Eerie 128

Kirk Reinert provides a terrific cover for this issue of Eerie, probably the best of its latter day covers. This issue is dated January 1982. Aside from the horrible Zud story, this issue is quite a lot better than those we've been seeing for quite a while now.

First is "Dr. Coven: Ashes to Ashes!" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Dr. Coven is a man who comes to the jungle with his wife to study voodoo. A voodoo priestess invites him to a ceremony and captures his wife, he then passes out. When he awakens he finds himself surrounded by zombies, including his wife, who is now one. He dismembers his wife to escape her, then kills the zombies and priestess.

Second is "The Demon Queen" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Jonathan Thomas (story). A professor who has one of his students as a lover is writing a book on demons and soon starts seeing them, suspecting that he is being pursued by a demon queen. He sees the demons more and more and his behavior to get rid of them gets more and more out of hand, resulting in him being fired and his book's publication being suspended. His book's chances of publication finished, his lover reveals that she is the demon queen. He is found later, gone completely insane. The demon queen in this story is modeled after that on the cover of Eerie 41.

Third is the retitled Zud and Son in "Heroes at Large!" by E.R. Cruz (art) and John Ellis Sech (story). In this story, it is revealed out of nowhere that Zud has a thirteen year old son, Raz. Raz dissappoints Zud, as he is interested in the ballet and other odd stuff rather than normal boy stuff. While at the ballet Zud is captured by an old enemy of his who tries to kill him. Raz is able to rescue him, then at the end reveals that he is interested in football and other standard male interests after all.

Fourth is "Blackstar and the Nighthuntress" by Peter Hsu (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). Jason Blackstar and Rowena, the stars of this story originally appeared back in issue 85. In this story the appearance of a medallion at someone's home means assassins, the Rectifiers (sent by the three Governor who rule the galaxy) will come after them and kill them unless they can stay out of their hands for seven days. Killing a Rectifier is illegal, and when Rowena mistakenly kills one, the Governors send other ones after them. Rowena and Blackstar eventually come across the Governors and convince them to stop coming after them.

Fifth is "Avenger!" by Jim Starlin & Neal Adams (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). This story was originally intended for Creepy 64 back in 1974. Odd enough it was held back for eight years before finally appearing here. A pilot, Thomas Flagg climbs out of the sea, ten years after his death from a plane crash into a body of water. Flagg, now a rotting hulk, has the ability to cause others to succumb to his will and soon gathers an army to go after he whom he finds responsible, his father, who forced him into duty in Vietnam. His army of followers are killed, but he still encounters his father and causes him to succumb to his will as well.

Last is "Haggarth" by Victor de la Fuente (story & art). Haggarth is attacked by an eagle and its amazoness owner who tries to kill him with a poison spear. Meanwhile a trio of men look for precious stones and come across Ethan and a friend of his who accidently take their canoe. Two of the men take back the canoe and leave, only to be killed by the amazonesses.

Eerie 91

A terrific cover by Don Maitz starts this issue of Eerie.

First is the Rook in the absurdly titled "The Incredible Sagas of Sludge the Unconquorable, Helga the Damned, and Marmadrake, the Magnificent!". Its done by the usual team of Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). After a number of good Rook stories, the series starts to lose some of its luster in this rather poor, overcomplicated story. Three stories are going on at once here. In one, the Rook is taken over by an evil alien brain and forced to work towards sending weapons to its homeworld. In the second, Bishop Dane goes back in time and encounters some vikings. In the third, Manners and the ladies encounter a robot monster controlled by a mad scientist. Eventually the stories converge and everything comes out okay.

Second is a much better story, "Elijah Arnold and the Angel's Egg" by Leo Duranona (art) and Jonathan Thomas (story). This story takes place a couple of centuries ago, when Elijiah Arnold discovers a UFO that crashed in the woods near his house. Inside the UFO he finds various alien livestock, which he brings to his farm. He breeds one of the alien cows with one of his own, but a horrific monster is born as a result. Eventually the alien owning the livestock returns, and kills Arnold. The alien helps his neighbors bury the creature in one of Arnold's barns using cement. In the present, construction workers attempt to build a highway where the farm is, resulting in releasing the monster.

