Plant monster comics go back to the 1940s. What’s easier to draw that branches or vines that catch? Pretty much every comic company used them including Marvel, DC, EC, Gold Key, ACG and of course, Charlton. Plant monsters can include everything from trees with finger-like branches, to curling vines with blood-sucking flowers, to molds and slimes that cover and enfold. Sometimes they are supernatural in origin but usually they are of a more scientific nature, either spawning out of weird coincidence or by the hand of some mad scientist. Here are three 1970s tales from the pages of Haunted.
“The Garden of a 1000 Delights” (Haunted #5, April 1972) Written by Joe Gill and drawn by Steve Ditko.
In San Francisco’s Chinatown, two crooks decide to do a home invasion of Hon Li and his house with the amazing garden. Mickey and Johnny cut the phone lines, then press their way in when Ana Li comes home from a date.
Hon Li introduced them to his man-eating plants, his giant spider and alligators. The crooks are happy to see the cops as long as they don’t have to go back into the garden. This Charlton plant monster is just a mild warm-up to the next two courses…
“Lure of the Swamp” (Haunted #8, October 1972) written by Nick Cuti and penciled by Jack Abel and inked by Cuti.
Zeke has been out all day looking for his missing girl, Lena. He goes home to his wife, Maura, with no news. That night Maura sees Lena in the mist and runs to her. Lena’s eyes glow. The next day Zeke is looking for both daughter and wife. He leaves poisoned meat as a trap but the beast doesn’t touch it. It only eats living things. That night Zeke sees Maura. She embraces him, holding him unnaturally tight. She has a tentacle running out of her back. She is attached to a swamp monster that rises up out of the muck.
Zeke manages to cut Maura free. He takes her home but he can’t save her. The monster has sucked out her blood and replaced it with swamp water. Before she dies, she makes Zeke promise he will destroy the monster. Zeke goes in search of it after burying Maura. He finds it, fights it with his shovel but fails. A tentacle goes into his back and he will now be sucked dry. The only thing is Zeke has eaten seven cans of rat poison before he came after the monster…
This strikes me as a typical 1970s horror piece, with its ironic but ultimately bleak ending. Cuti would write more of these and Sutton would draw more of them too (especially at Warren). This plot is as old as the first issue of Weird Tales and Anthony M. Rud’s first issue opener, “Ooze” (Weird Tales, March 1923) but Cuti makes it a classic of Charlton plant monster comics.
“A Budding Evil” (Haunted #17, July 1974) was written and drawn by Tom Sutton. The cover for this story is probably some of the most horrific to appear on a 1970s comic book. Worthy of any issue of Weird Tales, Sutton outdoes himself. What parent wouldn’t forbid their kid from reading such stuff? Forbidden fruit and all that…
Dr Mordred is busy burying some unlucky patient when Miss Fairweather comes knocking on his door. She has discovered that the coffins that came from Mordred were missing the bodies. She accuses him of malpractice and insanity. He explains that the bodies were needed for FOOD! His experiments into vegetable structures were successful until he ran into a food supply problem. He draws a knife with the intention of killing her. Miss Fairweather runs into his garden to escape.
The plants grab her. Mordred tells her she is lucky. It is a full moon. During the full moon the plants flower, producing their skull-like buds. The plants drop her unconscious and Mordred raises his knife to finish her off when the vines get excited and kill him too. Miss Fairweather escapes, buys the property and has it cemented over. We leave the story with small evil-headed buds finding their way through the cracks in the cement…
Not the most complex of stories, Sutton fills it with nightmarish plants that beat anything DC’s The House of Mystery ever produced. Sutton’s love of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos is not as evident as in some of his other self-written comics, but the spirit of Clark Ashton Smith’s Weird Tales stories, like “The Garden of Adompha”, lurk over this piece. Truly a high water mark in the annals of plant monster comics.
