Halloween countdown - Classic Comic Book Pages - Adams and Morrow Man-Thing

The story of how Savage Tales #1 (1971) and Astonishing Tales #12 (June 1972) are linked together is a strange one. Savage Tales #1 was Marvels second attempt at entering the black and white magazine market and would star Conan, Ka-zar, and feature other then new concepts including Man-Thing who would appear in an 11 page tale written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Gray Morrow. However, Martin Goodman Marvels publisher , was not keen on entering the non-code comic magazine market and cancelled the second issue but not before a second Man-Thing tale had been prepared by Len Wein and Neal Adams a tale that would eventually be prised into the pages of a Ka-Zar story over one year later. Regardless of the eventual reasons both tales were stunningly illustrated by two of the genres artistic giants .

The above strip was republished in Monsters Unleashed #3 ( illo at header and below) and in the first issue of The Book of the Dead in 1994.

As noted above Wein and Adams had produced a second 7 page Man-Thing tale for the aborted second issue of Savage Tales. Not wishing to waste work produced by arguably two of comics tops creators the strip was passed to John Romita to tidy up and add yellow tones, before adding it into a Ka-Zar tale.

Below the cover to Astonishing Tales issue 12.

Below the magazine where it all started the excellent Savage Tales issue 1 ( as you can see my copy is badly marked)

Comic Book Fight Club: Man-Thing v The Glob!

Let’s face it we all love a good comic book fight scene, after all its usually the climax of any storyline and at the end of the day it’s what makes comic books so much fun. Of course, there have been many great fight scenes throughout the years from Batman getting his back broken by Bane to Spider-Man fighting Green Goblin to the death, but it’s not always the big comic book stars that have the best fight scenes. A case in point is Giant Size Man-Thing issues 1 (1974) written by Steve Gerber with art by Mike Ploog and Frank Chiaramonte. While muck monsters may not be the first characters that come to mind for amazing fight action this one certainly disproves that theory as these two monsters beat seven bells out of each other. I just love the way the artists have captured the sheer size and power of both characters as they slug it out. At the end of the day though it is the Man-Thing that wins and goes through to the next round of Comic book fight club!

Even after all these years I still had a sly schoolboy giggle to myself when reading the title “Giant Size Man- Thing". Still it’s a highly enjoyable book with some classic reprints featuring art by Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby and the legendary “Goom the thing from Planet X”.