MYTHCOMICS: "HOW WILL WE KEEP WARM WHEN THE LAST FLAME DIES?" (G-S MAN-THING #1, 1974)

In my mythcomics-review of a HOWARD THE DUCK issue, I commented: "While Gerber's preoccupations on the Man-Thing-- one story analyzed here-- tend toward the kinetic and the mythopoeic, most of the HOWARD stories focus on elements of the dramatic and the didactic."

I've always thought that MAN-THING was a much more mythopoeic series than its contemporaneous competitor, DC's SWAMP THING. Nevertheless, after doing a quick re-read of Gerber's tenure on the feature, I must admit that Gerber may have been a little too preoccupied with making rational "overthoughts" than with giving free reign to his mythical "underthoughts." That's not to say that Gerber wasn't an imaginative writer. Indeed, back in The Day he was probably esteemed for his ability to spin wild fantasy-sequences not only in "edgy" books like MAN-THING and HOWARD but also in "mainstream" titles like THE DEFENDERS and MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE. Regrettably, though, even though MAN-THING might have held the greatest potential capacity for the mythopoeic, too often Gerber seems concerned with making moral statements. "Decay and the Mad Viking" (MT #16) arranges a promising *enantiodromia* between the Viking's murderous masculinity and the implied quasi-femininity of his degenerate victims, but the story doesn't quite make either side come alive in a mythic sense. "Song-Cry of the Living Dead Man" (MT #12) records the mental breakdown of an ad-agency writer besieged by the phantoms of everyone who ever wanted a piece of him, but the focus only upon financial threats to the "dead man's" peace of mind keeps the story from delving into the essence of the Buberian "I-it" relationship.

"How Will We Keep Warm," which sounds a little like the title of a MOD SQUAD episode, enhances some of the ongoing environmental tropes of the feature. Often Man-Thing, a man transformed into a swamp-monster, mindlessly defends his domain against intruders, but most stories failed to realize the tragic disconnect between nature and culture. "Warm," however, dovetails the Man-Thing concept with the prevailing American fears of survival brought on by the 1973 fuel crisis.

As in most stories, the mindless swamp creature simply wanders about until he encounters the more active characters in his story, composed here of two factions. One faction is a group of scientists who have decided that the Florida swamp is the best possible place to build a self-sustaining alternative-power community, given the rather downbeat name of Omegaville, because it's "man's last chance." ("Alphaville" would have been more upbeat, but it had already been used.) The other faction is a group of modern cultists called "Entropists," since they worship the concept that the universe is governed by entropy, the tendency toward decay. The Entropists want to prevent Omegaville from re-igniting human possibilities, so one of the cultists unleashes the power of the Golden Brain. This disembodied organ projects an energy-demon that looks suspiciously like an old monster-enemy of Marvel's Hulk-- though Man-Thing is provoked enough to destroy the energy-creature.

The violence causes the lead cultist to lose his grip on the brain, which falls into the swamp. The scientists get clear and the cultists return to their base, allowing for Gerber to relate the history of the brain. Thus he recapitulates the last two appearances of "the Glob," a man who got turned into a muck-thing years before Man-Thing came into being. During the creature's second encounter with the Incredible Hulk, the Glob's muck-body was destroyed, except for its brain. (Gerber gives no reason for the brain to be gold-hued, though personally it reminded me of the so-called "golden egg" of Hindu theology.) The brain is picked up by a fellow named Yagzan, the leader of the Entropy Cult, and he's first seen killing off the cultist who bungled the attack on the Omegaville scientists.

While Yagzan-- drawn by Mike Ploog to look much like Richard Nixon-- lays plans for another attack on Omegaville, the Glob-brain doesn't just sit on the bog's bottom. Though not precisely sentient, the brain assembles a new body for itself out of the swamp's elements, though as a Gerber caption comments, the brain's new body doesn't look like the original body of its owner, but looks as if "sculptured by Michelangelo." However, the new body is also a tabula rasa, in that its owner no longer remembers its previous existence, or even how to speak. Naked as Adam-- to whom he's later compared-- the former monster wanders into the haven of Omegaville, where the scientists take him in and name him Joe, calling him "Omegaville's first native-- Adam created from clay to live in the garden, and all that." Joe takes basic pleasure in serving the community, while the mindless Man-Thing looks on from the sidelines, anticipating trouble.

The Entropists show up, and Yagzan recognizes his former pawn in the speechless Joe. Yagzan tries to force the brain to devolve, but it can only go so far, at which point the cult-leader orders the reborn Glob to attack "man's last hope." The Glob manages to destroy most of the community until Man-Thing intrudes, eventuating in what may be the world's first "battle of the muck-monsters."

Since it's Man-Thing's book, he manages to vanquish the Glob, who takes cult-leader Yagzan down with him. Despite this triumph, the story ends on a note of pessimism, since Omegaville has been destroyed, and never again shows up in the Marvel Universe, to my knowledge. True, American fears about the fuel crisis waned once the country made trade concessions. But Gerber delivers a vision of doom that goes beyond newspaper headlines, with his Entropists incarnating the human tendency to lust after ultimate destruction.

NEAR-MYTHS: ["GHOST RIDER'S ORIGIN], MARVEL SPOTLIGHT 5-8, 1972-73)

I've cited a number of near-myths already, as well as talking about why they aren't as *inconsummate* as the null-myths,  but my recent re-readings of the original 1970s Ghost Rider comic underscore my thoughts regarding a "fair" work that lacks the "unity of action" that could have made it good.

