Tales of the Zombie v.2 #1 (#4)



"Nightfilth Rising"

art by Win Mortimer

my grade: B-

What begins as a relatively bland story of a wronged lover rising from the dead in suburban America in order to confront his killer and be reunited with the love of his life takes on new charm once the zombie rises and Moench's narration takes over:



Is it really all that different from what Steve Gerber is writing for the feature story in this series? Probably not. Moench might even be taking inspiration from that, but it works. I could post more scans, showcasing more of this fantastic narrative perspective, but you get the point.

The problem is the rest of the story, which remains horribly contrived and lacking in any unique qualities. Once again, for whatever reason, these first dozen scripts Moench submitted for freelance money don't reflect any of his usual visual style and concepts, likely because he wasn't working on these in the bullpen with an artist, utilizing the Marvel Method.

The story tries for a meaningful ending, after we learn that the murdered man's wife was the very one who planned for him to die so that she could gain his inheritance and had raised him from the dead using black magic in order to get rid of her second husband and have the money under her control. None of that, in itself, is interesting, but it's the final twist where Moench and Mortimer both exert their efforts:



I just dont' feel it. It all feels too forced and not earned by the script.

In the end, this is a very forgettable story, but Moench's narration for the zombie, itself, was definitely something.

Ghost Rider #5



"And Vegas Writhes in Flame!"

plot: Marv Wolfman
pencils: Jim Mooney
inks: Sal Trapani
editor: Roy Thomas

my grade: A- for Moench's contributions, C+ overall

Technically Moench's first feature story for a mainstream color comic, except that the plot comes from Marv Wolfman and, considering that this was Marvel, it probably means Moench was handed penciled pages for this story and asked to add a script to it. In short, likely nothing about the story is Moench's beyond the words.

Still, within those limitations, Moench manages to add flare to an otherwise utterly forgettable story. For one thing, his narration is brilliant and inspiring as usual. I wonder, for example, if Gary Friedrich had ever found the words to describe Ghost Rider's transformation in quite this way:



And Moench's narration is sometimes able to compensate for Mooney's lackluster action sequences and the overall ridiculousness of the plot with words that elicit vibrant realism and utterly make you feel like you're THERE:




But beyond using narration to bring Ghost Rider's supernatural awe to life in new and impressive ways, Moench also manages to impress me with the sheer irreverence he lends to the character. It was only a month back, in Dracula Lives! #5 that Moench went on a long tangent providing near worship for rebels without a cause, from James Dean and Marlon Brando to Christopher Lee, and he clearly infuses that passion into his characterization of Ghost Rider.

For example, throughout the issue, the villain keeps appearing in the sky in a somewhat obnoxiously repetitive way. When he does this for the fourth time in twelve pages, Moench takes what could have been a generic defiant reply and turns it into an outrageous criticism of the lack of imagination on the parts of both the character and artist Jim Mooney:



It really is fun watching Moench decide what to throw into those word balloons in order to elicit shock and (I suspect) laughter:



This is no generic hero here. This is a rebel.



No point in supplying a plot synopsis this time, as Moench had nothing to do with it.

Tales of the Zombie #5



"Brother Voodoo Lives Again!" (article)

my grade: B

Moench's final assistant editor grunt assignment, this piece affords Moench even less leeway than usual. Instead of being free to write a piece concerning any aspect of the general theme of the magazine (in this case, voodoo zombies), Moench is explicitly instructed to introduce readers to the backstory of Brother Voodoo, who will be getting a backup feature in this magazine next issue. The index for this issue doesn't even bother to list this piece, and the piece itself neglects to credit its author. This is simply a three-page solicit for an upcoming feature, and little effort is made by Marvel to dress it up as anything more.

Moench tries his best, pointing out the unique qualities of the feature and retelling the backstory with gusto as if we were there, experiencing it now, but, at the end of the day, this is a summary and advertisement, and there's only so much a writer can do with that. It's well written, it's interesting, it's...barely art.





"Death's Bleak Birth"

art by Frank Springer

my grade: B


A truly ludicrous plot where Moench concerns himself more with characterization and unexpected twists than believability. Really, the most striking aspect of this story is the depth of characterization Moench lends to the players in this piece through his increasingly incisive narrative skills, from making a common thug feel like every menacing bully we've ever known:



to making us love and respect the mourning wife at first sight, without even providing her with a line of dialogue:



As is usual for Moench, he compounds the expected twist reversal at the climax with a second unexpected twist, designed to elicit shock and empathy from the reader. In this case, the reanimated protagonist discovers his wife, recently murdered, and begins performing the incantations that will restore her life at the cost of his own:



And yet, just as with the twist ending of "Nightfilth Rising" (published in the previous issue and likely written a day before--or even on the same night as--this one), the empathy Moench tries to elicit at the close fails to deliver because we have no understanding of the relationship between these two characters. Presumably, this husband loves his wife, but we've never seen the two interact, heard the husband think of his wife, nor even gotten a sense of who the husband is when he isn't being murdered.

