Marvel Premiere #24



Creative Team: Chris Claremont-Crane Technique writing, Pat Broderick-Dragon pencils, Vince Coletta-Snake inking, Karen Mantlo-Tiger letters, Phil Rache-Monkey colors, Len Wein-cleaning up the animals made.

Synopsis: Iron Fist is squared off against Colleen Wing, and he isn't doing so well, since he was taught never to strike a lady, in K'un-Lun...



He gets a good shot in on Colleen and still gets whooped, until Colleen gets clumsy and Iron Fist executes a textbook shoulder throw and hangs on to the arm, maneuvering Colleen into a hammerlock, to which she taps out. Danny is pretty upset and Colleen tries to make him see that sex doesn't enter into it (meaning gender); but, Danny wishes he hadn't left K'un-lun. I suspect he had to adjust his trousers, when he left in a huff and is more thrown by the fact that sex was entering his mind and I don't mean gender. of course, this is Marvel and a Code comic, so we can't acknowledge that kind of thing.

While this goes on, a group of mercenaries, led by a guy named Hassan (who seems to favor the M-14), breaks into a SHIELD facility and steals a combat android.



They used nerve gas to get in, yet don't seem to need gas masks to protect themselves. Sounds like a dialogue change to appease the Code or an editor, though i wouldn't put it past Claremont to not consider that nerve gas, in a closed environment, wouldn't dissipate quickly. Civilians!

Danny goes for a walk (and in one panel looks like he took R Crumb's advice, about "truckin'"). he ends up in a park, catches an errant softball and meets up with Lt Scarfe, a cop from previous issues, who invites him to play softball. He also meets a short, bearded dude, named Chris, who looks familiar.



The opposing team is wearing Spider-Man t-shirts and looks rather like the Marvel staff, which they are, as this is all an in-joke about the Marvel softball team. Danny lightens up and actually cracks a smile and laughs, after colliding with a Marvel player (possibly Marv Wolfman, though it is not a strong enough caricature to be certain). The whole scene is viewed by Princess Azir, the heir to the throne of Halwan (or Thrown of Halwan, as it is misspelled, in one panel), who is the target of our earlier band of mercs. Well, wouldn't you know it, our Monstroid robot flies in to attack and Danny switches to his sweaty green uniform and starts chooping and socking.



I'm not sure if "Tkramm" is a sound effect or a suggestion from Danny.

It is touch and go, until Danny damages its optical sensors with a tiger claw strike and is able to knock its block off, with the ol' Iron Fist.



The princess is saved, though at the cost of some dead cops (per the narration, as we don't see the bodies. Hassan reports into his bost, who looks like a road company Fu Manchu....



..who will eventually be named Master Kahn. He looks rather like Ben Kingsley, as the Mandarin, right down to ethnicity.

Thoughts: Well, apart from the continued use of the horrible second person narration and the early battle of the sexes cliche, this is a pretty darn good story, launching a new direction. The softball game and Marvel cameos are rather self-indulgent; but, not as bad as making Cary Bates a supervillain.

Here's the complete caricature of the Marvel gang...



I assume that is Shooter on the left (though looking shorter than he should be) and I am assuming that is Englehart next to him. Not sure about the woman with the Princess Leia hairdo. It ain't Marie Severin. No idea on the next guy (moving to the right); but, next is Len Wein. No idea on the next, but Marv Wolfman is beside him and Roy Thomas is at the end. I think.....

... maybe.

Anyway, this is a young(ish) Pat Broderick and it doesn't look at all like the Pat we would come to know. Part may be Vince Coletta, as broderick looked more like Broderick, in Atlas/Seaboard's Planet of Vampires, just a few months before this.

Broderick has either studied some martial arts or did a bit of homework, as he demonstrates some fairly accurate technique. The sparring between Colleen and Danny is mostly judo, with a bit of karate. The fight with the Monstroid is pretty much karate and superhero schtick.

This is Broderick's last issue, as, according to John Byrne, he missed a deadline and was fired by John Veerporten, who turned it over to Byrne, who got the work in on time. That is next, as Byrne begins his tenure on his first regular series, at Marvel.

Marvel Premiere #25



Aw, geez; not Angar the Screamer?

Uggggghhhhhh!!!!!

Creative Team: Chris Claremont-writer and soft voicer, John Byrne-pencils and shouting (or, at least, needling), Al McWilliams-inks and moderate tone (I guess; I don't know...), Karen Mantlo-bold letters, Michelle Wolfman- loud colors, Len Wein-has a headache from all of the noise.

