That cover above is a key in my personal comics history. Captain Marvel was my favorite Marvel superhero, blending as he did sci-fi tropes with classic superhero antics. After his debut in Marvel Super-Heroes and four issues of his own magazine, "Genial" Gene Colan left the character in the capable artistic hands of "Dashing" Don Heck. I for one was most pleased, because as scrumptious as Colan's work was at the time, I really connected with the more kinetic and frantic work of Don Heck.
His storytelling was more straightforward than Colan's and that appealed to my young comic reading sensibilities. Heck did the good Captain for several issues right up until he and Dick Ayers traded shifts and Captains and Heck became the regular artis for Captain Savage.
In Heck's debut on Mar-Vell, we met a villain who has to my knowledge only reappeared in flashback cameos (such as the one above from The Death of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin) since his conflict with the Kree Captain. The Metazoid's initial adventure is detailed exceedingly well at this web location.
He was a tragic character, transforming from a furry yeti-like figure into something less recognizable. I've always thought there was some more story in the Metazoid, but somehow in all the rebooting and revising and revisiting writers have done over the decades nothing more has been said.
But I can safely say that the mark of the Metazoid has been left on me to my benefit.
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