Appearing in ""I, the Robot""
Featured Characters:
- M-11 (First appearance)
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Business Manager
Races and Species:
Synopsis for ""I, the Robot""
A brilliant professor has just completed his latest invention, a robot that follows commands that are broadcast to it through a special frequency. The scientist's business manager is pressuring the genius to sell the invention by the end of the month, telling him that it could easily earn them five million dollars. However the scientist declines as he will not release his invention to the world until he is sure it is operating perfectly.
Left to his work, the scientist activates his robot and orders it to pick up a chair through the special command microphone. The robot follows the orders perfectly, almost too perfectly, as after it picks up one chair it picks up another, and another. The scientist is upset that his creation is still not complete as it continues to follow its instructions over and over. Seeing that there is room for improvement the scientist orders the robot back to its slab. The scientist then leaves to create an important regulator component that he believes will correct the error.
Later that night, the scientist's business manager breaks into the lab intent on taking the robot and selling it himself. Inspecting the robot's inner workings the greedy business manager then takes the special command microphone and flees the lab. Later when the scientist returns to his lab with the completed regulator he begins to try to install it. Suddenly the robot is ordered to kill the man in the room. The robot obeys the command and strangles his creator to death before he has time to install the device.
With the scientist dead, the business manager enters the room to collect the robot, but suddenly the robot attacks and strangles him to death as well. With both men dead, the robot walks out into the world to fulfill the last order its was given: Kill the man in the room. It goes out to seek men in rooms to kill.
Appearing in "Gambler's Haunt"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "Gambler's Haunt"
- Synopsis not yet written
Appearing in "A Fate Worse Than Death"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "A Fate Worse Than Death"
A space explorer takes a poison capsule after learning a hideous female alien has selected him for her mate upon reaching her maturity day. When she reaches this day, she changes her form to that of an attractive Earth woman just as the regretful man gasps out his last breath.
Appearing in "Only A Beast"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "Only A Beast"
A bed-ridden old man hates those who will inherit his money so he establishes hypnotic control of his dimwitted caretaker. The old man convinces the caretaker that he loves a woman whose husband is mean to her. The caretaker then believes he must kill those who harm the one he loves. He stabs the man, but the woman screams, so he is given the hypnotic command to strange her. This makes him hate the old man since he has made him kill the one he loves. As a result, the caretaker tears the man's throat out like a beast.
Appearing in "My Other Body"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "My Other Body"
A man's conscience convinces him to steal money from a jewelry store for his girlfriend and then to commit suicide out of remorse for the act.
Appearing in "Locked In!"
- Appearances not yet listed
Synopsis for "Locked In!"
A woman trails after her husband for twenty years because, after they murdered a family, he skipped out on her with the loot. She kills Bill, but then the spirits appear and keep her prisoner in a filthy hovel, just like all those hermits she interviewed for twenty years while searching for her husband.
Notes
- Final issue of the series.
- "I, the Robot" reprinted in Weird Wonder Tales #5
- "A Fate Worse Than Death" reprinted in Where Monsters Dwell #29.
- "Only A Beast" is reprinted in Monsters on the Prowl #30.
- "My Other Body" reprinted in Vault of Evil #17.
- "Locked In!" reprinted in Vault of Evil #12.
- The origin of M-11 in "I, The Robot" is retconned in Agents of Atlas #6, in that story M-11 was actually commissioned by Yellow Claw and his creator actually transplants his mind into the body of the robot. Elements of the origin featured in Menace #11 are adapted in that story.
- This issue includes a two-page text story entitled "Gambler's Haunt".