The Complete Guide to Manhunt Part 1

Manhunt was the best crime digest ever published. I've been working on a book on the magazine for well over ten years. One of these days, I might just finish it. Bits of it have been published here and there but most of what you'll see here on this blog has never been published. It's a massive project, featuring a lot of words (the chapter on 1953, its first year, is 13,000 words alone), lots of graphics, and it's getting bigger every day. I'll present this project a bit at a time, beginning with a (revised) piece I wrote for Paperback Parade several years ago explaining my obsession with Manhunt.

FOR THE LOVE OF MANHUNT

by Peter Enfantino

First the numbers:

- 14 years (1953-1967)

- 114 issues

- over 500 authors

- over 1100 stories

- over 13,000 pages

- over 6,000,000 words

- countless writers influenced

Some of the guilty parties: Charles Williams, Donald E. Westlake (and Richard Stark), Ed McBain (and all his aliases), Gil Brewer, Craig Rice, Jonathon Craig, John D. MacDonald, Mickey Spillane, Richard Prather, Leslie Charteris, David Goodis, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Harry Whittington.

January 1953

April/May 1967

First published in January 1953, Manhunt’s rep was built on the contributions of Spillane, McBain, Whittington, and Goodis. That’s why these digests are so collectible. Most of the Manhunt elite never had their short stories collected. That’s why you’ll pay big dollars for key issues. But there are those of us who collect the digests for more than just the beautiful cover art of Dick Shelton or Ray Houlihan, or a rare Harlan Ellison appearance, or just the general musty odor of the pages. For those of us who actually read the gritty crime stories between the covers, Manhunt is a treasure trove of great writing.

What strikes you when you read Manhunt is the fact that there are so many good stories by so many writers that aren’t household names (well, at least hardboiled households). Norman Struber, whose “Badge of Dishonor” shows us an early example of the anti-hero; Stuart Friedman, author of the powderkeg “The Secret,” wherein an innocent man is murdered for a crime he didn’t commit. Then there’s Frank Kane, author of several stories featuring hardboiled PI Johnny Liddell. Kane is often overlooked when great authors of the 1950s are discussed, perhaps because so many of the Liddells seemed jokey. Kane’s “Key Witness,” a rare non-Liddell novella, is anything but comic. An innocent bystander turned good samaritan is terrorized by the punks he witnessed commit murder. His transformation from good citizen to victim is starkly portrayed. In “Seven Lousy Bucks” by C. L. Sweeney, Jr., Joe’s got it made: no job, drinks his life away and prostitutes his wife, Clare, for booze money. When his wife fails to bring home more than ten bucks after serving a john, Joe blows his top. Violent, harrowing look at two bottom-of-the-barrel individuals. These four stories appeared over the space of three issues! If I had the time and space, I’d extoll the virtues of “Deadly Beloved,” a Joe Puma novella by William Campbell Gault, or “Hunch” by Helen Nielsen, wherein a grizzled, pessimistic cop discovers that the chief suspect in a series of brutal murders is his own son, or dozens more well-written celebrations of con jobs, robbery, murder, and adultery.

My own personal Manhunt collecting odyssey began in 1993 after a conversation with author Ed Gorman. Ed was writing a piece on Gold Medal paperbacks for a magazine I was editing at the time (you can say it Pete — The Scream Factory! -JS), and Manhunt kept popping up in the conversation. Ed let on that Manhunt had been an important part of his formative years. That sparked an interest in me and when, while browsing through a vintage paperback catalog, I came across a cheap copy of the January 1956 issue (“Seven Brutal Shockers!”), I took the plunge. Seven years later, I had the high bid on the September 1955 issue (one of the pricier digests because of its Charles Williams novel) which completed my set. I’d estimate a total price at about $1200.00.

Aside from a few bumps in the road, assembling a set of Manhunt is not an impossible task for the collector with enough patience and funds. Most issues can be found for $15-20 apiece. If condition is not a factor (who are we fooling... of course it is), you can find them for half that amount. Before the advent of the internet and eBay several years ago, collectors depended on Black Ace Book catalogs or the annual Vintage Paperback shows like those held in New York by Gary Lovisi and California by Tom Lesser. Now, it’s not uncommon to find two dozen issues of Manhunt on eBay on any given day. Of course, there are the issues that will cost a lot more than fifteen or twenty bucks. In addition to the aforementioned Charles Williams (who contributed three novels to Manhunt), expect to pay more for issues with work by John D. MacDonald (4), David Goodis (4), or Mickey Spillane (3), to name just a few. I also had a hard time finding the last couple issues (this might have been due either to poor distribution or a decline in print run) and the less desirable Giant Manhunts (the publisher would bind three, sometimes four, recent back issues together and sell them for half-a-buck).

