Suspense #28 (Atlas/1953)

Suspense #28 (Atlas)

Various (w) & (a)

Published int the early fifties this is now the oldest comic in my collection and came cheap at a lower price because the cover is off but the rest are intact and the contents well worth the entry price.  Normally these things are outside my budget.

This edition was published before the introduction of the "comics code".

Atlas of course was what became Marvel in the sixties and was one of a number of horror comics they published. There are four  stories and a letters page with one addressed "Dear Stan Lee", even then a star in the making.

The first story With Intent to Kill was actually written by Stan lee with wonderfully dark art from Joe Manely.  An old man wheelchair bound called Spencer Creeze needs looking after so advertises for a servant come body guard  who will simply follow his orders and shoot any intruders, gun provided.

Of course our villain is only here for the money and starts looking for the old guys fortune only to find himself in trouble and burned to death whilst Creeze amuses himself with the information the money is with him on his lap all the time! The death is displayed in a four panel sequence, quite graphic for the time.

Two Hands comes up next with the tale of a shop owner who wants to make money selling a statue to a rich customer but it has no hands. You can guess where they eventually come from....

The "you get what you deserve" story comes next as a ghost follows a ruffian down the road in He Walks With A Ghost.  Akl Dixon was the "brains" of the two when he was alive and committing crime. Trouble was his "pal" Joe slapped  him around so much that he set out to kill Joe. Trouble is he got tun over and died on the way.

 Somehow managing to drop a large bit of building he succeeds in his ghostly form of killing Joe. Thing is Al gets a rap on his shoulder and is slapped by the ghost of Joe who will be around forever!!!

You Have Got To Kill Me is one of those stories where a terminally ill man decides suffering a long painful death isn't worth living through. He hires someone to kill him. Trouble begins when the doctor rings to say the results were mixed up....the killer succeeds but discovers it was his records that were mixed up and he is the one who will suffer!

Finally we get another tale by Stan Lee The Poor Fish in which a poacher loves watching fish suffer from being unable to breath. He kills the Game Keeper when caught and heads home to torture his goldfish when there's a loud bang.

It's aliens (of course it is) who take Ronald back to Mars as a "specimen and forget that humans need oxygen so see poor old Ronald choke to death. Plenty more where they come from the aliens think and head back to Earth for another, plus some oxygen!

Suspense (not to be confused with Tales of Suspense launched in 1959) laste just 29 issues between 1949 and 1953.

The first ever comic book appearance of Dracula took place in Suspense #9.



First and last issues.