Mention “Marvel Comics,” and odds are the first thought in your head will be “superheroes.” However, before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby teamed up to produce Fantastic Four #1 in 1963, it was a good bet that the first thought would have been “monsters.” The pages of Marvel Comics between World War II and the Cold War were often filled with huge creatures that flapped, skittered, and stomped their way through the world. In tribute to those days of yore and to tie in to the Halloween holiday, Marvel Comics published four separate comic books that resurrect their gargantuan supporting cast, and also reprint original Marvel monster comics from the 1950’s. The net result is $16 worth of comic books that are monstrously entertaining.
Click on any cover image to get a four-page preview of the comic in question.
MONSTERS ON THE PROWL
, where Devil Dinosaur EATS A MONKEY. HEAD FIRST!!! If you still need convincing that this is not 22 pages of awesome in comic book form, then you REALLY hate comics.
Eric Powell deserves some major kudos for all the snazzy covers for these issues. He and Tom Sniegoski manage to inject quite a few laughs into this monster punchfest, thanks to a slightly more intelligent Hulk and the Frasier-and-Niles-Crane bickering between two Celestials throughout the issue.
The backup feature here is “I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!” where a space alien Gossamer clone with mental powers enslaves the world’s population to build him a rocket that will blow up the Earth when it takes off. The actual comic is slightly more mundane than the summary makes it sound, but one has to give Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers credit for even coming up with such an insane idea.
Grade: A-
FIN FANG FOUR
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