I love me some Man-Thing. Can’t explain why. Most Man-Thing comics are on the average-to-bad scale. As with many Man-Thing tales, two kids get lost in a swamp. Man-Thing finds them. Hulk saves them.
But this issue also has a second Glob, which is cool. And Rick Jones get knocked on the head and tied to a tree. Any Rick abuse gets a thumbs up from me.
Rick is about to get eaten by Glob but Man-Thing intervenes. They fight, but their powers pretty much stalemate each other. Then Hulk jumps in, scares Glob, and that enables Man-Thing to burn him.
Niiiiiiiiice!
In the end, Rick Jones offers a morality lesson:
This issue is a fill-in.
It’s a really fun issue, and it falls during one of the greatest of all Hulk runs without missing a beat–tough to do.
I loves me some Man-Thing, too! Can’t explain it! ( see my review of Daredevil#113-114 for more details ) The Man-Thing is just a cool dude. I like his big,red unblinking eyes, his utter fearlessness, ( unless he’s fighting the Death Stalker- again, see my review of Daredevil#113-114 ) the fact that he’s virtually undefeatable, ( he has put the Incredible Hulk in the mud on more than one occasion, as well as Ben Grimm at least once, in the premiere issue of Marvel Two-In-One ) and he always shambles out of the swamp to help people in trouble. ( like Daredevil, in DD/BW#113-114! Read it! It ROCKS! ) He’s just a more interesting version of the Distinguished Competition’s Swamp Thing! I have discovered that, like Fonzie on “Happy Days”, the Man-Thing is best used in short dosages. When “Happy Days” became “The Fonzie Show”, that’s when it lost it’s momentum, as well as it’s credibility, and the Man-Thing’s earliest writers also understood this, making sure that each issue’s focus was on the one-shot characters whose lives the Man-Thing would briefly touch, as he shambled into, and back out of, their lives, instead of making each issue about the Man-Thing itself. ( that would have gotten tiring fast ) As it was, the series could not go on indefinitely, due to it’s rather limited-concept premise. ( The Punisher , Werewolf By Night, The Frankenstein Monster, It, the Living Colossus, The Zombie, The Living Mummy, Venom: Lethal Protector, Satana the Devil’s Daughter, The Son of Satan, Lilith, the Daughter of Dracula, and even, eventually, The Tomb of Dracula, all succumbed to the same problem ) I don’t consider the Man-Thing a “horror” character, even in spite of all the horrible things that transpire in his adventures- face it, the swamp is just not a real smart place to be, with all the snakes, crocodiles, alligators, and disturbed people, killers, suicide cases, Death Stalkers, all hanging out there. But the Man-Thing is the swamp’s unofficial “super-hero”, as he is always on the lookout for people in trouble to help out. This, I feel, disqualifies him from being a straight-on “horror” character. I feel that the Man-Thing could be commercially viable if his appearances were limited to, perhaps, a quarterly basis. ( a relaunch of the “Legion of Monsters” concept, for instance, being joined by, say, two more of the above-listed horror characters ) In any event, I hope Marvel can find a way to give us Manny on some kind of a basis, because I think it’s safe to assume that 1) Manny’s condition makes him more-or-less immortal, so he/it’s not going anywhere, 2) The swamp certainly isn’t going anywhere, and 3) There will always be people going into the swamp who will be requiring help to get back out of it. Marvel Comics are written and published by some devilishly clever people, who I am sure can help give the Man-Thing his well-deserved place in the Florida sun. Word!