Night Of The Prowler!

If you've ever wondered what might happen if window washers turned bad the saga of the The Prowler is for you. Hobie Brown is an unhappy young black man, a window washer, a brave and inventive young chap who seeks to improve his lot by inventing newer and safer ways to wash windows in the towers of New York City.

Designed by John Romita, the Prowler is a slick looking character and hails from a time when villainy was still operating within a human range. Taking on a Spider-Man required no more apparently than some chutzpah, a few air-jets, and a dandy set of steel claws.

Hobie turns to crime as it offers the most expedient way he can make a name for himself. He's not evil, but does show some remarkable lack of perspective when he takes on Web-head. His actions seem to end in the death of Peter Parker, but we know all along that's not the case. So in one of the shortest criminal careers on record, the Prowler hangs up his claws.

That is until he decides to be a hero and takes off after Spider-Man again, this time seeing the Wall-Crawler as a menace. Hobie is a guy trying to make his way and grasping at a way to make a difference, but he's always making a mistake it seems.

But he does look snazzy in that costume, snazzy indeed. I've always assumed the design with the full face mask was done like the Black Panther, in order to disguise the ethnic nature of the character and so not agitate witless folks in certain regions of the country who would be unhappy promoting a new black hero. Times have changed...I hope.

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Nifty Presents - Marvel Masterwork Pin-Ups!

I knew I had to have this book the moment I saw it advertised. The "Marvel Masterwork Pin-Ups" scattered through scores of classic Marvel comics always made me smile and sometimes impressed me beyond that. Often the posters broke the fourth wall, having the character speak directly to the reader with some bogus inscription and signature, sometimes the pieces itself was just such an impressive bit of artwork that you couldn't stop staring at it, admiring the craftsmanship of the artists.

The artist responsible for the vast majority of the posters in this book is Jack "King" Kirby followed closely by "Sturdy" Steve Ditko. "Dashing" Don Heck, "Big" John Buscema, "Jazzy" Johnny Romita, and "Genial" Gene Colan are also well represented. The book features the vast galleries of villainy featured in Fantastic Four Annuals as well as the same thing from Spider-Man Annuals. These posters in the earliest days of Marvel acted almost like pages from the handbooks which proved so popular in the 80's and beyond at both Marvel and DC. It is not too much to say that there's a delight each time you turn the page in this handsome volume.

Here's a small sampling in its original form.

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