Beyond (Fawcett)

The Beyond is a dimension that features in Fawcett Comics.

History

The Beyond

A tortured soul boards a ghostly midnight train that emerges from nowhere, transporting him into an otherworldly realm filled with spectral passengers. The train arrives at a station with no name, and passengers are forced off into a lifeless grey landscape—revealing that they have crossed through the Beyond and cannot return. (This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #6)

While investigating eerie footprints around a swamp, unwary explorers stumble into a fog-bound cabin that serves as a portal into the Beyond. Inside, they encounter rotting corpses and entombed spirits that pinch and dismember intruders. Some explorers find themselves trapped forever as the landscape shifts without warning. (This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #10)

At an ancient European castle, a screenwriter opens a hidden doorway into the Beyond. He witnesses grotesque ghouls and a vampiric countess roaming its halls. The screenwriter learns he has become the realm's new ruler—the psychopomp known as Doctor Death—never to leave the Beyond again. (This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #12)

An arid Mexican town is haunted by a shadow-like creature emerging from a ghostly sea. The townsfolk are parched and discover the creature feeds off despair—only by channeling their own rage at injustice do they banish it, after which rain returns. This reveals that emotions dictate the creature's power in the Beyond’s fringes. (This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #14)

Overview

In appearance, the Beyond was portrayed as a shadowy, liminal realm where the boundaries between life, death, dream, and nightmare collapse. It is not governed by physics or natural law but by emotional, moral, and often supernatural forces. The Beyond frequently serves as a stage for tales of poetic justice or cosmic horror, where mortal misdeeds or misfortunes lead individuals into its cold embrace. (This Magazine Is Haunted #6)

The geography of the Beyond is fluid and symbolic: haunted swamps, abandoned cabins, ghost trains, and ruined mansions often become the access points for it. These places shift and mutate without warning, trapping characters in looping dimensions or vast desolate expanses that resemble purgatory. The passage into the Beyond is often triggered by sin, despair, or curiosity. (This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #10)

Its denizens range from moaning specters and skeletal apparitions to fully sentient entities like vampire nobles, animated corpses, or psychic parasites. Many of these beings appear human but carry an aura of decay or madness, their appearances exaggerated metaphors for their inner torments. Some act as jailers, others as executioners, and a few as cursed victims themselves. (This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #12)

Time within the Beyond is unreliable, and emotions play a powerful role in shaping its terrain. Rage, regret, guilt, and longing give form to the otherwise mutable void. In rare instances, collective emotion from the living—such as communal rage or redemptive courage—has forced the Beyond to recede or lose its grip on an afflicted town or individual. (This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #14)

The Beyond seemed to be the abode of all of humanity's worst fears; vampires, ghosts and demons existed alongside dragons, witches and harpies. All seemed generally hostile towards mankind; some periodically crossed over to prey on selected victims or to seek vengeance on former tormentors. The traffic appeared to flow in both directions; mortals could inadvertently find themselves trapped in the Beyond before the end of their natural lives.

Access to the Beyond took numerous forms. Ghostly express trains made midnight runs to the other side, carrying the spirits of the recently departed. Phantom cruise liners ferried mouldering passengers through the Sea of the Dead. Unwary travellers often found themselves making a one-way trip on the Road to Nowhere. Sometimes, mechanised transport was completely unnecessary - swamps, caves and haunted houses all seemed to lie within the outer boundaries of The Beyond.

Inhabitants

• Doctor Death : Richard Mord
• Countess Siroon :

Notes

• The Beyond was created by unknown creators where it made its first appearance in Fawcett Comics This Magazine Is Haunted v1 #1 (October, 1951).

Appearances

• This Magazine Is Haunted v1: (1951)

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