Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Eerie 97


Val Mayerik provides the dinosaur themed cover for this issue of Eerie, featuring four dinosaur themed stories, three of them from a single series. The issue is dated November 1978.

First is "Within You... Without You" the first part of the series from Richard Corben (art) and Bruce Jones (story). This issue was originally from Eerie 77. A group of scientists manipulate the mind of a telepathic young woman, who happens to be the wife of one of them, such that she thinks she is in prehistoric times, finding dinosaurs. When an Earthquake hits her link to reality gets screwed up, so they recruit Lydecker, a man who has similar telepathic abilities, but he also had a prior relationship with her. When a dinosaur attacks however, Lydecker is eaten, and while its not technically reality, whatever happens in their mind effects his real body, killing him. An interesting story that becomes even more complicated over the next few stories.

Next is "Time and Time Again" by Richard Corben (art) and Bruce Jones (story), from Eerie 79, a continuation of the "Within You Without You" story. Karen is requested to go back in time through her mind to retrieve a gun that had been left behind. While there she seeks revenge on the Tyranosaurus that killed Lydecker. She gets her timing mixed up however, and ends up killing the dinosaur before it killed him, so she encounters the past version of him and herself. The scientists bring her out of it, but Lydecker ends up occupying her mind when they do that.

Third is "Years & Mind Forever", the conclusion to the Within You Without You trilogy. This story is from Eerie 87. Art is by Richard Corben and story is by Bruce Jones. In this story it is revealed that Lydecker has been setting up everyone, and that many of the trips into the past have actually been staged by him and an actress pretending to be Karen. Meanwhile he himself has actually made it to the past where he has found the ancestor of humanity. The scientists send another telepath after him and he finds Lydecker in a lab with the ancient man. During a struggle with 'Karen' however the ancestor is shot by him, wiping out humanity. A terrific end to a terrific trilogy, which would be ranked as one of the top 10 Warren series in the Warren companion.

Last is "The Terror Beyond Time!" by Neal Adams (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), from Creepy 15. Searching for a professor, a man heads deep into a cavern where he had dissappeared. Inside he finds a prehistoric world with dinosaurs and prehistoric men. In addition various other people throughout time have been summoned here including a beatiful woman from England. The professor is found, but it ends up that he's working for an evil being who is responsible for summoning everyone there as well as controlling people's thoughts. Our hero refuses to work under his control and instead kills the professor and the evil being. Afterwards he awakens in the modern age, with the woman there with him. A fairly good story although as discussed by Neal Adams in the Warren companion, the evil being ends up looking like an ice cream sundae rather than something supremely evil.

1 comment:

Ojalanpoika said...

Sure the ancient (wo)man saw them:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Dinoglyphs-Dinolits.htm

They are documented not only in the classic books from the antiquities, but also as drawings, mosaics, bronze seals, cave paintings and even in garments from South America.

Pauli Ojala
biochemist
Helsinki, Fine land