Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 18, 2024 | 6 comments

FRIGHTFUL FRIDAYS with Jim Beard!

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Hey, we’ve got a new Halloween feature for you — FRIGHTFUL FRIDAYS! Every Friday before Halloween (there’s four in 2024), our pal Jim Beard is diving into 13 horror covers from a given title. This year, the theme is offbeat Marvel in the Bronze Age. Next year? Whoooo knooooows? Dig it. — Dan

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By JIM BEARD

Welcome back to the latest insidious installment of FRIGHTFUL FRIDAYS, boys and ghouls! Today we spin the dial on the combination lock (E-V-I-L) to open the Vault of Evil and peer in at a clutch of covers from another of Marvel’s 1970s angst-ridden anthologies!

Now, bear with your ol’ horror host here ’cause I’m going to sound like a bit of a broken record from last Friday: There’s not a lot to dig up about the guts of Vault of Evil save that much like its brethren it reprinted a lot of spooky stuff from Marvel’s 1950S horror-thriller books under brand-new covers by the devilish dudes who were then-currently toiling at the House of Ideas. Rascally Roy Thomas kicked off the mag in 1973, as he did the others of its ilk, and while it began life as a bimonthly book, it soon jumped to eight times a year until it ran out of blood in 1975, 23 terrifying issues all told.

But, hey, we’re not here for the intestines, right? We’re here to groove on the creepy covers and let them make our merry little October that much more awful and odorous!

Onward! But beware — “No One Escapes Alive from the…Vault of Evil”…

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Vault of Evil #3 (June 1973). Art by Frank Brunner. Leave it to Brunner to show us once again how he was a master of the macabre.

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Vault of Evil #4 (Aug. 1973). Art by Frank Brunner. Brunner could even do giant, evil heads… was there anything he couldn’t do?

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Vault of Evil #6 (Oct. 1973). Art by Gil Kane, John Romita, and Tony Mortellaro. I expect a lot of things from these mags, but a big ol’ bug guy was not on my dance card.

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Vault of Evil #7 (Nov. 1973). Art by Rich Buckler (attributed), John Romita (attributed), Ernie Colón (attributed), and Ernie Chan. Hey, we’ve all been there, right, guys?

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Vault of Evil #9 (Feb. 1974). Art by Russ Heath. I consider drawing immense hands on comic book covers a high art.

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Vault of Evil #11 (June 1974). Art by Bill Everett (attributed) and John Romita. I’m cheating a bit by offering up what may be a 1950s Atlas cover modified by Romita in ’74, but I just couldn’t resist that offbeat presentation of a vampire.

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Vault of Evil #13 (Sept. 1974). Art by Larry Lieber and Vince Colletta. Why not capitalize on the Devil craze of the 1970s?

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Vault of Evil #14 (Oct. 1974). Art by Larry Lieber and Frank Giacoia. Look, this is a skeleton-witch-ghost riding on a broom — what more do you want?

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Vault of Evil #15 (Nov. 1974). Art by Larry Lieber and Frank Giacoia. Why not capitalize on the Devil craze of the 1970s?, Part Two.

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Vault of Evil #18 (Apr. 1975). Art by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia. I love the angle on this one. It really gives it an edge.

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Vault of Evil #19 (June 1975). Art by Ron Wilson and Tom Palmer. Not truly your traditional horror mummies, but I dig it, nonetheless.

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Vault of Evil #21 (Sept. 1975). Art by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia. Don’t know who this Valtorr guy is, but there’s something about this one that grabs me.

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Vault of Evil #23 (Nov. 1975). Art by Ron Wilson and Pablo Marcos. No one ever listens to me — don’t look in the mirror, fool! You have no idea what evil magicians live in it!

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MORE

— FRIGHTFUL FRIDAYS: Dig These 13 Crypt-Kickin’ Marvel CRYPT OF SHADOWS Covers. Click here.

— FRIGHTFUL FRIDAYS: Dig These 13 Creepy Marvel CHAMBER OF CHILLS Covers. Click here.

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When JIM BEARD’s not editing and publishing through his two houses, Flinch Books and Becky Books, he’s pounding out adventure fiction with both original and licensed characters. In fact, he’s put words in the mouths of Luke Skywalker, Superman, Fox Mulder, Carl Kolchak, Peter Venkman and the Green Hornet… and lived to tell about it. His most fitting books for the season?  The Sgt. Janus: Spirit-Breaker Saga!