Witching Hour #6 (On Sale: October 16, 1969) has a cover by Nick Cardy.We begin with a framing sequence that will go throughout the book by Dave Kaler, Mike Sekowsky and Dick Giordano. Mildred and Mordred visit Cynthia at her "mod" apartment, and they are none to happy about it.
The first tale is "A Face in the Crowd" by Gerry Conway, Mike Roy and Mike Peppe (some say this is the work of Don Heck, but it is not even close to Heck's style). After WWII, Arnie searches for Bulgart the Butcher, the Nazi in charge of the concentration camp where Arnie was held, to exact his revenge. His rabbi tries to talk him out of it, but he continues his search till one day, he bumps into a man in a crowd and see it is Bulgart. He chases him into an alley and takes out a gun to shoot him, but Bulgart disappears; he was never there, and Arnie realizes had he shot Bulgart, he would be no better than him. Back on the street he bumps into another man, but pays him no mind so he never sees Bulgart walk past him, just another face in the crowd.
Next is "The Doll Man" by Marv Wolfman and Jose Delbo. The tenants of the apartment building where Cyrus Caulfield lives want him gone. They are freaked out by the creepy dolls he makes, and mob mentality takes over when they burst into his apartment. Despite him having done nothing to the, the other tenants beat him to death. They then go looking for any money he might have and break into his locked bedroom where they are confronted by his monstrous dolls out for revenge.
Next we have "Treasure Hunt" by Steve Skeates, John Celardo and Dick Giordano. Jungle guide Max takes an archaeologist up river, following an old treasure map.. When Max discovers the treasure that the archaeologist is seeking behind a waterfall, he decides to kill the archaeologist and keep it for himself. He takes the man out on the boat and crashes it into some rock, hitting the man with a wrench. As he swims for shore a fog descends and when it clears he seems to be somewhere else, but he is not sure. He hears some rapids up ahead and realizes too lite that somehow he is now on the river that spawned the falls. His body lands on top of the treasure chest he wanted so badly.
We end with "Distortion," a one-pager drawn by Sid Greene. A trip to an amusement park fun house does not end well for John.
Edited by Dick Giordano.
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4 comments:
Heck got quite stiff and repetitive in his later years. He did some killer SF stories pre-Marvel hero age. and his Iron Man run was fantastic. He chose different inking styles depending on the story (they're best read in the Essentials volumes where you can concentrate on the black & white ink work). This guy was an accomplished illustrator.
I remember reading a Neal Adams interview in The Comics Journal #72 where he told everyone to lay off Heck because he fell apart after the death of his wife.
I loved Heck's Batgirl! He had a way of drawing (pun intended)the reader into the world of the characters. And his 1960s work on Iron Man and the Avengers did a lot to help push Marvel into the limelight.
Re X-Men #64: it's pretty apparent Heck provided only the roughest of layouts here and that Palmer did the finishes/inking. IMO Palmer smothered the pencils and the end result was -- strange and distorted. There's a reason why Palmer's earlier penciling jobs fell flat (and why Marvel quickly switched him to inking); he was a great inker but not much of an illustrator.
Actually, Black Widow and Hawkeye were both introed in Iron Man strips in TALES OF SUSPENSE, not THE AVENGERS. That said, Don did one...er..."Heck" of a job on both IM and Avengers and I enjoyed his work. A whole lot.
Right you are. Correcting that now.
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