspense Stories presents Captain Atom). Charlton revived Strange Suspense Stories in 1967, numbered from #1: 1967-1969, nine issues numbered #1-#9. This entry focuses on Strange Suspense Stories 1954-1965 (that is, the issues numbered #16-#22, 27-#77). The numbering of the 1954 version continued from Lawbreakers Suspense Stories (#15), which had begun as Lawbreakers (this numbering practice was to save on postage costs, but the publisher needed to argue that the new magazine was simply a re-titling of the old, and hence the overlapping titles).

Early issues' stories are mainly adventure, crime or Horror; the latter usually mundane but some supernatural, with the occasional sf tale. Genre strips are increasingly frequent from #30, and Strange Suspense Stories then quickly become an sf/fantasy/supernatural comic. Steve Ditko appeared in 21 issues between #18-#22 and #31-#53 (not counting the reprints of Captain Atom, a character he co-created, in #75-#77); up until #40 he often had 2-4 strips per issue (#39 had 5), as well as the cover. Not unsurprisingly the Ditko-heavy issues are the strongest, but there is good work from other artists. With many stories being slight or having an interesting premise let down by inconsequential development and resolution, Strange Suspense Stories was a middling comic; its heyday was probably its middle run of issues; the subsequent ones (aside from the reprint dominated #75-#77) largely being bland in terms of story and artwork. A tendency to moralize existed throughout its run, but seems more prevalent later on.

Examples of sf include "I Went To My Own Funeral" in #16: Basil Jethro suffers from a disease of the mind and his wife Gertrude learns he has taken out an insurance policy on her life. Concluding he plans to kill her, she persuades Basil they should both change their sex (see Transgender SF), arguing this could be the stimulation he needs (she refers to "a series of intriguing operations in Scandinavia", presumably referring to Christine Jorgensen's transition). Following hormone treatments and surgery (the Jethros are both surgeons), Basil is indistinguishable from the original Gertrude and Gertrude from the original Basil. Gertrude (as Basil) then kills Basil (as Gertrude), expecting to claim the insurance – but it does not go as planned. In #19 "Give Me Back My Body" an Identity Transfer takes place, though using Magic not science. The same issue has "Surprise Package" where a crook steals a new package-sized atomic bomb that is liable to explode if badly jarred (see Weapons, Nuclear Energy): pursued by the police he hides it in a man's jacket – but when he goes to retrieve it he sees the man apparently commit Suicide by jumping off a tower. The story then ends, and #21 provides a reader supplied solution, explaining it was a stunt – the jumper wore a parachute printed with an advertisement. #22's "Killer Arms" has a one-armed Scientist perfecting a serum allowing the transplant of limbs (see Medicine): with his daughter and her fiancé, he travels to Africa to obtain a gorilla arm for himself. However, their encampment is attacked by a gorilla, who – before being shot – tears off the fiancé's arms: the scientist transplants the ape's arms on to him. As is so often the case with plots involving animal/human combinations, the former begins to dominate. "Mr Bleeding Heart" in #27 features a talk-show host whose gimmick is to have people parade their misery before the cameras, then "send them packing with bromides of useless advice" (see Media Landscape): he is abducted by Aliens who think him the "wisest man on Earth" and want him to solve a problem they have. He thinks that if they are idiots enough to think he is clever, he can bluff his way through. Unfortunately their problem is "whether to destroy the Earth or not?" The story ends with an alien making the case for doing so, then awaiting his rebuttal.

