The Thing and The House of Mystery

I was more of a superhero fan when I was a kid, but my bothers had a bunch of DC's horror comics around and I was definitely intrigued by them. I mostly was drawn to the art, which often seemed to be a notch above the more traditional comics, especially the covers. They always had an unexpecting character just about to face some sort of demon or animated skeleton, and sent shivers down my young spine! The stories were basically morality plays, and you could always count on the villain of the story meeting his grisly just desserts by the tale's end. I like that DC had Cain, the host of The House of Mystery, show up in a few of their mainstream titles once in a blue moon, just to remind the readers that it was one big shared universe. I haven't seen him or his cohorts outside of the Vertigo imprint in years - but hey, Swamp Thing and John Constantine are back in the mainstream DCU, so anything 's possible I guess!