Weird War Tales was one of those books I completely ignored at the time, but have since found out that it was actually a bit of a secret box of goodies.
As opposed to a great deal of the output from lower tier DC mystery mags like, say, The Unexpected that seemed to just rotate the same few plots ( butterfly collector is killed by giant butterfly, Egyptian tomb robber is killed by Mummy, plantation owner is killed by voodoo priest ), Weird War told a few different stories and had a few more ideas.
I'm not saying it's a lost classic or anything, but if you pick up just about any issue at a con, you'll be surprised at how good it is.
Take issue #36, for instance. Just as a random sample, you've got Bob Kaniger & Frank Thorne doing a silent strip, Wein, Wolfman & Heath's masterpiece The Pool, and Arnold Drake & Frank Robbins contributing the spectacularly bad taste Colonel Clown Isn't Laughing Anymore, a piece that could've run in Plop! were it not alternately funny but darkly, darkly serious.
The mystery and the madness indeed.