One of the scarcest: Bedsheet-sized Giant Manhunt

Then there’s the matter of those pesky bedsheets. Beginning in March 1957 and continuing through April 1958, Manhunt was published as a magazine (aka “bedsheet”), rather than a digest, in an effort to boost sales (MH’s publisher, Flying Eagle, was convinced that MH was lost behind the larger-sized magazines on the newsstand). Years later, this would cause innumerable problems for the collector. Because of its awkward size, the bedsheet wasn’t to be found with its digest brothers. Chances are, you’d find them in a box of old Saturday Evening Posts in an antique store. The scarcity drove the price up. Though not as scarce as the similar Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine bedsheets (which can fetch upwards of $100 each), you’re still going to shell out $50-75 each for the twelve MH bedsheets. But, when you consider the insane prices found in the comic book collecting world, it’s still a fairly cheap hobby.

After returning to digest size, Manhunt just wasn’t the same again. Though the classic authors would make an appearance now and then, most of the authors were new, untested writers. Writers not heard of before and, in several instances, never heard of again after Manhunt’s demise. Evan Hunter and Charles Williams gave way to Robert Page Jones and J. Simmons Scheb. Not exactly esteemed names in a crime aficionado’s book. The general look of the magazine began to suffer as well. The magazine’s frequency was dropped first to bi-monthly and eventually quarterly. Reprints (of both covers and the fiction inside) became a fact of life. The beautiful hardboiled paintings adorning the covers gave way to out of focus shots of women cringing against brick walls. If you’re looking for the quality, stick to the first six years.

The Alfred Hitchock's Mystery Magazine Stories: Robert Edmond Alter

This is the first in a series of spotlights on the crime digests.

Robert Edmond Alter’s claim to fame may be as the writer of two classic Gold Medal crime novels, Swamp Sister and Carny Kill (both 1966), but he also made a dent in short fiction as well. Over 40 stories for the digests (Mike Shayne, Manhunt, Man From UNCLE, Trapped) and dozens more for slicks such as Argosy and The Saturday Evening Post. Alter’s scenarios and characters were all over the map: intrigue, cuckolded wives and husbands, spies, hillbillies, ghosts, skin divers...the author seems to have tackled each with glee, then moved onto another genre that might interest him at the moment. His Argosy stories, in particular, are big epic adventures packed tight into several thousand words.

The man himself remains an enigma. According to the few bios I’ve been able to find, Alter wrote fourteen children's novels , three crime novels, and a science fiction novel (Path to Savagery [Avon, 1969], which was made into the truly wretched movie The Ravagers in 1979, starring Richard Harris, Ernest Borgnine, and Art Carney). He was born in 1925 and may have died in 1966. As Allen J. Hubin, author of the indispensable Bibliography of Crime Fiction 1749-1975, states in an e-mail to Steve Lewis (editor of the online Mystery File): “there’s a social security death benefit record for a Robert Alter which matches his birth date exactly (December 10, 1925) and matches his state (California), and gives his death as May 1966.” Which is interesting since books and short stories by Alter continued appearing into 1970!

Alter’s first Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (AHMM) story, “To Catch a Big One,” (August 1958, 5250 words) concerns scuba-divers, territory that Alter had mined the year before in a story published in Argosy, “The Dark Dive” (September 1957). In “Big One,” Bent and Mason are divers that hire their boat out to thrill-seekers Harvey Wolfe and his amorous wife, Lorry. While Mason shows Wolfe the art of avoiding poisonous coral and exploring shipwrecks, Bent stays aboard to show Mrs. Wolfe a few things. In the end, Harvey isn’t as ignorant of the dangers of the water as he might seem.

Rather than a Hitchcockian mystery, “Big One” is a well-written adventure with a few crime story twists thrown in (adulterous wife, the inevitable comeuppance, etc.). Alter, in his opening paragraph, pretty much tells you up front what you’re going to get in the end:

Something waited for Bent on the other side of the horizon: something with a soundless voice called to him. I thought of that every time I saw him alone on the deck of our schooner, as he watched the sea with brooding, unsatisfied eyes, his face a dark pool of intensity, every splinter of thought reflected there like a dart of light. I don’t know where it might have ended, but it doesn’t matter now; Harvey Wolfe saw to that, Harvey and his wife Lorry.

Alter’s next three stories for AHMM were nowhere near as enthralling as his debut. The first two, “An Accident Has Been Arranged” (March 1959, 3000 words) and “The Assassin” (September 1959, 3000 words) are cut from the same cloth: bumbling hitman, in a case of mistaken identity, stalks the wrong guy. In the former, Kenneth Morgan is lucky to land passage on a tanker to Sydney but finds his luck has turned sour when he becomes the target of a political assassin. In the latter, “The Assassin” is hired to bump off an important Englishman, not realizing his intended victim has pulled a no-show.

Neither story shows much enthusiasm. Alter merely relates incidents rather than investing them with any tension or, worse, believability. The obligatory twists at the climax are forced and tired.

