BRONZE AGE MINUTE: Dr. Spektor Presents Spine-Tingling Tales #1

Gold Key (Western); May 1975
Cover by Jesse Santos

Title: “Cry of the Dire Wolf”
Synopsis: Tragg fights Earth’s first werewolf, who was created by a mixture of alien chemicals and dire-wolf blood.

Writer: Uncredited
Artist: Jesse Santos

Review: This lead story, reprinted from 1972’s Mystery Comics Digest #3, has a lot going on: dinosaurs, cavemen (including the debut of Tragg), werewolves and aliens. But, like much of Gold Key’s Bronze Age output, it reads like a hodgepodge. Jesse Santos’ art is quite stylish.

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Title: “Mystifying Disappearances”
Synopsis: Over the course of human history, aircraft, people, and even whole villages have gone missing without explanation.

Writer: Uncredited
Artist: Uncredited

Review: This “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” style tale, reprinted from 1967’s The Twilight Zone #21, offers below average art and no narrative arc.

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Title: “Ghost Town”
Synopsis: A rich eccentric buys a ghost town so he can spend his afterlife living out dreams of the Wild West.

Writer: Uncredited
Artist: Uncredited

Review: This maudlin tale, from 1973’s Mystery Comics Digest #11, offers the most poetic potential but falls short in execution.

Grade (for the entire issue): C

Cool factor: Look at that cover. Gold Key’s comics so often offer the promise of cool…
Not-so-cool factor: …but that promise is rarely delivered on.

Notable: This issue also includes a one-page table of contents featuring Dr. Spektor and an uncredited one-pager titled “The Enigma of Shanti Devi.” … Also includes uncredited one-page text stories titled “The Haunted Tanker” and “The House of Evil.”

Character quotable: “There is great magic in the shining rock!” – Tragg, one who loves silver

Copyright ©2023 Off the Wahl Productions, all rights reserved. Each week, T. Andrew Wahl offers up a Bronze Age Minute. For more reviews like this one, check out Wahl’s website, offthewahl.com.