Man-Thing: November 2005 Archives

Based on the strength of Steve Gerber’s writing, Man-Thing was popping up elsewhere in the Marvel Universe as well. The best of these guest appearances was Marvel Two-In-One #1, the debut issue of the Thing’s team-up title. Upset that some fella in Florida has stolen his name, Ben Grimm takes a trip down south for some tough-lovin’ diplomacy. This story was written by Gerber and masterfully drawn by Gil Kane.

The two monsters wind up fighting Molecule Man, who zaps them both into humanity. Grimm becomes one of the few people to learn that Ted Sallis exists under all that muck. Grimm ended up feeling sorry the creature and not so bad about himself—after all, he still had a brain!

The other standout appearance was in Master of Kung Fu #19. Writer Steve Englehart had obtained permission to use the creature and he had the perfect premise. Shang-Chi, the titular hero, has been drugged while trying to escape his father, the infamous Fu Manchu. He wanders into the swamp and encounters Man-Thing.

A kung fu battle is pointless as Shang-Chi only winds up getting stuck inside the muck monster. But since he feels no fear, Shang Chi remains safe.

When a pair of assassins has Shang-Chi cornered, their fear angers Man-Thing so violently that he engulfs them in flames.

Man-Thing issue #3-4 featured a great satire featuring a rogue villain called “The Foolkiller.” Believing himself to be the vengeful arm of God, the Foolkiller set out to kill three targets he identified as blasphemous fools: Richard Rory (who played awful rock music as a DJ), F.A. Schist (for draining the swamp), and Ted Sallis (now Man-Thing, for creating the serum that transformed him). As I’ve said before, Marvel’s stable of writers in the 70s loved making fun of evangelicals.

The Foolkiller was a disciple of a traveling preacher that he believes has healed his crippled legs. He figures that God has ordained him for something great and creates the Foolkiller costume. When the Foolkiller finds the Preacher having a party with booze and a loose woman, he kills his mentor, takes his money, and outfits a truck with all kinds of weapons to take down fools across the country. The Foolkiller preserves the Preacher in a tank filled with formaldehyde and has regular talks about his great mission. In a great stroke of irony, it’s this same tank that kills the Foolkiller in the end when it explodes.

Mike Ploog thundered into the world of Man-Thing with issue #5. His art style was perfectly suited to drawing the muck-monster: on the first page we were treated to a vision of Man-Thing rising out of the swamp. You could almost feel the oozing brown water sliding off of Man-Thing’s form. Ploog was the perfect visionary for Gerber’s stories, creating cinematics and fleshing out the various creatures in the swamp. The first two-parter was about Daryl the Clown, who commits suicide in the swamp. His soul recruits Rory and others to reenact key scenes from his life before a tribunal.

The Clown story is universally regarded as one of the best, but my personal favorite is the two-parter in issue #7-8. A group of Spanish warriors dressed like conquistadors attempt to capture the Man-Thing. At the same moment, we see F.A. Schist about to pack up his operation—as Man-Thing has interrupted his construction projects too many times. Schist tells Wickham (a scientist who tried to kill Man-Thing) another reason he came to the Florida everglades: to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. The warriors that Man-Thing is fighting are from the lost city of La Hacienda.

It turns out the magical waters can slowly restore Man-Thing to humanity, but it does so at the worst moment—when Schist catches up to him. In the end, the fascist F.A. Schist inevitably meets his own doom and Man-Thing becomes mired in muck again.

My other favorite Ploog-Gerber collaboration is also my favorite Giant-Sized Man-Thing, issue #1. The first in a series of comics published quarterly, the Giant-Size books aimed to give Marvelites more bang for the buck—although in this case the bang was a bunch of 1950s reprints. I have to wonder if anyone in the Marvel Bullpen thought about the implications of the title. It provides fanboys loads of laughs to utter the words “Giant-Size Man-Thing” and use them to concoct crazy, impossible pick-up lines.

Marvel’s muck-monster appeared at nearly the same time as DC’s Swamp Thing. Even though both creatures were based on The Heap (a character from Hillman comics), both were entirely different in terms of execution. The early Swamp Thing was pure horror and science fiction; Man-Thing could change genres from issue to issue. Sorcery, horror, humor, contemporary tales of morality—it all happened in a Florida swamp and chartered the rise of Marvel’s most unique writer, Steve Gerber.

Man-Thing was conceived by Roy Thomas, Stan Lee, and Gerry Conway as a short story for Savage Tales #1—Marvel’s first entry into the black and white magazine market. As a kid, I never saw this issue, as it was poorly distributed. My first exposure to Man-Thing was in Astonishing Tales #12-13, where he met Ka-Zar. Astonishing Tales #12 had a ten page Man-Thing story drawn by Neal Adams, which seemed to have been done for Savage Tales #2 before it was cancelled.

Man-Thing took over the lead story in Adventures into Fear #10. Drawn by Gray Morrow, the origin story provided an uncanny link to the Marvel Universe. Captain America was responsible for Man-Thing’s birth—in a roundabout way.

Ted Sallis was a scientist working to recreate the super-soldier serum that transformed Steve Rogers. Betrayed by a woman in the employ of A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics), Sallis escapes in his car down a Florida road. Sensing that he will be caught, Sallis injects the serum into his bloodstream, right before his car is flung off the road and into the swamp.

The serum (which Steve Gerber later said was designed to help humans breathe pollutants) transformed his body, using the swamp’s elements to mold him into the Man-Thing. Sallis’ personality submerged completely in this new mindless form. Just as in Tales of the Zombie, we never heard the Man-Thing talk or think. He possessed dim memories of Sallis’ life and his own adventures. The Man-Thing was an empathic creature, responding to emotions of those around him. Fear was repulsive to the monster, as we discovered later: “Whoever knows Fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch!”

With issue #11, Steve Gerber became the regular scripter. His first story introduced a demon summoned by Jennifer Kale, a young sorceress who would develop as the series progressed. Jennifer Kale, Dakimh the Enchanter, and the Shred-Na cult provided a layer of sub-plots that would weave through Gerber’s stories. I didn’t really care for these tales; Gerber worked much better when he wrote about characters that he could relate to.