My Rating
“Shadows Of Satan”
An escaped circus lion lies dead in a field covered with daisies. The animal’s only crime was following its natural instincts and trying to feast upon the soft flesh of a young blind woman named Sybl. Isn’t that simply the nature of the beast? As the big cat leaped forward to kill its prey, a monstrous arm rocketed out of the moorlands, grabbed the lion by the throat, and crushed the animal with one powerful grasp.
In all the excitement, Sybl collapses to her knees as adrenaline courses through her body. She remains completely unaware of the massive, plant-covered monster lumbering toward her. Within seconds, the frightened woman slips into unconsciousness.
The creature stares down at Sybl’s sleeping face. Unaware of her blindness, the monster shows both empathy and caution. This beast is no rabid fiend. This shambling heap of vegetation was once a human being named Jim Roberts. Over the next few days, the chemically mutated man will become deeply involved in the troubled life of this sleeping beauty.
Will the Heap find a cure for his monstrous transformation before his human side disappears forever? Can a descendant of the late Baron Von Frankenstein restore Sybl’s eyesight? Who are the mysterious hunters stalking the moorlands in search of the escaped circus lion?
“When The Sea Goes Dry!”
Porto Bello, Caribbean Sea — Deke and Margot Travers sit inside a local café studying the antique map spread across the table before them. How could they have gotten so lucky? The document supposedly reveals the location of a sunken Spanish galleon loaded with gold. The married couple has never found much success in their previous business ventures, but this feels different. It almost seems as if fate itself guided them to that dusty old corner bookstore.
From a dark corner near the bar, a local man of Aztec descent listens to the Travers with great interest. Only two things stand between the couple and their fortune: a boat and someone who knows the local waters. Pedro happens to be exactly the man they need, even if his intentions are far from honorable. He knows the area intimately and quickly realizes that the naïve couple may hold the key to a fortune.
Before Deke and Margot can even pay their check, Pedro approaches their table with an offer they may live to regret.
What Spanish secrets lie beneath the waters off Porto Bello? Why is the mysterious Pedro so eager to help the Travers locate a galleon that sank two hundred years ago? Will Deke and Margot’s marital problems bring doom upon their Caribbean expedition?
“The Curse Of The Broken Balcony!”
Jack Darrow was a salesman. No, Jack was a damn good salesman. His numbers had shattered every company record that year. As a reward, management offered him the lucrative Annedale sales territory just days before the new year. To celebrate—and pad his commissions a little more—Jack hits the road on December 31st for some last-minute wheeling and dealing.
Several hours into the trip, Jack finds himself driving along the winding back roads surrounding several old estates built with generations of family money. Jack smiles at the thought of all those potential customers and the commissions waiting to fill his pockets.
Then something along the roadside catches his attention.
A dark-haired man roughly Jack’s age stands beside the road hitchhiking. Something about the stranger looks strangely familiar, so Jack pulls over and offers him a ride.
Holy cow! Pete Larkin?
Had it really been twelve years? Pete had been one of Jack’s old acquaintances at N.Y.U. The unexpected reunion should have brought back pleasant memories, but something seems wrong with Pete. The man looks troubled, distant, and nothing like the college student Jack remembers. Despite his strange behavior, Pete offers his old friend a room for the night at the nearby family estate.
Jack accepts.
Before the night ends, that old manor house will burn itself into his memory for decades to come.
What transpired inside the old manor house beneath a New Year’s moon? Can Jack save his former college acquaintance from slipping into madness? Just how long can a grudge follow a man before demanding payment?
“Death On The Earth-Mars Run!”
The crate inside Set Grof’s cabin is definitely ticking.
The crew of the space liner Stardust frantically works to unseal the Martian inventor’s personal storage container. Whatever sits inside could be an explosive—or something even more sinister.
Days earlier, the Stardust left Earth’s orbit bound for the human colonies on Mars. Several high-profile passengers booked passage on Flight 20, including an interplanetary banker, a degenerate gambler, and a wealthy father traveling with his daughter. Unfortunately, someone else has joined the voyage.
A killer.
Over the next several hours, chief navigator Alan Aldane must unravel a deadly plot before the murderer strikes again. With millions of miles of empty space surrounding the Stardust, there will be no easy escape for either the killer or the next victim.
