Weekly Dose Of Weird!

Where Creatures Roam #4 -- "Vandoom?" Does that make this guy, what, like Doctor Doom's cousin or something?

I. "Vandoom, the Man Who Made a Creature" -- (2 Chapters) A failing wax museum owner, Vandoom, decides to create a new monster to display, striking fear into the locals. The night he comepletes his yellow-brown behemoth, it is struck by lightning and comes to life (natch). The frightened villagers attack Vandoom and the monster, but the brute lumbers away into the Transylvanian contryside, escaping his attackers. Out of nowhere, Martians land, plotting to make Earth a colony of Mars. Driven by the villagers back into the town, the monster attacks and wrecks up the invasion, only to perish. The villagers come to the shockingly obvious conclusion that the monster meant them no harm, and so bury the beast and help Vandoom build a new one for his museum.

II. "Beware! of the Ghastly Glass!" -- An old man and his brutish companion search all over the world for a certain piece of crystal, which the old man lost a decade earlier, and has the power to grant the possesor whatever he wishes. Finding it in the Orient, he attacks the shopkeep and makes his wishes, one of which is to be the richest man in the world... too bad he didn't specify which world he meant.

Overall Weird Factor: 2 (out of 5).

Where Creatures Roam was short-lived even by Marvel's Bronze Age Monster-Mag standards. And while most of these comics were reprints, this series had the odd trait of reprinting whole issues, not just picking and choosing features. For example, this entire issue is a reprint of Tales To Astonish #17. The upside: we get Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko on art! The Weird Factor for this issue mostly comes from the random alien invasion two-thirds of the way through the first feature, with a crazy Kirby spaceship. WCR would end with issue #8.