Things That Frightened Me as a Child, Part 8

This one is a bit weird.

What you are looking at is a scene from the third issue of DC's mediocre late-Eighties crossover Millennium. Specifically, it is the potential Russian New Guardian getting his head blowed off because, you know, evil empire. Millennium: the series that shows every country on Earth in the worst possible light. Except China, as I recall.

What messed me up about the whole thing is a two-parter: firstly, I only had the one issue of the series, so I had absolutely no idea what was going on. And secondly, the toned-down nature of the headshot in question totally made me think that the guy's head was popping like a blown bubble. Why was the idea of someone with a bubble-head so disturbing to Young John? No one will ever know.

By the way: here's the best thing about Millennium.

Booster Gold saves the day by containing an exploding Manhunter, and then Batman calls him "m'boy."

M'BOY.

Things That Frightened Me as a Child, Part 7

EC COMICS

Like Creepy and its cousin Eerie, the EC horror comics were a fruitful source of things for me to freak out over in my youth, especially as I had much more exposure to them through the reprints that were coming out in the early Nineties. Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear all made their impressions on my young psyche, but it always seemed to be the more science fictiony yarns of Weird Science and the like that would get me fretting about the potential occupancy of the space under my bed. Here's one such:

 

The story in question is set in the far future (natch), and on a colonized planet that is just receiving its second load of Earth-types. There's nothing in the text to indicate that Mother Earth was using the opportunity to rid itself of pirates and lounge singers, but the implication is there.

Straight away, we are introduced to the planet's most nightmare-inducing inhabitant, the moko, and told of its suffering at the jaws of the hideous hydra-files. Humans (especially 1950s-style colonial space-humans) being humans, the underdog mokos were welcomed into the colonists' hearts and the hydra-files started to get a taste of the old "hunt 'em to extinction" trick that has been such a perrenial favourite since we first showed it to the mastodon. And also they were given a terrible name, presumably just in case they were able to feel shame. Hydra-files, pah.

But, I guess that the extinctioning was warrented! The things hunted the allegedly adorable mokos, and now were after the colony's precious, precious children, who were also adorable.

Look at the middle-ground of the second panel. That man is in a personal tank-suit, and he has a little hatch so that he can keep smoking his pipe while he drives it around. The wonders of technology!

And then the General's son gets killed and the species-murder gets personal. Hydra-files start dying by the bucket-load.

Another shot of that man-tank. So cool.

And then things get real. Yup, it turns out that wildly unbalancing an alien ecosystem that you have little to no understanding of can have some unforseen consequences, go figure. The individually-weak mokos are horrific pack hunters once a critical population mass has been reached, and breeding the things like rabbits was a surefire way to make that happen. Even entire communities must keep in mind the cardinal rule of horror comics, referenced yesterday: don't be an asshole.

All in all a nifty little ecological fable, but a swarm of kill-frenzied pink insect-monkeys? Add some scales to that description and congratulations! You have flipped all of my visceral horror switches at once. Bleah.

Things That Frightened Me as a Child, Part 6

MORE FRAZETTA

Yes, it didn't stop at the cover reproductions on that fateful Creepy paperback. Inside lurked a story that was to make me feel uneasy for years to come - the story of the...

The story itself was pretty standard Creepy fare, featuring an asshole named Demmon and the ever-popular moral "don't be an asshole" (paraphrasing!). Nothing I hadn't seen before, honestly. The part that really haunted me was the werewolf itself.

I don't know if it's because this was an African werewolf or if Frazetta was just having fun with some crazy monster design, but the thing looked completely eerie and alien to me. The short muzzle and enormous mouth, the spiked black fur, all of it combined to make something that clearly did not belong to the natural world.

Plus: bats! The most frightening of mammals!

Eventually, of course, it came down to a one-on-one between Demmon and the beast, and of course that scared the hell out of me. The very thought of standing there attempting to stare down such a creature... brrr.

And then Demmon gets in a lucky shot and rips off the Gorilla-Man's origin story. That guy - what an asshole. I think that it's safe to assume that he didn't get to spend any time on a delightful super-hero team at any point, thank goodness. Note, however, the emaciated, half-transformed figure in the upper left. Frank Frazetta, why did you hate eight year old me? Why would you haunt me like this? I demand answers!

Or possibly money.

Things That Frightened Me as a Child, Part 5

FRANK FRAZETTA.

