So apparently this is going to be “Man-Thing Week.”
From Adventure into Fear #12, a nice sequence of panels drawn by Jim Starlin and Rich Buckler, script by Steve Gerber:
Don’t feel bad for that guy. He had it comin’.
Also, I’m so accustomed to associating Jim Starlin with “cosmic” or space opera comics, like Warlock and Dreadstar, that I forget about his horror work. Though I guess Starlin’s ‘Breed (third series coming soon!) falls within the “horror” category. And the Dreadstar-related graphic novel The Price straddles the line between sci-fi and horror. And he wrote Batman: The Cult, which kinda fits in that genre, and would you call Punisher: P.O.V. a horror comic? I don’t know. Having Bernie Wrightson as artist on two two latter titles kinda makes me lean in the direction of the “horror” description.
Anyway, back to the above comic excerpt: do artists still do the “skulls in the eyes indicating an impending death” thing anymore? I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen it, though I’m sure it’s popped up in some comic or another in recent months. It’s just one of those incredibly basic artistic storytelling shorthands that even if I saw it in one of this week’s comics, I probably wouldn’t have remembered. It’d be like asking “did any comic I recently read have a thought balloon in it?” and I’d be sure that there must have been, but wouldn’t be able to come up with a specific example off the top of my head without going back to look.
Finally…the guy could’ve just ran, honestly. It’s not like Man-Thing is known for his ability to sprint.
In one issue of Marvel Previews (or something like that), SHIELD went after Manny to force him to enlist under the Registration Act. (Yes, I know. And yet, look where we are now! Thunderbolts, baby!) They located him and one particularly overconfident agent read him the warrant; Manny responded by giving him a toad. The agent decided the best course of action was to hit Manny with a tazer and a few seconds later the agent’s sizzling corpse sunk into the swamp LOL.
Last time I think I saw the skulls-in-the-eyes bit was Jim Aparo’s run on The Spectre. Aaaaaages ago.
Oh, hey, the SHIELD bit was from Marvel Comics Presents v2 # 12, as seen in one of the links from the Sanctum Sanctorum Comix reply in the earlier Manny-as-T-Bolt post.
Man, I’d almost forgotten about that weird trope that pops up in Marvel comics of that era; the second-person narration. The original run of IRON FIST used it constantly — “You are Iron Fist, and you are running for your life.” It shows up in stories by several credited writers — Gerber, Claremont, Tony Isabella IIRC — so I can only think it was some sort of editorial diktat. But why? An appeal to audience identification, maybe?
The 2nd and 3rd person narrative usage in the Man-Thing books was because Manny can’t talk.
Oh, and hey… thanks for the link-love comment, Happenstance.
~P~
Oh, and hey… as a service, I’ll pop that link to the Man-Thing update brain-dump here:
http://sanctumsanctorumcomix.blogspot.com/2010/07/dont-fear-ferry-man-thing-or-have.html
~P~
“They located him and one particularly overconfident agent read him the warrant; Manny responded by giving him a toad.”
This is possibly the greatest sentence ever written. I’m STILL laughing.
The Man-Thing comic would be pretty great if everybody just ran away from him. “Fear! The emotion you loathe! Fear so thick, so foul … Ah, son of a –“
There was even a Bon Jovi song about Man-Thing in the 90’s called “Fear!”
I always thought one of Man-Thing’s powers had to be the ability to make people stand still so he could “plod” over to them and burn them with his touch. Philip’s right – if everybody just ran (or stayed out of the swamp), there’s not much for M-T to do…he ain’t Quicksilver.
And thanks for the linkage, Mike!
You better believe that Punisher comic was a horror. It took years for Garth Ennis to wash the taste of that thing from everyone’s comic book palate.
Mike, thank you for Man-Thing week. As the old saying goes, “Nothing beats a good Man-Thing … ” ;)
Really looking forward to this! I never knew all that much about Man-Thing, but I think you’re getting me hooked!
Being a DC guy and a fan of Swamp Thing, I never could get a handle on Man-Thing. (Wait! Did someone just giggle?) The concept is a bit odd; frankly, I find Man Thing hard to swallow. (There it is again! Someone’s laughting!) I may not be the only one to think that; most of his series were short. Seriously, did Marvel ever produce a long Man-Thing? (I swear, someone snorted that time. Where is it coming from?) Well, anyway, thanks Mike for the excerpts; a little Man Thing can go a long way. (OK, whoever you are, stop laughing.)
Starlin did a pretty sweet fill-in issue of the original Ghost Rider that must have been around this same time, too. (Also I seem to recall that Starlin the skulls-in-eyes thing all the time in Warlock.)
Wait, wait…where have all you guys been, that you’ve missed the whole tittergiggle over the “Giant-Sized Man-Thing” meme?
Oh heck… for the sake of completeness, here’s a link to my comprehensive list of MAN-THING appearances.
http://sanctumsanctorumcomix.blogspot.com/2010/03/shambling-into-new-era-or-man-thing-re.html
~P~