Take a cosmic entity created and given name by Robert E. Howard, have it be a part of the Lovecratian Cthulhu mythos and have a Lovecraftian vibe, have him appear in 2 of my favorite Marvle Bronze Age books...Doctor Strange and Conan and you have the recipe for my #1 horror character...

Shuma Gorath!

in Doc Strange...







in Conan...



and he even survives into today's Modern Marvel...



you can even get a Shuma Gorath Hero Clix...



(no I don't have one, it was an exclusive and quite pricey).

The build up to Shuma eventual confrontation in the Englehart/Brunner issues of Marvle Premiere are exquisite, but they were building on a foundation laid down by Gardner Fox and Jim Starlin in their issues, channeling the Howardian and Lovecraftian vibe inherent in the character. It's just a big ole pile of stuff I love appearing together in one of my favorite storylines in comics. How could I not like Shuma with that pedigree?

-M

John Constantine 


First appearing in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, The Laughing Detective came into his own as the star of Hellblazer.  Constantine was was unusual in comics in that he aged in somewhat real time.  He was also unusual in being a working-class magician, relying more on his charm to con his way out of situations rather than magicking his way out.  




Constantine's life was not particularly enhanced by his abilities.  He lost most of his friends.  He lost the love of his life, Kit.  His family suffered.  



There were a number of good runs of Hellblazer...and a number of great other appearances.  But he was never better than when portrayed by Garth Ennis and the late Steve Dillon.  






I haven't read anything after Hellblazer was cancelled with issue number 300.  I don't want to see a watered down Constantine.  I want my working-class laughing magician.  

Week 5 #1 pick: Let's all give a howl out to that hirsute man of the night: Jack Russell the Werewolf by Night. Cursed to endure the full moon becoming a mindless beast, Jack still struggled and fought for control (albeit whiningly) of his life turning his nocturnal forays into thrill filled adventures each month. While i always loved the original Lon Chaney Werewolf it was here reading about Jack that my true favoritism for Werewolves as the best Creature of the Night began. Angrier Jack get Hairier Jack get to misquote another green hued changeling. The Werewolf adventures were just plain old fun to me and bespoke of the the power Halloween and Horror has to telling the human story within their frights. Many a night have i had my Wolfen dreams running the woods in search of beautiful prey as i hunt under the glowing mantle of the moonlit surroundings...

1-THE SPECTRE

Jim Corrigan's my favorite DC character. I've posted numerous times my love for this character. The Wrath of God, can't be any scarier than that....

#1. Doctor Adam Spektor



Dr. Spektor is a comparatively recent discovery of mine. I was always vaguely aware that the comic existed, but as it was from Gold Key I was never really interested in it. However, on reading Win Scott Eckert's interesting (and very well-researched) Crossovers books, I came across several references to The Occult Files of Dr Spektor and this piqued my curiosity. I also learned that the comics were written by Donald F. Glut, who is an expert on horror (and the Frankenstein story in particular). So when I saw a few issues (including #1) at a comic convention a few weeks ago, I decided to take a gamble and purchase them. What can I say? I was hooked, and am now working on getting a complete set.

Doctor Adam Spektor is an occult investigator, dealing with various occult menaces, such as mummies, vampires, werewolves, and more. He is aided by Lakota Rainflower, his Sioux secretary and girlfriend, along with several semi-recurring assistants; Elliot Kane (a psychic), future love interest Lu-Sai, and his cousin Anne Sara.

The whole thing has a very seventies vibe to it, which appeals to me as that was the decade of my childhood. Spektor even dresses somewhat like Adam Adamant. Glut does a good job with his characters. Lakota manages to avoid most of the stereotypes associated with native American characters, which is refreshing (and must have been almost unique in the 70s), even if she does tend to be a bit of a 'damsel in distress', with several monsters falling in love with her and abducting her to make her their bride.

Unlike most of the Gold Key books of the period, there is ongoing story and character development, with subplots stretching across multiple issues. Glut even established his own continuity, with all of the books he was writing for Gold Key taking place in the same universe. Events and characters from Tragg and the Sky Gods and Dagar the Invincible would influence the stories in The Occult Files of Dr Spektor.

And then there is the art. Although the art on the first Dr Spektor story was by Dan Spiegle, the majority of the stories (including the covers) were illustrated by Jesse Santos. Santos was part of that wave of Filipino artists who swept into the American comic scene in the early 70s. His art has an almost psychedelic quality that fits very nicely not only with with the era, but with the otherworldly nature of the stories (especially on #20, where Spektor makes a trip into the Egyptian underworld).







So that's my #1 pick, even if my reason for it being #1 is that it is my current comics obsession. That's as good a reason as any, right?

week 5: Dormammu




There was a bit of a discussion in one of the earlier weeks about whether Doctor Strange was a legitimate horror character. For me, Doctor Strange the series certainly contains many horror elements.

Maybe the best way to think about this is to look at other famous fantasy works. I'd agree with most people that The Lord of the Rings isn't a horror novel, but at the same time there were many, many elements of it that gave a strong horror-vibe to me when I read it all those years ago: the Nazgul, most obviously and earliest in the narrative; the Barrow-wight; the Balrog; and above all, Sauron himself. All these evoked that sense of fear, terror, and, well, horror, that one associates with the genre.

Looking at it from the other direction, Gerber's Man-Thing series, one of the acknowledged classics of Marvel horror, contained many overt fantasy elements: Korrek the most obvious, but also the wizard Dakimh, Atlantis, Zhered-Na, Howard the Duck, and on and on. The whole concept of the Nexus of Worlds - the real basis of the series - was more a fantasy idea than anything else, though Gerber often took it down a horror turn.

The horror aspects to Doctor Strange are nowhere more evident than in the story Shaxper in that earlier thread: when Strange is on the run from Mordo's spirits and the deadly menace of Dormammu looms over them all much as Sauron does in LoTR, as a name of terror.

Dormammu is to me one of the most powerful creations anyone ever came up with for Marvel: of all the various Satanic figures in the MU - e.g. Mephisto, Satannish, Thog, even the MU version of Satan himself - Dormammu is by far the most impressive to me, visually and conceptually. Visually, Ditko came up with a great design that that evokes the idea of obscure yet tremendous "mystic" power and energy barely containable within its anthropomorphic form. Conceptually, of all those Devil-like characters, Dormammu was the one that most resembled Milton's Lucifer, his rebellion against God paralleled by Dormammu's challenge to Eternity.

This drive to rule and not submit to any alien power is so pure it's almost "beyond good and evil" in that it seems the very essence of his being, which in a way makes the concept all the more terrifying to mortals: a deadly power that represents a grave danger to anyone foolish enough to approach it, the "Dread Dormammu", whose very name it was dangerous to speak. And Ditko's visual design reinforced this impression to perfection, in my view.

Of course, as always, I'm speaking of my personal impressions of the character's essence rather than of how it's actually been written. Even in the original Ditko story the effect was fatally undermined by a lacklustre ending in which Strange and Dormammu engage in a physical wrestling match. But the potential is there for any writer who has the perceptiveness to see and the skill to exploit it.