Caverns of the Damned! Caves of the Doomed! Nothing good ever happens in a cave. Odysseus found a one-eyed giant in his. Ali Baba’s was full of murderous thieves. Dante’s entire vision of hell is one massive cave. So many Pulp era stories take place in underground spaces where everything from Great Old Ones to mole-men to orcs lurk in the shadows. Whether it is the Weird Tales of H. P. Lovecraft or the Astounding Stories of Super-Science of Charles W. Diffin, the Pulps gave us cavern after cavern of strange adventures.
Here are a baker’s dozen of creepy caves from the Golden Age of Comics. The comics sprang from the Pulps and these tales show their Pulpy heritage. We get monsters, African head-hunter cults, witches, mad scientists, cave-dwelling ghosts and underwater mini-worlds. The authors are pretty much all unknown but the artists will be familiar to fans of this great half-decade of comics. All of these comics are available for free at DCM.
“Venom of the Vampires” (Web of Mystery #1, February 1951) has a seaplane crash near an island. One of the three from the plane is Count Vacrini. He uses voodoo against the local tribesman before turning into the vampire he is. He finds a cave filled with vampire bats to keep him company while he hangs upside down from the ceiling. Unfortunately, being full of blood, he is the best source for a new meal for the swarm.
“King of the Living Dead” (Eerie #1, May-June 1951) begins with a weird fiend killing couples and turning them into zombies. When Adrina is taken Walter follows her into the massive cave complex to save her. He does this by rolling a boulder onto his pursuers. End of cave, end of problem.
“The Pool of Eternity” (Mysterious Adventures #5, December 1961) starts when David Murdstone’s plane crashes on a remote island. The beautiful Konocry takes pity on him and breaks a local taboo. She gives him the snake goddess’s elixir, which makes him immortal. He gives it to her after the tribesmen fill her full of poison darts. Thinking himself invulnerable, David robs the snake goddess’s temple (which is in a cave, of course) but suffers the ultimate punishment. Both have their heads cut off and put on spears. Being immortal, they will remain that way forever.
“The Corpse Springs Alive!” (Mysterious Adventures #6, February 1952) has two rival scientists discover a method of bringing bodies that have been turned to salt to come back to life. Sidney kills Charles, only to have to face the newly risen corpse. This all takes place in a cave, of course.
“Cavern of the Doomed” (Tomb of Terror #3, August 1952) may have been written by Bob Powell. Countess Aurora Karine is an evil woman. She makes men fall in love with her, sign over their wealth, then she abandons them to suicide. The spirits of her victims come for her, taking her to a creepy cavern. They throw her into the River of the Damned to be eaten by vermin. Later they will take her to meet Satan.
“The Torture Jar” (Witches Tales #13, August 1952) has Ephraim Harley fascinated with caves. He tells us that America has thirty two thousand miles of unexplored caves. He goes into one filled with horrors. He returns, his hair turned white, with a gold nugget the size of a melon. The people who find him don’t heed his warning and end up in “The Torture Jar”. A rather Lovecraftian piece with no suggestion of salvation.
“The Thing From the Dark” (The Unseen #12, November 1953) When Pete finds his girl, Anita, cheating on him with his partner, Larry, he gets rid of his rival. To do this, he knocks boulders over the entrance of cave, sealing Larry in. Anita goes back to Pete. Larry, meanwhile, is changing into a mole man. He digs his way out and kills the lovers then burrows into the ground and escapes.
“The Cavern of the Damned” (Web of Evil #10, January 1954) has Lloyd Ramsey enter an underwater cave, where he finds a cult of three-eyed men. He escapes but is pursued in the upper world. Eventually Ramsey is sent to the asylum, sent by a doctor with three eyes. The guy with an eye on his head is a famous TV moment from The Twilight Zone. “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” appeared on May 26, 1961, seven years after this comic. Had Rod Serling read this comic?
“When Witches Summon” (Beware #8, March 1954) begins with Professor Grimes finding a flute in the sand. The instrument opens a cave that was sealed long ago with a coven of witches inside. The witches still exist, torturing Grimes with music. The man is doomed to play the flute forever.
“The Monsters of Harlow Caverns” (The Unseen #15, July 1954) has Jack working as a guide in a massive cave. His wife, Mae, is cheating on him with Bob. At work, Jack meets the spirits of the old cave dwellers and sees their skull-shaped temple. A spirit enters Jack’s body to lure Mae and Bob inside. The lovers plan to kill Jack but find themselves sacrificed instead, by the crushing jaws of the skull.
“The World That Time Forgot” (Adventures Into the Unknown #57, July 1954) has another underwater cave. Frank and Chet explore the cavern, finding weird monsters like bats and giant lizards. The cave is inhabited by a race of mutated humans. They plan a raid on the upper world. Too bad fresh air kills them. Their rapid and secluded evolution has made the outer world toxic to them.
“The Stone Face”(Forbidden Worlds #33, September 1954) has Moran hearing of an island where the locals reward people with fabulous wealth from a cave shaped like a giant skull. Pete healed the sick and was rewarded. When Moran goes there, he is abusive and shoots some of the islanders. He demands to go to the cave. He receives his just reward when the giant jaw traps him inside to starve to death.
“Lorelei of Loon Lake” (Baffling Mysteries #26, October 1955) begins with Roy Lynn going for a swim. He meets Lorelei in an underwater cave. She gives him her ring. After returning to the surface, Roy learns that Lorelei died ten years ago after a swimming accident. He returns to the cave to find her remains.
Some Other Covers
Conclusion
Caves show up in all forms of fiction from the first myths to the early Gothic novels and into all the genres. Think of Hercules Poirot and Evil Under the Sun. There was Tom Sawyer with Tom and Becky lost in the bat-filled caves. Jules Verne took us under the volcano in caverns below in Journey to the Center of the Earth. Faulker’s Moonfleet has a sea cave. I could go on and on but you get the picture. The cave is a standard Gothic locale that offers mystery, danger, whatever the writer needs for their particular plot. Horror writers are quite fond of them because they provide a bottleneck for bad things to happen in. Caverns of the Damned, indeed.
