This issue's framing sequence featuring Abel is by Gerry Conway and Bill Draut. This first part is but a single page of Abel standing in silhouette in a doorway looking into a black room.
Our first story, "Where Dead Men Walk!" is by Gerry Conway and Gray Morrow and is just stunningly illustrated. One can imagine editor Giordano seeing this moody work full of coaches, horses and costumed characters and begging Morrow to draw the new El Diablo series in All Star Western.
Phillip Hastings and his wife inherit what they learn from their driver is a haunted castle in Europe. The Hastings are greeted by the family caretaker, Jamison when they arrive. Jamison warns the couple of the evil spirits which haunt the place but they refuse to leave.
Hastings wakes in the night from bad dreams to find his wife missing. He and Jamison find her in the dungeon strapped to a rack, unaware of how she got there. They find themselves locked in the dungeon, but Jamison shows them a hidden passage out. Hastings tells Jamison to burn the evil place to the ground and he agrees that perhaps is indeed for the best. In the morning, Hastings regrets destroying his inheritance as he feels the events of the previous evening were all brought about by a suggestible mind until the local constable informs him that the caretaker died three days ago.
The framing sequence continues as Abel is unable to find the door once he enters the dark room.
Next is "A Taste of Dark Fire" by Gerry Conway and Don Heck. Though Heck is still drawing Iron Man and will soon draw the Black Widow at Marvel, he will spend most of the next four years at DC doing Wonder Woman and the back-up strips: Batgirl, Jason Bard, Zatanna and The Rose and the Thorn. A Christian priest and Jewish Rabbi battle the forces of evil together as they fear that an acquaintance has been possessed by the Devil. The priest's housekeeper attempts to sow distrust for the rabbi, but he isn't having any of it. She convinces him to allow her to accompany the two of them to the suspected man's house, but no further. They give her instructions to seek the police if they don't return in an hour and then enter the house.
Once inside, they encounter the man, who has indeed become a devil worshiper, and begin a mystic battle for his soul. They are surprised when the housekeeper has followed them inside and reveals herself to be another servant of evil. The priest and rabbi triumph by using both the cross and the Jewish name of God to defeat their foes.
The framing sequence ends with Abel able to get out of the dark room, which ends up being a broom closet in the House of Secrets.
The entire issue was reprinted in Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets Vol. 1 TPB.
The last page of the book is a full-page ad for "The Magic of Kirby" with our first looks at The Forever People, The New Gods and Mister Miracle. DC will never be the same.
Edited by Dick Giordano.
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