Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

This is virtual back issue browsing. Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow? is a two part story that appeared in Superman #423 and Action Comics #583. Written by Alan Moore (yes, him again) with art by Curt Swan and inks by George Pérez and Kurt Schaffenberger. I have the original issues of this which I bought when they first came out but I haven't un-bagged them this time. Instead this is a trade paperback collection of the story along with Alan Moore's other Superman stories. I picked this up in Gosh comics in London, a trendy Soho comic shop upstairs with a pleasantly fusty back-issues section downstairs in the basement.

This is a love letter to Silver Age Superman stories. Published after Crisis on Infinite Earths which effectively destroyed the Silver age DC comics universe, it hit the stands one month before writer/artist John Byrne rebooted Superman in The Man of Steel #1. Editor Julius Schwarz was looking for a writer to tell Superman's final story and discussed it with Alan Moore at a comic book convention. Legend has it that Moore told Schwarz that if he let anyone else write the story Moore would kill him, so he got the gig! And then combine him with the definitive Silver age Superman artist and two legendary DC inkers and the result was a perfect storm of a comic.

The story is told by Lois Lane in an interview to mark the tenth anniversary of Superman's death. It recounts his last days when all his familiar foes returned but with a new and deadly intent. Superman's secret identity is blown and he is forced to gather all his friends and take them to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic. Along the way he will be visited by old allies and villains before a final confrontation with perhaps the deadliest of all his Silver age enemies.

Everything about this story is just perfect. It has moments of humour and moments of darkest tragedy, it even has Superman in tears. It is just a brilliant distillation of all that was great about Superman before the Crisis. And yet it was produced by a writer from Northampton. I've blogged before about how difficult it was to collect American comics in the 1980s, so how on earth did Moore manage to keep up with all of the Superman stories in the 1960s and 70s? However he did it the result is the best Superman story ever published in my humble opinion.

I wanted to revisit this book after recently re-reading Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman (art by Frank Quitely and colours by Jamie Grant). This was a twelve issue series that gave us another story of Superman's last days and the challenges he overcame before the end. Now every 25 years or so the DC comics universe gets a major overhaul or re-jigging . It happened in 1985 with the Crisis, and it has just happened again with a complete reboot that has seen DC reset all its comics to issue one with new stories told from the beginning again . It occurred to me that even though All-Star Superman ran from 2005 to 2008 it is the equivalent of Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow? for the current DC reboot. Grant Morrison's story of  the end of Superman is the coda to the last 30 years worth of tales of the Man of Steel. There is, of course, nothing completely new in stories. If you observe one art form for long enough you will eventually see the same things come around again.

All-Star Superman is a lovely piece of work, although it doesn't quite hit the heights that Moore, Swan, Pérez and Schaffenberger achieved in 1985. Great comics.

Buried under a swamp.

From my favourite issue of Sandman to my favourite issue of Swamp Thing. This is The Saga of the Swamp Thing issue 28 from September 1984 by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben.

A quick recap. Swamp Thing was a comic about a scientist called Alec Holland who was working on a secret formula (aren't they always?). An explosion in his laboratory blew his wrecked body into a Louisiana swamp where the "bio-restorative" formula transformed him into the shambling, muck monster of the title.

Then Alan Moore took over the book and changed all that. Holland was still blasted into a swamp but he died. Somehow his consciousness infected the vegetation which transformed into a shambling, plant creature that thought it was man but then discovered it was not.

The story in this issue is a sort of breathing space, a pause after the first two horror story arcs which had seen the newly aware Swamp Thing battle a maniac and two demons. Swampy is having a quiet, contemplative moment when he starts to see what appears to be Holland's ghost. This vision leads him through the swamp and back to the house where it all began, this allows Moore to do some flashback scenes and to tell the origin story yet again. After the first 8 issues the buzz on this comic was starting to spread so this would have been a good jumping on point for new readers.

As the story continues the new Swamp Thing watches as Holland is cast into the mire and then sees his former self rise all shiny, fresh and new from the depths. As he tries to communicate with the ghost of his original form he eventually realises that he has a task to perform. What follows is another quiet and moving sequence as Swamp Thing retrieves the final remains of the man he thought he was. Shaun McManus was the artist on this issue and his gentler, more cartoony artwork really suits the mood. Totleben and Bissette's work was creepy and suited the horror stories but McManus produced 2 great issues, this one and another story called Pog that is also well remembered by fans.

