Set Description:
Collecting the many keys in the Showcase storied run.
Showcase 80: 1st Silver Age Phantom Stranger
Issue Synopsis (Spoiler Alert!):
Through the silhouette of a paned window, a little boy draped in darkness stands wide-eyed and motionless, almost catatonic, hypnotically staring out into the fog-leaden night. Soon the voice of another boy cautiously whispers, “Hey, Robbie, come on.” This second child appears below the window, and gently taps three times and asserts, “We’re going to the cave!”
The pair race along the empty city streets, trailing another pair of boys, eventually joining a much larger group. At the outskirts of town, fifteen children converge at the mouth of a secluded cave. They enter, wide-eyed and rather fearful. The group forms a circle around a lit candle… its flickering light casting their oblong shadows on the cave walls.
One boy finally utters, “Didja hear about the curse that’s supposed to come today!”
Another responds, “Yeah, the Mayor is really scared!”
And yet a third speaks, “Aw, I don’t believe any of that stuff!”
They’re attention is quickly drawn to a monstrous and spider-like shadow on a wall. At the mouth of the cave, under the mercurial effulgence of a full moon manifests the dark and mysterious figure of the Phantom Stranger.
A dark haired boy boldly asks, “Wh-Who are you?”
Phantom Stranger: “Men call me the Phantom Stranger. What seems to be the problem boys?”
The dark haired boy responds “Well, look… th-that curse is after us!”
Holding out a white gloved hand, the Phantom Stranger reveals: “Here is your “curse” fellas.
A blond hair boy happily decries, “It’s just a spider… I told you guys it wasn’t real!”
Phantom Stranger: “Hardly! I’ve come up against much more impressive appearing curses in my day! It wasn’t a real curse, but just seemed like one at the time. The whole episode revolved around The Three Signs of Evil…”
Start Flashback:
New York City, sometime in the early 50’s… the Phantom Stranger’s Golden Age: Mark Davis, a well-dressed artist, with a cigarette in hand and a sketchbook tucked under his arm, casually strolls along Manhattan's Columbus Circle, looking for a muse or a certain something to inspire his art. He spots several suited men gathered around an obelisk as they listen to a thin, highbrow man, displaying symbols on a placard… “Tonight we hold our meeting outdoors to take advantage of the full moon!
Ancient sorcerers knew how to utilize the power of moonlight.”
Mark finds his muse, and begins sketching the symbols, but is soon spotted by the group. The group leader cries afoul, “Wait! There is an enemy among us… copying our symbols! It is forbidden for non-believers to learn our secrets! Hand over that sketch book!”
Mark Davis: “Nothing doing! And if you’re concerned about my spying on you… forget it! I’m leaving!”
Mark wisely departs, heading south on Broadway, eventually making his way down into Times Square. There he displays his latest sketch to an admiring mustached man dressed in a suit, “You have a most interesting sketch there young man! I’d like to buy it from you!”
Mark Davis: “Buy it? Those are the most beautiful words an artist ever hears. But this is only a rough sketch! It can’t be worth anything.”
Mustached Man: “Please let me be the judge of that! Let’s go someplace and discuss it!”
The unlikely pair find themselves in a sidestreet restaurant.
Mark Davis: “Is this the sort of place you like for talking business?”
Mustached Man: “Never mind its shabby look! We’ll step into the private room at the rear!”
Mark is escorted through a door, but to his surprise is led to an open courtyard where a trio of men are awaiting to ambush!
Mark Davis: “This isn’t a private room! It’s an open courtyard!”
Mustached Man: “What must be done requires the light of the full moon! Finish him, men!”
Mark Davis: “So your payoff is murder! But not if I can help it!”
Mark bravely puts up a good fight, knocking out the mustached man with a blow to the chin. However Mark is quickly overwhelmed by three goons, who place a garrote around his neck. But soon a sixth person joins the fray… the mysterious Phantom Stranger!
Phantom Stranger: “Take courage Mark Davis! You’ve got yourself an ally to fight these moon killers!”
