Daily Scans - The Orphan

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September 26th, 2009
08:42 pm
[cyberghostface]
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The Orphan


This one comes from Shock SuspenStories #14.















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From:[info]currer
Date:September 27th, 2009 12:59 am (UTC)
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Somehow I knew it.
From:[info]mrmojorisin1135
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:01 am (UTC)
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Oh man, that wink in the end...
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From:[info]autolychus2
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:02 am (UTC)
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What a sweet child. She'll go far in this world, I tells ya.
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From:[info]sandoz_iscariot
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:06 am (UTC)
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The Bad Seed 2: Electric Boogaloo.
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From:[info]cyberghostface
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:10 am (UTC)
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This issue actually came out on the same month as the original novel for the Bad Seed.
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From:[info]dr_hermes
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:57 am (UTC)
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And the movie is still a bit unsettling to watch.
From:[info]lonewolf23k
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:13 am (UTC)
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Pretty disturbing ending...

...And yet I simply can't feel sorry for the victims.
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From:[info]arilou_skiff
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:32 am (UTC)
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Reminds me of that Bradbury story about the murderous infant.
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From:[info]felinephoenix
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:34 am (UTC)
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Ditto.

Like, part of me is almost proud the kid escaped those assholes, no matter how she did it.
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From:[info]lookingforsigns
Date:September 27th, 2009 03:07 am (UTC)
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EC does that to you.
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From:[info]aaron_bourque
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:31 am (UTC)
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Aw. Isn't triple murder cute!
From:[info]richardak
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:46 am (UTC)
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And no one noticed that the trajectory of the bullet was at a downward angle? And no one noticed that Millie had no powder residue on her hands? Or that Lucy did? The police must have seriously bungled the investigation, almost as badly as Millie and Steve's attorney's bungled the defense.

Seriously, what exactly was the prosecution's theory of the crime? Millie shot Sam, then fainted, then Steve ran off? And Steve is getting the death penalty why? For that matter, what is Steve even being charged with, if Millie supposedly shot Sam with her own gun? And what state exactly gave this woman the death penalty for shooting her drunken, abusive, enraged husband as she was trying to leave him? It's pretty hard for a woman to get the death penalty in this country; only 44 women were executed in the United States during the entire twentieth century.
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From:[info]escherichiacola
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:56 am (UTC)
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This would've never happened at NCIS.
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From:[info]dr_hermes
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:02 am (UTC)
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Maybe Steve was charged with conspiracy to commit murder (since the jury may not have believed that Millie killed her husband by herself)? He did flee the scene of a homicide. Still, he didn't actually fire the gun, so he shouldn't have gotten the chair.

It is indeed very unusual for a women to be executed, no matter what the crime. And judging by the art, the way Millie looks, she likely would have walked free one or the other.

Still, the story's impact comes from not thinking too deeply about it. It's all about that wink in the final panel.
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From:[info]drsevarius
Date:September 27th, 2009 03:10 am (UTC)
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Ethel Rosenberg got the chair.
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From:[info]neuhallidae
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:11 am (UTC)
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To go all serious business with you: Assuming this was published in the 50s, 27 women had been given death penalty by electrocution between 1909 and 1957, five of them in New York alone, so the idea that she if she'd been convicted of murder, she could fry isn't totally off the rocks. Also, spousal abuse as a defense still isn't recognized in most states except as part of a plea of self-defense. At the time that this story would have taken place, the mother couldn't have pled self-defense anyway unless there was a witness who could claim that the husband was attacking her physically at the time she shot him. In fact, Steve's presence would have even killed that defense in the water, since the assumption during the time period would have been that he should have protected her instead of her using the gun.
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From:[info]dr_hermes
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:19 am (UTC)
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Were you using this site? Very interesting information.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/women-and-death-penalty
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From:[info]neuhallidae
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:22 am (UTC)
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Actually, no, I was using a book on execution methods (I was actually gonna put it in the pile for the used book store, but now I think I'll keep it. :D). But that is a very interesting site, thank you!
From:[info]richardak
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:38 am (UTC)
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I'm not saying she could have used spousal abuse as a defense at trial; rather, she could have, and any competent defense attorney would have, claimed that it was a crime of passion at the sentencing hearing. That would almost certainly enable her to avoid the death penalty. Indeed, it would have been very unlikely for her to get convicted of premeditated murder in the first place, because the prosecution would have had to prove that she planned for Sam to come home just as she was leaving with Steve. Without proof of premeditation, she would probably only have been convicted of murder two or even manslaughter (exact statutes vary by state and year), which would preclude the death penalty.
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From:[info]aaron_bourque
Date:September 27th, 2009 06:24 am (UTC)
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And no one noticed that the trajectory of the bullet was at a downward angle? And no one noticed that Millie had no powder residue on her hands? Or that Lucy did?