#31's "The Man Who Could Never Be Killed" has an invulnerable circus performer who might be an actor, Alien or angel: "you must never fear what I may be" he says rather enigmatically. The "Gloomy One" concerns an alien whose dour preaching leads his people to exile him in space – here he floats for centuries, eventually reaching Earth; intending to inhabit a human and thereby spread his depressing opinions, his weakened state means he accidentally possesses an advertising mannequin that incessantly plays a looped, hysterical laugh. Mark Harris's newly purchased painting in #32's "A World of His Own" is entered by his daughter, who returns with a diamond. When Harris steps in and finds a weird Dimension he flees terrified. His chauffeur has noticed all this and goes into the painting, to be delighted with the gemstones he finds there ... only to discover the panicked Harris has painted over the painting and he cannot get out. In "The Last Laugh" a man building a Time Machine repeatedly says it is not yet complete: a prankster gets in, only to disappear. The inventor explains he meant it can send things to other times, but not bring them back. In "Forever and Ever" a hobo explains that he drank an alchemist's Immortality serum 400 years ago: though it worked, it caused his spirit to shrink and he now just wanders aimlessly. In #34's "The Man Who Lost His Face" aliens replace a man with a copy to spy on humanity, their victim is released with a new face so no one will believe his story. The weak resolution involves them having neglected to copy his fingerprints. "The Desert Spell" has a Nazi awakening from Suspended Animation – having drunk a serum at the close of World War Two – and planning world conquest; but as he waits in the desert to begin the uprising he accidentally drinks from the serum flask. The scientist in #35's "There It Is Again" creates life, in the form of a man who only eats and stares at him. "Panic" has the spartan nation of Torovia, whose women never wear make-up, claim a female scientist's box of plague germs has been stolen: the US authorities suspect it is psychological warfare to soften them up, so they fake a case of the plague: the patient's red spots cause both the scientist and Torovian dictator to panic and flee the US – the rather laboured twist being that the spots were applied with lipstick, which the Torovian woman scientist would not recognize. #36 has "The Egg and ... !" which is an example of the "planets are eggs" Cliché, here also suggesting that humans are like the parasites found on fish eggs that the fry feed on when they hatch. Anticlimactically all this turns out to be a scientist's dream. The "Mystery Planet" in #37 wanders the galaxy cannibalizing Earth-sized planets: two investigators are captured and told Earth is next: however they easily escape and destroy the planet. In "Failure" a scientist invents a Time Viewer, but when it shows his sponsors using it to rule the world, he tells them he failed. "The Strange Package" has a medical bag intended for a doctor in 2086 delivered to a present day doctor: though the premise is possibly inspired by C M Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag" (July 1950 Astounding), the plot differs. "Mystery from Mars" in #39 has a Martian captured by an unmanned Spaceship and brought back to an Earth laboratory for study: but when it drinks water it doubles, then those two double, and so on: the Martians – now in their hundreds – are hurriedly shipped back to Mars. As a scientist in the laboratory takes a drink of water, another wonders if the Martians left any germs ... then sees the other scientist double.

#42's "Earthquake" has a scientist faking earthquakes with ultrasound, to buy valuable properties from panicking owners at bargain prices. "The Space Creator" in #45 concerns a Latin American toymaker who has created a room much larger on the inside than on the outside (see TARDIS). "Oontah's Weapon" has a caveman (see Prehistoric SF) stealing a weapon from aliens that briefly visit our planet: using it to kill any Dinosaurs he finds, they become extinct because "the lethal effect of the Ray Gun developed a disease among the reptiles". "The Word" in #46 begins with apparent cavemen paying one of their regular visits to a shrine (see Religion), which turns out to contain relics from the present day (see Post-Holocaust): a recording is played, which they listen to reverentially but uncomprehendingly. It tells of an atomic war and how (in 1960) the speaker is one of the survivors, who implores his descendants to live in "peace". The cavemen leave, chanting this holy word, then proceed to fight and kill. "Redemption By Robots" in #47 has Robots forcing their lazy, overweight human masters to exercise and use their leisure time for artistic endeavour (see Utopia). A scientist in "His Brother's Keeper" believes an unused part of the brain is a storehouse of ancestral memory. He discovers an Ancient Egyptian formula to tap these memories and tests it on his brother: it works, but as the brother's memories go further and further back into the past, the formula stimulates a mirroring metabolic change on him and he becomes apelike (see Apes as Human). "The Human Powerhouse" in #48 has a man building up an immense charge of static electricity that releases itself to – unknown to him – destroy disease-bearing alien entities approaching the Earth (this Ditko-drawn tale apparently has some similarities to the Electro origin story he later co-created for a 1964 issue of Spiderman). "The Heritage" in #52 has two aliens dying from radiation poisoning landing on Earth: as the cavemen they meet resemble their ancestors they decide to help them, wiping out the dinosaurs. Before they die the pair create a time capsule which will warn future humanity of the dangers of nuclear war. Unfortunately the cavemen accidentally destroy it. #53's "The Fabulous Man" has a million people abducted by an alien to be used as slaves and experimental subjects on his home planet; but a scientist who had studied the power of the mass mind persuades the million to channel their minds, and the alien disappears (see Pseudoscience). "Sentence Commuted" in #55 has a criminal sentenced to solitary confinement as the only inhabitant on a planet; later he is allowed a female robot companion. Then, a few years later his sentence is commuted, but – as the robot will not be leaving – he decides to stay. In #61's "Listen Earth" Martians are secretly offering bored people the exciting opportunity of living on Mars whilst a Martian takes their place on Earth (the appearances of both being changed): when Jason Marcus agrees, he discovers Mars is a horrible, dying planet. His attempts to warn Earth fail. "The Eyes of Doom" has the Cold War continuing in space, centuries in the future: an American finds a stranded Russian astronaut on a distant planet, the former's decency is rejected by the nefarious commie. Unusually, the problems of travelling to other stars are acknowledged: it is now possible due to the "Galactic Time Shift", though it is not clear what this is (see Imaginary Science). Similarly, in #64's "Come In, Earth – Please", travelling between the stars is achieved through Cryonics: here two astronauts awake after a century frozen, to discover the automatic five-year news updates from Earth ceased after 50 years, the last message being about the start of a nuclear War (see Nuclear Energy). "The Collector" in #65 is about the person responsible for ensuring any alien fauna that reach Earth do not disturb our planet's Ecology. In "The Truth Tellers", aliens who see us as potential rivals cover the Earth in a truth serum hoping it will trigger unrest and war: fortunately Scientists neutralize it in time and peace returns as people get back to lying to one another. An author's novels have a habit of coming true in #70's "Forewarned", so he uses it to successfully commit crimes, until his new editor decides to rewrite the ending of his latest, without informing him.

