The Many Faces In Scorpio Rose!

Steve Englehart has been pretty frank about his comic book career in interviews and on his own website and such. In the collected Coyote the book is backed up by a few issues of a short-fused project by Englehart and Marshall Rogers called Scorpio Rose. It was meant to be a trilogy but only ever produced two comic books (both of which I remember buying at the time). They concerned themselves with a Romany mystic of a unusual lengthy life and of the demon who loved her at times. 

The saga was adapted and altered from scripts Englehar produced for DC for a projected Madame Xanadu series. The price for those scripts had been misrepresented to Englehart so he refused to turn them over and that was it for Madame Xanadu until some years later when we met her under the name of Scorpio Rose. 

The series went two issues then Rogers was unable to finish it. Instead of getting a new artist Englehart just left it unfinished but in this collection the layouts Rogers did for the final issue are printed with explanations as to how the story wrapped up. Frankly I found the stories very confusing even without an ending. It's not Englehart's greatest by any means, too much mysticism and Rogers art is  often hard to read. But the story is memorable for another reason which reaches back to Englehart's earliest days at Marvel and a character named Mantis.

Mantis of course was the Celestial Madonna (making a comeback perhaps when comics begin to publish again) and her saga unfolded over a very long time in the pages of The Avengers where she courted Swordsman and Vision and others while trying to understand her role in the universe. She gave birth to a child, also the child of an alien plant-person and supposedly this youngster was meant for great things indeed. Mantis disappeared when Englehart left the series. 

Englehart was attracted to DC by the call of better page rates and he took over the Justice League of America, bringing the same wonderful magic to those pages he brought to the Avengers. One issue introduced a green woman from the starts named Willow who was supposed to be Mantis, her story continuing with a new name and place. 

Then Englehart left DC and in the pages of Scorpio Rose from Eclipse Comics he gave us Lorelei, another green lady who was recognizably Willow and Mantis. She assists Scorpio Rose and we meet her child almost hidden in the shadows. 

Later Englehart brought Mantis back at Marvel, but I will always treasure the days when her story was bigger than any one company. For me it always will be.

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I Am Coyote Once Again!

If ever want to read something weird by two of best talents in comics then I recommend I Am Coyote by Steve Englehart and the late Marshall Rogers. It's full of enticing designs, offers a constantly twisting plot, and presents the world a character like few others its ever seen.

Coyote is an orphan, left in the desert by his parents for reasons we never learn and discovered by a geezer who claims to be a half-man, a creature of myth who lives in more than one dimension. Coyote is raised by the half-man and later gets a step-mother who claims to be a psychic vampire. His early life is a primitive one and he grows up a bit feral. He's at some point given access to some of the abilities of his adopted father though he himself is fully human (he says). He does this by means of Peyote. 

In this story which ran in serialized form in Eclipse Monthly (in black and white) the action starts immediately as Coyote runs afoul of what is called The Shadow Cabinet which has an underground bunker beneath Las Vegas and its suggested other places around the globe. Their mission to take control of the world's governments by covert means and present themselves as good guys but who have seen sunny words will not be enough to bring about the world they want. Their quick and casual use of murder undermines these claims.

Coyote infiltrates the base and meets Phyllida, a woman who leads the Shadow Cabinet but who seems to care for Coyote despite his penchant to adopt other people's faces. They go on the run from a deadly killer named "The Void" and Coyote is shocked to find someone else who can "dance" between dimensions as he does.

To say more would ruin the story and it's a pretty decent one. Once upon a time I had all the Eclipse Monthly numbers and originally read this story there. But more recently I located it in a trade which offers all of the Eclipse stories in a single narrative in color. The splash pages are included but the chapters actually flow together quite well. Marshall Rogers was a talented artist who had a knack for making pages which demanded you attention. He sometimes crafted some wonky and oddly stiff figures, but reading his stuff is generally pretty easy. I Am Coyote is a fascinating story.

It was continued by Englehart and other artists at Marvel in the early Epic line, but I only ever read a few of those and don't remember them fondly. But maybe some day I'll give them another tumble.

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Mr. Monster Mash!

The early 80's saw a burst of creativity when a generation of young and eager creators (and some not so young but still eager) had the chance to showcase their talents with the development of a new marketplace for comic books. The Independent market in new christened "comic shops" saw a batch of new publishers keen to find purchase there and hungry for talent to create product to make that possible, and on terms the talent couldn't resist. Lots of nifty new superhero types hit the stands such as Megaton Man, Flaming Carrot and Nexus. Alongside those would appear Michael T. Gilbert's Mr. Monster.

Mr. Monster began as a project for Pacific Comics, the little company that spearheaded the Indy market with titles such as Captain Victory by Jack Kirby and Starslayer by Mike Grell.

