Strange Worlds #8

In the year 2000, Shadow Squad detectives Jac Lombard and Bob Trant investigate a rogue robot terrorizing the town of Shady Glen—a mechanical killer that no weapon can stop and that its own creator claims he cannot control. Their investigation leads them to the Dyne Factory and a tangled web involving the robot manufacturer's mysterious daughter, a ransom scheme, and a secret far stranger than any of them expected. A breakneck race against time and steel unfolds as the detectives close in on the truth behind the Metal Murderer.

A wealthy banker's adopted daughter confides in the Stardust's chief navigator that something sinister has possessed her father—but the mysterious Martian inventor and his locked metal box may hold the real secret behind the escalating murders aboard this Earth-Mars run. As the ship diverts to the Moon, Alan Aldane races to uncover whether the designer of a ticking contraption is a fellow conspirator or part of a plot to seize a fortune from one of the solar system's richest men.

An ordinary guy named Henry Twigg becomes the unwitting prize in a fourth-dimensional scheme when the mysterious scientist Lea whisks him away to the world of Aeruta—where he's greeted as a hero by Princess Mara, Princess Tia, and the locals. But Henry soon realizes his newfound celebrity comes with complications: jealous husbands, warring factions, and two princesses who both want him for themselves, leaving him caught between flattery and the growing chaos his arrival has sparked.

Jack Darrow, a traveling salesman, reconnects with an old college friend, Pete Larkin, who invites him to spend New Year's Eve at his isolated house—but Pete seems gripped by inexplicable terror about something lurking on the property's broken balcony. As midnight approaches on December 31st, Jack discovers the horrifying truth behind Pete's fear: a supernatural curse born from an old murder, now demanding its annual reckoning. Jack must confront the ghastly mystery of what—or who—haunts the balcony before the clock strikes twelve.