This was one of the dozen stories Moench churned out over the course of a two week writing binge, and it shows. There's so much brilliance here, but this piece feels like it was written in a single draft, with an obvious loose end that Moench likely would have corrected if he'd had more time.



Plot synopsis: Two thugs rob a respected scientist, having read in the paper that he discovered a new means for wealth and power. However, in attempting to intimidate him, they go too far and inadvertently kill him. They later return to the scene, raiding his files and notes for clues as to what he was working on. Discovering a means of resurrecting the dead, they do it in order to bring the scientist back so that he can reveal the secret to wealth and power, which (of course) is the resurrection spell they just performed. He also reveals that the cost of reciting the incantation is your own life. Thus, one thug dies, and he kills the other, returning home to discover they murdered his wife. He then recites the incantation spell to bring her back at the cost of his own resurrection.

Vampire Tales #5




"The Vampire Viscount of France"

art by Win Mortimer

grade: n/a


Back when Moench would do these inside cover true-stories for Warren, I never bothered to review them because the dual constraints of only having 1-2 pages AND having to tell actual history or legend made it nearly impossible to apply any actual craft to the work. That remains true in this peace, which leaves Moench no space to lend anything of himself to this straight-forward account.





"The Vampire Wants Blood!"

art by Val Mayerick

grade: B-


You kind of have to laugh at this one. We know that, when Moench accepted these freelance assignments, all he had to do to get a check was submit a title and then write the script at a later date. Well, you can't provide a more generic title than this one. The story Moench ends up writing is decent, but it certainly feels a tad rushed and incomplete -- the result of a furious night of bleary-eyed writing.

Two signature Moench moves build the frame of this piece -- a visual concept, and a series of unexpected twists.

The visual concept is a vampire being resurrected beneath rising waters, buoyancy causing the resurrection, compounded with being returned to life only to find oneself drowning:





wait...vampires breathe?


The twists are more complex and, ultimately, somewhat nonsensical. We're told that there were a series of missing persons, followed by a count being accused of vampirism and then being executed. As our obnoxiously meddlesome novelist protagonists attempt to piece together what occurred, we learn that the "vampire" was having an affair with the commissioner's wife, and that it was the commissioner who accused him of vampirism and executed him. Interesting. So are we going to get a story in this mag where there isn't an actual vampire? Of course not; this is Doug Moench, and so there's always another twist coming. Nope, the vampire we see returned to life after the commissioner blew up his castle in order to destroy evidence of his guilt was just the victim of the commissioner's wife, the true murdering vampire. The commissioner intentionally set her up with the count and then blamed her murders on him. But then, for some inexplicable reason, at the end she decides it's finally time to make a victim of her own husband



even with two other perfectly good meals in plain sight.

It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, there's no emotional motivation, and we're not particularly rooting for or against anyone in this story either. An interesting idea (and I loved the concept of that below-water resurrection), but the script needed another few drafts.


Plot synopsis: covered above

Man-Wolf aside, Moench was turning in some of his best output yet in his early days at Marvel, but his work on Haunt of Horrors #2 just absolutely takes the cake.


The Haunt of Horror #2



"Gabriel: Devil Hunter"

art by Billy Graham

my grade: A


The Haunt of Horror began as the Marvel horror mag with the least decisive focus. The first issue gave the lead feature to a guest-writer (fantasy author Thomas Disch) and his one-shot Werewolf story, and the "Hint of Horror" editorial page within the second issue suggests that the intended focus for the series beginning with issue #2 would be Satanna, Daughter of Satan, but, around this point, Marvel became keenly aware of the lasting impact The Exorcist (released December 26th) was having on American culture. Whereas Satana's two features in this issue were supposed to be the primary focus, thirteen pages are now given to bullpen residents discussing their reactions to The Exorcist, and the lead feature space is given to Gabriel: Devil Hunter, clearly a last minute decision as writer Doug Moench isn't even included in the Exorcist discussion piece.

I can't find any information on whether Gabriel was Moench's idea or not, but Moench is clearly the one who made the character work, becoming attached enough to Gabriel that he wasted no time in rescuing the character from obscurity when he assumed control of The Fantastic Four six years later. However, in this initial incarnation, Gabriel only gets five issues in Haunt of Horrors and then a story in Monsters Unleashed after HoH gets cancelled.

But wow...if you've never read this short-lived series, you are missing out!

In this first issue, Moench is finally paired with a bullpen artist bringing the same caliber of craft to his work as Moench, and, as a result, nearly every page of this story is a masterpiece.

We begin with the hook/setup, and man is it striking:



"Vespers shall not be pronounced this morning."


The characterization of the possessed is then discordant and striking:




And, soon enough, we are introduced to Gabriel with a visual and narrative that, combined, positively floor me.



The chaos of his soul reflected in his office, the source of which is explained as his soul having been "raped". Gabriel is a survivor, working to salvage himself and save others from the (literal) Hell he has been through.

Damn.

Moench's most compelling protagonist yet.


We then meet his enigmatic assistant, Desadia, with her unexplained gift for premonition:




And, just in case all the mystery, suspense, characterization, and tone weren't winning us over already, we get an unexpected action sequence that positively rocks:




That's right; deflect a demonic attack with knowledge...literally.


