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in: Issues Rated M, Comics Published by Vertigo, Shelly Bond/Executive Editor,
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The Witching Hour Vol 3 1

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This title is Suggested for Mature Readers.


"Daniel": One Fall day, Charles Morrison catches a boy bullying triplet sisters, and intervenes on their behalf, though the girls claim to be witches, they are still glad of his help. Though the boy hurls accusations that Charles is a well-known homosexual, he warns the boy away and gladly w

Quote1 But right now we need to find a proper case. Something really huge. Quote2
— Charles Rowland

The Witching Hour (Volume 3) #1 is a one-shot with a cover date of December, 2013. It was published on October 2, 2013.

Synopsis for "Daniel"

One Fall day, Charles Morrison catches a boy bullying triplet sisters, and intervenes on their behalf, though the girls claim to be witches, they are still glad of his help. Though the boy hurls accusations that Charles is a well-known homosexual, he warns the boy away and gladly walks the girls to their home, promising that they can come to him if ever they are bullied again.

One night, still days before Halloween, the girls appear at this doorstep in witches' garbs, claiming that they have been having a séance, and ghost named Daniel asked them to fetch Charles. Surprised and suspicious that they know about Daniel, Charles agrees to go with them to their séance. The girls admit that they had used the séance to call for a spirit to eat Gunnar - the boy who had bullied them - but Daniel had answered instead.

They drag Charles to a playground - one that Charles has purposefully avoided for much of his life on account of something that happened there, long ago, before there ever was a playground there. Insisting, the girls force him to sit down on a roundabout, and talk to Daniel. Suddenly, the roundabout begins to spin wildly, and Charles is surprised when, and all at once, the three girls speak with Daniel's voice, calling him a coward for staying in town. Scared, Charles admits that he just couldn't be as brave as Daniel; to love him out in the open. The girls continue to chant the word "coward" as Charles shouts that being open got Daniel killed in the woods, just as he would have been, if he hadn't hid. The roundabout comes to a sudden stop, and all of them are thrown from it. Uncomfortably, Charles climbs to his feet, and decides it's time to take the girls home.

Stopping at his own house first, Charles offers the girls a gift. It is Daniel's book of the wonders of the world, hoping that by looking at what's inside, the girls will learn to dream about places outside of their small town - a town that doesn't deserve them.

Days later, the girls return, having been commanded by their mother to return the book. However, they find that Charles is gone. In fact, he has caught a bus, and has finally left town, honoring his lover's wish.

Appearing in "Daniel"

Featured Characters:

  • Charles Morrison (Single appearance)

Supporting Characters:

  • Daniel (Single appearance) (As a spirit)
  • Triplets (Single appearance) (Unnamed) (Possessed)

Anatagonists:

  • Gunnar (Mentioned only)

Other Characters:


Locations:

Items:


Concepts:


Synopsis for "Birdie"

The people in the neighbourhood of Atlantis in Cape Town, South Africa call Birdie Heksie, which means "small witch". With the aid of the seagulls, she collects items from the city's great junk heap, and they tell her who to give them to, as they are gifts from the ghosts of those they knew. Sometimes, these gifts make the people happy, and other times, they do not.

One day, after a corpse washes up in the bay, spelling bad news for organized crime in Cape Town, some gangsters seek Birdie out, having heard rumours that she can talk to ghosts. She is dragged to "Uncle" Jodie Sunter's place, who demands that she help him find out if the man who died told anyone secrets about his organization. Annoyed, Birdie explains that it doesn't simply work the way they want it, where they can dump the man's belongings in front of her and expect her to come up with something. With a gun to her head, though, she has little choice.

However, instead of any of the items they give her, Birdie receives a message in the form of a Swiss Army Knife, dropped by a seagull to her. She explains that it is not a message for Jodie, but for one of his thugs. It turns out to be his brother's old knife - a brother whom, Birdie reveals, was killed by Jodie. Angrily, the man turns on Jodie and there is a scuffle, accompanied by a sudden swarm of seagulls, caught in the crossfire. Jodie manages to survive, but he is wounded, and Birdie approaches him, warning that he should not have messed with a heks.

