Of Man-Bulls And Minotaurs!

The above scene, from Eerie #10 presents a very angry image of one of my favorite mythological beasts -- the Minotaur. The little blurb says it all, youngsters trapped in a dangerous confusing environment with a overwhelmingly deadly menace hunting them down. It's only just about every horror-slasher flick of the last many decades. It's a formula filled with fright and the Minotaur is the original implacable menace.

We get the classic Minotaur on this cover from issue seven of Charlton's Hercules series.

Jack Kirby cobbled together this energetic image with Cap's Kooky Quartet filling in for the youth of Athens for the cover of The Avengers #17.

Some years later Iron Man battled a new Minotaur, as seen on this cover for Iron Man #24 by the late great Marie Severin.

Marvel eventually created a new version of the Minotaur with their "Man-Bull" who ended up becoming one of a small army of powerful but small-minded minions over the years. In this cover debut on Daredevil #79 we see him taking on DD as dramatically rendered by Sal Buscema.

The Man-Bull returns for his revenge in Daredevil #95 and #96 when he uses the formula that made him a monster to create many more in the streets of San Francisco.

He pops over to battle The Cat and team up with Melter and Whiplash to take on Iron Man before setting his sights on DD again.

First he battles him in Daredevil #129.

And finally in Daredevil #133. After this encounter the Man-Bull is seen little more for many years, but his brutish potent presence remains in the memory.

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