Life In Four Colors #10
Things That Go Bump in the Night
Digging into the archives, we proudly re-present a Halloween inspired Life in Four Colors courtesy of the G-Man himself. Enjoy!
Happy Halloween and a very heart felt Trick-or Treat to you all. It's hard to believe that October has already come to an end....but at the same time so much has happened in these last thirty one days it almost seemed at times the month would never come to a close. And as it always does October closes out its stint at haunting the calendar year with assorted ghouls, goblins....and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.....which by the way, there is no wrong way to eat.
I wanted to tie this installment of the column in with the Halloween mood I have been trying to establish here on the site with a "Top Ten" style list of my favorite Creepy and Eerie Comic Related Tales From The Crypt. As I started to select which ten stories I wanted to focus on...I realized there was a lot of stories out there in this vein that I really liked. So I decided....seeing how Halloween fell on the thirty first of the month....I would feature thirty one books!!!!
Then I quickly came to my senses. With all the other Halloween stuff I wanted to work on...I wouldn't finish a column that featured a run down of thirty one comics until...December thirty first. So that idea ended up with a stake through the heart real fast like. But I still had problems narrowing down the list to just ten books....so...seeing how the column would come out on a Friday (finally on a sane schedule once more)...why not feature thirteen books? The number thirteen has been associated with witches and witch hunts as well as hockey mask wearing serial killers who can't die for years now.
But I decided to shoot that idea with a silver bullet. I mean after all....even if the "countdown" featured thirteen books there was still going to be a "top ten", so why not just focus on those ten books?
Works for me.
So here we go...we're off to the Witch and we may never ever come home. But the magic that we're feeling will last a life time....
Number Ten: Amazing Spider-Man Soul of the Hunter
This book saw the exact same creative team that brought us the incredible "Kraven's Last Hunt" story that weaved its way through the Web of Spider-Man, Peter Parker Spectacular Spider-Man, and Amazing Spider-Man books reunite to spin a soul numbing sequel.
Kraven didn't make it out of his last hunt alive....and in this book his soul finds it difficult to find peace. His tormented soul starts to haunt Peter Parker and finally convinces him, as Spider-Man to aid in not only helping his soul to find long lasting rest, but the souls of hundreds of others also trapped between life and death itself.
Well written, beautifully drawn....I should have had inker Bob McLeod sign this for me while at Mid-Ohio Con....but I forgot to take it with me and now that mistake is going to keep me awake at night for years to come.
Number Nine: Saga of the Swamp Thing # 3
By writer Martin Pasko, artwork by Tom Yeates...and edited by Swamp Thing creator...Len Wein.
Picking this book was very difficult. When it comes to the Swamp Thing...everybody always talks about the Alan Moore run on the book. Me....I'm probably one of the maybe three people on the face of the planet that preferred Martin Pasko's run on the title. Matter of fact I have Martin's entire run on the series and only five issues that Moore wrote.
And when it came to the stuff that Pasko wrote....I had a hard time just picking one. The first issue of the series was awesome....as was issue #4 (which I liked so much I featured that cover at the top of the column.) I remember reading issue #4 the summer of the gruesome child murders were occurring in Atlanta. Back in 1982 I was only fifteen years old and the same age as some of the children who were being killed. Also back then a crime like that was still shocking. Today....it's unfortunately has become much too common. Martin's story seemed to leap right out from those dreadful headlines, and I never learned if that was intentional or not. All I know was when I finished reading the fourth issue of the book... coupled with the news of a new body being discovered way too frequently...I literally had nightmares for weeks.
Even after they caught the killer (I'm not even going to mention his name)...I was still scared and when I wanted that same exhilarating, guilt laced charge of sheer fear to glide down my spine I would pull that book out from under my bed just long enough to scare myself witless...and then I would bury it under a stack of Detective Comics and Daredevil mags.
If Batman and Daredevil couldn't keep me safe, who could?
Pasko and Yeates run on the book produced great horror laced fiction on a monthly basis...but issue # 3 stands out in my mind the most. From the moment that Casey (who later turns out to be not such a sweet little girl) and Swamp Thing get attacked by a group of punk rock vampires while riding a freight train through the sleepy little town of Rosewood Illinois to the final confrontation with the vamparic clan leader this book grabbed me by the neck and refused to let me go.
