MYTHCOMICS: "TURNABOUT" (WEIRD TERROR #7, 1953)

 

"Turnabout"-- the only concrescent story I found in the entire run of Comic Media's WEIRD TERROR title-- is a turnabout in both an intrinsic and extrinsic sense. The writer's name is lost to the ages, but the art is credited to a fellow who signed himself as "Tewks."

 

The splash panel indicates that if Tewks did not write the story, he composed this panel with an eye to the final page's Big Reveal. Despite the superimposed image of a woman's lips and heavy-lashed eye, there's no woman in the first six pages of "Turnabout." The opening caption tracks better, for by the second page it's evident that racer Walt Barker has something of a Frankensteinian relationship with his car, initially addressed as "Pete." Barker doesn't construct his auto out of disparate parts-- though that would have been a nice touch-- but in order to make Pete faster, Barker gives him a brain. Barker also mentions that he was thrown out of "the academy" and called crazy. So far, given Barker's experience with rogue racers, it looks like the tale will follow the usual pattern of a scientist unleashing a horror to take revenge on persecutors, only to fall victim to his own creation. On page 4 the car comes to life to defend its creator against the rowdies, so one might fairly assume that we're going to have a visit from one of the ancestors of Stephen King's CHRISTINE.

 Well, the writer satisfies one of his readers' most likely expectations, killing the rowdies when they come back to assault Barker and his creation. But here's also where the tale takes a weird turn: Pete has already become so hostile toward the evildoers that he's learned a skill the Frankenstein Monster never mastered: the ability to propagate his species, by creating another intelligent car like himself.

But now we're six pages into this seven-page story, and the writer has precious little time to set up his "turnabout." So a caption tells us that the monster car manages to become a scientist in its own right. Pete, now called "Peter Engine," whips up a stand-alone city called Motorcadia, presumably populated by intelligent cars, and shielded from human interference, possibly by the standard force field. The humans make peace with the robot city, and in two more years, Barker gets an invitation from his "son" to visit the "wonder city." The script also mentions that Barker has somehow upgraded himself from car-racer to "chief scientist of robatomics." One might think Barker would keep his innovations secret from humanity, given that he's fathered a new competitor for the human race.

And what does Peter Engine want to show his creator? Why, that Peter has outstripped him, in that now he's able to create, and market, lissome human females "with all accessories." The story stops short of suggesting that humans will become dependent upon Peter's creations. One might assume that such a fate is implied, though, in the closing line, "Nowadays, when monsters are created, they don't kill you; they SELL you."