She explains that the birds brought her to him for a reason, and though she doesn't think he deserves it, she has brought him something - a pin. The pin happens to be one that his mother used to wear.

Appearing in "Birdie"

Featured Characters:

  • Birdie/Heksie (Single appearance)

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • "Uncle" Jodie Sunter (Single appearance)
    • Brak (Single appearance)
    • Skaap (Single appearance; dies)

Other Characters:

  • Ghosts
    • Andiswa (Single appearance) (Flashback and main story)
    • Hasie (Skaap's brother) (Single appearance) (Dies in flashback)
  • Jodie Sunter's mother (Single appearance) (Unnamed) (Flashback only) (Cameo)

Locations:

Items:


Concepts:

Synopsis for "Mars to Stay"

"Mars to Stay" was the phrase that had been used to describe missions to Mars since the 60s, when Russia first realized that the only economically feasible way to get men to Mars would be for them to stay there. Now, Tally has been there for 694 days, and she refuses to go outside. Some weeks ago, she encountered some kind of phantom out on the deserted planet's surface. Though she distinctly remembers being grabbed, her coworkers are disinclined to believe her, and consider that it must have been a psychological episode as a result of the minor decompression syndrome she suffered when her suit was punctured during the incident.

Every year, Earth sends small crews and supplies until a larger, more self-sufficient colony can eventually build and fuel return-rockets using raw materials found on Mars. The funding for the project was coming from televised broadcasts of the crews' lives on the planet. That, and sponsorships, requiring that their suits and clothing be adorned with logos. Tally's was the first crew, chosen by the public. Pod 2, a Japanese crew arrived last year, and by Day 702, the third pod would be arriving tomorrow.

The next day does not go well. Pod 3 burns up in the planet's atmosphere, along with its crew all of their supplies for the year. Worse, the command centre on Earth is forced to suspend any further flights, on account of sponsors backing out - putting the whole project billions of dollars in the hole. Ten days later, the communications feed from Earth go dead, and the crew can no longer hide their suspicions that it had happened on purpose - a decision on command's part to simply let them all die up there, in the absence of funding.

Tensions rise between the crew members, with pods 1 and 2 antagonizing each other. The conflict reaches an unfortunate climax when the entirety of Pod 2's crew is killed instantly in a sudden decompression incident. Though one of Tally's friends, Grace, manages to be pulled out alive, she soon dies, as she was the only qualified doctor in either crew, and they are forced to leave her with the other bodies. As far as Pod 1's Colonel is concerned, someone within Pod 1 opened a hatch on purpose, causing the decompression and murdering Pod 2.

This leaves Tally as the only woman on the planet, and her relationship with each of the other three men in her crew is distilled to its most base form. Her relationship with Colonel Novak fizzles until only the sex remains when he starts being too nice to her, following Grace's death. Higgs's patronizing as a psychologist becomes appealing, and she begins a sexual relationship with him as well. Senna, who used to be more forthcoming with innuendo simply stops trying. Now, Tally is sleeping with half the population of the planet, and still feels alone.

Months after the Pod 3 shuttle was destroyed, the remaining crew of Pod 1 will soon run out of breathable air, and they begin to debate how they can keep things going without drawing straws to see who dies. Finally, Novak takes the role onto himself, under the pretense of taking a walk, leaving only a cryptic quote from Pericles on a notepad: "to men who fall as they have fallen, death is no evil."

One week later, Senna is working in the biodome when Higgs sneaks up on him with a gun. Higgs reveals that he caused the decompression that killed Pod 2's crew. He was also the one who hammed their metallics printer in order to prevent anyone else from making a gun. Tally is confused when she sees Higgs and Senna preparing to go out onto the surface without her. With his gun, Higgs leads Senna to a cliff's edge, and shoots him dead. When he turns around, he is surprised to see Tally followed them, and saw everything.

Without his knowledge, she also managed to cut a hole into his suit, and he slowly begins to die of decompression as Tally muses that Mars didn't need monsters to kill earth's colonists - they always bring their own monsters.

