Midnight Mystery
Entry updated 6 May 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1961). 7 issues. Best Syndicated Features Inc. Artists include Paul Reinman, John Rosenberger and Ogden Whitney. Most scripts by Richard Hughes (see below). 3 or 4 strips and a one-page text story per issue. Each cover boasts "Astounding supernatural stories! Amazing science fiction! strange secrets!". Stories are a mixture of science fiction (including Science Fantasy), supernatural horror and Fantasy, with a picture and blurb of the writer and artist at the beginning of each; but the writers here are themselves fictions, Pseudonyms of Hughes.
#1 kicks off with "The Knell of Doom" about a supernatural investigator visiting a town in "south-eastern Europe" that has been destroyed on a precise date and time every century for the past 300 years; its clock tower is always unharmed, built just prior to the first Disaster by a clockmaker with occultist leanings and a grudge against the town. "The Man Who Wasn't" has a Scientist inventing a paint that renders objects invisible (see Invisibility). Unfortunately his pet chimp sprays his girlfriend's uncle with the paint, and the scientist has not yet invented an antidote. The uncle, a successful businessman, hires people to cure him; they fail, but then the chimp sprays him with paint remover. In "Mr. Sneely's Business Trip!" a company's oldest employee is sent to Europe to sell his new insecticide: since it only makes bugs sing and dance he is expected to fail and thus provide an excuse to fire him. However, his plane is abducted en route by a Spaceship and taken to another planet. The Aliens run tests on the passengers, confirming Earth would be suitable for colonization: a necessity because their planet is being invaded by fierce, giant insects. However, they are not so fierce after being sprayed with Mr Sneely's insecticide. The issue's fourth story is "Underneath the Quietest Exterior!", about a meek man who is the Reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. #2 is dominated by the 14 page "Spacemen Against the Supernatural!" where a Nazi scientist (see World War Two) who built Torture devices, "perfected the gas ovens" and worked on the V-2 Rocket, realizes Germany is about to lose; and so departs Earth in a spaceship for Andros IV, rightly believing the planet contains intelligent life. Though the inhabitants are peace-loving, he manages to persuade them that Earth plans to invade. Meanwhile, back on Earth, a scientific idiot's Inventions suddenly start to work after he begins to wear an amulet, a family heirloom. As the alien attack begins he learns his parents were a sorcerer and a witch; he uses the amulet's Magic to destroy half the alien fleet, and the survivors kick the Nazi scientist out of an airlock.
#3 has "Mystery Elephant", where two hunters on safari are attacked by a giant elephant: determined to get revenge they hire an autogyro and a machine gun, but as they approach the elephant unfurls its wings and attacks. They shoot it down – and on hitting the ground it bursts into flame. They examine the body: the elephant exterior was artificial, controlled from within by a dinosaur-like creature with a large brain capacity (see Intelligence) that was taking photographs of the terrain, as if on a reconnaissance mission prior to an Invasion. In "Project T" the newly appointed Secretary of Science reviews Government funded experiments – such as increasing the lifespan by eliminating disease (see Medicine), the destructive power of Antimatter, Telekinesis and an Antigravity device: these are seen as sensible areas of research, drawing complacent approval ("A natural development. It was only a matter of time."), but he is dismissive of Project T, which is looking into Time Travel, and when prompted to make spending cuts, declares Project T is to be cancelled. He is persuaded to change his decision when the scientists tell of Dr Ostro, a conceited European colleague who insisted most scientific discoveries were first made by European scientists, particularly one of his own ancestors, who – amongst other things – he claims invented time travel. Pressed, he shows them a chair-like device, then announces he is that "ancestor": in response to their laughter Ostro sits in the chair, flicks a switch and fades away.
#4 includes "A Slight Change of Luck!" where an old man has magic-powered Technology that can both show the future (see Time Viewer) and alter it by changing the luck in a key event (a kind of Jonbar Point), and "The Sky Beast!" where a living metal Monster bound for an alien Zoo escapes its captors and lands in the wilds of Canada: a local hunter helps the zoologists recapture it. In #5's "Unknown Journey" two young men are caught by aliens after they begin poking around a large silver pod they find on the beach: the aliens explain it is a time machine and take them back to the age of the Dinosaurs. Here a fleet of pods waits to invade the present day – apparently going into the past allows the aliens to prepare without fear of discovery. "The Wizard's Wand" has two young Egyptologists discovering the magic wand of Rendor, the favourite wizard of Monteres, the "earliest known Pharaoh".
#6's "Clem Never Does Anything Big" has aliens who are driven from every planet they try to make a home: "They call us quarrelsome, destructive – and they are right!" Investigating the Earth, they land in Kentucky only to be sent packing by hillbilly Clem. In "Chain Reaction" atomic scientist Mark helps build the Synchrotron, the most powerful atom smasher in the world: when his old teacher, Franz ponders, "I think there are mysteries mankind is forbidden to solve," (see Clichés), the other responds, "Man is destined to be the ruler of the universe. There is no secret he which cannot uncover." Hubris is duly clobbered by nemesis: the particles accelerate to twice the speed of light and the atom smasher explodes. Mark is knocked out and when he awakes a new ice age seems to have begun, but Franz suggests, "The explosion tripped some mysterious trigger and put geological time in reverse." (see Time in Reverse). The appearance of mastodons and sabre-tooth tigers confirms his theory: they are re-experiencing the last ice age. Most of humanity are reverting to cave men (see Origin of Man), with even the scientists' cognition fading, so it is decided to gamble on rebuilding the Synchrotron in the hope it will push time back in the right direction. It duly explodes, Mark is knocked out again, and on awakening assumes it was a success as everything is back to normal; but Franz tells him he has been unconscious since the first explosion. Mark wonders whether he should rebuild the Synchrotron or heed his dream. #7 has "Revolt of the Robot", where the promoter of the New York World Fair decides a Robot would attract the crowds. He approaches an expert in the field who initially refuses, saying that robots "aren't people and can never approach humanity. Memory, even what is called thought – they're just mechanical processes where a machine's concerned." The offer of $50,000 changes his mind. He builds an intelligent robot, but the promoter does not consider it spectacular enough, so the scientist is forced to sell it to a circus, an experience the robot – clearly self-aware (see AI) – finds humiliating. Frustrated, it decides to emulate the invading robots in a science fiction film and destroy some factories: but en route sees some kids in danger and saves their lives: their subsequent ingratitude has it marching into a factory's compressor to commit Suicide.
Many of the stories are intended to be humorous (see Humour), but sometimes veer into the flippant. Issues usually only have three tales, with one being double-length, which allowed for more structured plots. Midnight Mystery had some interesting stories, but most were fairly minor. [SP]
further reading
- Midnight Mystery, Volume 1 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2023) [graph: collects issues #1-#5: in the publisher's Silver Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Ogden Whitney]
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