Well, if they did, the story totally wouldn't work!

But seriously, perhaps the last bit at the end is just crazy girl's delusions. She wouldn't know any of that shit, so neither does her delusion.
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From:[info]icon_uk
Date:September 27th, 2009 10:14 am (UTC)
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And no one noticed that the trajectory of the bullet was at a downward angle?

The guy was a stumbling drunk, if he pitched forward as a bullet fired straight at him entered his body, it would appear to have a downward trajectory.
From:[info]gamerguy
Date:September 29th, 2009 03:04 am (UTC)
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Eh, you have 1950's tech with an open-and-shut literally smoking-gun case like this? They didn't make such a big damn deal out of forensics back then. Watch Zodiac and see how astoundingly different police work was just in the mid Sixties, then roll that back 10 years or more.
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From:[info]blake_reitz
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:48 am (UTC)
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Ha! I just read The 10-Cent Plague, a book on the demise of genre EC comics and the link, and this story got a special mention.
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From:[info]dr_hermes
Date:September 27th, 2009 01:57 am (UTC)
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Didn't Bill Gaines have to defend this story at the hearings?
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From:[info]blake_reitz
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:01 am (UTC)
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Yeah, this was one of them, I think. Although the final blow to the coffin nail was the one with the decapitated head.
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From:[info]jlroberson
Date:September 27th, 2009 04:23 am (UTC)
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Of all things, KAMEN gets him in trouble. So much for those that underrate him.
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From:[info]felinephoenix
Date:September 27th, 2009 02:38 am (UTC)
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Have you ever read Comic Book Nation? The focus isn't on EC comics, but it has some great chapters on the downfall.
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From:[info]blake_reitz
Date:September 27th, 2009 03:11 am (UTC)
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Yes, but like a million years ago. I should put it in the re-read pile.
From:[info]misterfedex
Date:September 27th, 2009 04:11 am (UTC)
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And then, she became Panthea?

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From:[info]jlroberson
Date:September 27th, 2009 04:22 am (UTC)
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SSS was always my favorite of the EC comics and this story was a reason why--and a reason I never dismissed Jack Kamen. His sweet, attractive, clean-cut style is PERFECT for a story like this. I think of his stories like this as being a precursor to David Lynch a la BLUE VELVET--the safe suburban environment with something rotten underneath. You would never get the same effect with, say, Ingels, who was unable to underplay(except that one IMPACT story about the girl with the lemonade, which I like).
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From:[info]zordboy
Date:September 27th, 2009 04:40 am (UTC)
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And now I just see Batman kicking down the door to Aunt Kate's house and kicking Millie's face in. I spend too much time here.
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From:[info]kenn_el
Date:September 27th, 2009 07:26 am (UTC)
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Nah. Aunt Kate and Lucy became the next Batwoman and Batgirl!
From:[info]psychop_rex
Date:September 27th, 2009 10:07 am (UTC)
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I kinda figured from the beginning that there'd be an ending like that. Still, it works pretty well - the parents really are such loathsome characters that you don't really feel that Lucy's a monster for doing what she did. Her Dad's life was a wreck, anyway - and her Mom was prepared to leave her only child with him, an action that doubtless would have resulted on her receiving severe beatings on a regular basis. They may not have deserved precisely what they got, but they certainly deserved something bad.
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From:[info]endis_ni
Date:September 27th, 2009 03:07 pm (UTC)
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What's going to happen to Aunt Kate in a few years? Specifically, the first time she tells Lucy she's not going out wearing THAT?
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From:[info]icon_uk
Date:September 27th, 2009 03:32 pm (UTC)
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Who do you think taught the kid to shoot? It's all part of Aunt Kate's plan I'm sure!
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From:[info]freddie_mac
Date:September 27th, 2009 07:18 pm (UTC)
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And this is why I like the EC stories so much --- that twist at the end. Seriously, the ECs pack so much into 8pgs and we've got current comics that barely do anything in 28 or 32 pgs.

My favorite EC is rather gory (in Crypt or Haunt, IIRC) about Business partner A who killed Business Partner B, turned B into soap (which was stored at A's house), and then A ran out of soap ...
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From:[info]halloweenjack
Date:September 27th, 2009 09:05 pm (UTC)
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...and Lucy grew up to form the cross-universe Justice League of Orphans with Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and Mr. Sensitive.

...but none knew the true purpose...MUA HA HA HA!
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