The Man-Thing proved to be most durable during the horror craze which erupted at Marvel Comics in the early 70's. The character unlike Dracula, Werewolf, and Frankenstein was not part of an immediately recognizable cache of creatures apart from Marvel and for whatever reason seemed to fuse more easily into the MU. That helped when Steve Gerber left his baby and it fell into other hands.
Man-Thing had always been centered in the swamps of the Everglades but in his finale Gerber and new artist Jim Mooney tried to fish him out of the swamps and put him on the move with longtime loser Richard Rory who also happens to commit kidnapping in one of the most stupid crimes ever recorded in the Marvel Universe.
They send him to Atlanta where the swamp critter fights evil, psychic vampires, and such like things with gusto.
Eventually though the plug gets pulled and the when Gerber retires from the series, the show ends its run with a tale infamous for including the writer in a significant way. This fourth-wall breaking stuff has a certain charm I admit, but I've always found this instance somewhat self-indulgent and overwrought. Appreciated it better on this reading than I remember it, but still it seems a bit much.
Man-Thing then enters a phase of guest-starring around the Marvel Universe, but not before getting one solo tale in the back pages of The Rampaging Hulk, spelling Bloodstone for an issue.
Manny's not the best guest-star, but he fits in well enough in stories in Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One.
In the 80's, Jim Shooter and his new cadre bring the murk monster back in his own comic and a new The Man-Thing number one.
Chris Claremont takes over as writer on the series as Don Perlin settles in as artist and the Man-Thing becomes part of Claremont's mystical mini-verse alongside Doctor Strange, even crossing over into Doc's own comic.
When it comes time to bid farewell to Man-Thing once again, Claremont pulls the same stunt that Gerber had done and writes himself into the story in a major way. It's not as annoying this second time as I realize he's just riffing on Gerber's earlier take, but still it allows the series to end with a whimper and not even a small bang. It just sort of shuffles off quietly, which is weirdly appropriate I suppose.
Rip Off
There's something about the art on all these issues that takes me straight back to the 1970s. There was something in the air, at itinerant fairs with the airbrush Frazetta copies and big wheel stickers that were on all the three-ring binders. Though not the same in style or tone, the art I see in this post embraces that same feeling!
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