Gene Phillips's Blog, page 4

MONSTER MASHUPS #135

 Samson faces THE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON. (Some humans claim it belongs to a group called "Smoke Monsters," but only one is seen.)

 And then there's THE WIDE-MOUTH MONSTER.

MONSTER MASHUPS #134

 In this post I linked to my short review of the short-lived monster-mash title HOWLING COMMANDOS OF SHIELD, but I can't even muster a short review of its predecessor, the mostly incoherent six-issue series NICK FURY'S HOWLING COMMANDOS, written by Keith Giffen and penciled by three different artists.

The main members of the "Creature Corral" (yes, they're called that once) are mostly new variations on standard monster-types: vampire Nina Price, werewolf "Warwolf," a clone of the Frankenstein Mon...

MONSTER MASHUPS #133

 THE DART-TONGUED BEAST.

This one's called both THE CHOKE-FOAM MONSTER and THE SOAP-BUBBLE MONSTER.

THE CAVE-CENTIPEDE.

 

MONSTER MASHUPS #132

 In GORGO #5, Gorgo's Mother-- who I'll bet never gets a name of her own-- finally contends with another monster of the deep, billed on the cover as "The Sea Beast."

 

MONSTER MASHUPS #131

 THE CLAWED SQUID.

THE THREE-HEADED LIZARD.

 For the first time, Samson's co-feature "Tom Morrow" gets in on the mashup action with THE LARIAT BEAST and THE GIANT FLOATING JELLYFISH, as well as a few garden-variety revived dinosaurs. Oddly, though I don't think the two future-worlds have anything in common (except possibly their writer), a big Jellyfish also appeared one issue previous in SAMSON.  

THE WEIRDIE FILES

 Here's a "DC Gothic" that, like DEADMAN, preceded my previous candidate for the company's second non-anthology "weird feature," which I had previously pegged as the SHOWCASE debut of the Phantom Stranger: the CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, a failing book that the company strove to shore up with spooky content.

     One issue during this run had the heroes encounter both DC's private eye character Jonny Double and their high-wire haunter Deadman.   

MONSTER MASHUPS #130

 Samson strikes again, against THE THROWER-BEAST and his spiked-mace tail...

...and THE GIANT FLOATING JELLY-FISH...

 

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 I'm not about to try chronicling all of the multitudinous crossovers in DC's war comics, even though I've just finished laying out the one in SGT. ROCK ANNUAL #2. Still, though the story "Heap the Corpses High" in DC SUPERSTARS #15 (1977) isn't worth explicating, this is a really nice cover juxtaposing Sergeant Rock, Mademoiselle Marie, and the disguise-master Unknown Master masquerading as Rock for some damn reason. More Kanigher craziness as usual.

 

RAR #93: MADOGA

 

Madoga, seen above in the first three panels fighting a big mummy, was a member of a society of sorcerous villains, The Legion of the Weird, who were defeated in their one outing by the Challengers of the Unknown.   

MONSTER MASHUPS #129

 More Samson-monsters, starting with THE GIANT STING-RAY.   

And the poorly-named SEA MONSTER.