This was also the summer of the first Swamp Thing film...which for its place in time...I thought was an excellent movie. (I may have only been fifteen years old but I sure as (expletive) knew there was a couple of things I really liked about Adrienne Barbeau) Between the film and the high quality stories that Martin and Tom were turning out...I couldn't get enough Swamp Thing and that was alright by me. Another good thing about those early Saga of Swamp Thing books was the really cool back up stories that featured Rob Zombie's favorite comic book character...the Phantom Stranger.
Number Eight: Batman/Houdini The Devil's Workshop
Written by Howard Chaykin and John Francis Moore
Illustrated by Mark Chiarello
This book was given to me by a friend (who shall remain nameless) who for whatever insane reason bought the book and didn't like it. Maybe he never read it...because if you read this thing I find it very hard to believe you wouldn't like it.
I'm a sucker for all things that relate to the Man of Mystery, Harry Houdini. And a story that not only starred him...but paired him with Gotham's Dark Detective....who can ask for anything more. The book itself is an Elseworlds book produced by D.C. and places Batman in Gotham in 1907....and ends up teaming Batman and Houdini together in an attempt to stop that era's version of the "Man Who Laughs" and ....there's also a vampire thrown into the mix for good measure.
I love the visuals of the book....Batman with his stiff collar, leather trench coat. The Joker with his pale face and wide, leering grin, the dark sun glasses wearing vampire. Some of the art reminds me of Tim Sale's work. But in a slightly more realistic fashion.
One of my favorite parts of the book (which is a pleasure to read from front to back)...has to be the scene of one of many Halloween seances that Harry Houdini took part of in attempts to communicate with his deceased mother. Loved how they worked that very true element into the book.
Number Seven: X-Men Annual # 6
Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Bob Wiacek
No surprise here. After all if it's a Life In Four Colors top ten list of any kind...there's bound to be a Marvel Annual on that list somewhere. This King Size Spectacular is actually a sequel to Uncanny X-Men # 159 done by the same creative team.
Which was, believe it or not, a fill in issue, which saw Dracula, Lord of the Undead attempt to convert Storm into his Mistress of the Night. The Annual has Dracula hunted down by the X-Men. Kitty Pryde takes the lead urging the team to not alone hunt down the vampire lord but entice them to destroy him.
Storm has to confront her fears of "turning" against her friends and we learn that Kitty is actually possessed by Dracula's own daughter, Lilith. It is Lilith who really wants her father dead and she almost gets her wish.
Long time Tomb of Dracula supporting cast member, Rachel Van Helsing, does indeed meet her end in the book. Van Helsing had already been bitten and "turned" by her family's bitter enemy and at the end of the story she begs for Wolverine to end her life by impaling her through the heart with a wooden stake.
He has no problem doing just that, seeing how he's the best at what he does.
A very good story with the classic X-Men line up. It's a shame those days are long gone like dead leaves on the October wind.
Number Six: Moon Knight Special Edition #2
Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Klaus Janson
(how's that for a line up of very talented ghouls?)
This book almost didn't make it on the list...mainly because.....one it's a reprint and two...I'm really only crazy about the second half of the book. But the way it was put together, I think, justifies the placement of the book here on the list.
Even when these stories "Nights Born Ten Years Gone" Parts One and Two ran in their original form they were still nothing more than sixteen page back up stories in The Hulk Magazine issues # 17 and # 18.
They are reprinted here as the second half of a book that features two more of these Moon Knight back up stories ...these two guest starring Ol' Green Skin himself, but nowhere near as hard hitting as the two part story I'm going to talk about.
I believe the strength of "Nights Born Ten Years Gone" alone and fan reaction to that story was probably the main reason Moon Knight was given his first solo on-going series in the first place. That book was also done by Moench and Sienkiewicz.
This blood soaked tale features Moon Knight haunted by the fact that his long lost brother, Randall Spector, has become a Halloween mask wearing, serial killing "Hatchet Man" preying on innocent women in New York's Central Park at night. It's not long before Marc Spector, former mercenary and one of the many identities used by Moon Knight...or vice versa) is forced to hunt his own brother down like a mad dog.
Moon Knight allows his girlfriend, Marlene, to dress up like as a nurse (nurses seem to be the Hatchet Man's favorite victim of choice) in an attempt to lure Randall out of hiding. The ploy works all too well...Marlene gets Randall's undivided attention and comes very close to losing her life in the process.