Third is the second and final part of "Francesca" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Jean's vision of a dead man in Francesca's room appears to be nothing but a dream. She continues to be suspicious of her however, and through some investigating realizes that she is the reincarnation of a woman who died centuries before and has returned from hell. She seeks to get Jean's husband to kill himself, which she'll do as well, resulting in them being together in hell. Luckily a lighting bolt ends up causing a grave to fall on Francesca, killing her.

Last is a new series, Moonshadow, with "Against the Sun". Art is by Jose Ortiz and story is by Bob Toomey. Moonshadow, an old assassin is confronted by the Grim Reaper. Moonshadow tries whatever he can to get the Reaper to spare his life, and the Reaper decides to allow it by having him kill someone else for him. The victim ends up being a sick little boy. Rather than kill the boy however, Moonshadow outsmarts the Reaper and instead kills all the germs in him, making the boy better. Angered by being outsmarted, the Reaper sends Moonshadow to the middle of a desert.

Vampirella 77

Here's another issue of Vampirella featuring Barbara Leigh on the cover. This issue's Vampi story, "Shadow of the Dragon" is by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This is a rare actionless Vampi story, in which Vampi is barely even featured at all. Our entire group of heroes are in Hong Kong, where some mysterious murders have taken place. While Vampi and Pantha are touring the city, and Pendragon is getting in trouble at a local bar, Adam and Conrad are told of mysterious murders taking place in the city, and how they may be tied into legends of Dragons and events that happen in the year of the Dragon. That's about it from this entry, which continues into the next issue.

First backup for this story is "The Night of the Yeti" by Russ Heath (art) and Michael Fleischer (story). A man falls off a cliff while hiking in the himalyas while his wife and colleague watch. The man survives the fall, but is forced to hike for days to get back to civilization. Along the way he confronts a bear in a cave and has his throat slashed and his winter clothes destroyed. He wears the bear's pelt, making him look like a yeti. He eventually finds his wife and colleague, who desires her, and she is accidently killed when he is shot at. The shots cause an avalanche, burying his collegue. Our protagonist continues the wander the himalayas, becoming the yet if legend. Very good art by Heath, as usual.

Third story is "The Night the Birds Fell" by Moreno Casares (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Casares was a very good Spanish artist whose style was nothing like that of the other Spanish artists who worked at Warren. This story features an air traffic controller terrified of birds who goes on a rampage at an airport, resulting in planes crashing into each other, causing a horrific disaster at the airport.

Fourth is "Siren of the Seekonk" by Auraleon (art) and Jonathan Thomas (story). A man falls in love with a water woman he finds by a bridge. With his life crumbling around him, the man decides to kill his ex-wife and feed her flesh to the water woman. Upon finding that she already has a mate, he loses it and jumps off the bridge, trying to join them.

Next is "Weird Wolf", with art by Jeff Easley (a rare solo appearance by him, he usually is paired with Val Mayerik) and story by Gerry Boudreau. This short story, at only 3 pages, features a civilized werewolf who is pursued by the sheriff of a small town. The sheriff is able to take out the werewolf by tricking him into using a gun that fires backwards, killing him while not causing the sheriff to turn into a werewolf himself when killing him.

Last is "Futura House is Not a Home" by Isidro Mones (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Mones was a terrific artist during his original run with Warren from 1973-1976. After a couple of year absense from Warren he returned for a little while, but his art had declined tremendously. This is one of those stories. Its unfortunate, as he was quite a good artist, with a very realistic style during his original run. Anyway, this story features a family testing a new futuristic home. It ends up that the computer running the house has been creating robot clones of the family member in a plot by the president to replace the entire populace with easy to manipulate robots.

Overall, a slightly above average issue. No particularly great stories (although Thomas's is quite a good one), but at the same time no lousy ones.