Tomb of Terror
Entry updated 2 September 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1952-1954). 16 issues. Harvey Publications Inc.. Artists include Joe Certa, Lee Elias, Moe Marcus and Rudy Palais. Scriptwriters include Bob Powell. 36 pages. four long strips and one (occasionally two) short text stories each issue; plus short strips and one-page, purportedly non-fiction, pieces as filler (we are assured Shangri-La exists, as do lost worlds with prehistoric monsters).
For most of its run Tomb of Terror published Horror tales, some of which were also sf, and was subtitled "Tales beyond belief and imagination"; for #13 this becomes "Tales in the world of tomorrow", then "Tales of horror in other worlds" for #14-#16. This reflected a shift to predominantly sf for #13 and #14, with #15 and #16 being a mixture of the two genres (with overlaps). The change in focus was presumably in response to Fredric Wertham's campaigning. For the most part the stories are fair to good, with solid artwork.
In #1's "The Thing from the Center of the Earth!", physicist Professor Thorenson explains how he and his assistant were studying "how deep, modified electrical impulses can penetrate the Earth's core ... when we started getting intelligent responses": whatever is down there is using their beam to rise to the surface (see Underground). They, along with the assistants wife (who is full of foreboding) and a journalist, go to meet it. Unfortunately it is an ill-tempered green skinned helmeted humanoid giant – which is bullet-proof: "I told you not to violate the secrets of nature" reproaches the wife. She is grabbed, but the journalist fires at the transparent helmet, which shatters: the Monster explodes, because "breaking it released its normal fluid medium to our air much lighter in density" explains the assistant a little incoherently. In "The Little People" a man sells miniature people (see Great and Small) to a marionette show: the owners sadistically tie puppet strings to them and have them perform acts of murder on stage, the audience applauding the scenes' realism. The seller assures the puppeteers he has an unlimited supply of the little people: later we see him – an Alien giant – visiting our planet and scooping up handfuls of Earthlings.
#2's "The Quagmire Beast" has scholar Carl Borman discovering in a Library's archives "an account of a visit to Shaboal, the lost fabulous city of the jungle ... the treasure house of the world 5,000 years ago". It also gives directions, but says that to get the treasure you must sacrifice two men to the "beast of the quagmire"; so he invites two colleagues to accompany him and pushes them into the quicksand. However, the beast – named Golgoth – does not kill its victims, but transforms and enslaves them. Golgoth permits the pair to seek revenge; Borman hides in a secure cellar knowing if he can survive a year he will be safe ... but before that time elapses the floor turns to quicksand. "The Crypt of Death" has the mummy of the pharaoh Ka torturing the archaeologist who desecrated his tomb (see Ancient Egypt in SF). Ka is an atypical mummy, being a giant with an oversized skull. In #3's "Crypt of Tomorrow" an Alien aeroplane drops a bomb on New York, the resulting cloud covering the Earth, killing all but Joe Turner. After a brief period of madness he wanders America, discovering "the new forms of life that have arisen in the dead, radio-active land": blue-skinned, vaguely human Mutants. They kill him. #4's "Graveyard Monsters" has Simon Lorens "whose brain was as ugly as his features" murdering four men he hates, then grafting brain, hands, heart and eyes – one item or pair from each – onto another dead body (see Frankenstein) as ill-defined revenge. The four corpses rise from their graves, but fail to kill him – but the body he created succeeds. "Glacier Beasts" has a race of ice men worshipping a golden idol (see Religion); a thief who steals it finds himself turning into one of them.
A Scientist in #5's "The Ratman" develops "a fluid that I'm sure will bring life to dead matter": the falling trunk containing the fluid and a laboratory rat ends up killing hoodlum Benny the Rat, with the combination of the three creating the ratman of the title. Now a large, bipedal rat, Benny's new abilities improve his burglar skills; but a rival crook feeds him rat poison. "Marriage of the Monsters!" has a scientist using electricity to revive a pair of mummies – however they resent being taken from the afterlife and electrocute him (and themselves). In "The Living Slime", Merrill Dane discovers a slime in the Everglades that absorbs animals – and finds if he briefly touches the slime then quickly wipes it off, he gain the abilities of the devoured creature. So he takes talented people on hunting trips, traps them in the slime and absorbs their strengths, mental or physical. He dies when a little bit is trapped under a thumbnail and he cannot remove it in time. "The Survivors!" in #6 is set in a Post-Holocaust Earth where monsters discover a time capsule containing people in Suspended Animation. Though the monsters seem to mean no harm, the humans are trigger-happy when they wake; when things settle down, a scientist discovers the monsters were once people and works to reverse the mutation. For unclear reasons, the monsters then attack and all the humans are killed. "The Lair of the Snow Monster!!!" has explorers in Tibet opening a door in the side of a hill to find within a monstrous green slime with tentacles. Only one of the expedition survives.
