“The Perfect Mate”, House of Mystery, #226, DC Comics, 1974

House of Mystery started out as a horror anthology, featuring tales of the supernatural as well as supernatural-themed mystery stories. With the growing backlash against horror comics in the mid-1950s, as well as the advent of the Comics Code Authority and its restrictions on horror-themed storylines (banning stories dealing with such supernatural fare as werewolves and vampires), the series quietly was revamped into dealing with science-fiction type monsters and other mystery-suspense type tales that were permitted by the comic code.

With issue #174, Entertaining Comics veteran Joe Orlando was hired by DC to take over as editor of House of Mystery. As the Comics Code Authority was now being challenged by both DC and Marvel over content restrictions, the series returned to its overt horror themes.