Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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That, and that alone, is all the light I can shed upon the interiors of this tale.
And does so by reprinting that epic tale of how Hercules almost became a Hollywood star but became, instead, trapped within the dismal realm of Hades!
There's also a Tales of Asgard reprint in which Loki convinces King Hymir to put Thor to a deadly test. A test the thunder god must win - or become a slave of that evil monarch!
As if Spider-Man didn't have enough to worry about with one early 1970s lycanthrope in his life, he now has to put up with another, as he and the Werewolf by Night must scupper Moondark's plot to take over San Francisco.
It's a hard life in the jungle and, after just five issues, Shanna's mag hits the buffers. However, with its demise, it introduces Nekra to the Marvel universe.
And another new mag makes its entrance. This time, sporting a cover by Esteban Maroto.
Upon its myriad pages, we get an adventure for Morbius the living vampire, a 1950s Bill Everett werewolf tale, a photo-heavy vampire retrospective by Chris Claremont, an adaptation of John Polidori's The Vampyre, something called Satan Can Wait and Mark Evanier's look at the worst vampire films ever made.
Not only that but the latter scientist is also the unstoppable powerhouse known as The Brute?
Nick Fury gives Ka-Zar the super-soldier serum and sends him after them - but, when he gets there, the jungle lord throws away the serum before going in to confront the wrongdoer.
Tactics are clearly not our hero's strong point.
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11 comments:
Regarding Warlock, I also saw evil Reed become the Brute in MWOM # 312's FF story! I didn't realize the Brute had appeared previously, in Warlock! Every day's a schoolday at SDC!
Phillip
Wow, two of the most iconic and trend-setting films of the 1970s (AMERICAN GRAFITTI and ENTER THE DRAGON) plus all those others — that really was a great month for movies. The only one of these I saw at the theatre was BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF (at the drive-in, on a double bill with SSSSS!). I just re-watched GRAFITTI a few months ago. I’ve always loved it and was blown away by how well it holds up. It’s brilliant.
As for the comics in the Lucky Bag…
If we thought the first issue of DRACULA LIVES was weak, oof — VAMPIRE TALES 1 is much worse. The Gerber/Marcos Morbius tale looks and feels like it was banged-out overnight. I kinda like the debut Living Mummy story in SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS. Unfortunately, when it returned as a full-fledged series a few months later, it floundered pretty quickly.
b.t.
It was a fun time those early mid '70's. Marvel still saw value in those monster mags, and I thought it made for a nice variety to choose from.
BTW, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is in my top 3 all time "spaghetti westerns"!
I think I first read that Warlock story in Marvel UK's Planet Of The Apes.
And the Living Mummy appeared in Marvel UK's Dracula Lives. As usual it makes the mistake of showing the Mummy's limbs bandaged separately when actually an Egyptian mummy's arms were folded across the chest and bound to the chest with bandages while the legs were bound together so if a mummy could be revived he wouldn't be able to move his arms and he'd be forced to hop which isn't very scary!
At the age of 12, after 2-3 years of hardcore comic book reading, coming in at the end of the Marvel greats (Kirby, Colan, Steranko, Romita, Heck, et al.) I look at the covers above and had instant recall of how I really missed the Marvel Kirby. I dont recall if I bought the Thor reprint but I did start buying mucho reprints for that old-tyme feel. Dont get me wrong-Kirby was doing some great stuff at DC especially Kamandi and Dingbats, but it had a different feel.
John Polidori's "The Vampyre" invented the idea of the vampire aristocrat. Up until then vampires had been peasant folklore but Lord Ruthven was able to move in high society.
Its a real meat-and-potatoes adaptation of 'Vampyre' - with zero atmosphere - that cuts the story off with Aubrey arriving back in London to see Ruthven still 'alive' in order to give it a kind of punchy horror comic surprise ending. Basically, Roy Thomas does for Polidori what Gary Friedrich did for Mary Wollstonecraft in Monster of Frankenstein #1.
Thomas (sort of) adapted Shelley's 'Ozymandias' too, in Avengers #57... How come Marvel haven't messed with Byron yet?
So anyway, I checked out Vampire Tales #1, and b.t. is completely correct - like seemingly all the Marvel black & white first issues its terrible, almost as bad as Monsters Unleashed #1 (see the June Lucky Bag). That Morbius story somehow manages to be even worse than the later episodes written by Dauntless Don McGregor, hard as that is to believe.
The only worthwhile strip in the mag is one you didn't mention in the post, Steve, a short called 'Revenge of the Unliving', mainly because of the rather impressive artwork by - somewhat surprisingly - ace Spanish artist Jordi Bernet. A bit wasted on the banal, predictable Gardner Fox story though.
-sean
Steve, if you feel you have to see 'Blackenstein' - or, to give it its full title, 'Blackenstein, the Black Frankenstein' (just in case you couldn't figure that out) - its been posted for free on YouTube. But it's only fair to warn you that it suffers from the problem you get with a lot of sh*t films, which is that its er... sh*t.
If you want to see an interesting 'blaxploitation' horror film from 1973 - also apparently financed to cash-in after the success of 'Blacula' - you're better off keeping an eye out for 'Ganja & Hess', which starred Duane Jones (of 'Night of the Living Dead' fame) -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEM9oEKC1Ow
-sean
Thanks, Sean. :)
Back in June I watched The Exorcist for the first time and now its' director, William Friedkin, has died!
Good sshare
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