Recently in Marvel Monsters Category

As a big fan of the Marvel Monsters, I couldn't wait to see them meet each other.  In particular, I wanted Morbius to meet Werewolf By Night.

Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #3, published in 1975, featured this titanic event.  Would you believe this Gil Kane cover was the single best thing about this comic?  The interior artwork by Virgil Redondo is so horrible, I can't even bear to crop any scans and show you here.  It's like the artwork for a drab 1950s romance comic (not a Johnny Romita romance book--that would be cool) that some idiot thought was appropriate for a horror story.

Of all the Giant-Size books, the Werewolf drew the short end of the stick on artists.  What a shame--especially after being drawn by Ploog, Kane, and Sutton in the regular monthly series.  Nuff said.

Here's a 1990 drawing by Javier Saltares that I found on Romitaman's website.  According to the description, this was a promotional drawing for the "second-generation" Danny Ketch Ghost Rider that debuted later in 1990.  Nuff said!

Here’s a pinup that I’ve waiting to share for a while…

Man-Thing, by Vicente Alcazar, in the frontispiece for Marvel Preview #8, 1976.  Great use of the light source held by the boy, illuminating Manny in all his freakish glory.  Alcazar always worked well with ink washes, but he dropped off the comics radar after 1980 or so.  You can read a small bio of Alcazar on Wikipedia.  Nuff said!

I’ve been collecting scans of Marvel house ads for some time and just ran across this collection of ads for Tales of the Zombie magazine.  The ad above, for the first issue of the magazine, shows the original Bill Everett drawing of the character from a short story published before Marvel became the House of Ideas.  You gotta love the blurbs:  No Grave Can Hold Him!  The Zombie Cometh!

The ad for the second issue started featuring the art of regular artist Pablo Marcos. 

The color ads for TOTZ could appear in Marvel Comics, but Zombies themselves could not appear in any comics-code approved book.  Fans seemed to crave a team-up between the Zombie and Spider-Man.  We didn’t get that, nor any team-ups with any other horror characters. 

This ad is for my favorite issue of TOTZ—featuring the Steve Gerber story where Simon Garth gains his life back for one day, A Day in the Life of a Dead Man.

I hope you do not feel like a zombie on Monday, dear readers!  Nuff said.

The Marvel Monster mags had some great illustrations on the inside front covers and contents pages.

This one by Pablo Marcos was featured in Vampire Tales 6, 1974.  I thought it was an outstanding visual of Morbius (the Living Vampire) meeting Lilith (Daughter of Dracula).  Marcos always had a great take on the horror characters—and his ink and grey wash tones were perfect for the black and white magazines.  There’s the violence on the left—with Morbius about to chow down on the woman—and Lilith’s bold sexuality on the right stopping him.  Alas, this was another case where the illustration did not fit the story inside—the two characters did not meet at all.

The cover to this issue also featured Lilith, a painting by Boris Vallejo.  Marvel probably intended Lilith to become the co-feature in Vampire Tales, giving the magazine two strong characters (along with Morbius) to attract readers. 

But Marvel’s decisions were often haphazard—was this due to the round robin of editors or illegal substances in the Marvel offices?  Lilith is a vampire, she belongs in Vampire Tales!  No wait, Lilith is Drac’s daughter, let’s put her back in Vampire Tales!  Oh no, we have a Lilith inventory story by Steve Gerber that was never published.  Dracula Lives is cancelled.  What to do?  Put in Marvel Preview #12 and call it the Haunt of Horror!

I suppose all these stories are collected in some Essentials trade, right?  Nuff said!

Last Monday, I yakked about the Legion of Monsters and their return in the current Punisher arc by Rick Remender and Tony Moore.  Punisher 11 went on sale last Wednesday, and as many comic fans already know, it's freakin awesome.

This splash page of the Man-Thing in New York's sewer system, facing down a squad of HAMMER agents (airborne on Goblin gliders), is an example of how brilliant this book is.  (BTW, I am going to use brilliant a lot more now.  When British people use this word it sounds so elegant.  Ditto for smashing.)  Recommended for all Marvel Monster fans.  Nuff said!

If you haven't read Dark Reign Punisher The List (by Rick Remender and John Romita Jr), I highly recommend it.  The ending was very surprising to me, and it sets up this next Punisher arc (starting in issue #11) with art by Tony Moore.

Moore's cover to Punisher #12 brings back the Legion of Monsters to aid the Punisher (now FrankenCastle).  Morbius, Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night are all there, along with the Living Mummy, who I haven't seen in decades.  I'm looking forward to this, especially after the terrific job that Moore did recently Ghost Rider. 

I'll be you dollars to doughnuts that Moore remembers this cover...

The very first (and only?) appearance of the Legion of Monsters in Marvel Premiere #28, 1975.  As a total Marvel Monster freak, I couldn't wait to read this story.  Written by Bill Mantlo and Frank Robbins, you had to admire the lengths that Mantlo went to have Man-Thing transported out of the swamp--it was an ordeal just to get all these horror guys together to fight a menace.  It was a bit of a letdown, but I was always hoping for a return appearance.

Keep on eye on that logo, because it moved around a lot.

Later that year, Marvel published a black and white magazine called Legion of Monsters, with a Neal Adams cover painting.  I had hoped for a team-up, but the magazine contained only solo stories.  I believe most of them were inventory stories left over from the defunct magazines Dracula Lives and Monsters Unleashed.  The editorial indicated that the magazine was an ongoing publication, but issue #2 never appeared.

But Marvel was never one to let a crappy logo go to waste!  The Legion of Monsters title appeared yet again in Marvel Preview #8 in 1976.  You would think with a cover like this, there would be a team-up, right?  Blade and Morbius never crossed paths, they were featured in solo stories only.  More inventory material, this time left over from Vampire Tales.

Let's raise a glass to Tony Moore, who loves Marvel Monsters as much as we do!  Nuff said.

When Ghost Rider first appeared in Marvel Spotlight #5, I was absolutely run over (pardon the pun) by Mike Ploog's artwork and character design.  Especially intriguing was the cover blurb: Is He Alive or Dead?  I sold my original as a kid, but I was able to buy a back issue a few years ago.  It's still one of my favorite origin issues ever.

Here are the pencils to a recreation that Ploog did a few years ago, from Pheng Taing on comicartfans.

Marvel Spotlight #8 really showed me the potential of Ghost Rider as a character--by taking him out of the city and pitting him against another brand of magic.  It was also cool to see the Ghost Rider--a revamp of a Western character--in an Indian reservation.

Ploog's recreation--also from Pheng Taing--really oomphs up the crazy magic going on here.  What lucky guy to have both of these!  Nuff said.