Pummeling Mark’s attackers and freeing the artist from strangulation, the Phantom Stranger orders a retreat: “Mark… Quick! Climb that ladder… get away from here! I’ll follow you!”
The pair climb up and over the ladder and converge onto the rooftop of an adjacent building.
Phantom Stranger: “Relax, Mark! The threat’s over!”
Holding a pair of weapons that nearly ended his life, Mark Davis solemnly speaks: “Whew! I thought I was a goner… till you showed up! They sure ganged up on me with these murderous weapons!”
Phantom Stranger: “One is the Iron Claw of the African Leopard Cult… the other is the strangle-cord of the East Indian Thuggee! Two fanatical cults that practice murder as a fine art!”
Holding out his gloved hand, the Phantom Stranger continues, “And this is another weapon I captured from them! A sacrificial knife of an ancient Aztec War Temple! But why were you the targets of these fanatics?”
Mark Davis: “I don’t know! It seems to have begun when I sketched a diagram in Columbus circle… Oh, I lost my sketch book.”
Phantom Stranger: “No, here it is! I picked it up when I climbed the ladder after you!”
Mark Davis: “That’s the sketch… a C in a circle… a squared X… and a W in a square! I drew the diagram in Columbus Circle… then walked down to Times Square where they tried to take it away from me!”
Phantom Stranger: “It’s beginning to make sense! Columbus Circle is C circle in the sketch! And the X within the square… refers to Times Square!”
Mark Davis: “But what about W square?”
Phantom Stranger: “That must mean Washington Square! The third and last stamping ground of these murder-cult people! That’s my next destination!”
Mark Davis: “Wait! I don’t even know your name… one of those killers called you the Phantom Stranger!”
Phantom Stranger: “Yes… many know me by that title!”
Mark Davis: “Listen… as long as I was in at the start of this adventure, I’d like to be in at the finish!”
Phantom Stranger: “Fair enough! You gave me the trail to these evil cultists I’ve been looking for so long! Come on… let’s go!”
At midnight, under the auspices of the Washington Square Park Arch, the unlikely pair observe something unusual:
Mark Davis: “Look! The lights are off beyond the arch!”
Phantom Stranger: “They’ve been sabotaged somehow! That’s where we’ll come face to face with our grisly friends! Drop back while I scout ahead!”
Following the Stranger’s strategy, Mark Davis enters the arch underpass as two hooded-robed figures appear ahead blocking his path. They grab him and drag him to a grass-camouflaged trapdoor hidden on park grounds.
Below ground, in a hidden secret tunnel, Mark confronts his captors:
Mark Davis: “This place looks like a subway station!”
Mustached Man: “It was a subway station… once! When it was abandoned and forgotten, we took it for our headquarters! I tell you all this because of the honor you are conferring upon us by dying for our cause! We have been carrying on intensive research into ancient sorcery, seeking to discover the secret of infinite power! Tonight, with the full moon shining, we sought to gain that power… until you came spying and became our enemy!”
Mark Davis: “But how do I fit into your schemes?”
Mustached Man: “One of our rites calls for the sacrifice of an enemy… on the night of the full moon! Such a sacrifice will increase by sevenfold our power in the three mystic regions!”
Mark Davis: “The Three Regions? You mean Columbus Circle… Times Square… and Washington Square?”
Mustached Man: “Circle, X, and Square… three magic symbols out of ancient lore! If ours spells are successful, we shall rule those places and all the thousands of people who pass through them!
Holding up a dagger with a serpentine-shaped blade, the Mustached Man fanatically continues: “Bear witness, mighty spirits! By the light of the moon, I trade you this human life for power!”
But soon, an avenging angel appears… the Phantom Stranger!
Mustached Man: “The Phantom Stranger!”
The Phantom Stranger wallops the Mustached Man, knocking him unconscious.
Phantom Stranger: “Come on Mark… Let’s put an end to this murderous insanity… once and for all!”
Mark Davis follows suit, and metes out equal justice punching out a hooded cult follower.
Phantom Stranger: “That’s it Mark! Make every blow count!”
Before long, the pair wipe the floor with them.
Phantom Stranger: “So ends the evil schemes of the moon cult!”
