Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Eerie 131


This issue is an all reprint issue covering Wally Wood. Rudy Nebres provides this issue's cover.

First is "Killer Hawk" with story by Bill Dubay, from Eerie 61. While no official title appears, this story is in the 'Exterminator' series, although stand alone in nature. Killer Hawk is a military officer who rises through the ranks and becomes bodyguard for the President of Mars. In actuality, Hawk is an exterminator robot whose mission is to kill the President and take him place. He does exactly that, but is deemed too powerful and is disposed of by his leaders soon afterwards.

Second is "Overworked". Dan Adkins provides art on this story along with Wood. The story is by Archie Goodwin. This story, which was Wood and Adkin's Creepy debut (from issue 8) is about a comic book artist who is finds himself plauged by the monsters from the stories he creates. He tries to stop, but keeps getting more jobs and finds himself in horrific situations. Eventually he becomes trapped within his own strip.

Third is "The Cosmic All" with Wood providing the story. This issue is from Creepy 38. Astronauts heading across the universe find a blob like creature on each planet they come to. When they finally find a planet with humanoid people who attack them and are killed, leaving behind a message that their death was clean compared to whats going to happen to the astronauts. They decide to sleep there and the next morning two of the astronauts find everyone else reduced to skeletons. They escape, but one of them sends their ship crashing to Earth. Immediately after the flesh falls off their bodies, turning into the blob seen before, known as the 'Cosmic All' that is bringing peace to the universe by turning everyone to blobs. A very interesting sci-fi story.

Fourth is "The Battle of Britain!" with Adkins assisting on art again and story by Wood. This story is from Blazing Combat 3. It takes place in 1940 featuring allied planes facing off against Nazi planes. The hero of the story fails miserably his first time in the air and narrowly survives the second, but they call of the fighting in order to bomb the German cities instead, sparing him future combat.

"War of the Wizards" from Vampirella 10 is the fifth story, and is also written by Wally Wood. It's about a pair of rival wizards who use a soldier in their fight between each other. The soldier is able to defeat both wizards, and is revealed to be a wizard himself. As usual, Wood's art is quite good, and the story, while not having a horror theme, is pretty good too.

Last is "The Man Hunters" with story by Gerry Boudreau, from Eerie 60. Apparantly this is one of many Wood stories rewritten based on editor Bill Dubay's request. The story features a woman on a spaceship with two other men, searching for her husband, who had dissappeared months earlier. They arrive on a planet with a tentacled monster, who quickly kill the two men. The monster leads her to a city where it puts a helmet on her which causes her to discover that her husband crashed on this planet and was saved by the monsters, who switched his brain to one of them! She decides to stay on the planet with her husband in his new form.

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