“It Couldn’t Possibly Happen” (November 1959, 2250 words) continues the political intrigue introduced in the previous two entries. Mr. Marsh is entrusted with important classified documents by a dying secret agent. When the agent’s killer shows up demanding the papers, Marsh promises the man that if he lets Marsh live, he’ll stall the police long enough for the killer to escape out the balcony. After the agent falls to his death, Marsh remarks that he never promised the guy that he had a balcony. A funny twist saves this short-short from being unremarkable.

“Each Night He Pulled the Trigger” (May 1960, 3250 words) finds Alter once again balancing good writing, characterization (at least as good as you can get in a short story), and riveting suspense. Every night, to the dismay of his friends and fellow soldiers, Captain Ortega cracks his pistol, loads one shell, and plays a deadly game of Russian Roulette. His young bunkmate tries in vain to talk the officer out of putting the gun to his head, but to no avail. When another soldier comes to the camp and accuses Ortega of being a deserter, the Captain elevates the game. I’m surprised this story wasn’t made into an episode of Hitchcock’s TV series since it’s got all the earmarks of a Hitch show.

After killing a politician, two assassins drive a hillside road mapping out their escape route. One of the killers opts to foot it, fearing that he’ll be caught by the police if he stays with his partner in the car. They plan to meet up at the yacht that’s been sent to retrieve them. Their separate treks don’t come easily. That’s the gist of “Schedule for an Assassination,” (August 1960, 3000 words) a hodgepodge of humor and dead-serious intrigue that works for all the same reasons that made “Each Night He Pulled the Trigger” such a good read. The only drawback with “Schedule” is its length--this feels like a small piece of a bigger story. The assassination itself, explained away in bits, would have added even more suspense to the mix.

The contrast in tone, between the humorous passages (the assassin driving, Vologin, is constantly screaming out his window at slow-moving drivers) and the events that remind us that this is supposed to be a crime story, is startling, such as in the following, wherein Volgin and his partner, Katov, discuss a pregnant woman who may have been a witness to their killing:

When they’d piled into the waiting car, Vologin had said, “We should have shot her, too. She’ll give them our description.”

But Katov had said nothing. He’d thought how odd it was that he’d just killed a man, and then immediately had bumped into a woman who was bringing a new life into the world. I suppose that’s what makes the balance, he’d thought. But Vologin had been right. They should have killed her.

“Double Trouble” (April 1962, 3500 words) is about as close to fluff as Alter ever wrote for AHMM. By fluff, I mean an “easygoing mystery,” something one could read over tea before a fire, rather than the intense, politically-motivated plots that Alter had become known for. Mr. Darby is tired of his rich, overweight wife after two years of servitude. He believes he’s owed a lot more than just a roof over his head. He wants that sack of dough his wife has hidden away. Darby knows where the sack is located and makes a quick dispatch of his wife with pillow and .22. What he doesn’t bargain for is a nosey neighbor who literally “sets her watch by the man’s comings and goings.” Those readers finding themselves drifting towards “cosies” would probably find a lot to like in “Double Trouble,” but I like ‘em quite a bit darker.

As if on cue, Alter’s next tale, “Killer in the Dark” (August 1963, 5500 words), takes place in, well, the dark. Peter Douglas stars as a harried father trying to rescue his little girl, trapped in a dark basement and cornered by a deadly rattlesnake. Hazard piles upon hazard (the basement is dark because Peter forgot to change the light bulb; the basement floor is covered with the detritus the Douglas family has accumulated; the daughter thinks daddy is playing a game with her) before the day is saved and the family can return to domestic bliss, albeit with a few hard-taught lessons learned in household maintenance. My initial nail-biting, unfortunately, turned to belly-laughs by the time I had finished the action-filled climax (think Jason and his Argonauts fighting the Hydra). A shame, since Alter seduces us with a plot device that would send shivers down the spine of any parent:

“It’s all right, hon. Jimmy thinks he saw a snake” (and even before he finished he saw the apprehension come into her eyes and he knew his intuition had been right all along--that it was going to be bad; because fear, he supposed, was atavistic in all women. All the way back to the dim females of the caves it had been kids and accidents, kids and sickness, or husbands and wars, husbands and heart attacks) “go down in our basement.”

There was a pause as she stared at his eyes, as she took in breath to say it with a rush. And in that brief moment they were the only two people there - man and wife, parents.

“Peggy’s down there.”

Alter returns to the theme of the assassin in “A Habit for the Voyage” (February 1964, 5250 words), a well he may have dipped into a few times too many. Killer-for-hire Krueger is on board a Brazilian steamer, his mission to eliminate a fellow passenger. When near-accidents befall Krueger, he realizes who the true target may be. The old “hunter is actually the hunted” tale is taken out and dusted off again, but Alter overlooks quite a few cobwebs. “Habit” is not just cliche but, worse, boring.

The author must have sensed that he needed a change of pace and “Echo of a Savage” (June 1964, 5000 words) is very definitely a change of pace. Eschewing his usual backgrounds of steamer ships and exotic lands, “Savage” takes place deep in the heart of the Okefenokee Swamp. Three violent goons have held up a bank and headed into the swamp, where they run across the shanty of Jube, an old man content to live among the copperheads and gators. The robbers hold Jube hostage and take over his boat, but the swamp man has other ideas.

