If you dare... A DC '70s Horror Index

General Discussion Comic Books
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In light of the news article focusing on DC Horror, I thought I’d bring a list I made of DC’s '70s Horror titles over to help guide readers.
Unfortunately, many of these have not been digitized, yet.
I will note which ones are available as I go.

*The Unexpected (renamed from Tales of… with #105) - #105-222 (Feb/Mar 1968-May 1982)
Available: no issues available

*House of Mystery (rebranded as a horror anthology with #174) - #174-321 (May/June 1968-Oct 1983)
Available: #290-304

*The Witching Hour - #1-85 (Feb/Mar 1969-Oct 1978)
Available: no issues available

*The Phantom Stranger - #11-41 (May/June 1969-Feb/Mar 1976)
Available: no issues available

*House of Secrets (relaunched as a horror anthology with #81) - #811-1154 (Aug/Sept 1969-Oct/Nov 1978)
Available: #92-101

*Ghosts - #1-112 (Sept/Oct 1971-May 1982)
Available: no issues available

*Swamp Thing - #1-24 (Oct/Nov 1972-Aug/Sept 1976)
(to be revived in 1982 at the end of the 70s horror wave and find even better success under Alan Moore, leading to the ‘British Invasion’ and '90s Vertigo horror resurgence)
Available: #1-24 (Complete)

*Secrets of Haunted House - #1-46 (Apr/May 1975-Mar 1982)
(with a year break in 1976)
Available: no issues available

*Doorway to Nightmare - #1-5 (Jan/Feb 1978-Sept/Oct 1978)
(arrived in 1978 and was cut short by the DC Implosion (which also took Witching Hour and House of Secrets)
Available: no issues available

*Madame Xanadu - #1 (1981)
(one-shot)
Available: not available

*Night Force - #1-14 (Aug 1982-Sept 1983)
(a later series worth including, features the creative team behind Marvel’s '70s Dracula series)
Available: no issues available

For further reading:

DC Comics’ Horror Titles of the Seventies
http://mercurie.blogspot.com/2008/10/dc-comics-horror-titles-of-seventies.html

Follow Me into Weird Worlds: DC’s Horror and Supernatural Comics
http://www.criminalelement.com/follow-me-into-weird-worlds-dc-horror-and-supernatural-comics-hector-dejean/

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Edit:
That should be Phantom Stranger #1-41 (not #11-41).
And House of Secrets #81-154 (not #811-1154)
My “1” key has been sticking lately.

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Looking forward to GHOSTS and UNEXPECTED and SECRETS OF HAUNTED HOUSE hopefully dropping into the library. They were my intro-into-comics titles.

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@LeonardoMyst This is so cool! Thanks for compiling and posting this. I feel ready to get my spook on, now.

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It’s a true pity that those issues of The Phantom Stranger aren’t digitally available.

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Thanks @BeastBoy.

@Vroom, hopefully we’ll see some more of those arrive by Halloween.
Looking over the list, right now there’s the full run of the 1972 Swamp Thing, but only fifteen issues of House of Mystery (out of 148) and ten issues of House of Secrets (out of 74).

Unfortunately, they don’t have the same priority as the superhero comics, so it’ll probably take them longer to get these up.

However, they do have Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love (1971) #1-15 available, which I didn’t include on my list because it was more of the romance/horror offshoot that they did.
And that series is complete, as well.

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Adding to my last post…

Fringe titles included:

Weird War Tales
Weird Western Tales
Weird Mystery Tales
-these weren’t under the horror umbrella but rather a mini-line unto themselves.

Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love (later renamed Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion)
Sinister House of Secret Love (later renamed Secrets of Sinister House)
-likewise, they were a sub-imprint that mixed the horror stuff with DC’s romance stuff at the time. The first few issues of each (before the title changes) also had very striking gothic novel style covers. Similarly, while DC’s horror titles briefly carried a bat symbol on their covers, the romance comics carried a heart symbol and these two had a silhouette of a house or manor (a staple image of gothic fiction).

And other titles include:
Tales of Ghost Castle (a three issue series from 1975)

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@keylimetyrant, I remember a story that struck me and left a lasting impression.
I still remember it to this day.

It was a story where a man visited a fortune teller while on a trip and was foretold that he would die from drowning.
So, the man tries to avoid large bodies of water and even chose to ride a train which was much safer. Or so he thought.
When the train arrives at its destination, he doesn’t come out of his cabin.
Someone goes to check on him and he’s found to be dead.
And unbelievably, they determine that he showed signs that he had drowned on the train.

