Creepy Worlds #152

An absent-minded clerk named J. L. Standish boards what he thinks is his usual city bus, only to discover it's flying—and filled with passengers who seem entirely unsurprised by the fact. As the bus descends toward a strange city that's clearly not Earth, Standish finds himself pulled into a bewildering landscape populated by people from different centuries, all arriving on similar buses for the same mysterious purpose. When a mechanical being offers him employment, Standish learns a startling truth about humanity's distant future and why these vast machines still need human workers to survive.

Stranded in the North African desert after his plane crashes, Captain Earl Muntz struggles against dehydration and hallucinations—until he discovers a hidden city populated by gentle healers and a woman named Shema who offers him kindness he's never known. When a search party finally locates him weeks later, Muntz must choose between the impossible paradise he's found and the world that sent rescuers to bring him back. The decision, it turns out, may not be his to make.

Stanley Moss has always been too square for his beatnik girlfriend Gigi Keene—he'd rather study flying saucers and astronomy than embrace her scene—but when a dream visit from actual Martians convinces him to go native, he shows up to the coffee shops with a beard, bongos, and a new friend in tow. What Stanley doesn't realize is that his extraterrestrial pal brings music unlike anything Earth has ever heard, and when the Martian takes the stage, the whole crowd—Gigi included—gets lifted way beyond the usual scene.

Two young wanderers named Frankie and Joey find themselves tumbling through a surreal dreamscape of impossible places—a glittering inferno, an ice cavern city, flying saucers, and depths of space—each landscape more wondrous and bewildering than the last. As they leap from one marvel to another, they begin to grasp the truth about their incredible journey. A heartwarming tale about discovery and the marvels hiding in the modern world around us.

In "Who's Crazy?", a young man named Baxter Bibbs finds himself at odds with the world when no one else can see his mysterious companion—though she’s very real to him. As his neighbors grow increasingly skeptical, Baxter must decide whether to stay in their world or follow her back to the one she truly belongs to.

In a chilling twist of power and deception, the leader of the Spanish Inquisition confronts a rival by unveiling a mysterious machine meant to expose demonic collusion. As he steps inside to uncover its secrets, he realizes too late that the device was designed not to judge, but to enact every known torment—automatically, without mercy.

In a quiet moment of creative frustration, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko face a stubborn blank page—until a mysterious stranger interrupts their brainstorming, only to vanish in a shower of sparkles, leaving them to wonder if the real magic was in the mundane. As they head out for lunch, the ordinary feels just a little more extraordinary.