First, though artist Mike Ploog shares credit on GHOST RIDER with writer Gary Friedrich, I believe Ploog's orientation probably was the controlling creative influence. For one thing, early in 1972 Ploog had originated, with three other writers, the WEREWOLF BY NIGHT feature, which ran in the previous three issues of MARVEL SPOTLIGHT before the lupine protagonist received his own series. Ghost Rider took the SPOTLIGHT position for seven issues before he also gained his own title.

Both the Werewolf and the Ghost Rider were heroes who transformed into monsters with the fall of night, though Ghost Rider soon dispensed with that trope. More importantly, both characters had extreme daddy issues. In the case of Jack "Werewolf" Russell, his natural father had died, and his mother remarried a man Jack didn't care for. When the mother also passed on, she forbade Jack to show his stepfather any disrespect, and so for a time Russell had to tolerate the man, whom he dimly suspected of having caused his wife's death. Some time later, the stepfather was vindicated, but in the first stories Ploog established the idea of a transforming-hero filled with rage at a father-figure, but forbidden to act against him.

GHOST RIDER was more complicated, though not always in a good way. As a child Johnny Blaze loses his natural father, a motorcycle-daredevil (the mother is not mentioned in the Ploog issues). Since the father had been part of a traveling carny-act, young Johnny is adopted by another carny-family: the Simpsons. Crash Simpson was almost an alloform of the late Mr. Blaze, being another middle-aged daredevil rider, and he and his wife became surrogate parents to Johnny. However, their natural child Roxanne was not in Johnny's eyes a "sister," and as they grew older a mutual attraction surfaces.

Before either young adult can do anything about it, though, another tragedy strikes. During a practice performance Johnny's bike catches on fire. He rides it away from the surrounding watchers and ditches it, but Mrs. Simpson runs after him and is killed by the blast of the exploding cycle. Before she dies, Johnny's surrogate mother asks him to refrain from risking his life as a daredevil, and he agrees. Not only does this parental taboo restrain Johnny from exercising his natural riding talents, it further alienates Roxanne. She deems him a coward for not riding in the show, and worries that her father is getting too old to do so.

On top of these dramas, one day Crash announces that he's going to attempt a dangerous stunt, partly because he's contracted cancer. Johnny's reaction is a strange one since there's been no mention of any religious tendencies on his part: he calls up the Devil and makes a bargain to save Crash's life.

The bargain goes sour when Crash dies of the stunt but not the disease. Johnny then duplicates the feat in memory of his surrogate father, briefly earning Roxanne's ire for his having let her father do the stunt in his place. However, that ire is quickly forgot when the young woman witnesses Satan coming to claim his prize. Roxanne somehow uses her supposed "purity" to repel the demonic presence (maybe it's a good thing she and Johnny didn't have pre-marital sex, eh?) But now Satan's power causes Johnny to transform into a skull-faced being with hellfire powers.

All this would be a fairly routine setup, except that, unlike Johnny's natural father, Crash Simpson comes back-- not as a HAMLET-esque spectre requiring revenge, but as an emissary of Satan, perfectly willing to sacrifice Johnny so that he Crash can get out of Hell free. He's also more than willing to sacrifice his own living daughter to this end, but instead he ends up fighting the Ghost Rider in Hell itself.

Despite all these perfidious actions, though, the "bad father" again does a turnabout. Overcome with sudden paternal affection for his surrogate son, Crash revolts against Satan, makes it possible for Johnny to get back to the real world, and presumably remains in Hell, being tormented for eternity. Roxanne forgets everything that happened to her and the rest of issue #8 is devoted to confronting the hero with a new menace.

The setup of WEREWOLF has an almost Freudian feel-- the hero abominates his "new father" but is forbidden from taking action against him. In contrast, there's some Jungian potential in the GHOST RIDER arrangement, in that the state of "father-ness" is in line with what Jung called a "superordinate idea." Johnny's never-seen natural father "Barton Blaze" functions as an "absent father" in that his death takes him out of Johnny's life. Though Johnny apparently enjoys being raised by the Simpsons, Crash Simpson seems no more than a token father-replacement: in the first issue he neither provides Johnny with a role model-- which Johnny already has-- nor does he restrict him overmuch. (If he's aware that Johnny has a crush for Roxanne,  the story doesn't show it.) Only after Mrs. Simpson interferes with Johnny's natural development, forbidding him from being a cyclist, does Johnny come in for censure from both Crash and Roxanne. But the surrogate mother's motives for demanding Johnny's sacrifice-- given that he's not even her natural child-- come down to little more than a plot-device. (It's particularly amusing that Johnny, not Roxanne, is the one seen talking to Mrs. Simpson on her deathbed, demonstrating that the creators weren't overly concerned with any character except Johnny Blaze.) Even Johnny's attempt to garner a favor from Satan might be construed as an appeal to a "father-imago," given that the Devil is traditionally "the Father of Lies." Further, one issue after Ghost Rider got his own comic, Marvel readers met the Devil's actual offspring in the "Son of Satan" feature (with which Gary Friedrich, though not Mike Ploog, was also involved).

Crash Simpson's double-turncoat is even less well-imagined. Ploog and Friedrich don't bother to venture any reason as to why Crash-- who seems to have been a largely good fellow in life-- ends up under Satan's aegis in Hell. Nor is there any attempt to explain why he turns on Johnny and Roxanne so easily: the creators are purely concerned with presenting the Ghost Rider with one crisis after another. Despite this rambling introduction, though, the visual appeal of the character clearly struck a chord with readers, for he enjoyed a much longer career than most of Marvel's  1970s monster-heroes. Whether he ever managed to appear in a mythically *good* story, though, remains to be seen.