In September 1984 I was studying for medical finals, working on the wards and somehow still finding time to track down these issues. I remember being totally caught up in the story telling. This calm and gentle story was  a fantastic diversion from the weird world of medicine.

Bring me a dream

The Sandman number 73 from 1995. Written by Neil Gaiman, with art by Michael Zulli and colours by Daniel Vozzo.

This may be my favourite issue from Neil Gaiman's 75 issue Sandman comic. A series that, like Watchmen, V for Vendetta and Miracleman, I can proudly say that I was there from the beginning to the end. How can I sum up what Sandman is about? In a nutshell the King of Dreams is captured and held prisoner for 70 years. After he escapes he has to deal with his family, his loves and his kingdom. Along the way it is established that as a result of a bet between Dream and his sister Death a human called Robert Gadling has become immortal and meets up with Dream once every 100 years. They have also become friends.

This issue was part of the last story arc called the Wake. Gadling and his girlfriend visit an American Renaissance fair where she is one of the costumed participants. There is a fair bit of humour about Gadling's comments about the real middle ages and renaissance that he actually lived through. Then his girlfriend goes off to do her dressing up part while he gets drunk and falls asleep in a barn. He is then visited by Death, who in the comic is portrayed as a pretty, young woman who dresses as a goth. She confirms what Gadling had already suspected, that Dream has died.

And that's pretty much it, but the whole thing has a lovely, elegiac feel to it. It's a book about someone mourning the death of a close friend. It looks beautiful, it feels terribly sad and yet is also raises a smile in the same way that thinking about an old friend can. The whole series is really worth reading but this last story arc may be the most powerful of them all.

Animal!

Back issue browsing again. This is Animal Man #26 by Grant Morrison with art by Chris Truog and Mark Farmer.

So here is the route to success as a comic book writer: start out as a Brit writing for 2000AD, then go to America and get an obscure DC character, do something completely new with the book and then rock star fame awaits you.. Alan Moore did it with Swamp Thing, Neil Gaiman did it with Sandman and here is Grant Morrison coming to the end of his 26 issue run on Animal Man.

The story here is, well there isn't really a story. This issue is a conversation between the writer and his character. Buddy Baker is the animal powered hero of the title who has crashed through into Morrison's real world, or vice versa. The result is the sort of bizarre story that Morrison has became infamous for. The author tells his character that he's not real and that everything that happens to him is made up, and Baker insists again and again that everything that has happened to him including the recent deaths of his family is all painfully real. Morrison punctuates this talk fest by having colourful costumed villains turn up from time to time to beat up Animal Man while the author turns to the camera and speaks directly to the readers.

It is all very Meta, as they say in post-modern literary circles. Morrison's run on Animal Man was pretty interesting stuff including one very famous and weird story called the Coyote Gospel. At the end of this particular issue Morrison is kind enough to the next writer to press the reset button and gives his successor a clean sheet. For some reason I have kept just this single issue from the run. The bizarre concept must have impressed me at the time.

Compressed storytelling

This Amazing Spider-Man #33 from February 1966 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. The Final Chapter!

Wow! I mean just Wow!

I know exactly where I got this issue - eBay, and I know why I got it. In 2007 Jonathan Ross made a TV documentary called In search of Steve Ditko in which he recounted his own childhood love for Ditko's comic books. Ross and Neil Gaiman travelled to New York to track down the notoriously reclusive Ditko, they find him but he declines their request for an on-camera interview. It's well known that many of the early Spider-Man stories were plotted by Ditko with Stan Lee providing ideas and then adding dialogue to Ditko's pages. In the documentary Gaiman describes this particular issue and suggests it is one of the top five greatest super-hero moments, maybe even the greatest.

When he was discussing this story I was taken back to when I read it in the black and white Marvel UK reprints in the 1970s. Next thing I knew I was bidding for an issue on eBay and here it is. The story in a nutshell is that Aunt May is sick and only a special serum can save her if Spider-Man can get it to Dr Curt Connors in time. But Doctor Octopus has the serum in his underwater lair and as this issue begins Spidey has been trapped under a huge piece of machinery while the damaged roof begins to leak and the serum lies just out of reach. The situation is grim and Spider-Man is on the point of giving up. However he finds hidden strength and overcomes adversity in a series of gripping Ditko panels that culminate in a glorious full page image of triumph. To be honest it doesn't really need the Stan the Man Lee word bubbles. The sequential art speaks for itself. It's a fantastic moment in a fantastic issue.