They were looking for material for Vanguard Illustrated, an anthology comic with a science fiction and fantasy twist that catered to up and coming talent. The first chapter of Mr. Monster debuted there, part of a three-part story about a "Reluctant Werewolf". But before the story could be continued Vanguard Illustrated was cancelled and Pacific Comics was defunct, among the first wave of victims in the new marketplace.

Gilbert's Mr. Monster has one of the more fascinating origins in comics lore. Mr. Monster was not so much"created" but "recreated" by Gilbert using an obscure Golden Age character who had only a few appearances, and only one in the distinctive costume above as drawn by Fred Kelly. This particular comic fell into the mitts of a young Michael Gilbert and he wondered what such a hero might really be all about. He twisted and reconfigured the character substantially and he became a burly monster hunter with a surly attitude toward his fellow men.

The complete story of the "reluctant werewolf" was showcased in Mr. Monster #1 from Eclipse Comics and the character was well and truly launched. A delightful Dave Stevens cover adorned the second issue,  which featured a story about an odd and innocent little fellow named "Hemo-Boy".

The third issue under a Stephen Bissette cover had Mr. Monster battle garbage made sentient and so even more dangerous to one and all than normal. This story was written by Alan Moore and drawn by Gilbert.

The fourth issue showcased a wonderful teaming as Gilbert used the talents of Jon Bonivert's unique art stylings to draw literally a distinction between two different universes in the story. It's a crafty and a well-crafted story for sure.

The first wave of Mr. Monster stories ends with an anthology of short stories in the fifth issue in which Mr. Monster fights a plague, a ghost and invaders from Mars. Wonderful fun all, and more evidence that no Mr. Monster story would ever be quite like the last one or the next one either. 

These first five issues were collected in Mr. Monster's Forbidden Book of Knowledge Volume One. Sadly no second volume came around to collect the next five Eclipse issues though collections of the latter days of Mr.Monster from Dark Horse do exist, though for a pretty penny these days. This is a hero desperately in need of a showcase, a chance to prove that wicked can be funny, very funny indeed. 

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The Leap Year Of The Sabre!

Let me take advantage of this extra day in February in the year 2020 to look at one of the most important publications in comic book history, and one which just happens by the way to feature a compelling "blaxploitation" character and takes it to a new level in a new format, and as it turns out into a new marketplace as well. Comic books were dying off in the Bronze Age as newsstands quit carrying them as their profitability became harder and harder to achieve. New ways to meet the dwindling numbers of the comic book consumer were needed and the direct market was fashioned to give publishers new life and to give the fan new comics, and as it turned out comics unlike anything ever seen before. 

The "graphic novel" was just being born and early examples are Contract with God by Will Eisner and Red Tide by Jim Steranko among others. But the one which cracked the code in the new marketplace was a "graphic album" or "comic novel" from a brand new company named Eclipse. It featured a brand new hero, one fashioned by two creators at the top of their games. Don McGregor had made his bones on "Panther's Rage" in Jungle Action for Marvel Comics and likewise Paul Gulacy had dazzled one and all with beautiful issues of Master of Kung-Fu. These two talents combined forces and so was born Sabre.

(Regular comic reprinting the first half.)

Sabre was the star of a story titled "Slow Fade of an Endangered Species" and it was a tale of the future. That future was ironically enough February 2020 and now we are at long last finally here to see how well this narrative's predictions hold up in the light of brutal reality. The answer is frightening well and not so good too.

(Regular comic reprinting the second half.)

The America of this 2020 is one that has suffered from famines leading to epidemics in the shadow of massive radiation leaks creating uninhabitable wastelands and leading to a nation under defacto martial law. (The prediction is pretty dire, and most of it hasn't happened, but we have Trump, so it's a bit of a wash.) In this world is born the first test-tube child, the fatherless and motherless Melissa Siren who is the romantic interest of our black rebel hero known just as Sabre, a man filled with a need for liberty and to fight for that liberty with the aplomb of a vintage Errol Flynn character. 

(10th Anniversary Reprint)

Sabre and Siren are seeking to rescue some villagers who have been taken by deadly mercenaries and are held hostage in some abandoned amusement park against Sabre's arrival and presumed execution. But to say much more would be to ruin a darn good story. Suffice it to say Sabre fights the good fight against baroque villains such the a robotic tiger-faced "Grouse", the black-patched "Blackstar" and most of all the top villain named "Overseer" who hides his gruesome visage, made so by the fact he wants to live in a decaying body made possible by future science. Weird with a cherry on top.

McGregor's story moves at the pace he dictates quite literally with his verbose style leading the reader leisurely through this new world. Once in a while he wears me out, but in this story is seems to work better than usual. (Annette Kawecki, the letterer sure earns her drachmas in this one.) Paul Gulacy's debt to the great Steranko is evident, as he crafts pages which sometimes look like lost parts of a Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD story. But in the end it all comes together, the whole greater than the sum of the parts and we have if not a masterpiece, a virtuoso performance of the higher order.  

And puts a nifty bow on Black History month. Tomorrow the Dojo goes to War! 

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