The Phantom Stranger removes a flask and carefully spreads its powdery contents:
Mark Davis: “Why are you spreading that powder around them?”
Phantom Stranger: “To keep them confined within my own magic circle… while we go out to summon the police! If they try to cross the line the chemical powder will flare up and drive them back!”
Back above ground, Mark spots a uniformed police officer: “There’s a policeman now! Officer, Officer!”
The police man approaches Mark. The Phantom Stranger suddenly disappears.
Mark Davis: “My friend here and I captured… why, he’s vanished. Er… follow me, officer, and I’ll show you what happened!”
Phantom Stranger: “So you see, the next time you take a walk on the night of a full moon… keep a sharp lookout… and then start running if you see… The Three Signs of Evil!”
End Flashback.
And with those last words, the Phantom Stranger does his famous disappearing act.
Mystified, the group of baffled boys step out of the cave, searching for the Phantom Stranger, only to run into Terrence Thirteen and his lovely wife Marie. This segues into Dr. Thirteen’s origin story also told in flashback mode…
Start Flashback: Dr. Thirteen’s Golden Age.
Caption: “I am Dr. Thirteen! My mission is to explain the seemingly unexplainable! Those strange sounds in the night that make mortal men shiver… the wrenching sobs from an empty room… the ghostlike form which moves closer, ever closer to your bed! These things, I believe, can be explained! But I must warn you… there are times when the icy fingers of fear clutch your heart, and the supernatural seems natural. Then it is that all your senses are needed not to trust what you see! Such a time was the night… I Talked with the Dead!”
On December 31st, at approximately 11:21 PM, Dr. Thirteen makes his way to Doomsbury Hall, the estate where he grew up, once owned by his father. Why is he there, on New Year’s Eve, less than an hour before the coming of the New Year? To fulfill a pact he made with his father.
Peeling back the layers of time: As a child Terrence discovered a locked door in the family estate… a hidden room! He was forbidden to enter said room behind that secure door. Years later, when his father accidentally left the keys to that room unattended, Terrence’s natural curiosity led him to open that locked door and discover the terrible secret his father was harboring: the family legacy… generation after generation of Thirteen’s had been persecuted as witches and practitioners of black magic because of their “far-thinking” scientific beliefs, posits, and theories…. tried, tortured and executed for heresy!
As Doctor Thirteen puts it…
Caption: “This, then, was the secret my father had tried so desperately to keep… throughout the ages the Thirteen Family, my family, had always been suspected of power beyond human understanding.”
Dr. Thirteen’s thought balloon: “Did my ancestors really have mysterious power? And if so, have I inherited them? Does this mean that father and I are doomed to violent death like the others?”
Caption: “Midst this rain of questions, I was suddenly aware of another presence! Someone was standing behind me…!”
Dr. Thirteen: “Father! I… I…”
Senior Thirteen: “Don’t try to explain, Terry! You had to know some day. We all must one day learn of our Heritage of Doom… The Curse of the Thirteen! They say it is our name… the unlucky number thirteen! But my study of my family history shows otherwise. For example, there was Raphael Thirteen who was forcibly drowned in Rome’s Tiber River in the year 1150… When the mob entered the home of Raphael, he was seen to have arranged globes in a circle, and the globes were named ‘Sun’ and ‘Earth’ and ‘Moon’…. Surely a sign he was a sorcerer! Don’t you see, my son? The ‘Globes’ were a model of the solar system! Raphael Thirteen may have been demonstrating that the earth revolves around the sun… this 500 years before Galileo! The others had similar stories… Daniel experimented with electricity centuries before Ben Franklin. Rachel had ideas about anesthesia early in the 17th century! Each was far ahead of his time! And they were persecuted because their advance theories were not understood! That is why, son, all my life I have deliberately defied superstition to prove that it is groundless. You must never believe that your life is governed by other than natural cause!”
Dr. Thirteen: “I won’t, Father!”
Caption: “I never forgot my father’s warning. But father was still worried that I’d be haunted by superstition and so, on my 21st birthday…”
Senior Thirteen: “After I am gone, Terrence, you may be tempted to forget my advice. Take this paper… it will prove that I am right about the supernatural!”