Avenged!

This is possibly the oldest comic in my collection. Avengers #14 from March 1965, written by Stan Lee and Paul Laiken with art by Don Heck and the legendary Jack Kirby. Title "Even an Avenger can die!"

As this story starts the Wasp has been shot in the chest and the Avengers rush her to hospital. Her husband Hank Pym aka Giant-Man (wonder what his power is?) gets rather stroppy and keeps picking up various doctors and insisting that they have to save his wife. He would go on to be much less concerned for her physical well-being in the future but we're years away from that at this point.

Once his fellow Avengers have restrained Hank the doctors explain that the bullet has collapsed the Wasp's lung and unless she gets a specialist treatment the other lung will also be affected and she will be dead within 48 hours. Unfortunately there is only one doctor in the world who can do the necessary surgery and that is the mysterious and, at first, reluctant Dr Svenson.

Then there's a whole thing with Dr Svenson actually being an alien and before you know it the Avengers are in the Arctic cracking through the ice (at this point in time going anywhere near ice must have been the last thing Captain America wanted!) and then there's a big battle with some aliens who turn out to be not so bad after all. The real Dr Svenson is found and operates on the Wasp in time and it all ends happily.

There's an excellent blog called Polite Dissent written by another doctor and comic book fan called Scott. He frequently dissects comic books that feature doctors and nurses and points out the various problems with medicine as portrayed in super-hero books. Well Scott would have a field day with this issue. I'm pretty sure that even in 1965 the treatment for a collapsed lung was much the same as it is now. A chest drain is inserted to allow the air around the lung to drain out and the lung re-inflates itself. Simples! It's even been done on a commercial aircraft using a knitting needle, a urinary catheter and a boy scout.

Scott also has a regular feature about the inappropriate use of an ENT surgeon's head mirror in comics where usually it is just pictorial shorthand to signify that a character is a doctor. Dr Svenson the famous chest surgeon is no exception and when he finally arrives to examine the Wasp he uses both a head mirror and an opthalmoscope. Incidentally when he does so the Wasp who has been in hospital for at least 24 hours at this point is still wearing her super-hero costume. I'm pretty sure that to examine a bullet hole in the chest wall the surgical team would have wanted to remove at least some of her clothing. But comics had to keep a certain level of decorum back in 1965, especially with the comics code authority stamp to maintain.

Lastly, let's consider the idea that there is only one doctor in the whole world who can perform the necessary experimental surgery. This seems a common trope in comic books and bad films. In the real medical world any new treatments are soon shared with the rest of the world by publication in peer reviewed medical journals and it doesn't take long for hot shot surgeons to find out about new procedures and get trained to carry them out themselves. The idea of a solitary doctor experimenting with new techniques without a highly competent team of fellow doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to support them just doesn't happen. However, if you will excuse me I have to get back to my basement laboratory where my latest batch of super-soldier serum may be coming to a boil.

Look up in the sky!

Back issue browsing again. This is Superman issue 240 by Denny O'Neil with art by Curt Swan and Dick Giordano.

The problem with Superman is, of course, the fact that he is so ridiculously powerful. When he can do anything and not be harmed then the stories become dull. That is why writers have introduced his various romantic interests over the years, and have come up with so many shades of Kryptonite to weaken him. On top of this Superman gets a sort of reboot/makeover once every 10 to 15 years.

This story is from 1971 and takes place after Denny O'Neil had taken over the book and reduced Superman's powers. In fact in this issue his powers seem to be fading altogether and although he manages to save the people in a burning building he can't save the building itself. As Superman says himself in the comic this is a bit of a come down for a character who used to juggle planets. After his failure with the building the fickle public turn against Superman hence the angst ridden cover image above.

The artist Curt Swan was the definitive silver age Superman artist and he doesn't disappoint here. There's not much more to the story but it's all very nice to look at. I don't really have many Superman comics in my collection and once again I have no idea why I've got this single issue. Must be another one that caught me eye in a back issue box somewhere.

