User blog:Jdstrick/Review: House of Mystery 1

I've decided to delve into DC's lesser known anthology series. It really started with me wanting to get to the origins of Swamp Thing, so I could read his series. Unfortunately, I guess my particular personality doesn't allow me to go straight to those couple of issues in House of Secrets and then move on. I've got to start from the beginning and painstakingly work my way there. Eventually, I just decided to start with House of Secrets' sister publication, House of Mystery and work my way through both. I also decided to add synopses of these mags as I read them to add to the DC Database site. Kill two birds with one stone in a sense.

The first entry in the House of Mystery series was better than I expected. I had read about 20 issues into House of Secrets and struggled to get through the crappy stories, but these were much better. Perhaps the introduction of the Comics Code made some difference. Guess I'll see as I go on.

"I Fell in Love with a Witch" Pretty decent story with a nice twist. Good buildup of tension. Is she a witch or not?

"Man or Monster?" Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide clone but still well done. Interesting frat bro revenge angle.

"The Curse of Seabury Manor" The foolhardy friend bites off more than he can chew from a haunted manor. Weakest story here.

"Wanda Was a Werewolf" The title sounds like a 50s TV sitcom. Decent story but Kentucky was a weird place to set a werewolf hunt.

Overall, the stories weren't too bad. Most of the twists were sort of lame with real criminals and nothing supernatural going on at all.

There were a few other snippets they included I'll mention: The Ghost of Paris - A haunting in Paris, Missouri. Interesting Americana legends but at first glance you might think they mean Paris, France.

Exposing Voices From Beyond the Grave - A brief 2-page description of the history of spiritualism and some of its famous practitioners and tricks. I've read a little bit about the spiritualism craze of the 1800s and early 1900s, mostly from a fantastic Time-Life set about the paranormal. Seems to me the DC editors might be a little too quick to judge the evidence and knock the supernatural. There were some unproven happenings back in the day that couldn't be explained.

Superstitious Lover - Tells of a legend from the Ozarks of a man who thought his girlfriend was a witch and lost her to another man. This story smacked of being made up. Being set in "colonial times" with colonial dress was the biggest no-no I thought. The Ozarks weren't settled by the Americans until the mid-1800s I would guess...long after colonial times.