Welcome back to “Disaster December!” Throughout the month, we’re taking a break from prehistory and all our entries into Codex Omniversa will have a theme: disaster, specifically those similar to 1970s movie and TV movie subgenres.
If you like the subject matter, be sure to check out my other blog, ClassicHorrors.club where we’re discussing Irwin Allen films, and The Classic Horrors Club Podcast where Richard Chamberlain and I will discuss two blockbusters: The Hindenburg (1975) and Black Sunday (1977.)
Feb. 1978 (Nov. 8, 1977)
$0.35, 17 pages
Editor: Paul Levitz
The “first story”novel length chiller” in Weird War Tales #60 is “Night Flight,” written by Steve Englehart, with art by Ric Estrada.
On April 30, 3 A.M., Simon, an agent of the British Secret Service, is called into the office by his boss…
…on the Hindenburg!
Simon keeps the suspect under discreet surveillance. When he spots an opportunity, he joins her at dinner, but they’re interrupted by another passenger. Later, she appears at his cabin door with a bottle of pink champagne. Simon decides to confront her…
Simon wakes from darkness to discover…
Simon wakes from darkness a second time to discover he’s aboard an alien spacecraft. He soon learns it was he who was lured onto the Hindenburg.
You, Simon — you are a man of action, dependent upon no one but yourself! You report to your leaders, and they listen!
Simon wakes from darkness a third time in his cabin, wondering if his experience was a dream. He asks the captain for the woman’s cabin number, but finds the cabin empty.
Suddenly, the captain pulls a gun on Simon, claiming he saw a saucer-shaped ship hovering over the zeppelin, then Simon and Fraulein Raum rise upward toward it in a beam of light.
Grimly, the two men batter away at each other — slamming repeatedly against the confining walls in their fury — battling as men always do in war.
When Simon seemingly has an advantage, he’s surrounded by more Germans…
Sadly, we know what happens next…
Recommended Film
The Hindenburg (1975)
Starring: George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, William Atherton, Roy Thinnes, Gig Young, Burgess Meredith, Charles Durning, Richard Dysart, Robert Clary, Rene Auberjonois, Peter Donat, Alan Oppenheimer, Katherine Helmond
Written by: Nelson Gidding
Directed by: Robert Wisen
Released on Dec. 25, 1975, by Universal Pictures
CODEX OMNIVERSA 