Issue(s): Chamber of Chills #4
Cover Date: May 73
Title: "The opener of the crypt / Pawn of the devoured / The demon from beyond!"
Credits:
John Jakes / Steve Skeates / Gardner Fox - Writer
Frank Brunner / Jay Scott Pike / Howard Chaykin - Penciler
Frank Brunner / Frank Monte / Joe Sinnott - Inker

Review/plot:
Ok, we are here because the third story in this issue will eventually have some minor relevance to the Dr. Strange series. And so we'll skip over the first story, which is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's Cask of Amontillado. But we can't skip over the second story, because it is far too awesome.

We all know about how Henry Pym learned to control to ants. But what if ants learned to control us? What would they make us do?

I bet you weren't expecting that.

This poor guy is forced to eat ants.

And i mean a lot of ants.

The ants are forcing this guy to do this as part of their own super-soldier program. But, um, it doesn't really work out.

Yeah, sorry guys. This is not effective. You mind control a man and make him eat you for weeks, and the end result is "the first of a powerful new race" that dies after maybe two bullets (and a camera flash!).

Still, i have to admit the end result is pretty hilarious.

Now for the story that i actually bought the issue for. "American adventurer" Murdoch Adams goes into a mausoleum.

He finds a woman dressed in a wedding gown. Sort of.

This turns out to be part of a local pagan ritual, complete with a demon called Ludi.

He scares off Ludi with a bullet, and it flees through "funny darkness... like the mouth of some space warp". The woman, Lenore Wilkins, comes out of her trance and is like, eh, it's totally fine that the villagers tried to sacrifice me.

The idea is that Ludi was once worshiped as a god in ancient times, but Christian priests eventually banished him. And now he's back. Murdoch says that he's going to get Ludi banished again. So he lures Ludi out, and then lures him to a priest. But the priest gets soul-punched. That's gotta hurt.

So Murdoch defeats Ludi with bells. He then decides to stick around with Lenore and stamp out the pagan cult.

It won't end well for Murdoch and Lenore. This was meant to be a little standalone story, but Roger Stern will bring back Ludi and tie it in with Ningal from last issue, saying that Ningal will come after Murdoch for banishing his brother Ludi. Ningal will kill Lenore before the start of Stern's Dr. Strange story.

Frankly, if i was going to bring back any characters from this issue, it would have been the ant guy, as an Ant-Man foe.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Maybe Stern noticed that Ludi and Ningal looked identical and came up with the story from there?

This might be the first and last story Pike drew since he was at Atlas/Marvel in the 1950s.

The story sounds very much like a reject from Warren, which Skeates was contributing heavily to at the time.