Moench put this tale together in a way that left the reader on the edge of their seat, breathless, and in a cold sweat feeling much like you did as Michael Myers was chasing his sister, Laurie, through the upstairs of neighbor's house.
Moon Knight and Randall face off to the death on a rain swept cliff side. And like Michael Myers....the fall doesn't kill him.
Unfortunately for Moon Knight and his pilot Frenchie and all those fans that collected Marc Spector: Moon Knight (the third attempt at a regular series for the troubled hero)...Randall wasn't dead. He returned to carve Frenchie up like Sally Brown carves a pumpkin in a rather poor story in a book best left buried, forgotten in an unmarked grave. Just walk away and leave the whole series in a dirt covered pine box.
Trust me. No one in their right mind would care.
Number Five: Amazing Spider-Man #101
Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Gil Kane
This was the second issue of a three part story that featured the first appearance of one of my all time favorite Marvel characters.....Morbius, the Living Vampire. And if that wasn't enough....we got a very frightening looking Spider-Man running around the story with six freakin' arms......and the Lizard.
Another really cool thing about this book...it actually had an October date on the cover. How cool is that?
This whole three part story took my breath away back when I was no older than Eddie Munster. Issue # 101 was my favorite of the three for several reasons. The main one being the first encounter between Spider-Man and Morbius in Doc. Connors abandoned South Hampton beach house that as Spider-Man points out looks just like the house from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
There's also a scene in the book...a brief look into the memories of Michael Morbius that plays homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Issue #102 is also very good...you get a very disturbing Lizard (this is my favorite story featuring this character) who after being bit by Morbius...keeps changing from a version of Curt Connors with scales (as a kid those panels just freaked me out for some reason)...to a Lizard with Connors mind in control. And then he would return to the usual blood thirsty reptile version and this not only kept Spider-Man guessing...but us readers too.
The most spine tingling attribute of this entire run....the origin of Morbius...featured in issue #102. When a bleached white Michael Morbius attacks and kills his loyal lab assistant, Nikos....and then contemplates killing his own fiance, Martine....that's a scene right out of a classic Bela Lugosi film.
Roy and Gil establish a mood for this story that is literally thick as blood....but issue #101 will also be the issue that stands out in my mind most, due in large part to that classic cover.
Number Four: Man-Thing # 5
By Steve Gerber and Mike Ploog
Want to talk about dark, moody comics crafted by two men who were masters in their field. This book entitled ..."Night of the Laughing Dead" is for you. I first got this book as one of the Power Records set....my grandmother bought it for me.....right about Halloween at the Woolworth's five and dime.
I was about seven years old....and I played the grooves off the vinyl 45 that came with the book. I must have driven my mother nuts. Just in case you are interested in sharing in her muck encrusted insanity just click the links below and be transported to the haunted swamp lands of the Florida everglades, just outside of Citrusville.
Gerber and Ploog weave a dark, enchanting story of a depressed carnival clown (Darrell) who commits suicide at the edge of the swamp that Man-Thing calls home. Pretty dark stuff for a comic/record set sold to kids in the toy department of a Mid-American department store.
I think somebody slipped up....but boy am I glad they did.
After this book was battered and falling apart....and the record itself nothing more than a crackling, hissing, and popping ghost of it's former self....my mother disposed of it with a sinister laugh and a sense of vindication that mirrored the laughter of the dead clown at the end of the book.
But you can't keep a good book down. Years later I would proudly become the owner of the original comic that book was modeled after.
Still a classic after all this years.
Number Three: Tomb of Dracula #69
Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, Tom Palmer....masters of comic horror.
I hate to admit this but I didn't discover the Tomb of Dracula book until it was almost too late. I started picking the book up around issue # 60 and the book would come to an end with issue # 70. I was twelve back then...and some of the stories I most admit went over my head and the art was not really what I was into back then. I would later grow into the series and really appreciate what Wolfman (if you're going to have a Halloween count down you have to have a Wolfman in there somewhere), Colan, and Palmer were doing with this Gothic Masterpiece.
But I didn't have to wait to grow into Tomb of Dracula # 69....that book snatched me up and carried me away on the leather like wings of imagination right then and there.
From page one with the scene with Dracula....tired and weary....on the run from the hordes of vampires he once was Lord over...hunched behind a rickety old farm wagon to the scene of Dracula beating on the door of a country cottage begging...to God ...for the children huddled parentless around their sick sibling to be let in from the dark night and the vampires hot on his trail.