Hmm.......Mantlo and Wolfman; but, not Bill or Marv.......bit of nepotism here? What, at Marvel? In the 70s? The hell you say!

Synopsis: Our story picks up after what seems to be some missing information. Danny Rand is fighting some guy, named Khumbala Bey (sounds like an 80s wine cooler or rum cocktail), who was Princess Azir's bodyguard and wasn't present last issue, requiring Danny to save her; or so the narration tells Danny, as he apparently missed out on this, like the rest of us. Curse you second-person narration!



Turns out, it is a bit of sparring that is getting out of hand and the princess puts a stop to it. This is followed by some ham-fisted flirting (it's been said that Claremont married late in life, so maybe that wasn't his forte) and then Danny heads home, only to be tailed by some guys, who report to the "fatman". So, either Nero Wolfe, Sydney Greenstreet, or the Kingpin; possibly Orson Welles.

Danny comes to prof. Wings and nearly gets scalped by the geezer...



Lt Scarfe, who dropped Danny off, comes inside to see what the noise is about and finds Danny standing over a cringing professor. They go look for Colleen, who is being arrested by what turns out to be fake cops. A quick fight turns into a car chase that twice nearly mows down a group of kids, before the car is cornered in a blind alley. However, what looks like an easy collar turns into a major headtrip, as it turns out that Angar the Screamer is messing with their heads....



Whoa..............bogus, dude!

After fighting a bunch of illusions, Iron Fist starts beating the dirty hippie, until Scarfe stops him from killing him. Colleen and the crooks are gone and Angar has a fake Stark International ID.

Thoughts: Lot of missing info going on here, possibly related to broderick missing the deadline and Byrne picking up the pieces. Or just bad scripting on the part of Claremont, or some combination. The opening business of Khumbala Bey comes out of left field and then Lt Scarfe says maybe Colleen and Misty are on a case. We haven't established that they work as private eyes, at this point. Misty has had one appearance, where she attacks Danny, at Prof Wing's house, after finding Cult assassins strewn everywhere and the Prof and Colleen gone. We get hints in the subsequent issue that Colleen can kick a bit of gluteus; but, not that she has a specific career. Something got left out along the way here.

Khumbala Bey appears to be a stereotypical Turkish wrestler, though no one involved seems to know much about that. I have a sneaking suspicion someone saw the movie Topkapi, with Peter Ustinov and Maximilian Schellm which has a seen featuring an annual festival, in Istanbul, complete with Turkish Oil Wrestling.



That explains their prisons!


(Um, the guy was smuggling drugs; he was hardly an angel who was falsely imprisoned.)

He turns out to be working with Angar, at the end.

Princess Azir is a bit of trouble. Azir is pretty much a male name; guess daddy wanted a boy! She is rather decidedly un-Mulsim, though that wouldn't be the first depiction of such a thing, like the princess in the original Pink Panther movie. Halwan must be more progressive than some of the Arab states of the 70s. Then again, taht was part of what led to the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, culminating in the Iran Revolution, at the end of the decade. I don't think her local imam would be too happy about her tight dresses.

Did I mention I hate Angar? He was a bad stereotype of the "angry young rebel," of the 60s, turned into a supervillain,. I mean, I know Steve Gerber meant him as a parody; but, it is a rather ham-fisted one, especially when you consider the Marvel Bullpen, of the period. He also never rose much above parody and he mostly reminds me of how Dragnet and similar Mark Seven shows depicted the counter culture (not that they weren't given a lot of ammo). About the only good thing that came out of him was Screaming Mimi, aka the future Songbird, who wasn't much until Kurt Busiek and Thunderbolts.

This all carries over into the first few issues of Iron Fist, where we see more of Misty Knight, Colleen is brought to Master Khan (KHANNNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!), as a slave or something, and Iron Fist punches a radioactive dude. The Colleen Wing thing is typical Claremont, when you examine the body of his work, ; but, at least Byrne makes it look great and the action scenes are lively.

Well, Marvel Premiere now moves on to a sweaty, bearded muscle man. Get ready for some Hercules action!

Marvel Premiere #26



I don't care what the cover says; I don't recall demanding this magazine!

Creative Team: Bill Mantlo-writer, George Tuska-pencils, Vince Coletta-inks, Annette Kawecki & Karen Mantlo-letters, Irene Vartoff-colors, Marv Wolfman-edits.