“Echo of a Savage” is the extreme opposite of “A Habit for the Voyage”: a breezy, entertaining read with more than a dollop of darkness thrown in. The story has a lot in common with Alter’s Swamp Sister, the Gold Medal novel written a couple years later.

After a lay-off of nearly two years, Robert Edmond Alter returned to the pages of AHMM with three appearances in 1966: “Haunted Hill” (April, 4500 words), “The Shunned House” (May, 5000 words), and his final AHMM story, “No Place Like Home” (December, 3000 words). The first two stories are a continuation of Alter’s locale switch from exotic to “backwoods.” Both fall into the “faux haunted house” mystery sub-genre. In “Haunted Hill,” Flem Trubb owes everyone in town, but comes into a little cash after he sells his land to a lumber mill. Several of Flem’s neighbors remark that he shouldn’t be carrying around so much cash, but Flem laughs at danger. Sure enough, the hillbilly disappears, returning as a ghost to haunt his hilltop home. Not much surprise in its reveal, but the story is enjoyable and has a nasty kick in its rear.

“The Shunned House” almost comes off like one of the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series of books created by Robert Arthur in the early 60s (with such great titles as The Mystery of the... Silver Spider, Whispering Mummy, Stuttering Parrot, Coughing Dragon, etc.) but, like “Haunted Hill” (which also sounds like a Robert Arthur story, come to think of it), has too dark an edge to be a kiddie story. “The Shunned House” in question is the old Yost House, home, so the legends say, to a priceless cache of gold. Three boys, Joe, Phil and Harold, are determined to find the treasure, but when Harold disappears in the house’s basement, the fun turns to fear. Two things separate this story from the Three Investigators series (and most “boy’s life” stories, for that matter): the boy who disappears turns up dead and, in a plot twist that fascinated me, the story picks up years after the murder and the two remaining boys are now adults. Phil is now working in the county D.A.’s office, investigating the brutal murder of Joe, his body found in the same area as Harold’s years ago.

“The Shunned House” is a riveting suspenser, Alter’s best for AHMM.

It’s a shame that “The Shunned House” wasn’t Alter’s swan-song for AHMM. It would have allowed him to go out on a high note. That can’t be said for “No Place Like Home.” Couch potato Jeffrey lives with and off of his grandmother, who disdains everything he does. The feelings are mutual, and Jeffrey lives for the day when grandma tsks her last tsk and leaves him the house, her money, but most importantly, her sofa and TV set. Jeffrey’s golden opportunity arrives when he reads about an elderly woman who burns to death after falling asleep while smoking. This is one of those “Ha-Ha, we gotcha with the last paragraph” stories that filled the pages of AHMM from the 1950s through the 1970s. A lot of those stories had ironic, funny gotchas. This one doesn’t (the police know that Jeffrey faked Grandma’s nicotine addiction because the old lady actually died of a heart attack before the staging). Though it’s an awful story, one thing can be said: it’s another indicator of just how varied Alter’s writing was. The reader would be hard pressed to guess that the author of “The Shunned House” also wrote “No Place Like Home” (or “Echo of a Savage” or “Schedule for an Assassination” either, for that matter).

(Cover reproductions come from the Galactic Central website, an eye-popping collection of information assembled by Phil Stephensen-Payne: http://www.philsp.com/ )

Kitten on the Cover: The Ann-Margret Paperback Tie-ins

Ann-Margret. In the 60s, she possessed a magic that was unparalleled on stage and screen. As a fan, I stumbled onto a niche area of vintage paperback collecting - tie-ins from her films on which she is featured on the cover.

This came about when I was searching for a copy of Wade Miller's Kitten With A Whip several years ago. I bypassed the Gold Medal first edition in lieu of a later GM movie tie-in. From that point forward, I've been on a quest to track down every other example I could find (specifically from the 60s—if there are tie-ins to C.C and Company or Grumpy Old Men, I can live without them). The following five books represent everything that I am aware of from her golden age - 1962-1966.

Bye Bye Birdie by Ruth IvesMacfadden 50-178, 1963

The front cover reproduces the Bye Bye Birdie poster art, and doesn't technically match my specifications, however when I picked this novelization up and saw the photo on the back, I knew it had to be part of the collection.

Kitten With A Whip by Wade Miller
Gold Medal k1490, 1964

The cover photo on this original novel is not from the film itself, but from a photo shoot around the time of the film (if not specifically for it). Ann-Margret is wearing a black full body stocking while posing with a tiger cub. Additional images from this shoot are above and below. A nice cover, and not a bad read, to boot.

Bus Riley's Back in Town by Al Hine
Popular Library PC1050, 1965

A novelization of Walter Gage's screenplay. Michael Parks coincidentally plays second fiddle to the more prominent image of Ann-Margret on the cover.