Will the space liner Stardust make its scheduled arrival at Mars Colony One? Do all Venusian women possess psychic abilities? Can Captain Grant obtain a Space Police warrant before another murder occurs?
“Ballast Of Gold”
The storm approaches the steamship Central America just five days before its scheduled arrival in New York Harbor. Captain Herndon already considers the voyage difficult, and the rapidly darkening skies promise even more trouble ahead. The passengers include a mixture of American working-class travelers and immigrants from various parts of Europe. Tensions have run high throughout the journey, forcing the crew to break up several fights.
Yet Captain Herndon has another concern weighing heavily on his mind.
Two million dollars in gold sits inside the ship’s cargo hold.
Soon, none of that matters.
The storm overtakes the Central America with unforgiving force. Within hours, the lower decks begin to flood as torrential rain and enormous waves hammer the ship. Passengers and crew scramble for buckets and desperately bail water from every available section. Captain Herndon races below to the engine room, where shovelers struggle to keep seawater away from the coal furnaces.
The situation has become dire, and the Atlantic Ocean shows no mercy.
Will the steamship Central America reach New York Harbor with its 423 passengers and crew? Is Davy Jones ready to claim another shipload of drowned souls? And what will become of the fortune in gold resting at the bottom of the cargo hold?
Reviewer Notes
What a strange mixture of reprints, horror, science fiction, adventure, and character reboot this turned out to be. I came for the Heap and got served a smorgasbord of random Golden and Silver Age stories instead. You certainly got your money’s worth back in 1971 because this book is packed with content. Modern DC and Marvel readers might suffer whiplash from the sudden changes in genre and storytelling style, but that’s also part of the fun. The Heap definitely isn’t your grandkids’ comic book.
I originally purchased this issue after listening to an interview with comic book industry legend Jim Shooter. He mentioned Sol Brodsky, a former Marvel executive, leaving the company and joining forces with Israel Waldman of I.W. Publications/Super Comics to launch Skywald Publications. As a fan of short-lived comic publishers and upstarts like Atlas/Seaboard, that immediately caught my attention. I wanted to see what Skywald had to offer, and the Heap seemed like the perfect place to start. The character immediately reminded me of DC Comics’ Swamp Thing and Marvel’s Man-Thing.
Much to my amusement, I discovered the Heap came first. Way first. The character debuted in Air Fighters Comics #3 from Hillman Periodicals in 1942, decades before Swamp Thing and Man-Thing crawled from their respective swamps. The Heap would later receive new life through Skywald during the 1970s and eventually appear again through Image Comics decades later. Where have you been all my life, Heap?
This first Skywald issue provides a brief introduction to the character, although that fantastic monster cover might lead readers to expect considerably more Heap than they actually get. In reality, the book follows the horror anthology format that publishers loved during this period. I’ve never been a huge anthology fan because I usually prefer a longer story with characters I can follow from issue to issue. However, this book throws enough variety at the reader to keep things interesting. If one story doesn’t grab you, another one probably will.
For me, the biggest surprise was “Death On The Earth-Mars Run!” The story originally appeared in Strange Worlds #8 from Avon Comics in 1952 and follows the crew of a passenger spaceship as a murderer stalks the vessel. I loved every wonderfully dated minute of it. The artwork immediately reminded me of old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers comics. You get futuristic fashions, space-age slang, Venusian women, interplanetary travel, and even the Space Police. What more could you want?
That story also works as a fascinating little time capsule. Remember, it originally appeared seventeen years before humans landed on the Moon. The creators imagined a future filled with routine flights between Earth and Mars using the science and cultural expectations of the early 1950s. Sure, much of it looks ridiculous through modern eyes, but that only adds to the charm. Reading old science fiction allows us to see how previous generations imagined the future—and sometimes what they got hilariously wrong.
Overall, I recommend The Heap to collectors who enjoy digging through the stranger corners of comic book history. It may not feature Batman, Wolverine, or another household name, but that’s exactly why I enjoyed it. Skywald delivered a weird assortment of monsters, murder mysteries, lost treasure, haunted estates, outer-space intrigue, and maritime disaster under one cover. You never know what the next page will bring.
I’m giving The Heap four out of five stars. Now I’d love to track down some of those early Golden Age appearances and compare the original Heap with Skywald’s version of the muck-monster. Unfortunately, I have a feeling my curiosity and my wallet are about to become mortal enemies.