One story has a pretty good message! And one foresees, um, TRON.

Aw, that's still pretty good! From 1979, House of Mystery #268. Cover by Michael Wm. Kaluta.

The first story, feels like a riff on the movie Tron but predated it by three years! In "Night Call, Collect" a terminally ill man funds a program, to turn a man into a program; breaking a person down into data, then adjusting and correcting it, to return them to perfect health. The man isn't about to be the first test monkey for that, though, and zaps one of his scientists into it instead, in a bit that seems to predict "de-rezzing" in Tron. But he starts to get strange calls at night...and the tape the scientist was supposed to be encoded onto, was blank! (Written by Wyatt Gwyon, art by Ruben Yandoc.)

"Dead Buddy" is a brief bit of CB radio nonsense, as was the style at the time; then "The Man Who Spoke With Spirits" is a very nice object lesson. Endlessly seeking knowledge, a king invokes spirits for their wisdom: the spirits oblige him, but say he must obey their every command. Every command? Yeah, every command! First: build a fancy monastery. Sure, why not? Then, start gathering up all the gold in the kingdom: it's rough on the peasants, but it'll teach 'em "the virtue of poverty." When the peasants are ready to revolt, the spirits help the king summon demons, then advise him to imprison random citizens to keep the rest from getting uppity. So desperate for wisdom is this king, that he goes along with everything the spirits order, like 'give your daughter to the barbarians to get them to lay off' and 'eat garbage to learn humility.' Let's just say, it takes a long time for this guy to get wise...(Written by T.Casey Brennan, art by Jess Jodloman.)