I mean, honestly, did The Count of Monte Cristo end with two monsters sword fighting in a swamp?
So reader Rodney asked, in response to my post from Friday:
“I started my copy of the latest Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes Vol 5 today and in the reprint of Superboy #198 Clark and Lana are about to enter a ‘Horror Haven’ tent and on either side of the entrance is Man-Thing and Swamp Thing.
And then my next thought was ‘Does Mike know about this?'”
Ah, a question in the grand old Progressive Ruin tradition of insinuating myself into your minds to the extent that you think of me whenever you encounter Swamp Thing. Or All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. Or Frank Miller’s The Spirit.
Rodney, thank you for asking. I’ve probably been aware of it, though I don’t have that actual comic in my collection. I do have the Legion of Super-Heroes Archive Edition hardcover volume #10, which reprints said story, recolored and on better paper:
…so at least I have a version of it, if not, as I’m suspecting, with the exact same colors as in the originals. Now, if I were still at my old job, I’d just check in one of the fourteen Superboy back issue boxes on the shelves and pull out that #198 to see if our Man-Thing stand-in was colored in more copyright-stretching yet more character-accurate greenish hues. Alas, my new store is still in the process of backstock-building, so I don’t believe I have a local copy to check at the moment. Anyone out there able to confirm Man-Thing’s coloring in the original?
Anyway, as I said, I was sure I must have been aware of these particular cameos at one time even if just from reading these reprints. However, I probably haven’t looked inside this Archives hardcover since I originally read through it the first time (back in…hold on, lemme check the copyright date…eek, the far-flung future year of 2000) so it had slipped my mind. Thanks for the reminder, Rodney!
A couple of other questions from that comments section: Michael Grabowski asks
“…Exactly how vast is/was the vast Mikester Comic Archives? Anywhere close to WorldRecord-Man (the fellow in Mission Viejo Guinness recently named), or closer to ‘just vast enough to supply the better part of a newly-opened shop?'”
Well, it was pretty goodly sized…a couple dozen long boxes, a few dozen short, several magazine boxes. Approximately half of what I owned went in for sale at the shop. I’m still needing to sort through the rest of the boxes to decide what I want to take to the store and what I want to still keep. No rush at the moment, however, given that I’ve recently acquired several long boxes’ worth of collections and that should keep me swimmin’ in funnybooks for the immediate future.
And Bill D. asks about that
“Does this issue have a Blooperman story in it? I’ve heard those are kind of fun.”
Sadly, no Blooperman. I’m presuming that a Superman parody, or at least a more general parody of superheroes. It would have been interesting to see how this comic would’ve handled it, given the stories in the issue I have mostly emphasized more general-audience non-superhero shenanigans.
So long to Swamp Thing and The Return of Swamp Thing star Louis Jourdan, who passed away this weekend. …Maybe he did more popular and more highly-regarded films, but those are the two most important to me.
Besides, few are the films that are better than Swamp Thing and The Return of Swamp Thing.
I had exactly the same thought as Rodney when reading that Legion Showcase volume recently. And then I thought “Of course Mike knows about it. Mike knows all Swampie appearances. I must not doubt Mike. Mike is all knowing.” And then I punished myself for doubting Mike by beating myself with Showcase #5.
Forgive me for doubting you Mike.
“goodly sized”, “couple dozen”, “a few dozen”, “several” …
In other words, you were supposed to be on ‘Hoarders’ but they couldn’t fit the cameras in your place.
Oh, don’t deny it. They all deny it.
Mike: I guess I’m not alone. Last summer I mentioned to you about the Swamp Thing poster by Jim Aparo in SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE SPECTRE. It was on the wall of someone about to be cut in half or melted or whatever else 1970s Spectre thought of doing.
So there I am, on my porch in Chicago, immediately thinking about some guy in Ventura and how excited he would be to know of such a ST reference. You are in us all…
Well *I* didn’t know about it, and now my Man-Thing collection has a gaping hole in it (multiple holes if you count all the various reprints).
(Connotations between my Man-Thing needing to fill holes is the product of your filthy minds. For shame.)
-P-
A relatively unhealthy amount of my time involves talking about Swamp Thing and your name does comes up… in healthier doses.
I find I think of Swamp Thing when I come across a Mike Sterling reference.
“I Mean, Honestly, Did The Count Of Monte Cristo End With Two Monsters Sword Fighting In A Swamp?”
It damn well should have.
Mike, if anything Man-Thing is an even more garish shade of pink in the original Superboy starring the LSH #198. Also note how far off the red register is here. I’m nostalgic for a lot of things about old comics, but the terrible printing isn’t one of them.
Is it possible that Man-Thing was coloured pinkish or reddish so as to deter Marvel from raising a stink?
Upon learning of the passing of Louis Jourdan, I immediately thought of Swamp Thing and, logically, Mr. Sterling.