Well, Len has quit and Marv is in. Both Mantlos are involved.

Synopsis: The opening splash page is still trying to convince me I demanded this comic. Liar! Anyway, Herc is tooling down the PCH when he comes across some firefighters, battling a forest fire...



Despite being told to stay back, Herc storms into the fire, because he is a god! (demi-god, actually). He rescues some firefighters and then rips out a tree, swings it around, and creates afire-break.



He gets back to motoring, while some hooded stranger and a harry silhouette watch. The hairy dude is the Titan Typhon, while the hooded one is Cylla.



Apparently, Sting is trapped between her and Charybdis! Typhon wants to smack Herc; but, Cylla reminds him of how Herc and the Avengers cleaned his clock (Avengers 49 & 50) and was cast down into the realm of Pluto (which they call Hades, which is the Greek name of Pluto and why Marvel's constant mix of Roman and Greek gods gives me a headache). he meets Cylla, who was spurned by the muscular one and she offers to aid Typhon. Hades hath no fury, etc, etc....



Cylla cons the big dope into sticking his hands into the Promethean Flame, which fuses his axe to said hands, and gives him 22nd degree burns, if there is such a thing.

Typhon smashes his axe down, which knocks Herc's car off the road and it is on! herc and Typhon battle, then Cylla sticks her nose and magic into it. Typhon wants to beat him on his own and does a deent job, though herc gets his licks in. Cylla keeps interfering, until Herc's driving companion, Richard Fenster, sneaks up behind her and bops her on the head.



Well, that's just not cricket! I mean, really, attacking a member of the fairer sex from behind! Most certainly not a gentleman, wot?

Typhon drives them over the cliff, into the sea below, where he gets punched out of the water and cries "No mas!" to Herc...



Typhon's own blood frees him from his cursed axe and he learns that Cylla lied to him and she is going all Faye Dunaway on him, when Zeus turns up to end things.



Thoughts: Decent little one-off story, for Herc. The art on page one is pretty shaky; but, Tuska proves to have been a good choice throughout, as the lack of superhero trappings (relatively speaking) works to his talents. Mantlo's poor grasp of mythology drives me bonkers; but, he is in a long line there, as Marvel and DC both made a mess of Greek and Roman mythology. Pluto and Hades are the same dude, with different names. Hades is not the place. It is the Underworld which hades/Pluto rules. It is not synonymous with the Judeo-Christian Hell; but more directly the Greco-Roman view of the Afterlife. Charon ferries the dead across the Styx and into Hades/Pluto's realm, where they are judged and given reward or punishment; Elysium Fields or Tartarus (or other parts). Later writers, who were schooled in Latin and the Roman versions of the gods (no doubt the influence of the Romans on Britain) started making the allusions of Hades to hell and such, leading to pluto being depicted as akin to Satan, in Marvel comics (with both Herc and Thor) even though he is not a sinister figure in the mythology (well, Persephone, but that was poor dating skills).

Cylla, or Scylla, according to the Greeks, was a monster who inhabited one side of the Straits of Messina (traditionally), with Charybdis on the other side. Hence the phrase, "Caught between Scylla and Charibdis," the original "rock and a hard place." Here, she is a witch and denizen of Hell, though she is also a Delphic Oracle. The girl gets around!

Annyway, Richard Fenster is a professor of Ancient Studies, from UCLA, who invited Herc (after meeting him in Thor, when some trolls attack New York and steal Jane Foster, necessitating an alliance with Ulik) out to be a guest lecturer, which leads to his being on the West Coast, when Pluto launches an attack, which brings the Champions together. If the mythology here is bad, it was worse in Champions, as Pluto brings Ares (not Mars) and Hippolyta with him, to force Venus (not Aphrodite) and Herc to mary his colleagues. The last thing Hippolyta wanted was to marry Herc, as he had enslaved her and her people, before running off (with his tackle intact). I think she'd have been looking more to nail said tackle to the wall. The Amazons didn't forgive and forget, easily.

This was the only Herc solo story, during the Champions era, which means we demanded only the one issue. It was either a poor tryout or just a suitable location for a story idea. Quite frankly, apart from Bob Layton's mini-series (which is pretty much pure comedy), the only Hercules I found worth reading was the Sam Glanzman-drawn series, from Charlton (though Hercules Unbound is pretty decent). That actually weaves the 12 Labors of Hercules into he story and Glanzman just went to town, on the art (though gradually, with the ebst stuff coming later in the series).