"The Eyeless Ones" in #7 is set in the far future with an expedition to "the unknown planet on which we have reason to believe life exists". Though having a breathable atmosphere it seems barren, until they discover eyeless humanoid creatures in a set of catacombs, who kill some of the visitors. Another group chases them off: using sign language their leader asks the explorers to leave and they gladly agree. As their Rocket departs they see the ruin of what the reader recognizes as the Statue of Liberty. Though the next few issues include no sf stories, many are interesting with a few in #8 and #9 having surreal touches. Of greatest interest is "The Search" in #8, which might be deemed Inner Space. Here a murderer worries his crimes might have led to the loss of his soul; a blood clot to the brain means he is sent to the surgery, and whilst unconscious he wanders a fleshy labyrinth – which seems to be his brain – searching for his soul with a friendly guide; they meet the Master Clerk – winged like an angel, but a skeleton – who tells him he is bound for the Soulless Depths (see Eschatology). He dies on the operating table. #12 has "Evolution", where two scientists discover "the secret of Evolution" using cosmic rays: anyone entering their chamber will step out "a Superman ... a man evolved a hundred thousand years into the future". The scientist who wants to use it to benefit humanity is tied up by the other, who steps into the chamber. He emerges and, having evolved, decides not to seek power as he planned, but to use the chamber repeatedly to find where evolution will take humanity: he ends up as a pile of protoplasm.
#13 is all sf: "The Plague" is set in a Utopian 5053 CE: alarms go off as it is announced that "the plague has been re-born", which might bring about the "total extinction of entire universe unless controlled". The authorities locate the carrier of the plague, who complains "You can't stop me now! The universe shall be mine" ... but they take the gun from him (the story makes it clear that the plague is Weapons generally). In "What D'you Know, Joe" a laboratory assistant is frustrated that a professor won't explain the nature of his experiment: it turns out that the assistant is the experiment – he is a Robot. "Out There" has a scientist finally get funding to build a Spaceship to find out – in the name of progress – what is "out there". However, as the equipment proves unreliable, the two other crew members mutiny and force him to turn back, crushing his dreams: it is revealed if they carried on a little longer they would have reached a great shining city in space. "Germ Sequence" has a scientist discovering germs that pose a threat to humanity, but nothing he uses can kill them. He decides to travel back two million years (see Time Travel) to find their source – but the era proves too hostile, as he is attacked by a T-Rex (see Dinosaurs) and what appears to be a dragon. He decides to travel to 4053 CE in the hope the advanced science of the time will be able to eradicate the germs. On arrival he is killed by a giant bacterium.
#14 includes "End Result", where seemingly indestructible aliens wipe out all life on Earth, save for two babies they present to their Emperor. One of the babies coughs and the aliens are wiped out by the common cold. "Death Sentence" has scientists isolate a particularly malignant cell and accelerate its growth. It escapes, consuming one of the scientists, who becomes a "shapeless mass of ulcerative protoplasm" and grows. The other kills it with fire, but is arrested for murder. He tells his story – including his belief some of the protoplasm escaped – to an apparently sympathetic journalist, who tells everyone the scientist is insane. It turns out he is an extension of the surviving protoplasm, which is Intelligent, growing and preparing to consume humanity. "The Harder They Fall" is set in the future where people legally hunt each other. Lorenz Steel has concerns that his latest foe is a woman, fatally letting his guard down when she plays the victim (see Women in SF). #15 has "The Dead Planet" where two astronauts land on Mars expecting to find life (see Life on Other Worlds), but see none. This disappointment, plus the long journey cooped up together, drives one mad and the other has to shoot him. Eventually the survivor leaves, the exhausts from his rockets destroying the miniature civilization too small for human eyes to see. "Break Up" has a wife, irritated by her husband spending his time – and her money – on Robots. When he builds one like himself (see Androids) she decides to destroy it as a lesson ... needless to say, she mistakes her husband for the robot. "The Man Germ" has an explorer in Africa discovering an immense statue: when he enters through what is presumably a pore he finds it is a living being. He is attacked by corpuscles (see Biology) – which are the same size as him and vaguely humanoid – and flees through the body. He eventually dies in the heart, his body causing it to stop.
#16 has "The Report ...", where a narrator describes what happened to the Spaceship Discovery, tasked with charting the centre of the universe, where – according to their calculations – they expect to find the "life-giving force". As they approach the crew speedily evolve, their heads enlarge, their bodies shrink (see Clichés), then later become energy and vanish, "merged with the cosmos" (see Transcendence). All that is left is the ship's mascot, once a monkey, now Uplifted to become human, who is the narrator. In "Going Going Gone" an injured man who brutally killed an old lady asks a doctor for help: knowing what he did, the doctor decides to experiment on him, reducing the murderer to a literal brain in a jar (see Brain in a Box).
Tomb of Terror's numbering continued with the misleadingly titled Thrills of Tomorrow (4 issues #17-#20, 1954-1955), whose long strips were entirely reprints – #17 from Witches Tales, #18 from Tomb of Terror (both issues featuring horror tales). #19 and #20 comprised old strips about Stuntman, a short-lived Superhero created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon in 1946. [SP]
further reading
- Tomb of Terror: Volume 1 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2011) [graph: collects issues #1-#6 of the Tomb of Terror comic: in the publisher's Harvey Horrors series: illus/various: hb/Warren Kremer]
- Tomb of Terror: Volume 2 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2013) [graph: collects issues #7-#11 of the Tomb of Terror comic: in the publisher's Harvey Horrors series: illus/various: hb/Lee Elias]
- Tomb of Terror: Volume 2 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2013) [graph: collects issues #12-#16 of the Tomb of Terror comic: in the publisher's Harvey Horrors series: illus/various: hb/Lee Elias]
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