Caption: “Eagerly, I read what my father had given me…”
Dr. Thirteen: “But this list of questions! It says I am to ask them of your five years after your death!”
Senior Thirteen: “Only we two know the correct answers, Terry! Study this paper and then destroy it. If, as I am certain, you receive no answer from me, one more superstition will be shattered… the belief that the dead can communicate with the living! But if I do answer…”
Caption: “Father did not finish his sentence but I knew what he was thinking! Then, three years later, an event occurred which made it hard to believe that our family was not indeed guided by some evil fate…”
In a terrible accident, the Senior Thirteen’s car crashes through a roadside barrier, and tumbles over a cliff in a fiery explosion…
Marie: “Your father… he’s in that car! He can’t be saved! Like all the others in your family, he’s doomed to a horrible, violent death! It’s the Curse of the Thirteen!”
Dr. Thirteen: “No, Marie! You must not believe that! Not if you intend to marry me some day!”
As the years marched on from that terrible day, Terrence Thirteen dedicated his life investigating psychic phenomena and all “supernatural” manifestations. He and Marie opened up an agency called “Dr. Thirteen: Ghostbreaker”, exposing charlatans and confidence men who used trickery and chicanery disguised under the veil of the “supernatural” to “sucker” people out of their money.
But five long years have passed, and that faithful day has arrived where Dr. Thirteen was to keep a pledge he made to his father. And it is on this night, December 31st where we find Dr. Thirteen and his attempts to make contact with his long dead father…
Caption: “These are the events which led up to this night of December 31st, this moment… seconds before midnight… and my appointment with a dead man!”
Dr. Thirteen: “The hour is at hand, Father! In the next few moment we shall be free of fear or bound forever in an uncanny alliance between the living and the dead!”
Caption: “As the clock started to strike the fateful hour, the questions I was to ask my father pounded in my mind…”
Dr. Thirteen’s Thought Balloon: “…Ten… Eleven… Twelve! It is time! I must speak! But my throat is so dry!”
And under the chiming of the grandfather clock bell, Dr. Thirteen musters the courage and speaks…
Dr. Thirteen: “Father! What was our secret name for the tree I climbed as a child?”
Caption: “My voice sounded like thunder as it echoed through the empty house! But it was as nothing to the sound of the pounding in my chest as I waited… waited for I dared no to think what…”
Dr. Thirteen’s Thought Balloon: “No answer! Has it been a second or an hour since I spoke? Still no answer! Oh, that this silence shall not be broken!”
Caption: “Then I heard it! A sound that had in it all the misery of the ages… a sound of weeping… a sound of fear… and through all this, the distant but unmistakable voice of my dead Father…”
Disembodied Voice of Senior Thirteen: “My Son! My Son! We called the tree ‘Mr. Grump!’ Do you remember?”
Caption: “A trembling sweat which I could not control gripped me! Sweat, like fingers of ice, crept over my whole body! Somehow, I was able to blurt out the second question… and again the answer came!”
Disembodied Voice of Senior Thirteen: “The title of the book we secretly agreed on was ‘Ivanhoe!’”
Dr. Thirteen’s Thought Balloon: “Things like this can’t happen… but this is happening! Nobody else could possibly know the answers! And the voice... there’s no mistake… it’s Father’s!”
Caption: “All my training renounced the very thing I had just heard! There must be a logical answer! Like a drowning man reaching for a log, I grasped at the room’s only contact with the world of the living… the ticking of the clock…”
Soon Dr. Thirteen opens the man-sized grandfather clock and peers inside, discovering a record player…
Caption: “I turned on the record player. Again I heard the weird sounds and my father’s voice. But the effect was not the same now that I knew the source…”
Dr. Thirteen: “Hmm… timing mechanism set off record… silent grooves between answers to allow time for my questions… it’s Father’s voice! Probably recorded before his death! I wonder why?”
Then suddenly... Marie!
