SPELLBOUND 2
"THE END!"
Back in November 2014, I first set up a page for this comic, based on information from Trent's Poe Comic List (www.houseofusher.net), which said there was supposed to be a Poe adaptation in Marvel's SPELLBOUND #2 (Apr'52). However, I was unable to find anything confirming that.
A month later, at the Destination Nightmare blog, I found there WAS a Poe adaptation that came out this month-- only it was in a different title, from a different publisher!
Then... 4 MONTHS later, I suddenly had it confirmed, by "Crash Ryan" (at the Comic Book Plus site, the source of so many of these early stories), that there was indeed a POE story in Marvel's SPELLBOUND #2.
The story in question turned out to be "THE END", which is actually loosely-inspired by...
"THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM". (What-- ANOTHER one??)
This was the 3rd comics adaptation of this story, following...
Charlton's YELLOWJACKET COMICS #3 (Nov'44) and
Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #40 (Aug'47).
There would wind up being no less than 3 different versions published in 1952 alone! And, of course, many more after that.
The art is by Russ Heath, one of the real masters of comics illustration.
However... the problem remained, that this appears to be one of the most ELUSIVE comics this entire project has ever dealt with. It took me that long just to confirm that, yes, there was a POE story in this comic, and what the story was. But apart from the cover (by Bill Everett), the story FAILED to turn up anywhere. Nobody seemed to have a copy of it, and as it was published by Marvel, it has NOT fallen into "public domain". Not only that, but an online search has failed even to turn up anybody who has a copy for sale!! It looked like I'd have to wait until Marvel got around to reprinting SPELLBOUND as part of their ever-growing Masterworks series. That is, if they ever do.
Marvel Comics (at times in its early history sometimes referred to as Timely or Atlas) was always a 2nd-level publisher-- somewhere in the middle as far as quality was concerned-- whose specialty was flooding the market with imitations of whatever was then currently popular.
On 4-15-2015, ONE page turned up, courtesy of Cully Calloway, who supplied me with a number of Skywald stories from the 1970s.
On 2-6-2018, Ernie Laczo sent me scans of the entire story, from his own recently-purchased copy of the comic. However, the scans were on the small side, and I was hoping we could get together so I could do my own high-res scans of the comic. But 2 years later, it looks like that's NOT gonna happen, so I've decided to finally process his scans and put up the result. Sometimes, you just gotta do what you can.
I finished processing the images and updated this page on 3-22-2020.
And then... the NEXT day, 3-23-2020, Canadian fan Richard Gagnon pointed me at the Read Comics Online site, which had scans that were DOUBLE the size of the ones I had JUST finished processing!!! It was maddening. But the only thing I could do, was process the entire story, AGAIN. I was finished-- the 2nd time-- on 3-30-2020. Sheesh!
ENJOY!
SPELLBOUND 2
cover by BILL EVERETT (Marvel / April 1952)
(based on "THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM") / Version 3
Adaptation by ?? / Art by RUSS HEATH / Page 7
Scan of SPELLBOUND #2 cover from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scans of SPELLBOUND #2 interiors from the Read Comics Online site
with special thanks to Richard Gagnon!
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.
Read about THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM at the Spark Notes site.
Read about THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM at the Cliff Notes site.
Read about THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM at the Shmoop site.
Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the PENDULUM Gallery of Illustrations.
Audio / Video:
Hear the Basil Rathbone PIT AND THE PENDULUM recording!
See the Vincent Price PIT AND THE PENDULUM performance!
Hear the Henry Hull SUSPENSE episode! (ep. 24 / 1-12-1943)
Hear the Jose Ferrer SUSPENSE episode! (ep. 273 / 11-28-1947)
Hear the Vincent Price SUSPENSE episode! (ep.724 / 11-10-1957)
Hear the Raymond Burr SUSPENSE episode! (ep.805 / 6-7-1959)
Hear the Tony Roberts CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode! (3-4-1975)
Comics:
Read the Gus Schrotter PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the August M. Froehlich PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Russ Heath PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Doug Wildey PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Everett Raymond Kinstler PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Gedeone Malagola PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Frank Bellamy PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Ruben Lara Romero PENDULUM adaptation!
See the Pablo Marcos PENDULUM tribute!
Read the Ricardo Villamonte PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Jose Ortiz PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the De La Rosa PENDULUM adaptation! (coming soon!)
Read the Guido Del Carpio Rivera PENDULUM illustrated story!
(coming soon)
Read the Don Mcgregor / Rudy Mesina PENDULUM adaptation!
Read the Gerry Talaoc PENDULUM adaptation!
See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
(Continued in Poe 1952, Pt. 3)
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