This is a great pick and your explanation is as good as any. The Power Records version only adapts Man-Thing #5 by Steve Gerber and Mike Ploog, leaving a tantalizing cliff-hanger that is never stereophonically resolved. It's just as well, as I think the second part of the tale in Man-Thing #6 is rather disjointed and anti-climactic.

My pick would be Shock SuspenStories #9:



In addition to "Carrion Death," the cover story by Gaines/Feldstein and artist Reed Crandall about a felon who attempts to escape through the desert while handcuffed to the cop he murdered, it also features "The October Game," Feldstein's adaptation of the Ray Bradbury tale, with art by Jack Kamen.

In that one, a vindictive husband murders his daughter to spite his wife and passes the girl's body parts around to children in a dark room during a Halloween party in a cruel mockery of a gross, but beloved party game. It finishes with the classic line ". . .and then some idiot turned on the lights!"

A two-part story by Tom Veitch, the two parts separated by 80 years or so. Part 1 art by Greg Irons, part 2 by Rich Corben.

Batman 246

Someone's shining the Bat-Signal from the wrong side of town and Batman investigates.  Tracking the beam to its source he arrives at the tallest building in Gotham where someone has reconverted the aircraft warning light into a make shift Bat-Signal.  There, he makes out Robin's distant figure and scales the tower.  An arrow whizzes past his head from below and hits Robin square in the heart.  Dick Grayson falls to his death.  Except...  Robin turns out to be a dummy with a note taped to its chest.  "Batman - How many ways can a Robin die?  P.S. This is only the first! Tomorrow at the eleventh hour... you can witness the next!"

For the next 15 pages or so, an anguished Batman experiences one harrowing ordeal after another as he's forced to either save one mannequin after another or witness it being drowned, hanged, or stabbed to death.  It would be alright if he could confirm Robin's actual whereabouts either at Hudson U or The Teen Titans, but he barely has an opportunity to catch his breath from one location to the next always worrying that this time, he'll arrive too late to save the real Teen Wonder.  

The story culminates in a Wax Museum in the dead of night.  Greeted by a criminal he once put away, Batman has to contend with the fact that Robin's executioner to be is about to send a blade down on Robin's - and this time, it is Robin's - head.


A moody little story which really benefits from Irv Novick's skill at conveying that between-midnight-and-dusk empty city feel the tale requires.  Where he really out does himself is how he positions Robin so that even the reader isn't quite sure if we're looking at another dummy or the real thing until Batman reaches him usually too late.  Batman is a master detective - he knows how to either get a hold of Dick Grayson or track his whereabouts should he need to.  He can free anybody from any death trap they find themselves in; learn the identity of any masked criminal; see a case through from start to finish without rest; but none of that matters here.  This killer has no interest in matching wits with the Dark Knight Detective - he just wants Batman to watch him put a bullet into Robin's brain or cut off his head from just far away enough that he can see it first hand but not prevent it.  Given no time to do anything but race across the city from one location to another, Batman has no chance of getting ahead of the killer even when he does deduce his identity.  Here, he's just a dog on a leash never sure if this time, Robin will die tonight.

Teen Titans #34 (1971): The Scooby Titans end up in an old gothic castle where Wonder Girl has been assisting an old lady....who is possessed! The cover is one of my favorites by Nick Cardy.

According to GCD, Marie Severin drew the cover.

Night have to add CA #256 to my back-issue search list, though it's from a time when I don't like a lot of Marvel's output. Still, Gene Colan ...