Gabriel finally arrives at the scene of the real problem, and Graham turns on the tone:



I have to admit that this is the moment where the story ceases to fire on all cylinders: what are the chances of the very priest who condemned Gabriel after his possession conveniently being possessed by the very demon that had inhabited Gabriel back then? Just a little too neat and tidy a way to attain redemption.


But then Moench drops his visual premise for the story on us, and it falls with a resounding slam:





Can you get more hardcore than a priest who drove a demon out of his own body by holding a searing hot cross to his chest, forever after bearing a scar in the shape of that cross?


If the story has a second flaw (the first being how neatly and coincidentally Gabriel's two unresolved conflicts end up coming together for this first outing), it's how anti-climactic the climax is. Gabriel's final battle with the demon who once possessed him is resolved without any real detail provided by either Moench or Graham. We don't really see what happens and only know it's over because we're told it's over:



at which point, Gabriel drops a snarky comment at the priest who once condemned him and strolls off, cool-guy style. End of first installment.


Clearly, the piece was written in such a way that it could have been a done-in-one, and yet we're given enough information about Gabriel and left enough mystery about both him and his assistant that it leaves us wanting an ongoing series -- and that's exactly what Moench gets...for five issues.



Important Details about Gabriel:

- Office is on the 13th floor of the Empire State Building (Ironically, Moench will soon be writing Doc Savage, who--it had already been established by this point--also has an office in the Empire State Building)

- Assistant Desadia possesses some form of precognitive ability.

- Gabriel was once a priest at St. Benedict's Cathedral in Manhattan. He was possessed by the soul of an executed witch named "Catherine". Gabriel was able to drive Catherine out by holding a burning hot cross to his chest, leaving a scar in that shape. The experience caused him to lose his faith and leave the Church. Father Artemis then did something to Gabriel because he did not understand the decision. Father Lazar was also present at the time.


Worth Noting: Gabriel was my first runner up choice for The Long Halloween 2016



Plot synopsis: Pretty much covered in the review above






"Gran'ma Died Last Year"

pencils: Gene Colan
inks: Frank Chiaramonte

my grade: A++


Moench was clearly moving up in the Marvel world. He was now in creative control of the lead features for Monsters Unleashed, Haunt of Horror, and Creatures on the Loose (even if he didn't enjoy that last one or remain with it for long), and now this latest of the dozen freelance stories he wrote late at night in his first two weeks at Marvel gets assigned to Gene frickin' Colan instead of the unknowns and near-unknowns who'd been getting them previously.

To be fair though, that might also be because, as of this moment, "Gran'ma Died Last Year" is the finest Moench story I've ever read, ranking as my fourth favorite horror story of all time when we did The Long Halloween 2014.

Whereas Moench is usually a master of plot twists, narrative prose, and visual storytelling, it was rare in his Pre-Marvel days to see him provide intense character studies (though he did it once, BRILLIANTLY, with "Bed of Roses," the best story he'd written up to this point). But that's exactly what makes this piece so brilliant. There's a visual center to the whole thing, and there are twists to be sure, but what truly makes this tale truly work is the perspective from which it's told.

He's probably tired of me quoting this by now, but Prince Hal said it best when he wrote that, "true horror stems from incongruity," and that's what Moench offers in this piece, in which a young boy narrates a story that grows increasingly horrific with each page, utterly failing to see the events that transpire as anything other than completely normal.

It begins with the boy explaining why he likes his grandmother in terse, somewhat indifferent language, much as any kid might do when asked by his teacher to write about a relative that means something to them.



When you consider the heavy prose Moench usually pours into his pieces, the precise and purposeful nature of this simplicity becomes all the more evident:



And as we come to understand that "Gran'ma" was the one who looked after our protagonist and offered him a sense of love and naive innocence, Moench drops this bomb on us:



Moench pulled this stunt once before, with "Fringe Benefits," forcing us to emotionally attach to a character before her death, and it was as disturbing then as it is now.

Except that this piece has far more in store for us as that pathos-eliciting narration begins to generate incongruity between the child's innocence and the dark event that has just transpired.



Worse still, with Gran'ma gone, we begin to understand the extent of the horrors our protagonist was living with at home, from which Gran'ma can no longer offer an emotional reprieve.




And then that incongruity between the child's innocence and the events of the story just begins to explode.



...and explode some more.




Enter the image that must have been the conceptual genesis for this story:




And then, just when you think Moench has taken it as far as he possibly can...




I mean holy sh--!.


How can a tale be so full of love, pathos, sadness, and horror all at one time?

It's sheer genius. Total genius.



Plot synopsis: covered above

You are doing great here Shaxper! Most of the early Moench i have only ever found a few within my collecting as the Warren stuff was sporadically found here in Phoenix. Now though as you say you are beginning to review the Marvel writing and this is where i started to find and enjoy Doug's work. I cannot tell you what was the 1st Moench comic i found but i can tell you from his start with Marvel on into the DC year's i have a ton of his stuff which i read and re-read. Thank you for this ongoing review and insights into one of the best writer's around.