The unexpected Unexpected

Tales of the Unexpected/The Unexpected was a long-running mystery/horror/fantasy series published by DC Comics between 1956 and 1982. K.G. Murray published many of the stories from this series in titles such as Weird Mystery Tales, Haunted Tales and Doomsday to name just a few.

Murray/Federal published three one-off/unnumbered issues under this title under three different imprints:

Unexpected NN (cover price $0.95) was published under the Murray Comics imprint with a cover based on The Unexpected #209, April 1981:

Unexpected NN (cover price $0.99) was published under the transitional Federal Comics/Murray the Cat imprint with a cover based on The Unexpected #215, October 1981:

Unexpected NN (cover price $0.99) was published under the Federal Comics/Australian DC Edition imprint with a cover based on The Unexpected #222, May 1982:

It's a little odd that such a long-running DC series was not represented by a parallel Murray/Federal series, especially as there were a few one-off issues based on issues of The Unexpected, but published under new titles.

For example, the wraparound cover to The Unexpected #191, May-June 1979

was cropped and used as the cover on Tales of the Supernatural:

The cover to The Unexpected #212, July 1981

was modified for the one-off Murray Comics issue Nightmare... or Reality, providing its title:

Similarly, the following issue - The Unexpected #213, August 1981 -

provided the cover image to the one-off Murray Comics issue Beast of Darkness:

The cover to The Unexpected #221, April 1982

provided the cover image for the one-off Murray comics issue Shadows From Beyond:

Earlier 1970's covers from The Unexpected were used on various issues of ongoing series such as Weird Mystery Tales, but it's notable that so many The Unexpected covers were used in one-off Murray/Federal titles whether they were 'Unexpected' or not.