Showing posts with label The Heap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Heap. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 OCCULT FILES OF DOCTOR SPEKTOR "Masque Macabre" Conclusion

Doctor Spektor, his friend and companion Lakota Rainflower, and his cousin, Annie, are invited to participate in the annual Rutland Halloween Parade.
The parade is a trap!
Annie is possessed by the spirit of the sorceress Princess Neffram who animates statues of Spektor's deceased foes and other creatures who then hypnotize cosplaying paradegoers into serving the sorceress!
Note: These two are not the actual Owl or Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom, but cosplaying parade-goers!
Written by Don Glut (who wrote almost all the 1970s Gold Key Multiverse tales) and illustrated by Jesse Santos, this story from Gold Key's Occult Files of Doctor Spekor #18 (1975) was typical of the admittedly less-dynamic, but still quite entertaining material the company produced.
BTW, this was the only Rutland Halloween Parade-themed comic done by any comic company in 1975!

Next Week: a recap (with links) of every Rutland Halloween Parade tale we've run both here and on other RetroBlogs!
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Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 OCCULT FILES OF DOCTOR SPEKTOR "Masque Macabre" Part 1

Our final terror tale for Halloween 2023 begins in a multiverse far from those of Marvel and DC...

...specifically, the multiverse of Gold Key Comics!
Yep, It's The Purple Zombie and "The Lurker" aka the Golden Age Heap, both of whom we told you about yesterday!
Count Wulfstein had appeared as a host (as Dr Spektor originally did) in short stories in Mystery Comics Digest.
The other characters shown had already appeared (as villains) in this series and had all been killed!
Note that Parade founder/host Tom Fagan, who usually appears in these tales, isn't in this story, replaced by Thomas Sikes.
Do We Have to Tell You...to be Concluded...TOMORROW!
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Monday, October 23, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 Who Are Doctor Spektor, The Purple Zombie, and The Heap???

Our final Rutland Parade tale for this year involves neither DC or Marvel characters!

Our protagonist is Doctor Adam Spektor, a researcher into the occult, who started out as a host-narrator for short stories in Gold Key's Mystery Comics Digest, but quickly graduated to his own comic, where he used mystical artifacts and his arcane knowledge to battle mystical menaces head-on!
Aided by his magic-skeptical "friend and companion" (interpret as you will) Lakota Rainflower, Spektor encountered all the classic monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, werewolves, mummies, evil sorcerers and sorceresses, etc.), including one he met before who lays a trap for him in this week's story!
Doctor Spektor ran from 1972 to 1975, and, except for a 2014 Dynamite Publications mini-series rebooting the character, hasn't been seen since!
Among the antagonists are two who are not Gold Key characters, but do date back to the Golden Age of Comics!
The Purple Zombie wasn't a zombie at all, though he was revived from the dead!
Nor was he a mystic-themed character!
Resurrected and now possessed of enhanced strength and limited invulnerability, the man named Zoro retained his intellect and conscience instead of being a mindless servant to the depraved scientist who experimented on his corpse.
He enjoyed a long, if weird, run in Novelty's Reg'lar Fellas Heroic Comics during the Golden Age, but hadn't been brought back since...until this week's story!
Not so with the other Golden Age character...The Heap, who was the first ongoing swamp-based monster in comics!
Debuting in the Sky Wolf feature in Hillman's Air Fighter Comics, The Heap quickly received his own strip, which continued even after the book was re-titled Airboy and survived until the book was cancelled at the end of the Golden Age.
Much like the later Man-ThingThe Heap tended to wander mindlessly into situations where he, inadventantly, ended up helping people...who would fear and hunt him due to his appearance.
He's referred to in this tale as "The Lurker" because another company, Skywald Comics had recently revived the character...but had extensively-altered/updated him.
Since Skywald
now had the trademark for "The Heap", this story's version, based on the Golden Age incarnation, had to use another name!
Now That You Know a Bit More About the Players, Be Here Tomorrow for the Story Itself!