Appearing in "Mars to Stay"

Featured Characters:

  • J. "Tally" Talasker (Single appearance)

Supporting Characters:

  • NASA
    • "Mars To Stay" (Single appearance)
      • Pod-1
        • Higgs (Single appearance; dies)
        • Senna (Single appearance; dies)
        • Col. Tim Novak (Single appearance; dies)

Antagonists:


Other Characters:

  • Pod-2 (Single appearance)
    • Grace (Single appearance; dies)
  • United States Navy (Mentioned only)

Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for "This Witch's Work"

Reina is haunted by the abuse that she suffered as a child, struggling to get through each day as potential triggers for her bombard her several times a day. To get through it, she tells herself who she is, and where she is, and takes a shower to cleanse herself of the pain until she attains peace, if only temporarily.

Appearing in "This Witch's Work"

Featured Characters:

  • Reina/Ellen (Single appearance) (Also in a dream sequence)

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • Malcolm Thomas (Behind the scenes)

Other Characters:


Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for "Legs"

Ellie's grandmother and mother are having a raucous fight while she's meant to be sleeping, and when her mother comes to check on her, she is frustrated that the girl is up. The woman explains that though she has tried, Ellie's grandmother doesn't feel like her daughter has earned her love. Before tucking her in again, Ellie's mother places the girl's hands over her ears, warning that if she doesn't keep them there, spiders might get in while she sleeps.

Years later, Ellen is a grad student, and her friends are amused by her story, with one, Legs Landers, commenting that he needs proof that she doesn't still sleep with her hands over her ears - obviously angling to sleep with her. She has since become a scientist specializing in the study of spiders - as has Legs, and she is not entirely dismissive of his flirtation. In a moment alone with him, she wonders how he got into the field, and he admits that it was because his mother was scared of spiders. He felt he had to protect her as a boy, and so he had got a book out of the library to learn about them - and he had become hooked. He explains that his mother gave him the nickname Legs. Soon, Ellen falls for his lines, and decides to leave with him. Unfortunately, she is unaware that his nickname was actually given to him by his fraternity for his tendency to walk away from relationships - love them and leave them.

Ellen pauses outside her apartment's door to warn Legs that her apartment is too messy. She has the idea to use the scarf she's wearing as a blindfold, and drags him inside. Unseen by Legs is a room full of men wrapped up in spiders' silk; dead. She had not slept with her hands over her ears, and now a spider really had crawled into her brain, and taken control.

Appearing in "Legs"

Featured Characters:

  • Ellen (Single appearance) (Brainwashed)

Supporting Characters:

  • Legs Landers (Single appearance)
    • Clem (Single appearance)

Antagonists:

  • The Spider in Brain (Single appearance) (Unnamed)

Other Characters:


Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for "Fellow Travelers"

The world is changing, and HUAC - the House Un-Natural Activities Committee is on the hunt for witches. It strikes young Arthur Miller, a writer, that there are parallels between the witchcraft trials of the 40s and the so called "commie" deaths of the late 1600s in the small town of Salem. Seeking inspiration for a play, he visits the graveyards of Salem, where he meets a strange woman called Norma Jean. Now, Arthur and his muse are on the run from the FBI in a car being driven by a broomstick.

Some time ago, the Wiccan Party chiefs in the Kremlin had seen a vision of the future of witchcraft that ended with war and death. They also learned of Artie's play, and so, they sent Norma Jean - one of their most persuasive operatives, to ensure he finished it. Even as they speed away from J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy themselves, Norma urges Artie to keep typing. In order to buy them some time, she has the statue of Abraham Lincoln stop Hoover's car so that Artie and Norma can deliver the finished script straight to the United States Capitol.

On the steps of the Capitol, Norma explains that the only way to get the script out is to burn it; let the universe take hold of it. As the script for the The Foundry burns, Arthur and Norma Jeane kiss with the knowledge that their actions will bring about a new world in which she will become a famous movie star, and he the biggest playwright in the world. However, Norma Jeane's future would not be as kind to her as she thought, and Artie would - once again - be brought before HUAC.

Appearing in "Fellow Travelers"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:


Events:

Concepts:

Synopsis for "Little Witch"

In Afghanistan, a young girl - a witch - is dressed as a boy in order to hide the shame of not being born as one. By night, she sneaks onto a US military camp, and attempts to convince the soldiers to let her stowaway to America. Though she was eventually discovered upon their arrival, the man who helped engineer her escape fought to keep her, and she became a part of his family. The only trouble is that it is all a dream. He never did bring her back with him, and for a decade he is tortured by the knowledge that he left her behind.