Dr. Thirteen: “Marie! You! But… but…”
Marie: “For a moment, I thought you were going to let your father down, Terry! You see, when he gave you the questions which were to be asked five years after his death, he also made a pact with me! Your father planned this… made the recording your heard tonight before his death… to prove to you that the “supernatural” can always be traced to natural causes!”
Dr. Thirteen: “I see he build up the strongest case possible. I must admit, it was almost too perfect!”
The couple retreat into their vehicle, leaving behind Doomsbury Hall… but not before some parting words…
Dr. Thirteen: “One thing still bothers me, Marie! The violent deaths which have haunted my family… will I, too, one day fall victim to The Curse of the Thirteen?”
End of Flashback.
As Dr. Thirteen’s story ends, the Phantom Stranger reappears…
Phantom Stranger: “Good morning Terrence! I haven’t seen you in a long time!”
Dr. Thirteen: “Huh…? I’ve never met your before! Don’t start playing your cheap games with me! You know full well that all this ‘disappearing’ stuff is just a pile of baloney! You aren’t any more supernatural than I am!”
Phantom Stranger: “You have your methods and I have mine! Which reminds me… apparently both of us are here for the same reason… to rid this town of its curse! We aren’t solving anything by throwing childish insults!”
Dr. Thirteen: “I presume you’re implying that we work together to solve the curse. Fine with me, but I dare you to do anything without your parlor effects!”
Returning to the city, escorted by the boys, the intrepid trio solemnly navigate the barren streets, on their way to the city centre, as the Phantom Stranger tells the listening group the town’s curse…
Phantom Stranger: “Every 50 years, since the city was founded two centuries ago, a mysterious winged creature is supposed to come down through a heavy fog and steal the Mayor of the City and take him away forever! This year, everyone is afraid! They are all staying home inside and the entire Police Department is guarding the Mayor!”
And as those fateful words are uttered, a gigantic winged creature appears in the heavens flying over the group. The terrified children flea as the Phantom Stranger and Dr. Thirteen behold the winged demon overhead…
Phantom Stranger: “There’s something wrong here! Quickly… get over to the bank!”
Dr. Thirteen: “Right! I get what you mean! That beast sounds definitely mechanical!”
High above, inside the hollow belly of the beast, indeed Dr. Thirteen’s words ring prophetically true. For inside we discover a pilot, navigating the controls in what appears to be a modified helicopter disguised as a winged creature.
Pilot: “The plan’s workin’ perfectly! While I create this diversion, the boys… Huh?! How’d you get up here?”
Phantom Stranger: “I have my ways!”
A quick chop to the pilot’s neck knocks him out. And as the Phantom Stranger brings the helicopter safely down… at the Town’s bank, Dr. Thirteen discovers the ruse and surprises a pair of thieves…
Bank Robber: “Ha! Ha! This job is so easy we didn’t even need our guns! All the guards are distracted by our “Curse-Beast”, leaving this empty bank all to ourselves!”
Dr. Thirteen: “Too bad it didn’t quite work out that way…! You thought you’d prey on the town’s superstitious fears… but there is always someone who isn’t fooled!”
Dr. Thirteen single-handedly knocks both bank robbers out cold!
Caption: “A few minutes later, the thieves safely in jail…”
The once terrified children re-converge, uniting with the Phantom Stranger, Dr. Thirteen and Marie.
Dr. Thirteen: “Did you see what I mean? All that curse did for this town was set it up for some slick criminals! It was a perfectly logical explanation… right, Phan…”
But to Dr. Thirteen’s surprise, the Phantom Stranger has once again pulled his mysterious disappearing act.
Boy with Baseball Cap: “H… He’s disappeared! Where’d he go?!”
Blond Haired Boy: “See, I was right… he really is a Phantom!”
Making a fist and waving it in defiance, a beleaguered Dr. Thirteen vows…
Dr. Thirteen: “You’ve pulled your last trick, Phantom Stranger! I’m gonna prove you’re a phony if it takes the rest of my life!”
End Caption: “The Phantom Stranger… Is he Man or Ghost? Sly trickster or magical master? The trail of the Phantom Stranger will pick up again soon… Do you DARE to follow it?”
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