Back in December I wrote about an early heroic fantasy comic and I called the piece “Quasi-Sword & Sorcery – November 1952”. “Journey to Chaos” was the subject of that blog post. Almost a Sword & Sorcery piece, with a husband making a deal with the devil to rescue the soul of his dead wife. Orpheus inspired, it felt a lot like heroic fantasy. Bob MCarty drew it and it was fun.
So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a Charlton comic with a thinner version of the same story. “Quest of the Beyond!” appeared in This Magazine is Haunted #20 (September 1954). The author is listed as Jor Gill with art by Bill Molno and Ray Osrin.
The comic book industry in the 1950s wasn’t too worried about copyright unless it infringed on characters. (Think of Superman and Captain Marvel in 1941!) But plots were largely interchangeable. An ACE Comic was much like an ACG comic as much as a Harvey or most others. (EC Comics was the exception, with their own odd take on some tired themes.)
But “Quest of the Beyond” seems very close to me. A little too close. Here’s the tale….
Victor Manson is swept off a flooded road. In the crash, his wife, Peggy, is killed while Satan looks on and laughs.
In the woods, Victor meets a strange figure who offers to help. If he will take The Sword of Life and wear a cassock and go to the underworld, he can win back his wife.
With the sword he blinds Cereberus, who is not a three-headed dog but a big pink monster, then sneaks in amongst some cassocked figures. The dead! They go to Charon and his ferry. He is discovered and has to take out Charon as well.
He finds Peggy in the hands of the Prince of Darkness. They duel and Victor wins. Death gives up but tells Victor the first person he touches will go to hell.
Returning to the natural world, Victor finds Peggy alive and well. Unfortunately he can’t touch her or hold her…
Satan shows up to gloat at Victor’s predicament. Satan demands Victor’s soul. The husband refuses, touching Satan. The evil one is sent back to Hades. Victor and Peggy can go home together.
“Quest of the Beyond is a pretty close copy of “Journey to Chaos”. The plot is car crash, dead wife, Satan with a deal, sword and cassock, fight Cerberus, Charon and Death, return but first person you touch goes to hell, he touched Satan. No variation at all, just done in six pages instead of twelve. Bob McCarty’s art has more room to spread out and so feels much better than Molno’s.
Now I will be the first person to wish for more early Sword & Sorcery comics to surface. (I know there was lots of activity and interest in the sub-genre from the 1950s, with Gardner F. Fox’s Crom the Barbarian, Joe Kubert’s Viking Prince, Alpha the Slave Pirate, Malu the Slave Girl, and the experiments of the 1960s.) But copying stories wholesale is more than a swipe. I wonder how many other version of this Orpheus tale there out there?
This comic is available free at DCM.