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Speaking of horror and war titles…

2014’s Star Spangled War Stories, which starred G.I. Zombie. Not counting the Future’s End tie-in one-shot, it was another member of the “Apparently, Eight is Enough” New 52 club.

I love the covers to #7 and the FE tie-in. That was a fun series as I remember it.

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I think the New52 G.I. Zombie would’ve done better if it was a back-up in Frankenstein.
DC was so focused on having separate lines at the time (Dark, Edge, Batman, Superman, Justice League, etc.), but there were some books that would’ve fit more in a different grouping than what they were assigned.
Wonder Woman, by Azzarello, for example, was more ‘Dark’ than ‘Justice League’.
And the G.I. Zombie, I think, would’ve appealed more to ‘Dark’ readers than ‘Edge’ readers.

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Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. is a book ready for a comeback IMO.

Kind of OT, but I wonder if S.H.A.D.E. will be in Event Leviathan. It’s such a covert agency, I wonder if Leviathan knows of it.

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I think S.H.A.D.E. is one of those things that will crop up only if it interests the writer(s).
I just don’t see them interesting Bendis.

Looking at the covers of Leviathan and knowing his track record at Marvel, his tastes run more along the line of Dennis O’Neil, the late '70s/early '80s street heroes and the tv crime dramas of that same period.

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Ignore my last post.
Going to add it to the S.H.A.D.E. thread.

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Here are two other '80s DC horror titles to add to the list:

  • Elvira’s House of Mystery
  • Wasteland

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Wasteland was a very underrated book

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Not seventies horror but one book I would love to see is the Garth Ennis Demon series beyond the few issues that are here now in connection with Hitman.

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I didn’t see Weird War in your list

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@CrimeAlley,
I initially chose not to include Weird War because when the DC’s horror titles were distinctly marked with a black bat logo during 1971 and 1972, Weird War had a tombstone logo instead.
Meanwhile, DC also had a different logo for the horror romance titles, which resembled a haunted house.

So, I ended up categorizing Weird War and Weird Western as offshoots of the horror line that combined horror with another genre.
Weird Mystery got lumped in with them because it was launched simultaneously and carried the ‘Weird’ branding.

I figured, though, that if I did include them, then I would need to include the horror romance titles, as well.
I think that if I were to make an ‘advanced’ list or ‘deeper cuts’ list, I’d include all the genre-mixed ones then.

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Digging Deeper…

*Weird War Tales - #1-124 (Sept/Oct 1971-June 1983)
Available: no issues available

*Weird Western Tales (renamed ‘Weird Western’ and rebranded as a horror-western with #12) - #12-70 (June/July 1972-Aug 1980)
Available: no issues available

*Weird Mystery Tales - #1-24 (July/Aug 1972-Nov 1975)
Available: no issues available

After Weird Mystery Tales was cancelled, Weird Western would move towards traditional western stories featuring Jonah Hex and then Scalphunter.
Weird Western Tales continued on with well, weird war stories. I wouldn’t call them ‘horror’, though. More like a Twilight Zone series that focused only on WWII. Eventually it would turn into a vessel for Creature Commandos and G.I. Robot.

The Creature Commandos appeared in Weird War Tales #93, 97, 100, 102, 105, 108, 110-112, 114-119, 121 and 124.

G. I. Robot appeared in Star Spangled War Stories #101 and 102, and Weird War Tales #101, 108, 111, 113, 115-118, 120 and 122.

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Digging Even Deeper…

The horror-romance (also called Gothic Romance) edition.

*Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love - #1-15 (Sept/Oct 1971-Feb/Mar 1974)
(Titled ‘Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love’ with #1-4, then ‘Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion’ with #5-15.)
Available: #1-15 (Complete)

*Sinister House of Secret Love - #1-18 (Oct/Nov 1971-June/July 1974)
(Titled ‘Sinister House of Secret Love’ with #1-4, then ‘Secrets of Sinister House’ with #5-18.)
Available: no issues available

Bonus:
Not a Gothic Romance, but a very short-lived series that’s often overlooked…

*Tales of Ghost Castle - #1-3 (May/June 1975-Sept/Oct 1975)
(This short series arrived late in the horror wave of the '70s and just didn’t seem to catch on.)
Available: no issues available