Once A Thief by Zekial Marko
Gold Medal k1569, 1965

Another original novel (originally titles Scratch a Thief). While not the greatest cover (the focus appears to be more on Alain Delon without his shirt on), but a necessary inclusion nonetheless.

The Swinger by William Johnston
Dell 8434, 1966

A novelization of the Lawrence Roman screenplay. The cover is a colorized version of a black and white photo which is reproduced on the back. Unlike Michael Parks above, Tony Franciosa was completely dropped from the front!

If you know of any others, don't hesitate to post a comment!

You Gotta Read These: Fifteen Paperbacks You Might Have Missed by Bill Crider

Now and then, this blog will run highlights from the golden days of The Scream Factory and bare•bones. We'll also be running pieces that were written for bare•bones but never published. Today, we're proud to "reprint" Bill Crider's list of 15 crime paperbacks you may not know about. Good luck hunting them down.

1. Revenge by Jack Ehrlich. Ok, you've already read Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Dan Marlowe's The Vengeance Man. Is there anything out there that's remotely like them? Yes. Try Revenge.

2. One for Hell by Jada Davis. And if you don't want to read Revenge, read this one.

3. The Broker by Max Allan Collins. This book begins Collins' homage to Richard Stark's Parker series. It's dedicated to Westlake, and the protagonist is a killer-for-hire.

4. Baby Moll and Danger in My Blood by Steve Brackeen. Brackeen is really John Farris. These were written very early in his career.

6. Let Them Eat Bullets by Howard Schoenfeld. An amazing parody of the hardboiled p.i. genre. (This was reprinted by Hard Case Crime a few years ago -PE)

7. A Rage at Sea by Frederick Lorenz. No one talks about Lorenz these days, but he was good.

8. Four for the Money by Dan J. Marlowe. A nifty caper novel. Marlowe's an under-rated writer.

9. The Case of the Beautiful Body by Jonathon Craig. Craig started writing police procedurals about the same time ed McBain did, but with a slightly different approach. Any book in the Pete Selby series is worth picking up.

10. Ride the Gold Mare by Ovid DeMaris. Nearly any crime novel by DeMaris is worth reading. Try this one, The Slasher, or The Gold-Plated Sewer.

11. Drive East on 66 by Richard Wormser. Wormser's another sadly neglected writer.

12. Paperbag by Richard Russell. Great hit-man novel. Read Reunion and Point of Reference too. Series has to be read in order.

13. The Bloody Medallion by Richard Telfair. Part of a really over-the-top spy series that's generally lots of fun.

14. Kill the Boss Good-Bye by Peter Rabe. Everyone knows about Rabe. Don't miss this one or The Box.

15. Whom the Gods Destroy by Clifton Adams. Adams usually wrote westerns, but this is a dandy crime novel.

Allow me to add a baker's dozen of my favorites that you may not be hip to. -PE

1 April Evil by John D. MacDonald. Usually the JDMs cited are the Travis McGee series or The Executioners (Cape Fear), but I prefer this slow burn heist novel.

2 The Hot Shot by Fletcher Flora. College basketball tampering in the 1950s? Yep, just as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.

3 One is the Loneliest Number by Bruce Elliott. Before too long, an escaped convict is going to wish he was back in the pen.

4 A Touch of Death by Charles Williams. Embezzling and two-timing babes. Two essential nutrients for great crime fiction.

5 Key Witness by Frank Kane. Proves that being a good samaritan can be a bad idea.

6 Judas Cross by Jeffrey Wallmann. Bad cop investigates his partner's murder. This has one of the nastiest final scenes I've ever read.

7 Big Man by Richard Marsten (Ed McBain). I've read dozens of Ed McBain novels. This is his nastiest work, I think. It doesn't have the "New York woke up like a five dollar whore" brushstrokes of his 87th Precinct novels (which are a joy to read) and that may be a good thing.

8 He Rode Alone by Steve Frazee. The plotline's been done a thousand times in westerns: lone horseman comes into town looking for revenge. This one's got something different - a writer who can mold that cliche into a great read.

9 The Kidnapper by Robert Bloch. The man forever to be associated with...writing that novel the famous Hitchcock flick is based on... comes up with a fabulous crime novel. There's a kick in the gut midway that you won't see coming.

10 Murder Me for Nickels by Peter Rabe. So you thought the jukebox business was all fun and games?

11 The Lime Pit by Jonathon Valin. The first (and best) of the Harry Stoner novels. I'm not big on P.I. novels and their inherent cliches but Valin steers away from the same old thing in this tale of what befalls a pretty girl in the porn inductry.

12 Stolen Away by Max Allan Collins. Another P.I. novel that eschews all the old standbys. Collins plops his Nathan Heller character smack dab in the midst of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

13 The Hook by Donald Westlake. The Ax got most of the praise (and it's warranted) but I think The Hook is the best of Westlake's contemporary thrillers (aside from the Parker novels). Deadly case of writer's block!

The Single Greatest Story Arc in Comic Book History Ever!!!