Marvel Fanfare #16-17



WOLFAAA-AAA!

Creative Team: Marv Wolfman-writer and CO, Dave Cockrum-penciller & XO, Joe Sinnott-inker & Adjutant, Joe Rosen-letters & Supply Officer, Andy Yanchus-colors & Maintenance Officer, Al Milgrom-edits and 4F

Synopsis: Our hero, wearing his trademark wolf's head cowl, and flying his semi-plane, with Judge, Cocky Roche and Turtle, carries the battle to the Nazis.....

Oh, wait, that was the Hillman Skywolf.

It's 1940, near Spain, as a german E-Boat.....



...has stopped and boarded the fishing vessel Lobo, an American-flagged ship (the US was technically neutral). A search finds nothing but fish and the marinekommando depart, with a warning. Fritz was oblivious to the Lobo II, lurking beneath the hull of the Lobo...



Suck on that, Master Race!

Below decks, we find Matt Slade Jr, head of an armaments firm, whose son, Matt Slade III has disapepared over Boldavia, in Poland. he has knowledge of an advanced jet aircraft and must not fall into Nazi hands. The men being briefed are: Skyler Wolf, top test pilot; Sydney Levine-special effects wizard, Jesse "Littlejohn" Johns-ace escape artist. Together, they are the Sky Wolves, an elite team who will pilot experimental XF5U-2 "Flapjacks"...

[

complete with jet engines and VTOL rotors.



They depart the Lobo and head inland.

Three weeks later, we see Boldavia, menaced by the Nazi super-weapon, The Flying Fuhrer...



a missile that rains fire and brimstone down on the village below! Is no one safe from this metal mence?

We cut to a Nazi command center, where Matt Slade III is being interrogated by General Dieter Skul, who even slaps his own daughter, when she pleads for mercy. Schweinhund! Slade ain't talkin'!

The Sky wolves land near the bombed village and meet the locals, who deliver the intel. Slade was taken by the Nazis to murder Mountain. The Flying Fuhrer returns and attacks again. The Sky Wolves take to the air and discover it is suspended beneath a zeppelin. The attack and slice into the skin of the hull, bursting the hydrogen cells and setting it ablaze. Uh-hunh....

The Sky Wolves head for Murder Mountain and the Nazis let loose with sky mines....



and the Steel Kommando...



an armored Kraut with a turbo-prop sky-sled and advanced weapons. he takes out Littlejohn's rotor and Gaff Levine uses hs special effects tech to baffle him, until they can maneuver a mine to collide with him! The Sky Wolves land and make a ground assault. Meanwhile, Fraulein Skul offers to help Matt Slade III to escape. The Sky Wolves blast their way to Slade's cell, tommyguns blazin', when they run into Matt, who thinks they are Nazis, pulling a fast one and gets the drop on them, with a pistol.



Sky Wolf convinces Slade that they are kosher and they blast their way to the planes, where they discover that Littlejohn is still alive. they escape in the aircraft and rendezvous with the Lobo. General Skul lets them get away, in order for someone to get him the plans and the aircraft. gee, I wonder who?

The Wolves hit theirracks for some shuteye and Gretchyn sneaks out to photograph the plans, but is caught by Sky Wolf, while radioing papa. We next see what this means, as the General gives orders for the mountain to travel!



The Wolves take off to attack the mountain, while Matt Jr interrogates Gretchyn, who is still sein! When the guards aren't looking, she snags a sidearm, shoots a guard in the back, and steals a Flapjack.



The Wolves fake the German's with Gaff's image projector, making then think an entire wave of aircraft is coming at them. gretchyn catches up and identifies the trick; but, papa fires on the wrong aircraft, destroying it. The Wolves blast through the hull of the Mountain and fly inside, blasting away. They run into Gen Skul, with an MP-40 and unload with their cannon. They destroy the mountain from within then fly out before it eplodes. They land back on the Lobo and the world has been saved from the Nazis and the Sky Wolves will defend freedom and democracy again!

Thoughts: WAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is just pure, gonzo, bang-'em up fun! This had been done by Wolfman and Cockrum some time before, as a pastiche of Blackhawk, of which both were huge fans. When DC revived Blackhawk, both wanted to work on it; but, DC wanted someone so high profile on something other than a book being rushed out to feed the potential rumor that Stephen Spielberg wanted to do a Blackhawk movie and make that rumor a reality. Len Wein really wanted to do the book and, instead, got Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle to do it.

