Last time we looked at Robert Bloch’s “The Cheaters”, which featured a pair of glasses that only saw the truth in people’s minds. Bloch’s idea may have inspired other writers. He wasn’t the only penster to look at eyewear as a frightening thing. Some other fictional tales that share this theme include:
“The Great God Pan” by Arthur Machen (1895) is certainly the great-granddaddy of this trope. Machen didn’t use glasses but an operation to alter the eyes. After he cut into Mary’s brain, she screamed herself into insanity. Better to not look at the world as it really is.
That same year, H. G. Wells published “The Story of Davidson’s Eyes” (The Pall Mall Budget, March 28, 1895). Davidson gets zapped by a huge electromagnet and stops seeing the world around him. Instead, he can see places far away. Wells explains it by bringing in the fourth dimension.
The credit for the first glasses goes to L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz. Remember the emerald glasses that made the city look like a fantastic place, but in reality it was a dump. Baum, in his early American attitude on life, liked to push past hypocrisy and expose fakes like the Wizard.
“Pygmalion’s Spectacles” (Wonder Stories, June 1935) by Stanley G. Weinbaum is a Science Fiction story that predates Bloch. The inventor in that story comes up with the original VR goggles that allow you to enter the story like a holodeck. (That was Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt”, of course.)
Daphne DuMaurier’s classic “The Blue Lenses” (The Breaking Point: Eight Stories, 1959) has a pregnant woman in hospital can see into people’s true natures as animals when she wears the blue lenses. This may have started as a game of trying to guess what animal passing strangers look like. Cartoonists have shown politicians as animals as well.
Ray Nelson’s “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” (Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1963) was filmed by John Carpenter as They Live (1988). In this SF classic, the entire world has been deluded into seeing a race of intergalactic conmen as normal humans. What happens when the spell is broken?
Ramsey Campbell had a Mythos tale, “The Render of Veils” in The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, 1964 that riffs off of Bloch and Machen. A Mythos cultist summons the Great Old One Daoloth so he can be granted true vision. Insanity and suicide follow.
Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror writers have all explored the ramifications of seeing beyond the obvious. We can go all the way back to Plato’s “The Republic” with its suggestion that what we see are merely shadows on a wall. Whether through magic, Science or Mythos monsters, the protagonists of these stories go there and quickly wish they hadn’t.
Golden Age
The comic book, the Golden Age comics in particular, use all of these ideas in one form or another.
“The Magic Glasses” (Wonder Comics #9, December 1946) has Jill Trent, scientist, invent glasses that can see very small things. The pair are found by criminals then used for safe-cracking. Jill arrives in time to make the glasses useless and capture the crooks. This one is an invention story ala Stanley G. Weinbaum. No supernatural elements here.
“Vengeance of the Invisible Men!” (Sensation Mystery #110, July-August 1952) begins with Robert Marley buying some old glasses for his collection. With the specs he can see the invisible creatures causing accidents all over the city. After wearing the glasses for a while, he looks in a mirror and realizes he has become one of the creatures he calls trogs. Now looking like them, he goes to their lair under the city. learning their secrets, Marley destroys the ray projector that makes them invisible. No longer unseen, the creatures are rounded up. Marley returns to human form after a few months wait. The scene where he sees himself in the mirror echoes Robert Bloch’s “The Cheaters” and Lovecraft’s “The Outsider”.
“The Unseen” (Strange Stories From Another World #3, October 1952) has a man kill for the magic spectacles that slowly drive him mad. Between rats and going on a rampage, he ends up in police custody. Were the glasses magic or was he simply insane?
“The Sorcerer’s Spectacles” (Hand of Fate #17, April 1953) has spendrift nephew, Vernon Hutchins, steal his uncle’s medieval glasses. Vernon discovers when he wears the glasses, spirits appear and kill those he sees. He gets rid of his uncle first, then uses the glasses to throw sporting events he has bet on. Vernon destroys anyone who gets in his way. Unfortunately, he looks in a mirror while wearing the specs. Robert Bloch stuff again, including an ancient sorcerer to create the glasses and that mirror again.
