“When the Totem Walks” is another chapter in the Terror of the Totem Poles. (If you missed the last one, go here.) Once again the totemic art of the First Nations of the Pacific Coast and Alaska are on the move. The reason? To scare the reader with creepy tales of the Far North. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the magic team that gave us Spider-Man, also wrote and drew this two-part saga a few years earlier. No superheroes this time though.
Part One
The first half appeared in Strange Tales #74 (April 1960). These were the days of the Jack Kirby monster comics. So this issue began with Gorgilla then Hundu, and last, the weird pole monster known as Totem.
Bull Drago and his crony, Hunk, escape from Northwestern State Prison. (Washington State or Oregon?) They hide on the local Indian Reservation, bullying the people there for food and shelter. The chief warns the men to leave, while Hunk hints that all the witnesses will have to die.
The chief prays to the Great Spirit to wake up Totem. The convicts write it off as hokum.
Totem comes for the invaders, his pole making a loud thumping noise. Bull draws his gun but bullets are nothing to Totem.
The escaped prisoners flee, running back to their cell. Iron bars can not stop Totem, who wrenches out the bars to get at its victims.
Part Two
The sequel, “The Return of the Totem!” appeared in the next issue, Strange Tales #75 (June 1960).
The story picks up where it left off. Totem has ripped open the cell wall but the two convicts remain alive.
Totem has returned to the reservation but attacks the people he was originally protecting. The chief tries to warn the sheriff but is laughed at.
The mayor learns too late that Totem is on a rampage. A bunch of picnickers also suffer Totem’s wrath as he corners them on a cliff’s edge.
It is up to the chief to stop the totemic terror. Using a potion he cocnocted, he faces off against the monster.
The magic works and Totem returns to being a piece of wood. He falls over a cliff and drifts down a river.
The first portion is Bull and Hunk’s tale while the second is the chief’s. After the opening page, the two convicts aren’t even in the story anymore. I found the thumping, legless pole unusual (most of Jack Kirby’s monsters have legs of some kind, including Groot) but logical as well. Totem could have sprouted arms and legs, but Ditko wisely doesn’t do this. It would have seemed less a totem pole if it had.
Conclusion
This tale of criminals abusing the local Indians is a theme that most of the totem pole stories use. From the Pulp magazine tales of Robert Bloch in Weird Tales to the 1970s Bronze Age Horror comics, the idea that traditional societies remember what more “civilized” people have forgotten. This is often the very core of the “Strange Northern“. Totem poles, Wendigo, sasquatch, all have been borrowed from First Nations culture to be used in comic books.