Journey into Mystery #16
"Vampire Tale" in Journey into Mystery #16 (1954) delivers a chilling, twist-driven tale of love, betrayal, and the terrifying precision of a machine that knows the future. Written and illustrated by Vic Carrabotta, the story follows an inventor whose electronic brain predicts his wife’s murder—only to plunge him into a tragic spiral when he arrives too late to save her, and too late to see the truth. The stark, moody art by Carrabotta is matched by the haunting cover by Harry Anderson, capturing the story’s eerie, fatalistic tone.
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An inventor who loves his wife asks an electronic brain which he devised two questions, 'When will my wife die?' and 'When will I die?' The brain answers 'Your wife will be murdered ten minutes from now.' He seizes the gun from his desk and races home knowing that there is still time to save her. When he arrives, he realizes his wife is having an affair. Since he loves her, he forgives her, but trains the gun on the man. During the struggle, the gun goes off, and kills the wife. The distraught husband thinks to himself that without her life is not worth living and commits suicide, which back in the office building, the electronic brain also correctly predicts.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).