Other stories include Vampires; mermen; a youth serum (see Rejuvenation); parallel Evolution where one early branch of our ancestors became fish beings; a mechanical mole; Invisibility; a scientist's examination of Cro-Magnon skulls leading him to believe they had greater Intelligence than homo-sapiens – and so it proves when they briefly Time-Travel to the present to meet him, but he is mocked by his peers and the media when he report it; a lost child taken in by a couple turns out to be a stranded alien who builds a Spaceship; a scientist who built a robot turns out to be one too; another scientist's robot servant builds a robot to serve him, but it supplants them; devices to increase or reduce the size of creatures (see Great and Small); another dimension's poet absently-mindedly crossing into ours whilst trying to come up with a difficult rhyme causes confusion; a giant alien moth flies into the only light it can see, a volcano; a Martian weakling is a great athlete on Earth; Leprechauns are from Uranus, their spacecraft having crashlanded in Ireland centuries ago; a neo-Nazi scientist concentrates dog traits into a formula, hoping to gain their sense of smell, hearing etc., but it turns him into a dog – once cured he becomes a better human; a scientist trying to predict the winners of tomorrow's races becomes eternally stuck in the tomorrow that never comes; a pilot is forced to land near the North Pole, there discovering a frozen Viking settlement – and when his jets cause the ice to melt, the inhabitants awake; birds plot to overthrow the human race; an old man is given a rejuvenation treatment but asks for it be reversed when, among other reasons, his grandchildren no longer call him "gramps" and he realizes his children will die before him; aliens ponder whether to destroy the Earth because its orbit might interfere with that of their own planet (they decide not to, for now).

Of the four issues of This Is Suspense, numbered #23-#26, #23 mainly consisted of a 25-page retelling of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson, reprinted from A Star Presentation #3 (1950): this has been credited to Wallace Wood, though the art style bears little resemblance to his later work. The other issues lacked sf content. [SP]

further reading

Strange Suspense Stories (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2019) [graph: collects issues #16-#22 of Strange Suspense Stories comic: in the publisher's Pre-Code Classics series: illus/various: hb/Steve Ditko]
This Is Suspense!: Volume 2 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2019) [graph: collects issues #23-#27 of Strange Suspense Stories comic (#23-26 were issued with the title of This Is Suspense!): in the publisher's Pre-Code Classics series: illus/various: hb/Ted Galindo]
Strange Suspense Stories: Volume 3 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2019) [graph: collects issues #28-#32 of Strange Suspense Stories comic: in the publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Bill Molno and Vince Alascia]
Strange Suspense Stories: Volume 4 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2020) [graph: collects issues #33-#37 of Strange Suspense Stories comic: in the publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Steve Ditko]
Strange Suspense Stories: Volume 5 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2022) [graph: collects issues #38-#42 of Strange Suspense Stories comic: in the publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Dick Giordano]
Strange Suspense Stories: Volume 6 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2022) [graph: collects issues #43-#47 of Strange Suspense Stories comic: in the publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Steve Ditko]
Strange Suspense Stories: Volume 7 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2023) [graph: collects issues #48-#52 of Strange Suspense Stories comic: in the publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Steve Ditko and others]
Strange Suspense Stories: Volume 8 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2023) [graph: collects issues #53-#57 of Strange Suspense Stories comic: in the publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Dick Giordano and Charles Nicholas]

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