Nemesis from ACG's Adventures into the Unknown is better than Forbidden Worlds Magicman. The reason is two-fold -- Nemesis is not encumbered with an outdated and unfunny sidekick and Nemesis is drawn mostly by Chic Stone. The series in much the same style and manner as he continued with on Magicman, but the strip was elevated immediately when the more dynamic art of Stone took hold.
Nemesis is or perhaps better put was a detective named Steve Flint who is asked by the Justice Department to help some sabotage to the rocket program. Turns out the saboteur is a Mafia chief named Goratti who orders a hit on Flint (he's run over by a train). After he dies Flint finds himself in the "Unknown" the afterlife which is overseen by a hooded green chap named the "Grim Reaper" (the latest in a long line). Flint feels that his work is undone and he finagles the Grim Reaper into letting him return to Earth, but now armed with all sorts of ghostly supernatural powers as the hero called "Nemesis". Suffice it to say that Nemesis defeats Goratti who dies himself, but as we'll see that's not the end of him.
Goratti slips out of the Unknown and heads back to Earth along with a powerful creature called the "Elemental Force" who had been trapped in the bowels of the dungeons of the Unknown. Nemesis must battle the Elemental Force as well as Goratti as well as some dinosaurs just to keep it all interesting. Goratti is incarcerated again and awaits Satan's arrival to transport him as the story closes.
Once in Satan's domain Goratti convinces the Prince of Evil that he'd make a worthy helper and begins to do just that with the malevolent assistance of Nazi scientist who is also of course in Hell. After failing to stop the plan at its source Nemesis returns to Earth and his identity as Steve Flint. He meets a brave young woman named Lita who is battling the Mafia for possession of her land and helps fend off several attempts on her life. Turns out Lita Craig is the spitting image of her ancestor who was beloved by of all creatures Satan himself. Nemesis rescues Lita from Satan's clutches and returns her home where after a kiss he leaves. The ghost has gotten himself a girlfriend. All three of these initial stories were written by Richard Hughes under the pen name of "Shane O'Shea". The first three Nemesis stories were drawn by Pete Costanza the artist who was also handling Magicman over in Forbidden Worlds. But after this issue Costanza will depart but Hughes will stay. The three covers for the series so far were done by Kurt Schaffenberger using the name of his friend "Pete Costanza" to fend off the wrath of DC's Mort Weisinger who detested moonlighting.
With the fourth Nemesis story Chic Stone arrives to handle the artwork as I mentioned above. His work is just more exciting to look at than is that of the competent but somewhat dreary Costanza. Costanza's work feels like it's from the Golden Age of comics and Stone's has a more dynamic modern feel to it, perhaps owing to his stint as Jack Kirby's inker on many key issues of Marvel's Fantastic Four, Thor (Journey into Mystery), X-Men, Avengers and elsewhere. With the first Stone issue Schaffenberger changes his cover name to "Jay Kafka". Underneath this cover is a story in which Nemesis battles the "Tittering Texan" a rogue who plots to make the Superpowers to fight each other with nuclear weapons and then emerging as an atomically powered dictator for all of Earth no less. He has the classic island lair and it's all Nemesis can do to save himself and Lita when he arranges for the island to blow up good.
With the next issue Nemesis is battling a clown who is just one of several disguises used by the villain known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces". All of this to help a poor bloke who turns up in the Unknown but doesn't seem to be as dead as he ought to be.
Under a cover in which Nemesis is fighting a bear, just one of many ACG covers in which the heroes battle animals, we find a story in which Nemesis must go to Earth in the year 1850 to find out why an Indian maiden's beloved hasn't turned up in the afterlife. There's quite a bit of classic western action before Nemesis is able to bring about a happy result of sorts.
The next issue finds Nemesis battling a folk singer who doubles as Smilin'Vic, the leader of a militant group called the "Nationwide Patriots" who want to make America great again. (That old chestnut...really?!) Before this one is over Nemesis is battling a menagerie of critters and fighting for his own sanity when he is forced relive his time in the Korean War. It ends up poorly for Vic in theend though.
Lita is having trouble dating a ghost and demands some time with him so he takes her back through time to the era of the Arabian Nights. And of course has to battle imps, a magician, a Roc, and the obligatory Genie of the Lamp. Lita is well satisfied after this romp with her ghostly boyfriend.
