Whatever Knows Fear...

Savage Tales #1 (May 1971)
"Man-Thing" (Third story in the magazine)
Roy Thomas/Gerry Conway-Gray Morrow

Doug:  I'm back with another look at a black and white gem from the early Bronze Age.  You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I asked you to be the reviewer and help in an evaluation of the first appearance of Satana.  Today we're going to go through it together, with me giving just an impression here and there.  We're providing scans for the Man-Thing story that appeared in Savage Tales #1; the source I'm using today is the Marvel Firsts: The 1970's, volume 1 trade paperback (buy this book!).  As the story is only 11 pages long, I'm hoping you'll find time today to read it and chime in with a comment or three.  So without further ado...

  

Doug:  Talk about art driven storytelling!  How many of you are familiar with the work of Gray Morrow?  I'd say I'm familiar with him, but wouldn't classify myself as a connoisseur, or really even a fan.  But this is some beautiful illustration.  I've always felt that John Buscema was a true master at drawing animals; Morrow is every bit his equal in this scene.

 

Doug:  A little mystery, a little intrigue above.  Ted Sallis is one hairy dude, and while I can accept that fact, hair sure isn't easy to draw.  That just really looks off.  Ellen -- not so difficult to draw, however.  And women apparently really did wear outfits like the one she has on when they leave the lab; you'll see Mary Jane Watson similarly "garbed" in Monday's Spidey/Goblin installment.  It is only slightly less-revealing than Ellen's negligee!

 

Doug:  So did you see this coming?  I would say that this is somewhat formulaic as far as twists go -- how many cop/lawyer/mystery TV shows use plot devices like this?  And that Ted Sallis is going to use this mystery drug on himself?  Didn't we just see this when we reviewed the first appearance of the blue & furry Beast?

 

Doug:  Ah, so Sallis was working on a sort of Super-Soldier formula.  I'm not sure about the effects of the swamp water -- at least Barry Allen got whacked by lightning and a whole bunch of chemicals.  But the results are impressively rendered -- sort of gives off a Bigfoot vibe on the page with the car approaching.

 

Doug:  This is told like many an EC of yore, isn't it?  And doesn't it just exude Bronze Age?  Monsters, lots of skin, the re-imagining of the art in the B&W format, mature themes...  Good stuff!

Doug:  OK, so you take it home -- fill in any gaps I left in my comments, give an overall evaluation, discuss the Man-Thing as a character (this is his inaugural outing on the BAB, to the best of my fading memory) -- whatever you have to say, lay it on us!

Doug:  I'm not sure Karen or I want to get into the business of making endorsements, but maybe just this once I'd like to pass on some information about a nice sale taking place at Tales of Wonder.  These are some fine folks who always give a great discount -- I've dealt with them personally and they were a pleasure to give my money to.  Karen and I are aware that we've been getting some increased Avengers-centric traffic over the past two weeks -- well this sale is for you, friends!  Check it out -- after you've left a comment on the Man-Thing post.

FOOM Fridays: FOOM #2

Karen: Back to take a look at the second issue of FOOM -Marvel's mid-70s fan club magazine! This issue was from the summer of '73, and featured a Steranko Hulk on the cover. Steranko's version of the Hulk looks less like a monster and more like an oiled-up Venice Beach muscle man.

Karen: The Hulk is the star of this issue, although that really doesn't mean much; there's a ton of other stuff to be found here. One of the big highlights of this issue was the printing of some of the first entries in the Marvel Character Contest. That's right, one lucky Marvelite would get their creation featured in a Marvel comic! Well, that's what they said, anyway. It's fun to look at the drawings that were submitted. There's some real talent, and then there's, well, people with great enthusiasm! Two future pros got their characters published: "Absorba-Man" by Steve Rude, and "Solar Boy" by Trevor Von Eeden. Oh, and how about "The Wolverine" by Andy Olsen? I bet Andy is still stewing over that one.


Karen: Once again, my favorite feature -retrospectively speaking -is "Far Out Fanfare and Infoomation" -the upcoming comics section. We lead off again with the B&W mags, learning about a new character to premiere in Vampire Tales - Satanna! Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano begin their Dracula adaptation in Dracula Lives, which I believe got shelved for a couple of decades before it was finished! It's funny, the comment reads, "Thomas hopes that, in a few years, the chapters can be collected and released in a larger, higher-priced book, possibly a hardback." I guess dreams do come true -if you wait long enough!

Karen: One paragraph discusses how Marvel is entering the British market, and how, because characters are being introduced at different times, this requires some reworking of the reprints. For example, an issue of Hulk featured the Avengers, but they hadn't been published in Britain yet! They never do explain how they fixed that.
Karen: Mention is made that Conan the Barbarian sales have risen, so that it became a "money maker" with issue 8. Little did they know....

Karen: Some cancellations were noted too: Doc Savage, Warlock, Combat Kelly, and Red Wolf were all axed in order to make room for Dead of Night, Uncanny Tales, and Weird Wonder Tales. Sort of a toss up there. I think those three new titles started out as new material and went to reprints -anyone recall?