There is a back up story from "The Fabulous world of Krypton" featuring the Scarlet jungle, which is an interesting coincidence. The jungle on Superman's home planet was the source of an infection that nearly killed the character when Alan Moore got to write a cross over with Swamp Thing in a famous issue of DC Comics Presents.

Days of Future Past

More back issue browsing. This is Uncanny X-Men 141 from 1981, written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, art by Byrne with Terry Austin inks.

This is the first of a great two issue X-Men story. Kitty Pryde has just joined the team and no sooner has she survived her first danger room session when she is suddenly possessed by the time travelling psyche of her future self. And what a grim future she has come from. The anti-mutant hysteria that has featured in the X-Men since the 60s has reached a whole new level with a mutant control act passed by the US government. The resulting war has wiped our many of the costumed heroes and the rest are living in controlled camps and forced to wear electronic collars that nullify their special abilities. The huge robotic Sentinels patrol the streets and enforce the law with deadly force.

Kitty Pryde has been sent back in time to her teenage self to try and warn the X-Men and get them to prevent the political assassination that leads to the passing of the mutant control act.  So we get to see the 1981 X-Men fighting another version of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But more importantly we see the remnants of the team who have aged and weakened. Of course Wolverine has survived and is sneaking around in his sneaky, hunter-killer mode.

This issue has a great cover as has the follow up in Uncanny X-Men 142.

There's nothing like a story about a dark, oppressive future that we might have the chance to prevent if we act now. A standard trope for science fiction and comic books but executed very well here by the X-Men team.

What if Elektra had lived?

This is What If number 35 from October 1982 written and drawn by Frank Miller with inks by Terry Austin.

Six months after Frank Miller had the psychotic Bullseye kill Elektra in the infamous issue 181 of Daredevil he got to tell a different version of the story in Marvel's What If title. This comic allowed creators to tell stories about key events in normal Marvel continuity and to explore what would have happened if things had turned out differently. And because the stories didn't affect normal continuity the writers could do things that normal comics don't allow. Frank Miller used this opportunity to give us that rarity in comics, an ending.

Matt Murdock, the blind hero Daredevil, loved Elektra the ninja trained assassin and seemed to have succeeded in turning her from the "dark side". Their romance and future together was cut short by the memorably crazy Bullseye, a villain who had troubled Daredevil in the past but who Miller escalated to a whole new level of deranged danger. This story lets Miller finish the romance and sees Daredevil and Elektra walk away from the Marvel universe altogether. It's a moving moment that we don't get to see often enough in comics.

Interestingly Frank Miller returned to Daredevil in 1986 to tell a story called "Born again" which is generally considered one of the best Daredevil tales ever. Perhaps his increasing fame at that point allowed Miller to give DD another ending in issue 233 when it seemed that Murdock had again walked away from super-heroics to be with a woman he loved. Of course it made no difference and in the next issue another writer had him back in his red tights.

The only other example I can think of at the moment is the last issue in Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing. Issue 64 ended the story of Alec and Abby. It really did and they should have left things there.

X-Men 45

Here's that back issue I bought at Brumcon. X-Men 45 from June 1968, written by Gary Friedrich with art by Don Heck, Werner Roth and John Tartaglione.

The X-Men have been captured by Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. There was no messing about with the names of the bad guys groups in the sixties. "Yeah, we want to be called the Evil Mutants!" Cyclops manages to get free and starts wandering round Magneto's super-villain castle type lair. He is attacked by Quicksilver, an "evil" mutant who has super speed. They fight for a bit before stopping to have a philosophical discussion about the mutants' struggle to be accepted by the rest of humanity. The X-Men books have always been about discrimination and prejudice, although this has started to get a bit silly over the years. How many times can the X-Men save the planet before humanity realises that they are the good guys after all?

Anyway, Cyclops and Quicksilver debate the best approach to their struggle. Is it Magneto's militant, aggressive approach? Or should they follow Professor Xavier and his non-violent protest? It's like Malcolm X versus Martin Luther King. Cyclops is tempted by Quicksilver's arguments but eventually decides that his loyalties lie with Professor X and he proves this by punching Quicksilver again. There's a lot of resolution through violence in this book. There's a back-up strip showing Cyclops recruiting the young Ice-Man to the X-Men group and inevitably, like in any other super-hero book, they end up just hitting each other. Or blasting each other with laser eye-beams and ... errr.. snowballs.

