Comic Review #67: Giant Size Man-Thing #4 (1975)

 

So I discussed Swamp Thing, DC Comics (did you know DC in DC stands for Detective Comics so DC Comics is really Detective Comics Comics, weird huh?) famous monster man so I figured we had to discuss Man Thing, Marvel Comics famous monster man. Not as famous as Swamp Thing but still famous enough to get a SyFy movie that I haven't seen (but I'm sure I will end up seeing it). My favorite thing about both characters is that they have the same origin and popped up in comics a few months apart. Like so few months apart that they couldn't actually steal the others character. It's very amusing to me, at least.

The one thing that is different between Man Thing and Swamp Thing is the fact that Man Thing cannot speak at all and if you are scared shitless of him and he touches you you burn. ANYTHING THAT KNOWS FEAR BURNS AT THE MAN THINGS TOUCH. something like that appeared in like every Man Thing comic. They had to make sure everyone knew his gimmick. Anyway most of the Man-Thing stories from the 1970s were written by a guy named Steve Gerber and they were really good, like every one I've read of his was great. Didn't matter if it was a horror story or a fantasy story where he teams up with a Duck (named Howard, more about him in a later paragraph) and some Barbarian guy. They were always a lot of fun. Steve Gerber really thought outside of the box. I love it.

Now Giant Size issues were a thing in the 1970s, around 1974 to 1976. Pretty much every Marvel comic got at least one Giant Size issue. X-Men got it's big comeback with Giant Size X-Men #1 in 1975. That comic will cost you like a grand at least. It pretty much brought back the X-Men and was the first appearance of several incredibly popular X-Men characters like Storm or Nightcrawler. This is just to show you that Giant Size issues were and still are a big deal. Giant Size Man Thing is remembered fondly for two reasons, these stories were really good and you could make a bad joke using the title about male genitalia. 

Giant Size Man-Thing #4 is one wild ride. It has four stories in it, we will discuss all four because why the hell not. They all kinda sorta connect to something that you could discuss for Halloween so why not? The first story is a Man-Thing story called "The Kids Night Out" and is definitely the best of the four stories.  It starts off with the funeral of a 17 year old kid named Edmond Winshed who has died. The Preacher is talking about how everyone loved him and treated him fine, except this is a complete pile of bullshit which is pointed out by everyone named Alice Rimes. That the truth was how they treated Edmond so poorly. His uncle literally comes out and beats her up, she ends up meeting Man-Thing and freaks out so his uncle comes out and tries to KILL her. You totally know these people are shit bad awful.

It's the next day at school and Alice Rimes has a diary written by Edmond. With his true feelings about how he hated himself because of his weight and how everyone around him abused him, especially his cruel and heartless gym teacher who literally made him run to death. She goes to the school newspaper to get this printed and she tells everyone about his diary. We then see pieces from Edmond's diary, written like a diary except with some really nice pieces of art in there. Edmond compares himself to Man-Thing. I feel bad for this guy. Alice leaves the newspaper people and goes to put the diary in her locker and then she's knocked unconscious. She wakes up and is threatened by the gym teacher and Edmonds' family. The Man-Thing sees a vision in the swamp of Edmond Winshed and that brings him to the high school. He literally wrecks the shit out of everyone there. He burns the mouth of the aunt of Edmond's who was too afraid to say anything. Fucking throws his shitty uncle on a bunch of barbells and breaks his back. he burns the coaches hands together into a prayer like hand motion and then he BURNS HIS HEART IN TOO SEVERING IT. If the Man-Thing doesn't like you you better watch the FUCK out. After doing all this he leaves. Alice Rimes was screaming about seeing Edmond... I don't know if we ever see her again.

The second story is GARKO THE MAN FROG. It's a Howard the Duck story. We see Howard the Duck falling from the Nexus of all realities into a crazy space like place. We see him hit another portal and land up in some random neighborhood. He meets two kids who are not that freaked out about a talking duck. He wants some cigars and they bring him to a  cigar store. My favorite part of this story is the guy looking at Howards dollar bill from Duckworld, THEN he looks at Howard and just takes the money. It's great. The kids talk about Garko a weirdo from their neighborhood, who just yells at people how he's gonna take over the world. He then finally to actually do that and turns into a Giant Frog and tries to KILL Howard the Duck and the two kids. The kids run off to find police officers while Howard just takes a trash can lid and uses it as a shield trying to attack Garko. However Garko should have tested his frog formula on someone because it ends up turning him into a regular frog. The police show up and take Howard away despite his insistence on the giant frog being the culprit! The police in the final panel run over Garko. 

The last two stories are reprints from past Marvel comics. One is a "monster" comic where a Russian guy ends up finding tons of monsters who hate flames and he ends up putting a door in the mountain where they all live to keep them in there. Two russian guards just randomly show up and take his key and open the door. It's not a very good story but DAMN it has some great Steve Ditko artwork. It also ends really abruptly. I was not a fan of this story besides the artwork. Another story has a man trying to find out why his artist is claustrophobic so he brings him to a psychiatrist and they find out that the man has no past! So they get him to draw the first thing he remembers seeing in this world and it's him in a coffin! Which makes no sense... Is he a vampire? a zombie that can read write draw and not want to eat human brains? Is he a reincarnation? This is another story that is a failure because it makes no real sense and is forced into a 5 or 6 page format when it could have been fleshed out to something better. The art by Joe Maneely (I think this is the first time I've seen his art) is fucking great. You can really FEEL the fear on the guys face. 

The art in all the stories is great. Ed Hannagin, Frank Brunner, Steve Ditko, and Joe Maneely. They all have a great art style. Frank Brunner works really well with goofy silly stories. It's strange because most people will know him from some crazy out of this world stuff on Dr. Strange. Ed Hannigan is just really solid stuff. He's really underrated. I'm really not good at critiquing art am I? Steve Ditko is well Steve Ditko. I think he works the best in monster stories or stuff like Dr. Strange but I still dig his Spider-Man stuff. I just think he works better in fantasy magic stuff or monsters. Joe Maneely drew a dude being scared so well I kinda felt it. That's talent man! 

FINAL VERDICT: Two pretty good stories and two not so good stories. I wish they had picked some better reprints. Still the art was great in those two not so good stories so they weren't a complete loss. I would pick this one up if you enjoy horror tales or silly ducks. I like both so I like this comic.