Wolfman and Cockrum's book sat on the shelves until here, where they get to do their own Blackhawk. It's straight out of the original, with experimental aircraft, Nazi superweapons, sadistic villains, sexy women, air and ground assaults, and a lot of flag waiving and patriotic speeches.

The XF5U was an actual experimental plane, developed during WWII, by Vought (makers of the excellent F-4U Corsair fighter plane, flown by the Navy and Marines, including the famed Black Sheep, led by Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and Marine aviator John Glenn). The unusual design was to develop a short take-off aircraft, with counter-rotating propellers to cancel out drag created by wing vortices. It had a prolonged and costly development period and was superceded by jet aircraft, by the time it was ready. The plane was not a true VTOL and did not have jet engines, alas.



The plane would later be used in an actual Blackhawk story, at DC, in the revived Blackhawk series that followed Howard Chaykin's mini-series, and a couple of stories in Action Comics weekly. Several experimental planes were used in the story, which centered around UFOs and a disinformation scheme, to fool the Ruskies.

Issue 16 has a Namor back-up story, with very early Mike Mignola artwork, that looks nothing like what we would see in Hellboy. Mignola was very green. 17 has a Hulk back-up by DAK and Tony Salmons, called "A Day in the Life." Hulk bops through the forest and comes across a poisoned stream (radiation) but, survives. He helps a fawn get out of a trap and protects them from hunters. he tries to stop two rams from fighting and a bear from attacking; but kills the bear, which makes him sad. he falls into a tar pit and is seen by two humans, who cut down a tree for him to grab and pull himself out, then hoghtail it out of there. Hulk ends thinking about people hurting animals and animals hurting animals and people helping animals and Hulks, then falls asleep. It is a nice musing on nature and the helping other creatures.

Marvel Premiere #27



Satana!!!!!!!!!!!



Oh, wait; that's Santana.....

My mistake....

Creative Team: Chris Claremont-writer, "The Tribe"-artists, Marcos Pelayo-letters, Janice Cohen-colors, Marv Wolfman-editor

GCD lists "The Tribe as Tony Dezuniga and, possibly Rico Rival, and maybe others unknown. I didn't think it was drawn by the Cleveland Indians.

Synopsis: Satana is at the scene of a burning car, on what appears to be the PCH, or similar California highway. She flashes back to being pulled north, from LA, to a small town, Chandler, where she, literally, runs into Deborah Hirsch, a local who had returned to practice medicine. She is chased by a mob, who want to burn her as a witch...





Satana lets the mob chain the woman to a stake; but,stops them before they light the fire. Someone turns a shotgun on her and she forces them to grovel like a pig...



She demands they release the woman, who goes all goofy and transforms...



Guess she weighed the same as a duck!

Turns out, she is possessed by a demon, known as Dansker, who had been Satana's teacher, in Hell. She flashes back at how he beat her in her rite of passage, a form of combat. She is attacked by a mob member, Pete Rossi and sucks out his soul...



Wait, did Chris Claremont write this or Dave Sim?

Anyway, the dude told her where Witchiepoo hangs out and Satana goes there, where we find Dansker, having apparently joined the road company of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (or La Cage aux Folles)...



Satana defeats Dansker and takes Rossi's son away from him/her. Dansker tries to kill Satana and the kid with a car; but, Satana summons the Basilisk



and the scene turns into a Jan & Dean song.

Later, we get a reprint of Satana's first appearance, in Vampire Tales magazine, issue #2, where she is clicking her high heels down the street, while hearing shuffling behind her. She is cornered in an alley by a mugger, whose soul she steals.



Thoughts: This story was originally intended for Giant Size Dracula (Now, with more fang!); but, Claremont left/was dropped from the book and David Anthony Kraft went in another direction. So, it sat around for a while before ending up here. The story isn't much, mostly cliches swiped from Hammer movies, with a bit of domination imagery and gender-bending. The image of Dansker's male face on Deborah's very female body is, apparently, supposed to represent body horror, or something, though it mostly ends up being either a stereotyped attack on the transgendered or the weirdest drag show ever, depending on your point of view. Claremont is field testing some things that later end up in X-men, as Satana's soul sucking previews Rogue, while the butterfly thing presages Psylocke. Satana looking like a dominatrix, standing over the groveling Pete Rossi is more of Claremont's BDSM obsession, in his work (Hellfire Club and others). It's a serviceable single issue; but, wasn't likely to lead to series. Code-approved comics weren't the best realm for a character like Satana, which brings up the next point.