There's also a lot of telling as well as showing in here. Sixties comic books could be quite wordy. It's not enough for Cyclops to blast open a door with his eye-beams, he has to tell us what he's doing at the same time. Likewise Quicksilver can't just grab some nearby stuff and jam it into Cyclops' visor, he has to think aloud about cracking open a computer casing to find some "graphite padding", whatever that is.

And super-speed. I've written here before about the problems of super-heroes who can fly. There's a similar problem with super-speed, how can Quicksilver see where he's going? Or the Flash over in the DC, or any other speed based character? I ride my bike pathetically slowly, but even I need to wear glasses to keep bugs out of my eyes and to stop my eyes watering when I get up a head of steam riding downhill (using pie based technology to increase my speed!). There is a funny moment in the Incredibles movie when Dash runs through a cloud of bugs and gets splattered all over his face, but his eyes aren't streaming. Why aren't super-speedsters always crying, where's their goggles? In fact, goggles would look cool and help with the whole hiding your identity problem.

X-Men 45. A cool cover and a so-so story about super people who learn to resolve all their problems by hitting each other and thinking out loud while they do so.

Amazing Spider-Man

Here's a golden oldie. This is The Amazing Spider-Man King-Size special number 6 from November 1969. It reprints material that first appeared in the first Spider-Man annual and in Amazing Spider-Man #8 both from 1964.

As you can see from the cover Spider-Man battles the Sinister Six! Great name for a group of bad guys, bet they had committee meetings and focus groups to come up with that. Anyway Spidey discovers that the villains led by Dr. Octopus have captured his then love interest Betty Brant and his Aunt May, and he has to battle the Six all in turn to save his loved ones. Of course the bad guys are dumb and want to fight him individually to show their superiority so Spider-Man can defeat them and then move on to the next one. The scene from the cover never actually happens in the book. What does happen is numerous brief appearances from all the other Marvel heroes from 1964. So the Fantastic Four, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the X-Men and the Avengers all make single panel appearances with a caption box directing readers to buy their own magazine, This cross-promotion by Marvel is absolutely blatant and rather charming in a way.

This is of course written by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko, and the best thing about it is that each confrontation gets a single full page splash image which are worth the price of admission alone, or would have been in 1969 when this book was 25 cents.

As you can see from the scan this is a fairly beat up copy, the cover is just about hanging on but it's all dog eared and creased. The pages are all intact which is nice for a disposable comic book that is now 42 years old. And here's the thing, I have no idea where it came from. It's in my collection and I discovered it when bagging and boarding every thing properly a few years ago. But I have no recollection of when I bought it or where. Maybe I found it in some old back issues box at a shop or a show? It certainly came into my collection long before eBay.

Isn't it nice to come across a little gem like this? It's probably worth pennies but it's just nice to have.

Nice

Look at this beauty in its frame.

Ready for the surgery wall.

Secret Origins

Here's another random issue that popped out during the comics cull. This is Secret Origins issue 16 from DC comics in July 1987 featuring origin stories for three of their lesser known characters.

First up is the Warlord written by Michael Fleischer with art by Adam Kubert, the son of legendary comics artist Joe Kubert. The Warlord is American spy pilot, Travis Morgan, who flies through a hole in the earth's crust somewhere in Alaska and finds himself in a lost world. The land of Skartaris is a jungle world populated with fairly primitive tribes of people and with dinosaurs. The Warlord was created by Mike Grell in 1975 and contains obvious nods to Conan Doyle's Lost World and to Edgar Rice Burough's Pellucidar. This origin story deals with Morgans' early life and, in particular, his encounter with a school bully who will gain revenge on him in later life by sending him on the doomed mission which leads to his crash. The art is quite good but the story is fairly so-so. How many times have we seen the school bully trope?

So onwards to a single page origin story for one of DC's strangest characters, 'Mazing Man. This bizarre chap featured in a fairly well known 12 issue mini series by Bob Rozakis and Stephen DeStafano. 'Mazing Man was the secret identity of Sigfried Horatio Hunch III, a chap who worn a million dollars in a magazine competition and then spent his life dressing up in a home made costume and performing little acts of kindness in his New York neighbourhood. It was a weird but somehow charming comic strip and here we get a single page showing how Sigfried finds his super-hero helmet discarded in a trash can. There's a nice panel where he contemplates the letter M on the helmet and tries out several possible super-hero names including Miracleman and Marvelman before settling on the always apostrophised 'Mazing Man. This was in 1987 after the success of Watchmen so the creators would have been well aware of Alan Moore and the legal dispute between Marvel comics and Warrior magazine that led to Moore renaming Marvelman as Miracleman. It's an amusing nod to the troubled naming of comic book characters.

