Here we go with another read through of some Marvel Comics, some very suspect rating of each story, and an overall percentage score for the issue. This time its Strange Tales from 1952:

The Boy Who Was Afraid!

A heart-warming story of a boy being physically abused by his father for liking gay shit such as reading, rather than winning sportsball trophies. He is afraid to step on the cracks outside! After his father takes him to a psychiatrist he is forced to step on the cracks! Then they all die falling down the cracks.

2/10 another story that just ... ends. But it's a hilarious end panel of the three people tumbling down into the void.

Dream of Death

Another story this time. A father leaves money to his children but stipulates that, because he had dreams that they all die in various ways. they must not do the thing that killed them. i.e. no riding horses as one dream was of his son dying from a horse riding accident, no travelling on a boat as it capsized and they drowned. The third son, the narrator, is told never to marry as he is killed by his wife.

Well, the first son was shot and killed by his wife after their son was killed on a horse and the second son drowned tying up the boat on the dock. Neither son owned the thing that killed them so thought they were getting around their father’s prophecy.

The third son, the narrator, decides to marry. His father’s ghost appears and tells him what a dumbass he is, and grabs him by hte shoulders. The son grabs a nearby sword and chops his fathers arms off, leaving the hands attached to his shoulders. This scares his wife, as apparently she can see them, or something, and she kills him.

2/10 - Man this was another half-baked story. The whole thing could have done without the other two sons? It makes no difference to the outcome.

The Monster’s Son

Frankenstein’s monster had a son, according to some guy called John Kent. The monster gave his son a rubber mask so he could fit in with other humans. This John Kent guy decides to travel to Frankenstein’s Castle to find the son and show the world. He mooches about the fire-damaged castle until the monster appears. He immediatley runs away and falls off a cliff, killing himself. The monster reaches the broken body, and pulls a mask of its face! It’s his son. Sad. Also ridiculously terrible.

1/10 - did John Kent himself, or anybody around him not realise he was a monster during the intervening years? There is suspension of disbelief but this one is too big of a stretch.

The Frightful Feet!

A hunter is after rabbits to sell their feet as good luck trinkets. He chases after one and falls down an absolutely massive rabbit hole. Rabbits swarm over him and bite his feet off.

1/10 - Good lord this was terrible, and not in a good way. I do find the penultimate panel very disturbing though. What is wrong with those rabbits.

The Hidden Head

One of Hitler’s lieutenants watches him shoot himself in the head and decides that’s not how he wants to die. He goes to visit the local plastic surgeon and threatens him and his family to make him unrecognisable to others and allow him to escape the Soviets closing in on Berlin. The surgeon agrees and wraps his face up in bandages after the surgery is completed. Shortly after the Nazi kills the surgeon to prevent him telling anyone he is, in fact, a Nazi.

As the Soviets close in, he takes off his bandages, and reveals his new face.

It’s Adolf Hitler.

4/10 - this one wasn't too bad, really. I have no idea why it's called the Hidden Head as, if anything, it's the face that was altered. Nor was it hidden, but there you go. I thought it was pretty cool that the comic referenced the Soviets closing in rather than the Americans. I guess as this comic was published in 1952 the great psy-op to diminish the Soviets contributions and exaggerate the American's was in the early stages.

Keep Out!

A mobster murders another mobster who set him up years prior. He then runs away from the cops and the other mobsters looking for revenge. He sees a carnival in town and hides in there, over a metal fence. He is then shot several times and dies. The idiot was hiding behind in a shooting gallery stall.

2/10 - Not a very strange tale. Guy hides behind a wall where people are shooting at targets and gets shot? What's strange about it?

And that’s it for this issue.

Gotta say I’m pretty disappointed with it. None of the stories were any good, and no I am not judging it in 2024 standards.

If I were a kid back in ‘52 and I had waited a whole month to get my hands on this new issue I wouldn’t have been too happy.

This one gets a very lame 20% rating.

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30th Sept 2024