My Rating
“Peace On Peachtree Street…”
Ever since Regina’s father purchased that old Confederate mansion and restored it to its former glory, she has felt as though something is watching her. Not from somewhere outside the house, but from deep within its walls.
The townsfolk still gossip about the terrible events that took place when Union forces captured the surrounding plantations during the Civil War. But that happened more than a century ago, Regina tells herself. Whatever occurred here belongs to the past.
And ghosts? Come on, this is the 1970s!
Unfortunately for Regina, somebody inside the mansion apparently never received the memo.
Who was the Confederate officer named Captain Wylie Redford? Does the old photograph of the captain really change positions whenever Regina looks away? What are those strange scratching sounds coming from beneath the basement stairs? Some wounds of war may take longer than a century to heal.
“Innocent Victim!”
Mistress Prim stands accused of witchcraft during the height of the Salem witch trials. What damning evidence has the good Puritan townsfolk uncovered against her?
Someone saw her walking outside at midnight.
That’s it.
Her nosy neighbor claims this suspicious nighttime activity proves Mistress Prim has been practicing witchcraft. Now the accused woman has one final opportunity to demonstrate her innocence. The church congregation will gather beneath the midnight sky and witness the truth for themselves.
Is Mistress Prim really an innocent victim? Will the congregation finally see reason? Or is everyone about to discover that accusing someone of witchcraft can have unexpected consequences?
“Kiss Me Again” — Text Story
Amos Ames built the old colonial house on Huckleberry Hill, Vermont, for his beloved wife, Rachel. There the couple lived and loved for many years until, as happens to us all eventually, they passed away.
Decades roll by until we reach the current year of 1975. One of the Ames family’s great-granddaughters develops an interest in finding the old family home, and the hunt begins.
Donald and Lydia Otis spend years trying to locate the exact property. Unfortunately, before their search bears fruit, Lydia develops cancer. She dies without ever seeing the house she dreamed of finding.
Now Donald has taken up the quest alone.
Will Donald Otis find his wife’s dream home before his own time runs out? Why do so many real-estate agents stop listing the Ames house? What awaits anyone brave—or foolish—enough to purchase the old colonial on Huckleberry Hill? Can love survive even after the people who shared it are gone?
“Journey To Lost Orlaak”
Eben Del Sombra and his doctor stand over the sleeping chambermaid. The red-haired woman recently refused her master’s advances while rambling about being the reincarnated queen of a fabulous golden city known as Orlaak.
Eben Del Sombra is not accustomed to servants rejecting him, even when he is clearly in the wrong. At first, his interest in the beautiful Cassandra is driven by lust. Then she begins describing Orlaak and its unimaginable riches.
Suddenly, Cassandra’s body becomes secondary to something Eben desires even more.
Gold.
The lord of Sombra Manor summons a renowned psychologist to examine Cassandra and extract additional information from her dreams. For weeks, the doctor probes the young woman’s mind until enough details emerge to pinpoint coordinates somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
Convinced that a fortune awaits beneath the waves, Master Del Sombra boards a Yankee brig and sails from London toward waters unknown.
Is the young chambermaid really the reincarnation of Cassandra, Queen of the fabled golden city of Orlaak? Will her lost warrior, Theo, return to save his beloved queen? Does an ancient civilization really wait beneath the Atlantic? And exactly how many days can a sailor survive in a rowboat lost at sea?
“You Can’t Win”
Wilbur Dobbs is on his way to the electric chair.
He counts every step down the corridor as though walking a little slower might somehow postpone the inevitable. Maybe the governor will call. Maybe somebody will finally understand. Maybe the authorities will realize just how much of a bitch his mother-in-law had been!
Day after day, year after year, the woman’s constant nagging drove a wedge between Wilbur and his wife. Eventually, Wilbur found a solution.
A pipe wrench.
Now the state has found a solution for Wilbur.
What waits for Wilbur Dobbs on the other side? Can the afterlife possibly be worse than his personal hell on Earth? How many steps remain between Wilbur and the electric chair?
Some guys just can’t win.
Collect the series to find out!
Reviewer Notes
And with that, we have reached the final issue of Charlton Comics’ Haunted Love. It has definitely been an interesting journey. The series gave us ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves, reincarnation, séances, haunted mansions, doomed lovers, con artists, and more than a few endings that left me scratching my head. Unfortunately, the series also struggled at times to remember one important detail printed right there on the cover: this is supposed to be a haunted romance comic.
I mentioned this problem in some of my previous reviews. Several stories throughout the run either had no romance angle whatsoever or attached one to the plot as an afterthought. Issue #11 demonstrates the problem perfectly. “Innocent Victim!” and “You Can’t Win” contain practically no romance at all. Yes, Wilbur Dobbs was married, but I don’t think a romance comic can exactly hang its hat on a guy beating his mother-in-law to death with a pipe wrench.
That doesn’t necessarily make either story bad. “You Can’t Win,” in particular, has that wonderfully mean sense of humor found in old horror anthology comics. My problem is simply that these stories could have appeared in almost any Charlton horror title. If you are going to publish something called Haunted Love, give me some haunted love!
Fortunately, “Peace On Peachtree Street” delivers exactly the kind of supernatural atmosphere I wanted from this series. An old Southern mansion, a Civil War ghost, a mysterious photograph, and something scratching beneath the basement stairs? Sign me up. The story creates a genuinely creepy mood without needing to throw monsters across every page. Sometimes an old house with a dark history is all a horror story needs.
Old School Fantasy
“Journey To Lost Orlaak” was another highlight, although it feels more like sword-and-sorcery fantasy mixed with reincarnation than traditional gothic horror. I really enjoyed it. The lost civilization, reincarnated queen, greedy aristocrat, sunken treasure, and ancient warrior give the story an almost pulp-adventure quality. Both the writing and artwork make this one of the strongest features in the issue.
“Kiss Me Again” also deserves some credit for actually embracing the love part of Haunted Love. The idea of a husband continuing his deceased wife’s search for an ancestral home gives the story an appropriately melancholy foundation. The haunted-house elements then build around that relationship instead of feeling bolted onto the story at the last minute.
Looking back over all eleven issues, Haunted Love was definitely inconsistent. Some stories delivered wonderful gothic romance and supernatural horror, while others felt as though Charlton had pulled them from a filing cabinet marked GENERIC HORROR STORY and dropped them into whatever anthology needed a few more pages. The artwork was often the real attraction. Artists such as Tom Sutton, Joe Staton, and Steve Ditko gave the series plenty of visual personality, even when the writing didn’t always stick the landing.
Quarterly Issues
I believe Charlton discontinued the quarterly series and shifted its attention toward its other Haunted material. Whatever the reason for its demise, eleven issues gave the title a respectable little run. I’ll definitely be digging into the other Charlton horror books sitting in my collection after finishing this one.
I’m giving Haunted Love #11 four out of five stars, and I’m giving the complete series four out of five stars as well. I’m certainly no Charlton Comics expert, but I can’t help wondering whether Haunted Love might have survived a little longer if more issues had maintained the quality and variety found in this finale.
It wasn’t always great. It wasn’t always romantic. Hell, sometimes it barely made sense.
But it was certainly haunted.