Karen: I found this bit of news amusing: Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin would be starting a new series called Fu Manchu! It would feature the further adventures of Nayland Smith against Fu Manchu. Oh, and Fu's rebellious son would also appear! How things changed. "This title is intended as Marvel's contribution to the Kung Fu, Iron Fist genre currently sweeping the country."

Karen: We get to see the cover of Sub-Mariner 67, which featured Namor's (then-) new costume (colored courtesy of my younger self). Hard to believe that blue suit is over 30 years old! The first mention of the Avengers-Defenders War is here; "Would you believe Loki and a villain named Dorney are at the bottom of the entire thing?" Who the heck is Dorney??? Uh, Dormammu maybe?

Karen: We are told that Stan Lee is working on the Marvel Origins book and will hopefully have it ready by Christmas. I was surprised to read that Stan wanted to include the 30's and 40's origins of the Sub-Mariner and Human Torch. Also for Christmas, the hour-long show I mentioned in the first FOOM post is said to be progressing nicely...uh huh.

Karen: After the Infoomation, we get a whole page discussing the return of Savage Tales! Nearly three years would pass between the first issue and this second one, although material had been prepared for issue 2 long before, including a beautiful painted cover by John Buscema, reproduced here in black and white. Roy Thomas says that in order to keep some sense of continuity to Conan, he will only be drawn by Buscema, Barry Smith, and Neal Adams. Gil Kane's barbarian hero, Blackmark, will also get some love, and Marie and John Severin will do some King Kull stories. As an aside, I think I only had one or two issues of Savage Tales. I never had a lot of the black and white magazines, probably due to 1) price (75 cents! What a rip-off!) and 2) they were in black and white -I wanted color! But I will keep an eye out for Savage Tales, Dracula Lives, etc, the next time I go to a convention.


Karen: Rounding out this issue is a nice collection of samples from the various artists who had drawn the Hulk over the years. There are numbers written in pen next to each drawing -I seem to recall rating them when I was a wee child! A text article accompanies the art, describing what books the artists' work appeared in. It's fun seeing so many different interpretations of the same character in one place. I favor a more brutish Hulk myself. I like Kirby, and the Buscema brothers, even though Sal's Hulk often seemed like a teddy bear! That Trimpe sample in the top right looks nice too, although I felt that Trimpe varied a lot in quality, depending on his inker. His early stuff seemed best to me. There's also an index of all Incredible Hulk issues to that point -all 165 of them!



Karen: I don't want to forget the very cool Mike Ploog Frankenstein art which graces the back cover -that guy was the Monster Master!

Marvelous House Ads, part 2: Marvel Magazines

Karen: Howdy folks, we 're spending some more time taking at trip through the past via those fun Marvel house ads from the 70s. Our first time around, we did showed a variety of ads from 1970 to 1973. This time, we're going to focus on Marvel's ads for their magazine line, from about 1973 to 1975.

Karen: When most of us think of Marvel magazines, we probably think of the biggies, like Savage Sword of Conan or Hulk. But Marvel actually turned out a variety of magazines, from sword and sorcery to horror, science fiction, super-heroes, and even humor. Here's one of the goofier books, Monster Madness, which put humorous captions with old Universal monster and other movie stills. This kind of fumetti seemed to appeal to Stan Lee, who I believe had done some similar books. I'm pretty sure I had this magazine as a kid -one of the few Marvel mags I actually owned.

Doug: I always looked at these in the grocery store, in addition to Mad and Car-toons, but must confess that back in the day I never owned any. I was pretty much a four-color zombie and was generally put-off by the B&W art. In retrospect, what a dope I was! Today I really love to see that lush art in Savage Sword, and I enjoy the mythos that was being created in Planet of the Apes. I did have a few issues of the Hulk, but even those were after the magazine went to color.


Karen: Of course, Savage Tales was one of the most popular titles. Because there was no comics code on the magazines, Marvel could get away with more violence and nudity, although it was still pretty tame comparatively speaking. And this is the part that kills me: 76 pages for 75 cents! The ad here is a pretty nice one, with that awesome Barry Smith Conan art. I love John Buscema's work, but I have to say, I really enjoy Smith's interpretation of Conan.


Karen: From roughly the same time, we have these text-laden ads for Monsters Unleashed and Dracula Lives, two of several monster mags that Marvel was putting out. It's interesting to note that for most of the mags produced in this time period -1973 - the ads don't actually show the covers! I can only imagine that this was because they hadn't decided on a cover design yet? In any case, it strikes me as very peculiar.
















Karen: Here's an ad for Planet of the Apes. Doug has reviewed at least one issue of this magazine here. I recall owning several copies at one time but not any more. This mag combined adaptations of the movies with new, original stories, and also articles about the films and photos from the films. I'm not sure if this or Doc Savage was Marvel's first movie tie-in.


Karen: And who could forget Crazy? Well, I could actually -I was a Mad magazine fan. But I think Crazy was relatively successful for a number of years. In this ad we actually get a depiction of the cover.