ARC Review - Adventures into the Unknown! Archives Volume 1

TITLE: Adventures into the Unknown! Archives Volume 1 
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PUB DATE: June 6, 2012
ISBN:  9781595829306
AUTHORS: Edvard Moritz, King Ward, Mac Elkan 
CONTRIBUTORS:  Al Feldstein, Al Ulmer, Bruce Jones, Fred Guardineer, Leonard Starr, Paul Reinman


Back in the 1940s a comic titled Adventures into the Unknown! hit the stands. It was published by B&I Publishing (aka American Comics Group) and was one of the earliest horror comics. The stories were more traditional and stayed away from the blood/gore horror of today, and relied more upon ghost stories and gothic novels which eventually became a popular series. Just like other comics, Adventures into the Unknown! was criticized for its violence, but it (unlike others) survived the Senate of Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings of 1954. The series eventually ended in 1967 after 174 issues.

    Now Dark Horse Comics is bringing back Adventures into the Unknown! for a new generations of readers with this volume containing the first four issues with the following creepy tales: The Living Ghost; The Werewolf Stalks; Haunted House; True Ghosts of History; The Castle of Otranto; It Walked by Night; Strange Spirits; The Cursed Pistol; Kill Puppet Kill; The Mermaid Mole; Out of the Unknown; The Old Tower’s Secret; The Haunted Hoard; The Master’s Hand; Phantom of the Seas; True Ghosts of History: The Grim Lady of Raynham Hall; The Witch-Cat of Salem; By the Light of the Lantern; The Vampire Prowls; Strange Spirits: Celtic Superstitions; The Specter of Little Dread House; Do Such Things Exist? - The Affair of the Ferrick Phantom; The Empty House; “True” Ghosts of History; The Creekmore Curse; Giants of the Unknown; The Affair of Room 1313; Back to Yesterday; Specialist in Spooks; True Ghosts of History: The Mary’s Specter; Rescue Out of the Unknown; and The Woman Wore Black.

    I enjoyed reading each haunting tale of dread. My favorites would have to be the Haunted House, The Grim Lady of Raynham Hall, and the weird The Living Ghost. I think it’s great that Dark Horse Comics is releasing these old stories as some of them are better than today’s horror movies, even scarier. I recommend Adventures into the Unknown! Archives Volume 1 to all horror fans.

*I would like to thank NetGalley and Dark Horse Comics for providing me a review copy.