The reprint from Vampire Tales is censored to meet Code approval. Vampire Tales was a black & white magazine, not subject to Code approval. They had more leeway (though far from complete freedom) and the scene of the mugger was actually an attempted rape, in the original. Despite altered dialogue, it does look like attempted rape, as he rips open clothing. The soul stealing fits within the original context, making her a heroic figure. She comes off a bit darker, when it is a mugger, though one who was rather physical.

The Tribe's art is typical of the Filipino studios, whose work was brought to the US, by DC and Marvel. It has that moody, sometimes sketchy style, which looked great in the b&w mags; but needed muted color palates for regular comics, to display it to the fullest effect.

Marvel Spotlight #26



The Scarecrow.....



Alas, this is not Christopher Syn.......

Creative Team: Scott Edelman-writer, Ruben Yandoc-art, San Jose-letters, Petra Goldberg-colors, Marv Wolfman-editor.

Scott Edelman created the Scarecrow, in Death of Night, and wrote Captain Marvel, for a brief period, plus a smattering of other Marvel stories. At DC, he wrote a couple of issues of Welcome Back Kotter, then many stories for the mystery anthologies. He was also editor and publisher of Sci-Fi Age magazine, Rampage (a pro wrestling magazine), unauthorized bios of wrestlers Chyna & Steve Austin (during the late 90s wrestling boom) and the entertainment magazines Sci-Fi Universe and Sci-Fi Magazine/Sci-Fi Weekly, for the Sci-Fi Channel.

Ruben Yandoc was part of the Filipino comics community, working there and providing much art for DC's mystery and war comics, as well as a bit for Marvel and Warren.

Synopsis: In the Soho loft of Jess Duncan, a trio of demons emerge from a painting of a scarecrow and shamble across the street to a police station and start tearing up the place, years before the Terminator would try that routine. They mess up the police, looking for the Horn of Kalumai, which is in the evidence room. Just before they can grab it, our star appears...



He stands around laughing, and gets staked; but, it doesn't do much. he kills the demons and takes the horn, travelling into the earlier painting, though the horn can't seem to travel inside.



In walk Jess Duncan and Harmony Maxwell, arguing. She finds the horn and then Jess' brother, Dave, stumbles in and passes out. Harmony cuts a promo about Dave, an investigative journalist), who keeps pulling Jess into his stories.

Dave wakes up and discovers they are late for an exhibition of a fish from deep in the ocean.



Should have seen the one that got away!

Demons turn up again and Harmony turns into a judo machine, tossing demons left and right.



There is a weird interlude with Kalumai (missing a horn) and some piper, right after Scarecrow turns up. We quickly get back to demon-kicking, and Scarecrow gets Harmony away from the demons, so the giant fish can attack them...



Jess is compelled to sketch everything. The demons disappear, the fish floats around the flooded exhibit room, and the couple returns home,after Scarecrow bugs off. Kalumai throws a fit and we are told this is to be continued, someday!

Thoughts: This was a weird one!. Scarecrow had had one previous appearance, in Dead By Night #11. He wouldn't reappear until MTIO #18, where old stories often went to die. He is returns in Dr Strange #31 and then again in 38-40, under the name Straw Man.

It's a bit confusing about what the hell is going on, other than Kalumai sicking demons on people, to get back his missing horn. Scarecrow is the guardian of the painting, which is some kind of doorway between worlds; but, he does a piss-poor job, if you ask me. Not a lot of characterization for Scarecrow, other than maniacal laughing (which I'm betting was swiped from Disney's Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, adapted from the Dr Syn books). He's no Ray Bolger, that's for sure!

This story is lacking a lot of meat, so I understand why it wasn't a series. At this point, Spotlight is more of a place to dump inventory stories, with Moon Knight and Spider Woman being the few honest tests of potential series. Scarecrow was a true misfit. His debut was intended for Monsters Unleashed; but, it was cancelled. Then for Giant Size Dracula, which suffered the same fate. Next was Dead By Night, which was cancelled after the debut story, leading it here. Marv must have seen something in it, to keep it alive.

The debut story has more to it and some pretty creepy art; but, this is pretty disjointed, though not without a certain gonzo charm. It needed a lot of development; but, there could have been something here.