Chic Stone supplies a very dynamic cover the next issue which has Nemesis battling on the behalf of the Grim Reaper to keep his position as the head of the Unknown. An efficiency expert has recently died and he spends his afterlife picking at the way the heavens are operated. To help his boss out Nemesis heads to the Civil War and gets involved with the theft of the famous train The General. It seems the Union soldiers who stole that train got misplaced on the way to the Unknown and this clerical confusion must be fixed. While he's battling that problem he meets up with Madam Cobra, the Snake Witch who is an old enemy of the Grim Reaper, and a very nasty piece of work indeed.
The next yarn finds Nemesis battling a villain called Melville W. Silk who is responsible for numerous murders and other crimes as well. Nemesis as Steve Flint looks like a boxer who Silk had killed and so he adopts that role to infiltrate the gang. It all goes way off kilter when Silk gets wise to Nemesis and arranges a magician named Doc Syko to attack him. Then it turns out that Silk works for Red China and the story takes a wild twist as the villain attempt to steal a top-secret U.S. battleship. To be honest this one read as if it were two stories welded together and unified only by a common baddie. Silk for his part escapes jail and promises more headaches for Nemesis.
It's no less than Satan himself who is after Nemesis in the next issue when Old Scratch tries out a scheme to make more unredeemed souls by committing his own crimes as an example. It seems to work until Nemesis steps in and as a result Satan brings about a terrible creation he calls "Satania". She and Nemesis go at it and she proves even more than Satan can handle as the duo cook up a scheme to use forgotten dirigible technology to steal gold from Fort Knox. Nemesis is fighting right alongside his girlfriend Lita as they finally bring the plot to a watery end.
The next story has Nemesis taking Lita up to the Unknown to show her around. This all brought to mind Thor's relationship with Jane Foster and the time he brought her to Asgard despite the objections of his daddy Odin. Despite not being dead Lita seems fine with the afterlife and tags along with Nemesis when he's sent into the Old West to check out what the truth is about a supposed outlaw named Tex Ransome. Despite some protestations to the contrary Nemesis actually interferes with the flow of history when Lita demands to see justice prevail. This proves to be Kurt Schaffenberger's final cover for the series which he had been signing as "Lou Wahl" for several issues.
Nemesis is sent to deal with a mobster named Trigger Horton who unleashing a crimewave using the information gleaned from a computer. There are lots of hijinks in this one and a great deal of struggle as both Nemesis and Trigger find themselves in a fight (as they say) to the finish. He is forced to battle midgets disguised as babies and giant strong men as well as the usual assortment of animals. Nemesis gets some help from other spirits from the Unknown as well as a butcher named Shapiro.
The final cover featured adventure for Nemesis is against a professor named Ivan Watusi gone rogue who works for the Commies and plots to steal most of the really good plutonium in the world. Nemesis is actually forbidden to go to Earth in this one and has to escape his own allies to come to the planet and battle against this threat. Nemesis seems to have had a rocky relationship with the authorities in the Unknown, sometimes getting along swell and others not so good. Ivan Watusi is set up like the earlier Melville Silk to return as a villain, but neither is ever seen again.
Next Nemesis heads to the "Planet of Evil" in Adventures into the Unknown #168. Once again Lita wants to see the Unknown region but this time the Grim Reaper throws a fit and holds her hostage until Nemesis goes to the planet Paranoia. It's a wild place where the concepts good and evil are reversed as virtues and ultimately Nemesis makes a deal with the local Devil to right this reversal and get him a better (or worse) class of customer for Hades. In the next issue's story"Wanted: Hitler Alive or Dead", Nemesis is sent by the Grim Reaper into the past of World War II to check why it seems that the Nazis have won the day. It's a harsh reality he finds and thanks to his intervention history is returned to the course we are familiar with. Lita has disappeared from these last few stories as the page count has dwindled. In the last Nemesis story called "You Could Die Laughing" he comes up against a very powerful clown named Merry Andrew who is up to no good, even seeming to kidnap a young boy named Alonzo Bagby, the son of an industrialist. But all is not what it seems.
Just like the Magicman Archive edition from Dark Horse not all of the covers are reprinted inside the volume though they do appear on the slipcover. This is a very very strange decision as there were text pieces that could have been shortened easily to make room. The missing covers are for Adventures in the Unknown issues #157, 163 and 166. Overall, the storytelling in these stories works a bit better for me than the creaky Magicman material, though as the series rumbled along it did seem to lose its focus. Maybe Hughes playing with the premise to find a freshness, but there's a increasing wonkiness to the series. The big selling point is Chic Stone as I've said. His art is just more exciting to look at and so the weird stories can be tolerated with a bit more patience. One thing that comes ringing through both Nemesis and Magicman as well as Herbie is the absolute fascination ACG had with animals. Big cats in particular seem to jump out from every other door sometimes and other animals are in the mix often as well. Can't explain it.
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