"Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare? Chicago? Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes, Indiana? Syracuse, New York? Anyplace, everyplace, where there's hate, where there's prejudice, where there's bigotry—he's alive. He's alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He's alive, because through these things, we keep him alive."
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A dimension that is also home to some terrible beings.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
open/close all folders
Television
Original 1959 series Examples
- "The Mirror": Ramos Clemente is a peasant turned general turned revolutionary who overthrows the tyrannical General de Cruz. When warning signs arise in Clemente's unhinged demand that de Cruz be executed via being stripped, slathered in honey, and consumed by ants, Clemente becomes enamored with the former dictator's supposedly Magic Mirror. Believing his friends plot against him upon seeing their images in the glass, Clemente murders them and begins ordering the executions of thousands of prisoners around the clock, becoming a more loathed tyrant than de Cruz himself.
- "Deaths-Head Revisited": Gunther Lutze is a former Nazi concentration camp captain at Dachau, described in the opening narration as "an animal whose function in life was to give pain". Lutze revisits Germany, and plays a game where he mentally torments a woman at a hotel who recognizes him and is utterly terrified. After this, Lutze visits Dachau, reminiscing about his atrocities and flashing back to the times when he had innocent victims hanged, shot or experimented on as if those were the best years of his life, until he is confronted by Dachau's "caretaker", a former inmate named Becker. Lutze had murdered so many he can't even initially remember he actually killed Becker years ago before he is confronted by the ghosts of his victims. As the ending narration states, he is representative of a time "when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard", into which they threw away their conscience.
- "The Little People": Peter Craig, the co-pilot to William Fletcher, is an egotistical man who longs to hold power over others. When Craig and Fletcher land on an alien world seemingly bereft of life, Craig finds an entire civilization of microscopic "little people". In a mad quest to achieve godhood, Craig declares himself the ruler of the civilization and forces the people to do his bidding, regularly crushing swathes of their land on cruel whims. Craig holds the threat of total annihilation of the civilization over their heads so they will worship him, and when Fletcher confronts Craig on the fact that he's "no god, but has gotten [the little people] to believe in the Devil!", Craig threatens to shoot Fletcher dead if he doesn't leave Craig to continue his maniacal tyranny.
- "He's Alive": Adolf Hitler himself turns out to be the shadowy benefactor of the troubled neo-Nazi Peter Vollmer, corrupting the young man into a solid mouthpiece through which to kickstart a new, hate-fueled Reich. Hitler cajoles Vollmer into murdering one of his own loyal followers to make a martyr out of him to inspire the crowds Vollmer amasses while stamping out any hints of decency or hesitance in Vollmer, ultimately ordering him to murder the old Jewish man who raised Vollmer practically as his own son. When Vollmer is finally gunned down, Hitler has formed him into his exact image of the perfect Nazi: all steel and no heart, with Hitler himself seeping back into the shadow to feed off the prejudice and hate that authored so many millions of deaths during his reign of terror.
- "Black Leather Jackets": The leader of the alien race wishes to overtake and colonize Earth. Claiming humans are evil and barbaric, he sends out thousands of aliens disguised as humans to poison the city's water supply with bacteria, leading to the extinction of human life. When the alien Scotty falls in love with a human and attempts to show that humans are not all bad, the leader simply labels him a traitor and sends him off to his fate, while starting to invade Earth.
- "The Jeopardy Room": Commissar Vassiloff is a cruel assassin whose job is to hunt down and kill defectors from the Soviet Union. With his latest target, Major Ivan Kuchenko, in sniper range, Vassiloff refuses to have him merely shot. Instead, Vassiloff decides to give Kuchenko "the death of an artist". To that end, Vassiloff forces Kuchenko into a trap where he must find and defuse a bomb hidden in his hotel room under a 3-hour time limit. Vassiloff delights in watching his victim suffer a nervous breakdown as time runs out, and continues to leave him alive even as he pleads, screaming, to be shot. With a Complexity Addiction that defies all logic, Vassiloff cements himself as one of the most sadistic characters on the show, claiming to have killed 800 people in similar ways purely to satisfy his boredom.
