Masters of Terror #1 - Marvel

July 1975 - Are you ready to be scared?

Masters of Terror, sure, was an all-reprint title, collecting material from Marvel's myriad horror/suspense comics from the early 70s, but what material it was!

For one measly buck, you got a lot of good material, all of it wrapped up in a cover by Jim Steranko and Gray Morrow! Wow!

First up is the cover feature, an adaptation of Theodore Sturgeon's "It!", the predecessor to later swamp-laden comics stars like Swamp Thing and Man-Thing, by Roy Thomas, Marie Severin, and Frank Giacoia:

Running twenty pages, its a surprisingly gruesome story (I especially felt sorry for the dog), but very effective.

Next is "The Horror From The Mound!" which is not set in the world of Baseball, but rather West Texas:

...written by Gardner Fox, its a fairly routine vampire story, given extra oomph by a nice art job by Frank Brunner.

Next is "The Terrible Old Man", by Thomas and the art combo of Barry Smith (who was still in his Kirby phase at the time), Dan Adkins, and John Verpoorten; an H.P. Lovecraft tale about a creepy old man (as if Lovecraft would write a story about a not creepy old man).

Following that is, to me, the centerpiece of the book, "The Drifting Snow" by Tony Isabella Esteban Maroto:

Maroto turns in an absolutely fantastic art job, full of rich detail and startling compositions:

There's a text piece about the authors adapted in this issue, and then a Robert Bloch story, the uber-creepy "The Shambler From The Stars!":

...writer Rob Goulart and artists Jim Starlin and Tom Palmer (now there's an unusual combo!) do the story justice, and pull off an especially creepy finale.

The final story is the gripping "Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper!" by Ghoulart, Thomas, and the very spiffy art team of Gil Kane and Ralph Reese:

...Reese does a particularly nice job inking Kane; I'd love to see if they did more work together.

This story has one of the most downbeat, nasty endings I've ever seen, without any sort of moral uplift. And since this story ends the issue, without even any sort of text piece afterwards, its an especially nasty way to wrap up the book. Well done, Marvel!

Masters of Terror would only last two issues, sadly; maybe the all-reprints content turned off comics fans. Too bad, since they clearly pulled some of the best material they had together.

Masters of Terror #2 - Marvel

Masters of Terror was one of Marvel's last attempts to craft an anthology of horror stories for the b/w format; it obviously didn't work sales-wise, this second issue was its last.

When I first saw this cover, I thought this magazine was devoted to doing long-form adaptations of classic horror and sci-fi novels--that's something I would've read, at the very least. This nice, paperback book-esque cover is by Dan Adkins, "based on a drawing by Jim Steranko."

After a fun, self-deprecating editorial by MOT editor Tony "The Tiger" Isabella, is the opening feature, "The Invisible Man", is adapted by Ron Goulart, Val Mayerik, and Dan Adkins. It's a nice version, H.G. Wells' basic grabber of a tale filtered through the Marvel House of Ideas.

Next is Robert Bloch's "The Man Who Cried Werewolf!" by Gerry Conway and Pablo Marcos, a pulpy, sexy werewolf tale with one of those twist endings. Third is a text feature about H.G. Wells, "Science Fiction Pioneer."

Fourth is "Dig Me No Grave!" by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and Tom Palmer, adaptd from the story by Robert E. Howard, an author Thomas was obviously familiar with. It's about two men who find themselves involved in a mysertiou Satanic cult's plans for the recently dead body of a colleague of theirs. Beautifull, moody work by Kane and Palmer, with a grabber of a final image.

There's a page of Plop!iesque "Terror Toons" by Stu Schwartzberg, that seem to come from some high school newspaper--they're pretty amateurish looking, sandwiched inbetween work by Gil Kane and the artist of the next story, "The Music of Eric Zann!", the legendary Johnny Craig!

The story was originally a H.P. Lovecraft tale, written by Roy Thomas. Mysterious music fills the air, driving a man who grows obsessed with it slowly mad. Craig does a great job, as he used to do in all those old ECs, portraying a man gripped by madness.

Next is "Pickman's Model", another Lovecraft tale adapted by Thomas and Tom Palmer. A man tells a tale of a painter he has met who is able to create horrorific images of evil, all too realistically rendered. Great creepy fun, with a really nice art job by Palmer.

Don and Maggie Thompson contribute a text feature called "Time Out for Terror", all about being scared. The final story in this issue and the series is "The Roaches", adapted from the story by Thomas Disch by Gerry Conway and Ralph Reese, which had appeared in Monsters Unleashed! just two years earlier. A bookish, lonely woman learns to communicate with the little buggers of the title and develops a really unhealthy relationship with them. Ick.

And, sadly, that was it for Masters of Terror. Sure, it was made up of all reprints, most of which had just appeared a short time earlier, but what's the point of starting any magazine if you're going to cancel it after just two issues? MOT coulda been a contender!