The former soldier's wife begins reading a book with a strangely similar story to the one that plagues his dreams, and it takes him some time before he finally realizes that the book was written by the girl he had met nearly fifteen years before. With trepidation, he musters the nerve to call her.

Appearing in "Little Witch"

Featured Characters:

  • Jamie (Single appearance)

Supporting Characters:

  • Jamie's wife (Single appearance) (Unnamed)
  • Little Witch (Single appearance) (Unnamed)
  • United States Army

Antagonists:

Other Characters:


Locations:

Items:

  • "The Little Witch"

Events:

Synopsis for "Run Ragged, Part Three: Gone to the Dogs"

Recently, the Dead Boy Detectives chased down a ghost named Patrick in order to protect him from the evil spirit of headmaster William Locke. Now, a boy named Ginger Bladderton explains to the other ghostly students who have been trapped in Locke's schoolhouse, for a century in some cases, that this is their chance for escape. Unfortunately, the others are not brave enough to join him.

Meanwhile, the detectives themselves had been contracted by Maggy and Libby Rosendale to seek out the ghost of their cat Twinkle. The cat, though, has an unfortunate encounter with the sharp end of Mr. Locke's cane, though the cat's attacking him sent them both careening toward the ground. Libby and Maggy, who had become impatient with Edwin and Charles' investigation's duration, are nearby, and hear the commotion. They arrive on the scene to find a pack of dogs has surrounded Locke and the cat, who is still skewered on the man's cane.

Charles warns that they must blow Locke's whistle, to call the dogs away, while Edwin warns them to remove his cane. While the boys bicker over what the girls should do, they are surprised when Ginger leaps out, yanking the cane from Twinkle's body, and then blowing the whistle to call the dogs to attention. Craving justice, Ginger blows the whistle again, commanding the dogs to attack their former master.

Happily, Ginger delivers the pleasant news to his former classmates, who, with the knowledge that Locke really is defeated, rush from the schoolhouse with glee. Maggy and Libby, however, are unimpressed with the Dead Boy Detectives' work. Nearly as unimpressed as Edwin is with the re-decorating that the girls did on their treehouse while they were on their case. Charles, however, is infatuated with Maggy, and decides merely to give their treehouse up, and seek a new headquarters. Grumpily, Edwin follows him, as they seek out their next big case.

Appearing in "Run Ragged, Part Three: Gone to the Dogs"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Ginger Bladderton
  • Libby Rosendale
  • Maggie Rosendale
    • Twinkle the Cat

Antagonists:

  • Mr. William Locke (As a spirit)

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:


Concepts:

Synopsis for "Rise"

Elena had hoped that her trip to the UK would help her find herself, but after two days, she was robbed of all of her money by a pickpocket in London, and now she's been moving from hostel to hostel for a week - the duration of which, it has rained non-stop. Finally, after hours of walking, she stumbles on a cave, and crawls in for shelter, only to be disturbed by the fact that it's obviously been used before. Still she takes comfort in being dry, until a strange green light begins glowing behind her.

A spirit comes to her, and feels the woman's memories filling her head. The woman was a witch, burned at the stake. She realizes too late that the spirit has possessed her body. The spirit forces her body out to a nearby village, and expresses dismay at how things have changed. The spirit spares little time, though, in wreaking vengeance on the people of the village. Elena feels that it is wrong, but the spirit feels justified. She had healed the sick and helped them give birth. Those same people she had helped had laughed while she burned. Elena tries to explain that these people aren't the same people that committed crimes against the spirit, but to no avail.

Finally, Elena resists enough to regain some control over her body. Unfortunately, in the process of casting the spirit out from her body, she missteps, and falls from a cliff to her own death. Sadly, the spirit apologizes, but it's of little comfort to Elena, who is now a spirit as well. Now, all she can do is wait, with only the agent of her demise for company.

Appearing in "Rise"

Featured Characters:

  • Elena (Single appearance; dies) (Possessed) (Also as a spirit)

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

Other Characters:


Locations:

Items:


Concepts:

Notes



See Also


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