Journey into Mystery #18
In "The Man Who Went Back!", a man's desperate attempt to escape his shrewish wife leads him to a mysterious ritual that brings a kinder, gentler spirit to life in a figurine he names Jolie. Written and illustrated by Bill Walton, this eerie 1954 tale explores the fragile line between desire and reality, as the man's new life begins to unravel when his long-lost wife's spirit resurfaces in an unexpected form. The haunting cover by Carl Burgos captures the story's unsettling mood, making this a standout issue in Marvel's early anthology series.
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A man conducts rites that reincarnate his shrew wife's spirit into a figurine but the new person, whom he names 'Jolie', is a kind and supportive ideal wife. They are happy together until he leaves on a business trip and realizes they can never be together in public. He meets a woman and romances her so she will be his wife. When he returns home he rushes towards the figurine and regretfully smashes it, knowing if he did not do so, it would be like having two wives. His new wife begins to strangely start acting like the shrew his first wife was and his landlord admits to him that he broke and replaced a figurine while he was inspecting the unit. The man realizes that the landlord killed Jolie and the spirit passed into the woman he met on the business trip.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).