Monday Madness / CoronaVirus Comics MORLOCK 2001 AND THE MIDNIGHT MEN "Then Came the Midnight Man" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Protagonists...

...Professor Eugene Whitlock possesses books (forbidden in the year 2001)!

For that crime alone, he is sentenced to death.

The execution is interrupted by the arrival of Morlock, who changes to his lethal plant form to save the scientist because he believes Whitlock can duplicate the serum that allows him to control the transformation.

Morlock drives off the Thought Police and the scientist, though scarred, survives...

Sadly, I couldn't spend 25₵ on the next issue...since it never came out!

If you look at the last page, you'll see Morlock reverting to his human form after being shot.

He probably survived.

And, it's likely the self-destruct system either was defective, or only partially-functioned, leaving the Midnight Man, Morlock, and some of the freedom fighters separated from the Thought Police and able to escape!

As I mentioned earlier, this was a one-time collaboration between two legends (even in 1975) of the comics field...Steve (Spider-Man) Ditko and Berni (Swamp Thing) Wrightson!

This concludes our re-presentation of the time-lost Morlock 2001 series from 1975.

Next week we'll see...

Actually we don't know yet what we'll run, but it'll be interesting, disease/infection-related, and likely never-before seen by most of you!

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Fahrenheit 451

the Authorized (Graphic Novel) Adaptation

Monday Madness / CoronaVirus Comics MORLOCK 2001 AND THE MIDNIGHT MEN "Then Came the Midnight Man" Part 1

We Have Already Seen...

...except it isn't Morlock: 2001!

It's now Morlock 2001 and the Midnight Men, according to the book's cover!

The creative team is totally-new, including the one-time-only team-up of penciler Steve (Spider-Man) Ditko and inker Berni (Swamp Thing) Wrightson!

We've now witnessed the origin of the Midnight Man.

What next?

Be here for Morlock's (and the Midnight Man's) last stand!

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Fahrenheit 451

the Authorized (Graphic Novel) Adaptation

It Was 50 Years Ago Today...

...that The Beatles released their "magnum opus", Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!

Considered by many (myself included) to be their finest work, it left an impact on an entire generation that reverberates to this day!

Less than a year later, writer Gary Friedrich and illustrator John Verpoorten (with an assist on caricatures by Marie Severin) produced this amazingly-detailed send-up in Marvel's Not Brand Echh #12 (1969)...

Enjoy, True Believer!
BTW, here's a list of all those who appeared on the cover...

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Dick Ayers' THE ORIGINAL GHOST RIDER "Origin" 2.0

WARNING: Stereotypes of Native Americans and Asians common to the 1950s. May be NSFW.
With the passing of Dick Ayers, let's look back at his most famous co-creation...

From Ghost Rider #1 (1950). Writen by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Dick Ayers.

He began life in the late 1940s as Rex Fury, aka The Calico Kid, a masked hero whose secret identity was a lawman who felt justice was constrained by legal limitations. (There were a lot of those heroes in comics and pulps of the 40s including our own DareDevil and Blue Beetle!)
But, with masked heroes in every genre doing a slow fade-out after World War II, and both the western and horror genres on the rise, the character was re-imagined in 1949 as comics' first horror / western character!

The Ghost Rider himself was not a supernatural being.
He wore a phosphorescent suit and cape, making him glow in the dark, appearing as a spectral presence to the (mostly) superstitious cowboys and Indians he faced.
Since the inside of the cape was black, he'd reverse it, and appear in the dark as just a floating head, usually scaring a confession or needed information out of owlhoots.

Despite the initial aid from deceased Western heroes (and a heroine) in this origin tale, the series' early days were populated with villains who were standard owlhoots or, like The Ghost Rider, people pretending to be supernatural beings.
That changed around 1952, when he started facing real mystic menaces including Indian spirits, vampires, and even the Frankenstein Monster (though not the one from Prize Comics.)
Unfortunately, it was about this point in time that Dr. Wertham began his crusade against comics in general and horror comics in particular...
By 1954, the Ghost Rider had lost his series. The next year he disappeared entirely.

But, in 1967, Marvel Comics revived his name and costume on a new character, also drawn by Dick Ayers (who had become an artistic mainstay at the publisher.).

Art by Dick Ayers

Unfortunately, he never quite caught on and the name was usurped by several motorcycle-riding contemporary heroes who fared better in the fickle comics market.

Note: the Western Ghost Rider appeared (as "Phantom Rider"), played by Sam Elliot, in the first Ghost Rider movie!
I don't know if Ayers received a credit for the character's co-creation or not...

Note: If you want to see the Ghost Rider's origin/first appearance (which didn't have any actual supernatural elements), go HERE!
You really didn't think Marvel or DC invented retcons, did you?

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The NOW Super-Hero is here...on Monday!

We're back on schedule, so Monday will see the first chapter of...

...the never-reprinted Complete Saga from the 1970s in Hero Histories™.
Don't miss it!