“Satan’s Spectacles” (Web of Evil #4, May 1953) has Harry Lenz, the maker of glasses (see what they did there–Lenz?) , gets a job from a sartorial man with hot gold. The glasses can read people’s minds. Harry gives the customer a fake pair and keeps the magic ones. Using these glasses, Harry makes himself rich and powerful, almost getting to marry a princess. Everything comes crashing down when the real owner finds him and reveals himself to be Satan. Harry escapes but is blind for the rest of his life. The mind-reading element smacks of Bloch. This one seems very similar to the last one, too.
“The Glasses!” (Marvel Tales #122, April 1954) was written by Paul S. Newman. Philip Philips is known as Phil the Pill because he complains a lot. He bothers the theater manager about his 3D glasses. He gets a pair that drive him to suicide. We learn the things he saw are beings from another dimension. This story was no doubt inspired by the 3-D movies craze of the mid-1950s.
“Me–Beast!” (The Beyond #26, April 1954) has occultist Jay Harlow buy an ancient book and the magic glasses for reading it. He learns from the volume that all men are evil beasts. When he looks at his butler he sees a pig. With the glasses, Jay can see all others as animals and read their minds. Using this knowledge, he becomes rich but callous. When his fiancee, Mary, sees him with the glasses she sees a gorilla. Jay becomes the gorilla and a cop shoots him. This is five years before Daphne Du Maurier’s “The Blue Lenses”.
Silver Age
The Silver Age brought in a time of less graphic and violent comics but the idea of the magic glasses can still be used under the Comics’ Code.
“The Magic Spectacles” (The House of Mystery #58, January 1957) starts with junk collector Herb Anderson finding spectacles created by Leonardo Di Vinci. These specs can see the invisible creatures around us. Creatures from another time plan to steal Herb’s girl, Sylvia, and take her to their world. He chases them off but they take Sylvia’s portrait with them. Will they be back? The Science Fiction element of time and dimension keeps this story safe for post 1956 comics. The Renaissance inventor is familiar.
“Roger Stewart’s Glasses” (Out of This World #10, October 1958) was written by Joe Gill. Roger Stewart invents x-ray glasses like those in the ad above. Using these, he follows a man who he plans to rip off. The cops turn up. The cash proves to be counterfeit and Roger goes to jail. The glasses get smashed in the arrest.
“Wendy and The Magic Spectacles” (Wendy, The Good Little Witch #7, August 1961) was written and drawn by Howie Post. Using L. Frank Baum’s idea of glasses that make things look different than they are, Wendy gets her three Aunties to wear the glasses. When they think they are dropping bricks on children, it turns out to be candy.
“The Magic Spectacles!” (Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #31, February 1962) was written by Leo Dorfman. Lois Lane ran an endless campaign to prove Clark Kent was Superman for 137 issues from March-April 1958 to September-October 1974 . In this story, it is glasses that reveal the truth in the form of animals. Lois get magic glasses at an auction of Horror movie props. When she looks at Superman she sees an eagle and then a lion. Will Clark Kent also be a lion? Following Clark to the zoo, Superman tricks Lois by placing real animals in view, first a lion and then a lamb. She gives up the glasses as her own imagination. Daphne Du Maurier’s influence seems likely.
“The Terrible Dark Glasses” (Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #6, January 1964) starts with Vittorio cutting the brakes on wealthy optician, Umberto Sordi’s brakes. He did this because Sordi did not like Vittorio’s attention to his daughter Sylvana. With the father dead, Vittorio can gets his plan to marry the rich woman back on track. He takes her on a vacation to the Riveria. During their travels, Vittorio buys a pair of sun glasses from a mysterious vendor. When he wears the glasses he sees Sordi’s ghost pointing at him. Eventually, Vittorio confronts the same vendor who is Sordi’s ghost, before falling off a cliff.
Conclusion
The comics of the Golden and Silver ages used all of the ideas found in fiction: seeing beyond the ordinary world to a place of monsters, the scientific marvel used for evil, specs that create an illusion, people as animals and seeing what others can not. Robert Bloch, in his usual fashion, ironically called his glasses “Cheaters”, which is a usual term for reading glasses. Bob knew that the term also refers to how his characters would be treated by those specs. They are cheated of their lives, their wealth, their sanity. The characters in these comics could agree with that, all being cheated in similar ways.