I first got into heavy duty comic collecting in the early ‘70s. Sure, comics were around school and I’d see them when I went to the comic shop (the legendary “Comic Collector Shop” in downtown San Jose, Caifornia, owned by the equally legendary Bob Sidebottom) to pick up the new Famous Monsters of Filmland and Creepy, but comics never really caught my fancy until a school friend gave me a box of Marvels his brother had been collecting. Said brother was off to high school and everybody knew you’d better not be caught dead with a funny book on campus or you’d be a pariah, sent off to lunch with the Trekkies. That box of Marvels today would probably be worth a couple grand. Most of them were Spider-Man (circa 1968-1970), with a few Thor, Silver Surfer, Avengers, and Fantastic Fours thrown in for good measure.

I read every comic in that box cover to cover (yes, boys and girls, there was a time when youngsters read their comics with ungloved hands and then simply tossed them into a pile in the corner next to the dirty clothes your ma picked up twice a week) and became engrossed in the Marvel Universe.

I was soon buying just about every title Marvel published (except for Night Nurse and the western titles). People, I was the original Marvel Zombie so berated by the Comics Journal in the 1980s. Nine times out of ten, comic historians and comic fans in general will point to the 1960s Marvel line as the greatest comics of all time. I disagree. For me, the pinnacle years of Marvel were 1971-1975.

I’ll pause here while you laugh out loud.

Settled down now? Good, I’ll continue.

When I think of Marvel, I don’t think of Kirby, Lee and Ditko (though Ditko’s work at Warren in the 60s does stand out in my mind). I think of Mindworm, The Punisher, The Jackal, Gwen Stacy’s clone, Professor Warren’s clone, Spider-Man’s clone, Man-Thing, Morbius, The Vision and The Scarlet Witch, Gullivar Jones, Conan, Werewolf By Night, Ghost Rider, The Defenders, Luke Cage, Dracula, Man-Wolf, Kull, Iron Fist, Neal Adams’ The Avengers, and a kazillion other four color images that pop into my head.

Marvel’s writers would dream up the coolest ongoing storylines and they weren’t afraid to pull rabbits out of their big hats. Remember when you found out the Vision was really the Golden Age Human Torch?; Gwen Stacy and The Green Goblin died and then rose from the dead?; Thor ave up his godly powers for the sake of his earthly love?; Reed Richards was forced to “shut down” his son and then watched helplessly as his wife left him?; Bill Everett returned to the Sub-Mariner?; you almost couldn’t stop yourself from reading that “sizzling shocking surprise” that awaited you in the final panel? God, what fun it was taking the bus downtown to see what was out that week. We didn’t have the internet or Diamond shipping lists to check. We just showed up and got what was there.

Which brings me to the topic at hand. I remember the first Captain America and the Falcon I bought was #151. It had The Scorpion on the cover. The Scorpion happened to be one of my favorite Marvel Super-Villains (right up there with The Goblin and The Lizard). He seemed devoid of any human emotion, a psychotic, dangerous villain. Even though you knew the hero would pull it off in the end, the Scorpion still gave you that “what-if” feeling.

The Scorpion tale ended up being a so-so two-parter involving Mr. Hyde (conversely, this guy was one of my least favorite bad guys), but I really dug all the ongoing sub-plots. Was Cap fooling around with Nick Fury’s girl, Contessa Valentina Allegro De Fontaine? Would patrolman Bob Courtney discover that fellow cop Steve Rogers was actually Cap? Was Muldoon really on the take? Could Steve find happiness with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter? Could Sal Buscema ever draw an action figure that didn’t grit his pearly whites and clench his fists?

I can’t remember the answers to those questions and I don’t have the comics anymore to look through. In the mid-90s, after finally collapsing in disgust at what Marvel and most of the other companies were foisting at me, I sold my 25,000+ comic collection. I did keep my horror comics. I never tire of reading House of Mystery and Chamber of Chills, but the hero comics went south. I sold every single superhero comic I owned... except for 4 issues of Captain America and The Falcon. Why those four issues? Because they make up my favorite storyline in the Marvel universe. "The Return of the Original Captain America," written by Steve Englehart.

This gets complicated so please try to keep up. I won’t be repeating anything. After taking way too much guff from her boss at S.H.I.E.L.D., agent Sharon Carter decides to quit her job and become Steve Rogers’ (aka Cap) full-time squeeze. Their first order of business is to take off to the Bahamas for a well-deserved vacation. Saving the world every thirty days can drain the batteries. Cap has been moonlighting as a patrolman and hasn’t exactly been a regular at work. Some of the other cops begin to wonder what Rogers could be doing in his spare time. Meanwhile, The Falcon (aka Sam Wilson) wanders the streets and questions his own life. Is he just another “honkey,” as his girl Leila insists, or is he a vital part of the neighborhood, a role model for the youth of the ghetto? Even as he’s sorting through the differing vibes, he catches wind of something unbelievable.

