Witching Hour #13 -- I don't blame the guy. If there was a spider with a human skull on my nose, I'd be freaked out too.
I. (Host Segment) -- The Three Witches have guests for their New Year's Eve party; namely, Cain and Abel, whom they entertain with tales of terror, each in their own method, only to be met with critique. Later, the party is crashed by the Mad Mod Witch from Unexpected, of all people.
II. "The Maze" -- Schlub Harold Martin Beedle cannot remember who he is or how he ended up in this strange labrynth, only that a strange voice continually goads him onwards. Finally, he is given his reward: a large block of cheese, as the lab rat of a pair of aliens.
III. "The Accursed Clay!" -- Scultper Arthur Delano, rejected by all the museums, runs across a stranger who offers him magic clay with which to sculpt four statues. Sculpting his first statue, he finds that he sculpts the face of a man who drowns the same night. The second night, he sculpts a man hit by downed power lines, and the third, a man hit in the head by a meteorite. Refusing the sculpt the final piece, the stranger returns and forces him. Delano sculpts the stranger's face, who thanks him as he expires -- being a wizard cursed to wander the Earth until your visage is duplicated forever as a house for your soul will do that to you.
IV. "The Rush-Hour Ride of Abner Pringle!" -- On the night of Paul Revere's ride, a fourth ride, Abner, falls off his horse and sleeps for almost 200 years. With a little prodding from our host Cynthia, Abner awakens and tries to warn the thoroughly 70s people of Concord that the British are coming. With the police trying to commit him, Abner flees, and manages to knock himself out on the same tree... just in time to miss the massive British army marching into town.
V. "'The Witching Hour Mistree' By Egor" -- (Text Story) A pretty princess locked in a castle in a bog by a wizard is rescued by the "nobell" prince and his trusty (but rusty) blade. Upon fighting through the dangers of the bog, the prince pulls the stake from the vampire princess's heart, just as the full moon turns him into a werewolf... "and they ate happily ever after."
Overall Weird Factor: 4 (out of 5).
This one is just strange on all sorts of levels. Cain, Abel, and the Mad Mod Witch show up for no real reason, but it's funny to see them all interact. The first story has the extra added weirdness of a mini text commentary running in the bottom gutter. The cover, which is not even close to anything inside, is the creepiest part of the issue, though.
1 comment:
The Maze is definitely a very odd story. Having the text at the bottom is bizarre. It was written by both Marv Wolfman and Alan Gold, so I assume one of them wrote a comic and the other one's like "hey I can write some prose based on that comic and stick it at the bottom of the story if you want!" and that's how it ended up like it ended up. Very strange, though. It also features an early version of the Psions, who later became big Omega Men enemies, so it actually got reprinted in Omega Men #24.
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