Victor the Ghost of Grismor Castle

GHOST OF GRISMORE CASTLE

Real Name: Victor ??

Identity/Class: Human spirit (pre-FF era)

Occupation: Ghost

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Otis Norton

Enemies: Unrevealed

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Grismore Castle

First Appearance: Strange Tales I#79/2 (December, 1960)

Powers/Abilities: In spite of being a ghost, Victor could interact with living people as well as a normal human. Outside Grismore Castle he looked like a middle-aged man, speaking, interacting and socializing with other persons, making them believe he was an ordinary man. His ghost powers were mostly shown in the castle and included levitating different objects at the same time (telekinesis), projecting voices, making objects and persons intangible and invisible. His natural form was probably immaterial and invisible, but he could be concrete and visible as much as he wanted, even far from the Castle.

History:
(Strange Tales I#79/2) - Victor was a ghost linked to Grismore Castle. He roamed the town where the castle was, looking like a normal human named Victor.

    He had a friend, Otis Norton, who liked to play practical jokes on everybody and one day Otis challenged Victor: he had to spend a night in Grismore Castle. Victor accepted the challenge in order to give Otis a lesson.

    When Victor entered the old castle, he inadvertently activated the booby-traps set up by Otis. He was surprised by levitating things which resembled a ghostly witch, a spectre and a monstrous flying head.

    Victor then ran out of the castle claiming that it was haunted causing Otis to laugh out loud. Otis did not suspect that Victor knew better than him and dared to enter in the Castle despite Victor warning him to stop. Obviously Otis didn't, so he was greeted by real ghostly manifestations, which avenged all the nasty jokes that Otis did in the past. The Ghost of Grismore Castle made Otis intangible, made him cross a wall and let him entrapped in the middle of it. Shortly after the ghost released Otis, but only after he learned the lesson.

    Days later Victor picked up a conversation between Otis and other fellas and heard that the scared man would nevermore pull a trick on anyone again.

Comments: Created by unknown writer and Steve Ditko (artist).

    For a 5 pages story it is difficult to be sure whether Victor was only one of the ghosts inhabiting the Castle, or if he was another ghost roaming outside the castle or if he was the only ghost. I am inclined toward the third hypothesis due to the title of the story.

Profile by Spidermay.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Victor and Grismore Castle have no known connections to:

Otis Norton has no known connections to:

Otis Bennet laughing out loud

Otis Norton

    Otis was a normal human with a knack for tricks and practical jokes. He performed jokes even if it annoyed others, he could do anything for a good laugh.

    Otis pulled Victor's leg claiming that he was scared by ghosts. This gave Victor the occasion to set up his own joke.

    Victor bought rags, wires, strings, a luminous sheet and a paper mache head, and placed them in Grismore Castle, before Victor had to stay there overnight, for the challenge.

    That night the traps went off when Victor entered in the castle, but the same things were animated by the ghost shortly later, when Otis dared to enter the castle to prove that he was not scared. He became scared as well when the sheet and the head taken there by him spoke to him and flew around him. An apparently invisible being, wearing only a cloak and a tube hat rendered him intangible and left Otis levitating and entrapped in the middle of a wall. Finally, when Otis proved to be terrorized, the ghost made him invisible and then let him run out the castle.

    Otis nevermore did practical jokes to anyone else because only speaking of it was unbearable for him.

--Strange Tales I#79/2

Grismore Castle

Grismore Castle

       Grismore Castle was apparently an abandoned stone castle on a hill, surrounded by an uncared garden and by an external wall. The castle was not closed and anybody could go in.
    The castle had a tower, the highest point of the building, and inside its rooms it was still furnished with statues, paintings, ornaments, tattered curtains, everything covered by thick webs and dust.

    There were rumors about the castle, saying that it was haunted, and so it was. Victor was the ghost of the castle, and could leave the castle for walking around the town.

    By day the castle behaved like an old abandoned building, but by night eerie things could happen, like those that had happened to Otis Norton.

--Strange Tales I#79/2





images: (without ads)
Strange Tales I#79/2, p6, pan5 (Victor, main image)
Strange Tales I#79/2, p2, pan3 (Victor, head shot)
Strange Tales I#79/2, p3, pan5 (Otis)
Strange Tales I#79/2, p1, pan1 (Grismore Castle)

Appearances:
Strange Tales I#79/2 (December, 1960) - Steve Ditko (writer and artist), Stan Lee (editor), Stan Lee (editor)

Last updated: 04/16/16

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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