I suspect the 'Mazing Man page was the reason I bought this issue of Secret Origins. It was not a comic I normally read but I have all the 'Mazing Man appearances and this issue will go back into the box with them.

Finally, we have the golden age Hourman by Roy and Dann Thomas, with art by Michael Bair and Mike Gustovich. This is golden age as in the period from the 1930s when comics sold in their millions up to the 1950s and Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent which caused so much trouble for the comic book industry. Roy Thomas is a well known enthusiast for the golden age heroes and was apparently dismayed when many of them were forgotten or written out of history in DC comics Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. He wrote many of their origins for this Secret Origins series which must have been one of the last things he did for DC before moving to Marvel in 1987.

Hourman is a mild mannered chemist who invents a wonder drug called Miraclo that gives him super strentgh and speed for about an hour before reurning to normal. In this issue he finds his costume in a circus changing room and first uses his powers to fight crime. This wonder drug introduces two interesting features to the standard super hero origin. The first is of course the time limit and Hourman would come up against the problem of his waning powers on several occasions. The other catch is the addictive nature of the drug which is teased at in this story. Roy Thomas could always find ways to make the golden age heroes relevant to a modern audience.

So it's a nice spread of stories. The art is nothing special but it survives in my collection due to that single page of 'Mazing Man.

Giant Size Man-Thing!

So moving house has meant a lot of sorting through my comic collection. There has been some culling and some of the orphans are now up on eBay if anyone is interested. This sort out combined with my trip to the Birmingham comic convention has rekindled my interest in some of the old stuff in my collection. So what I thought I would do in between completing my Apes marathon and starting my British Invaders 30 day challenge was pick out the occasional comic and discuss it here.

So let's start with one I actually bought for a £1 from one of the dealers at Birmingham. Why did I buy this issue? Well it's because I remember the cover and the story. It's possible that I read it as a back-up story in one of the 1970s Marvel UK black and white reprints that I used to get. I don't have any other Man-Thing comics in my collection but it just struck me while I was flicking through back issues in Brum. Whimsey!

So this is Man-Thing issue 17 from May 1975 written by Steve Gerber with art by Jim Mooney and colours by Petra Goldberg. The editor was Len Wein who created Swamp Thing for DC and who was instrumental in getting Alan Moore to write his break out US comic as previously discussed here. Steve Gerber is the writer most associated with Man-Thing. His 39 issue run is regarded as a cult classic.

The story is "A Book burns in Citrusville". The Man-Thing itself is a fairly passive participant in the story. A pop star and his entourage have been attacked by what appears to be a raving, elderly Viking. The attack was ended by the Man-Thing and this issue starts with people picking up the pieces. There's a young woman who is the Viking's grand-daughter, a disc jockey who is the nearest thing that the Man-Thing has to a friend, a group of hunters have discovered the creature's apparently dead body. And then there is Mrs Olivia Selby. Mrs Selby in contemplating all that has happened recently in the fictional town of Citrusville, Florida and has found what she believes is the answer, in a high school biology text book. She discovers to her horror that the town's teenagers are being taught about sex and that must be the cause of all the town's troubles. Yes, that's right, the attack on the pop star, the axe-swinging Viking, and the shambling muck man are all because "We've been letting those teachers fill our kids' heads with dirt and filth!"

Before you can say tea party she is leading a Mothers' march for decency and taking her demands to a town meeting. You can see where it's all headed, and the point that Gerber wants to make in the coming issues. Meanwhile the Man-Thing has had some sort of emotional melt down that has left it insensate, so the hunting party decide to drag it to a nearby sewage treatment plant and dispose of it in a chemical treatment vat. The issue ends with the creature apparently dissolving into nothingness while the peaceful townsfolk take to the streets and start looking for torches to burn.

It's all quite bizarre and taken out of context doesn't make a lot of sense. Except to say that every American writer eventually gets round to writing something about book burning. And quite right too. Whether I should follow up by looking for Man-Thing issues is a tricky one but it's certainly a fun cover and story title.