Specifically, Frank Frazetta paintings. I had a paperback reprint of some of the old Creepy yarns and, well, check out the cover image:

Or at least the most prominent cover image - as I recall (twenty years on) this was a fairly busy bit of graphic design. The important part was really the fact that this image freaked me the hell out, and that it was entirely because of that crazy looking werewolf. Even by the standards of the supernaturally cursed, that thing does not look right. (The story referenced is one of the very best, though. For the record)

The back cover, or possibly the lower half of the front cover (twenty years, remember?) featured a few more covers, and they were almost as bad. Take this one:

Frank Frazetta is the only person ever to manage to make a caveman look frightening to me. It's remotely possible that this is because I saw Encino Man at a relatively young age, but I don't think that this in any way detracts from the accomplishment.

This here was the one that broke young Johnathan. Pubescence was rearing its horrific, spotty head and whispering things about how interesting the character in the foreground might potentially be, while general childhood terror was pointing out that the gorilla head and the colours were profoundly wrong. In retrospect I have to blame this image for my not retaining the collection over the years. Brrr. And also yowza.

Tomorrow: more Frazetta!

The Unfunnies: Cora the Car Hop, Above and Beyond

Cora the Car Hop is a true champion of the Unfunnies: not only do her comics frequently end on a completely impenetrable punchline, but they rely on knowledge of a profession that has basically disappeared but that at the time was fresh and new and worthy of some level of comment. Here's a taste:

Man, I wish I had a restaurant called 'EATS' that I could go to. 

Anyway, ho ho ho the motorcycle has no place to attach the tray. A wonderful example of an Unfunny from Lois Lane no 9. Sadly for it and its hopes for a place in history it is completely upstaged a mere 15 issues later by this little gem:

Because nothing trumps unfunny and outdated like unfunny, outdated and vaguely creepy.

Things That Frightened Me as a Child, Part 4

THIS:

 

My local library (okay, local bookmobile) had a copy of the first Alan Moore Swamp Thing trade, and by Gord that thing haunted my tiny dreams - you want to know the real reason that the New Guardians didn't work? It's because one of their members was an insane mass-murdering monster, that's why - but the stand-out performance in the field of Freaking Out Wee Johnathan was the three-part tale of the Monkey King.

 

For those of you not familiar with the comic in question, well, that's just sad, as this is basically exactly what a shared-universe horror comic should be. In brief, it's the tale of a shape-changing monkey demon that fears on fear and terrorizes the inmates of a home for traumatized children. It's an utterly loathsome thing, and that is compounded by the fact that it's a little bit adorable. And then quadrupled by the twisted tenderness that it treats the boy that it has adopted as its master with. And also it ends up fighting Swamp Thing and the Demon, which is one of the best ever team-ups.

And Alan Moore really delivers on the "takes the form of your worst fear" front. No giant snakes or whatever here, oh no. This thing comes at you as the existential fear of cancer, homeboy.  I cannot express how much better that is than the usual treatment of the fear power - I recall reading a book where someone's greatest fear was a villain who beat them up once, which is maybe valid, but sure as hell didn't scare the crap out of me while I read about it. Or for the next ten years, for that matter.

So yeah, the Monkey king was terrifying. Case closed. I read these books again recently and was almost as freaked out by the thing as back in the day. Thing is, I read a heck of a lot of books in between, so am in a position to recognize several other ways in which this story is awesome:

1. The secret origin of the Monkey King

Turns out that Kirby did it:

Yup, the Monkey King turns out to actually be something called the Kamera that Jack Kirby came up with in the original run of The Demon. And let me tell you: twice as adorable; almost as frightening. 

2. Speaking of the Demon...

As I said, the Demon gets involved in this story, and he's terrific. Even though the basic character design involves a brutal, beastlike head, I think that this is one of the most effectively inhuman versions of him that I've ever encountered. Plus Alan Moore writes rhyming dialogue that works.

3. Oh god, this.

This scene - in which longtime supporting cast member Matt Cable has been in a devastating drunken car crash and gets a visit from a horrible fly - freaked me the hell out in my youth, even though I had no idea what was going on. Since then, I've come into some knowledge, and knowing doesn't help. If anything, it makes it worse. Don't swallow your uncle-in-law, Matt. You'll only end up as a raven.

4. Best takedown ever.

The Demon Etrigan shows everyone just how to take care of a fear-powered demon monkey.

And that's why the Kamera will not be making any more appearances. Hey, if you have to go out...