According to Leila, Cap has been seen in the neighborhood, beating on the residents to gain information on The Falcon. Since The Falcon watched Steve and Sharon’s plane depart, he knows this can’t be the real Cap. When he finally tracks down the bogus Cap, the obligatory battle ensues. The Falcon handily beats the fraud and unmasks him, only to find an exact replica of Steve Rogers! The Falcon is nailed from behind and when he comes to he’s faced with Captain America and Bucky!

No, true believer, it’s not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an alternate-universe story! This ain’t Bizarro Cap and Bucky. And, as The Falcon learns the hard way, these guys fight like the real Cap and Bucky because, in a sense, they are the real Cap and Bucky.

After beating up on The Falcon, the bogus Cap gains entrance to Avengers Mansion and discovers the location of Steve and Sharon. There the two psychopaths head to destroy the man they believe to be the fake Captain America. Getting confused yet? Well, hang on another paragraph or three. I’ll get to the flashback shortly.

So “Cap and Bucky” track down the two frolicking lovebirds on a remote beach and, in a chilling scene, catch him off guard with a glimpse of his long-dead partner. The two pound Steve, Sharon, and The Falcon, who arrives as the action is taking place.

Tied up, the three listen to the fake Cap tell his story.

He grew up obsessed with Captain America and, after the hero disappears and Bucky is killed in an explosion (we know now that Cap went into a deep freeze), becomes equally obsessed with taking Cap’s place. He grows older and the obsession grows with him, until finally as a young man he discovers the formula for the Super Soldier Serum ad convinces government officials that the Korean War is the perfect training ground for the new Cap. He has plastic surgery to make the charade complete, but, in a cruel twist of fate, has his dreams dashed as the Korean War comes to an end and America decides it doesn’t need another hero. Taking the name Steve Rogers, he settles down quietly as a history teacher until one fateful day, as he’s walking through th park, he happens upon a young boy reading “The Life Story of Captain America.” Turns out the boy’s idol is Bucky. The two decide to inject themselves with the Serum and go off to fight super-baddies like The Red Skull and The Man With No Face.

But the boys begin to fight with a little too much verve. The government fears “schizophrenic paranoia,” zaps the heroes, and places them in suspended animation until “we can cure them.” Years later, one of the men in charge of the bodies develops a bit of “schizophrenic paranoia” himself (when then-President Nixon visits China) and thaws Cap and Bucky. Crazier than ever before, the two lunatics set out to right all the wrongs perpetrated by the “home-front traitor” known as Captain America.

Eventually, as expected, the two Caps have their showdown and the real Cap shows who’s the better trained super-soldier. Cap exits the final panels telling Sharon Carter: “I guess the authorities will put (the fake Cap and Bucky) back in their suspended animation tanks until a cure can be found—if one can be found. And I’ll go back to fighting for a better America while they sleep. But all the time, I’ll be thinking... that he could have been me.”

A great story. Great stories were few and far between for Captain America and The Falcon after this arc, though. Falcon would quit every fourth or fifth issue, tired of being “Cap’s puppet” or “Cap’s shadow” or whatever. Cap himself would quit and become the Nomad, only to see the error of his ways and re-don his red, white, and blue uniform in time for the return of Jack Kirby to Marvel and Captain America and The Falcon in 1975.

A few years ago, in a very popular arc in the newest reboot of Captain America, Bucky Barnes returned as The Winter Soldier. But that’s fodder for another column and, frankly, another writer.

Going to bat for The Creature

The roar of Monster Kids filled the air at AT&T Park in San Francisco yesterday, as they held the second annual Creature Features Movie Night at the ballpark following the Giants game.

Those of you who grew up in the Bay Area will remember Bob Wilkins and John Stanley, who each took turns hosting the show several decades ago. Last summer, a local group of fans and film event promoters got together with the park to schedule the first Creature Features night, which included a screening of Night of the Living Dead hosted by John Stanley, with actress Judy O'Dea in attendance.

Needless to say, we were quite disappointed to find out about the event a few days after it happened, and vowed to return if they ever did it again. Well, last night was the night, and this time the film was the Jack Arnold classic Universal-International picture from 1954, The Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Stanley talking to Kihn before the event.

Local 80s rock star/disc jockey/horror writer Greg Kihn was in attendance to introduce our host for the festivities, Creature Features host John Stanley.

John provided a brief history on producer William Alland, leading up to his role producing The Creature, and shared stories of talking with composer Henry Mancini on his scoring the film (his third assignment after two other Universal-International franchise jobs: Ma & Pa Kettle and Francis the Talking Mule). 

Oh, and there was one other celebrity guest in attendance who was more than happy to mug for the crowd...

The (Gill) Man of the Hour.

The attention then turned to the big screen, as they showed a clip of an interview he did with Julie Adams and Ben Chapman, along with some Creature trailers and excerpts from a Bob Wilkins screening of the film.

Stanley, Adams, and Chapman.

The late, great, Bob Wilkins.