Wolfman sticks to the wise tales that vampires can only enter a house if invited in...and one of the children finally does just that. Afterwards Dracula nearly gives in to his blood lust and kills them all....draining them of their life giving fluids.
But something holds him back. Perhaps it's a sense of honor? Or maybe the knowledge that after he killed the children he himself could still fall prey to the renegade children of the night now right outside the door.
Pounding on the withered wooden structure....if they would not be invited in the dwelling...they would destroy it. Tear it down from the outside. The only thing that drives them back...and saves the children inside as well as the former Lord of the Un-Dead...a cross...which Dracula himself picks up and uses to drive the nocturnal invaders away...even at the cost of the crucifix burning through his own unholy flesh.
That my friends, is the stuff comic legends are made of.
Number Two: Marvel Spotlight #2
Gerry Conway. Mike Ploog
Did someone say Wolfman.....how about a Werewolf? A Werewolf by Night. Marvel Spotlight introduced not only me buy an entire world to a guy named Jack Russell (no not the dog...and not the lead singer of the rock band Great White) This Jack Russell was a cursed soul. Burdened with a dark family secret.
He, like his father before him ...was a Werewolf.
From the first words of the first panel which simply read.....First Night this book promises to leave a trail of bright crimson through the history of comics. And it does just that.
Jack and his hairy alter ego would Bark at the Moon for three issues of Marvel Spotlight before clawing his way into his own on-going comic series. But I still feel that none of the issues that came afterwards could touch the mood of the Werewolf's very first appearance. Marvel Spotlight #2 and issues #3 and #4 that followed seemed to have a raw fury to them that seemed to get lost in the Werewolf's own book.
Part of the reason being that later stories focused perhaps a little too much on Jack Russell and the somewhat quirky family life and friends he had. If the book had stayed more to its true bestial origins and concentrated on the confusion the Werewolf experienced running through the moonlit streets and woods of southern California...and the horror of the transformation...which Russell seemed to get use to a little too much...this book may have dodged the silver bullet that finally laid it low.
That being said...the first appearance of this character and the originality of that story still howls at you from the darkness and fog all these many years later.
Number One: Swamp Thing #1
Len Wein. Berni Wrightson.
Nothing says true comic horror like the name Swamp Thing.....followed by the names Wein and Wrightson. Although I do like Marvel's muck covered Man-Thing just a little better than poor, unfortunate Mr. Alec Holland.....I think Swamp-Thing had the stronger first appearance.
Actually Swamp Thing #1 wasn't the very first appearance of the character. That would occur over in the final pages of House of Secrets # 92....but Swamp Thing #1 was actually the re-done first appearance of the character in the D.C. universe in a proper fashion.
Although the origins and nature of both Swamp-Thing and Man-thing are very similar...(Swamp Thing creator , Len Wein, explains how this occurred in the Related Re-Cap interview with the writer...which can be heard right here.)
http://www.comicrelated.com/audio/relatedrecap041.html
The Swamp Thing's origin feels more like a true horror story while the Man-Thing's has more "super-hero" elements in the equation. Berni Wrightson's masterful use of shadows in his artwork also helps make the Swamp Thing's Dark Genesis more moody.
The character themselves, pieced together by Wein, also seem to be more twisted at the core of their being. Even Alec Holland and his wife seem to have a dark nature about them.
The first ten issues of this book never really fails to establish the feel of the first one...they are all great and should be read back to back every Halloween by every true comic collecting madman out there....but if you can't read them all...prop yourself up against a moss covered tree or a crumpling tombstone and enjoy issue #1....the one that started it all.
And that just about does it.
Happy Halloween from the G-Man....and remember if an old gypsy hag offers to sell you a severed Monkey's Paw in good condition...I'd pass on the deal if I were you.
Until next time...see you in the funny papers.
Bill Gladman - Bill is a writer and illustrator and currently working on several different projects including the first issue of an ongoing comic book series (Prodigy), an illustrated fantasy novel (The Book of Noheim), and the first of four illustrated science fiction/fantasy novels (Jack the Rabbit, Living Legend of the Purple Plains) as well as a light-hearted on going mini-comic (Three Wise Men). Bill also pens a column for Comic Related and will be doing a mix of regional convention coverage.
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