Comic Books
Gold Key Comics series Examples
- Issue #5's "The Legacy of Hans Burkel": Horst Borman is the ruthless commander of the Nazi U-Boat Wolf, who considers cruelty the key to victory. Borman is introduced blowing up an innocent fishing vessel and killing everyone onboard, then planting mines throughout the waters without care that these war crimes are being committed in neutral waters. This is just the latest in Borman's mass killings, with nearly a dozen such attacks under his belt. Borman later repeats this process on an unsuspecting tanker ship, bringing out a camera and filming the few survivors of the vessel as they slowly drown. When the clumsy Hans Burkel tries to save the drowning sailors, Borman leaves Burkel to die, then tries to help the Nazi high command escape justice for their role in The Holocaust.
- Issue #7's "Shield of Medusa": Demius is a jealous archaeologist who finds the lost shield of Medusa and attempts to use it to murder the object of his desire simply so hero Bartlett cannot have her. Obsessed with its power, Demius goes on a killing spree, exposing anyone he sees to it including civilians. When a blind man assists Barlett, Demius simply tries to beat them both to death with the shield.
- Issue #15's "The Vision of Mystir": The Mysterious Bearded Bomber is the worst of the criminals tailed by Professor Mystir. Having been caught by his business partner swindling funds from his own company, the Bearded Bomber, hoping to silence his partner, planted a suitcase bomb on the plane he boarded, killing 50 innocents onboard.
- Issue #40's "A Charmed Life": The Lady is a demonic emissary of the Devil himself, who makes deals with men that exact a heavy toll. The Lady approaches gangster Tony and offers him power to rise to the top, and when Tony accepts, the Lady uses her supernatural abilities to slaughter all of Tony's enemies and enable him to become a crime lord. As Tony spreads drugs and debauchery through the city, the Lady tries to cash in on her part of the deal by forcing Tony to go to prison as a favor to another of her pawns. When Tony refuses, the Lady reveals what happens to those who fail her: they are turned into tormented charms on her bracelet, and the comic ends with the Lady adding Tony to the many figures in her collection.
- Issue #48's "Nightmare in Miniature": Harry Franks is an explorer who discovers a village of miniature cavemen alongside his partner Marlowe. Tasked by Marlowe to film the cavemen's activities in order to achieve fame and fortune, after finding the cavemen's daily lives boring, Franks sets out to spice up his footage by allowing tiny dinosaurs to attack the village and endanger the cavemen's lives in an attempt to capture their battle on film. When Marlowe tries to kill Franks in disgust, Franks shoots Marlowe instead so that he won't have to share the discovery of the cavemen, before trying to kill all the cavemen himself out of annoyance.
- Issue #54's "Caldwell's Last Stand": Colonel Caldwell is a Cavalry Officer who intends to attack the forces of Native leader Gray Fox to wipe them out and open the tribes up to total extermination. Caldwell leads an attack, killing numerous Natives while gloating about the advancement it will give him.
- Issue #68's "A Lease on Death": Volker is an employee of Morley's Wax Museum who offers his boss "sculptures" by giving people a serum that freezes their bodies, leaving their consciousness completely intact as they're made into displays for public admiration. Helping convicted murderer Robert "Bobby" Byrne escape from prison by giving him a knife needed to murder a cop, Volker lures Byrne to his hideout to turn him into his latest statue.
- Issue #72's "Sorry, The President Cannot See You Today": Harry Marlin is a "very hungry man", whose biggest appetite is for power. Marlin has clawed his way through the ranks of the company I.V.E. through duplicitous means, such as framing and driving his predecessor to suicide, and he is determined to rise evermore. Marlin goes about murdering any and all of his business associates that may pose a threat to his ascendance to President of I.V.E., using car crashes; bombs; and sabotaged aircraft to whittle down his targets. Dozens die thanks to Marlin's actions, all of which he laughs off, uncaring who has to die so long as his ambition is slaked.
Others
- Lost Tales' "Hangnail on a Monkey's Paw": Former Vice President Butler peddles right-wing extremist rhetoric in the present, and is revealed to have done far worse in his past. Under the banner of The War on Terror, Butler sanctioned and oversaw the unlawful imprisonment and torture of "countless" people, innocent and guilty alike. Waterboarding and sleep deprivation were used on these prisoners to extract information, with some kept captive for months. When Khalid, one of Butler's victims comes seeking revenge, Butler brushes off the man's torture as "not that bad", slings racist barbs, and refuses to accept any responsibility for his atrocities.
