Book Review: Marvel Essential Tales of the Zombie

    

Once again were venturing a bit far from the truth-in-advertising. Tales of the Zombie was never an "essential" Marvel Comics series by any stretch of the imagination. Heck, they were just happy to use the word in a magazine-size book so they could get past the
Comics Code Authority ban on even using the word "zombie" in a comic book.

Marvel Comics took a liking to horror comics back in the seventies, after two decades of making do with giant monsters, aliens and, of course, super-heroes, after the Seduction of the Innocent controversy that took the teeth and artistic flair out of EC Comics and pretty much banned straight forward horror comics that weren't adaptations from literature. Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, Tomb of Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster were just the most visible of this onslaught of creatures of legend.

The black-and-white magazine line that Marvel started allowed their creators to do more adult-oriented stories. Savage Tales, Vampire Tales, Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu and the like were all fairly popular, especially where people could actually find them. I know I rarely every saw and issue of any Marvel magazine except for Crazy on any of the newsstands near my hometown. One bookstore seemed to stock them infrequently, but since they usually had a full line of four-color comics, I didn't really care much at the time. I didn't really start reading many horror comics until I was a lot older.

This Marvel Essentials volume reprints all ten issues of Tales of the Zombie, along with some related stories from the first two issues of Dracula Lives. Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, Doug Moench, Tony Isabella and Chris Claremont all provide scripting for this volume, and John Buscema, Gene Colan, Bill Everett and Pablo Marcos are among the many artists in it. Most of this was in black-and-white to begin with, and is properly atmospheric.

The titular zombie in these tales is Simon Garth, a businessman who caught his gardener trying to have his way with Garth's wife. The gardener got his revenge in a voodoo ceremony, where he killed Garth and later brought him back to serve him as a zombie. Naturally, he lost control of the zombie and Simon Garth started wandering from one situation to the next, serving whoever had the twin of a voodoo amulet that he wore.

Besides a Simon Garth story, each issue of Tales of the Zombie usually had a fairly good reprint from the fifties or sixties, along with several other new horror tales, usually voodoo-themed. Brother Voodoo made a few appearances, both in stories and in text features. The long text features are also reprinted, including one on the movie Night of the Living Dead. The two Dracula Lives stories feature the Lord of the Undead against the voodoo queen Marie Laveau.

Simon Garth actually got his final rest in issue number nine, following the sacrifice of his former secretary and voodoo initiate. He reverted to a living human being for 24 hours, getting the chance to set his affairs in order and get some revenge for closure. The following issue was to have had another story about Garth, but scheduling problems prevented it (the artwork was stuck in Guam), so the final issue of Tales of the Zombie was filled with tales of other zombies, along with Brother Voodoo.

Essential Tales of the Zombie is, I have to say, an enjoyable read. A current reader will have to remember that these are tales of classic zombies, not the Romero-inspired, brain-eating undead of current cinema. Simon Garth is a character more along the lines of the Frankenstein Monster, with almost as much pathos as that legendary figure. The artwork is good, the stories are fairly well written for the genre, and the price tag ($16.99) is not too dear for a volume of decent horror stories, if you're a fan of that genre, that is.

Book Review: Essential Man-Thing Volumes 1 & 2

Well, just so I can let a friend of mine snicker a bit over a comic book title, I've decided to review Marvel Comics' Essential Man-Thing Volumes 1 and 2. No, that's not the snickery bit. You'll know it when you see it.


The Man-Thing was Marvel Comics' answer to DC Comics' Swamp Thing, the story and comic book that had won major accolades for creators Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson.  And almost exactly like Alec Holland, Ted Sallis was working on a special formula that both saved his life in a lab explosion and transformed him into the Man-Thing. Unlike the bio-restorative chemical that Holland was working on, Sallis was trying to recreate the Super-Soldier serum that empowered the Living Legend of World War II, Captain America.

The two swamp beasts have taken decidedly different turns. Swamp Thing is now an Earth Elemental, after a decidedly Gothic rebirth at the hands of Alan Moore. The Man-Thing morphed into the guardian of the Nexus of All Realities, which happened to be located in the Florida Everglades. 

The first volume of Essential Man-Thing chronologically reprints Marvel's muck monster's beginnings, starting with his very first appearance in the original black-and-white magazine Savage Tales. There are a couple of issues of Astonishing Tales with Ka-Zar, followed by the Man-Thing's short run in Adventures into Fear. The final few issues of that series, scripted by Steve Gerber, also feature the first appearance of Howard the Duck. The first Man-Thing series fills out the book, along with the first two issues (get ready to snicker) Giant-Size Man-Thing (commence snickering; end of snickers, please; it ain't that funny).

This first volume features some excellent artwork, by the likes of John Buscema, Gray Morrow, Howard Chaykin, Val Mayerik and Mike Ploog, who is perhaps best remembered for handling the character. Besides Howard, Dakimh the Enchanter, Jennifer Kale, Wundarr (later known as the Aquarian), Richard Rory and the Foolkiller are among the long-running Marvel supporting characters that got their start in the Man-Thing's adventures. Gerry Conway, Steve Gerber, and Tony Isabella handle the script on these neo-Gothic tales.

The second volume of Essential Man-Thing reprints the final eight issues of the first series,the last three issues of the Giant-Size book, the entire eleven-issues of the second Man-Thing series by Michael Fleischer and Chris Claremont, along with some pivotal appearances in Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One, and Rampaging Hulk.

The reprints again feature some great artwork, with Jim Mooney and Don Perlin doing much of the second series, and John Byrne providing the pencils on the two team-ups. Marvel Team-Up #68 was also the first appearance of the demon D'Spayre, while Marvel Two-in-One #43 was the lead-in to the popular Project Pegasus storyline in that series.

Once again, the stories have the Gothic feel while still being able to be recognized as Marvel Comics' tales. The Man-Thing is a completely silent character - he doesn't even have a proper mouth - but somehow he manages to convey a pathos that was equaled only by the early adventures of the Hulk and the Frankenstein Monster.

The first two volumes did a good job of collecting all the Man-Thing's appearances, but several issues were glossed over, but since this isn't The Complete Man-Thing, I guess we have to make allowances. The stories we do get are excellent. This is one of the more accessible of Marvel Comics' horror comics, especially with it's many connections to the on-going continuity. Both volumes of the Essential Man-Thing would be excellent additions to a comic aficionado's library.