We missed the opening credits as the A/V team forgot to switch over to the video right away, but were soon enjoying The Creature on the big screen (albeit from reasonably far away, particularly for those of us used to sitting 10 feet from a 100" wide screen). 

As the night grew on, some folks gave up and trickled out, but for the most part the group of several hundred stuck it through. Those of us who paid the $25 for a View Reserved ticket and T-shirt can't really complain about the deal (unless of course you were more concerned about the Giants blowing their chance to retain first place in their division).

Last year's design was cooler, but still a nice T-Shirt.

The only drawback was that due to the slight chance of rain in the forecast, the grounds crew had to cover the infield, and fans weren't allowed on field to watch the film (as originally planned), and we had to watch from the stands. I thought our first onfield experience at the park would have been in the Creature's honor, but I guess that will have to wait until next year.

Vonna and T.C. saying SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

SHARPSHOOTER! Part 1

It took me two years but I finally made it back to the wonderland known as Men's Adventure. Back in the mid-70s, the paperback racks (an alien concept now, but paperbacks used to be stuffed in a spinning rack for the brave to sift through) were packed with such series titles as Death Merchant, Soldano, The Lone Wolf, The Hunter, The Penetrator, The Revenger, as well as the two titans The Destroyer and The Executioner. I'll be getting to several of these eventually but for now let's get to SHARPSHOOTER!!!

#1: The Killing Machine (August 1973)

When his entire family is murdered by the Mafia, millionaire John Rocetti becomes the one-man killing machine known as Johnny Rock. Armed with state-of-the-art weaponry, Rock drives a wedge between two Mob families, systematically eliminating key figures in each gang. Along the way, he meets up with Iris Toscano, widow of former mob figure Dominick Toscano, who desires to mete out the same justice on the scum who took her husband’s life. The two vigilantes manage to rack up an impressive number of Italian corpses on their way to the big finale, a showdown with the biggest Dons in the syndicate.

Granted, The Killing Machine is not the most original of concepts, but it never gets boring and chugs right along to its anti-climax (we’re promised by Iris and Johnny that their work can never be truly finished as long as there remains Italo-scum in the free world). Leisure Books, to my knowledge, never adapted to the 20th Century oddity known as proofreading and The Killing Machine is no exception. Commas are dropped into sentences randomly and rapidly. The Killing Machine is rough, but it gets the job done.

GRADE: B-

#2: Blood Oath (October 1973)

With the second book in the series, Rossi dispatches with such niceties as mercy and fair play (becoming the antithesis of my favorite bad/good guy, Richard Stark’s Parker, who mellowed with each new novel). Moving far beyond the “this tough guy takes no shit from the bad guys” mentality to another level I’d call “this tough guy takes NUTTIN from NOBODY,” John (The Rock) Rocetti continues his all-out war on the Mafia. Without a doubt, the change in Rock’s demeanor has a lot to do with his chronicler, not the same ghost writer responsible for writing #1: The Killing Machine who, evidently, wasn’t too impressed with his predecessor’s hanging plotlines. It would appear that this writer was juggling a few too many series characters at the time as, several times throughout the novel, Rocetti is re-named Magellan, which just happens to be the aka of another of Leisure’s Mafia Vigilante characters, The Marksman (stop me if you’re heard this one before: When his entire family is murdered by the Mafia, Philip Magellan becomes the one-man killing machine known as The Marksman).

When Blood Oath opens (and it’s a very well-written opening chapter, by the way), Rock is hiding out in the small Eastern town of Xenia (Population, at least in Chapter One, is 309) after another mob massacre forces him to head for the hills. Obviously, his latest escapade was a doozie, as his picture is now in all the true-detective rags and everyone knows him as an avenger of the people. Iris Toscano is nowhere to be found, not even a hint of her whereabouts is dropped. In fact, the author doesn’t even get Rock’s real name right (re-christening him John Roccoletti!). The biggest drawback to Rock’s second low-budget adventure is its climax, or lack thereof, actually. Johnny Rock’s temper has been pushed way past its limits and early in the book we’re treated to an incredibly graphic scene where Johnny takes out two mafia henchmen who have done nothing more than talk nasty to an old lady and possibly run stolen goods. But that’s only a warm-up to the massive carnage wrought in the last few chapters. Not that I object. We could use a few Johnny Rocks here in Arizona, as a matter of fact.

GRADE: B

#3: Blood Bath (November 1973)

Johnny Rock’s newfound love of spattered blood and shattered bone escalates in his third adventure. Taking a page from the “shudder pulps,” Rock is kidnapping important figures in the Torielly family, including the Don’s daughter and chauffeur, chaining them naked to a stone wall and letting rats have at them. With Blood Bath, Rock officially has become more of a murderous menace than the mob he fights, executing simple bar bouncers with bad manners for the hell of it. Definitely too violent and homophobic for today’s PC crowd (in one scene, the owner of a gay bar is said to “cater exclusively to the interests of sexual deviates”). By the way, Rock resembles a crazed Rod Taylor in artist Ken Barr’s blood-filled cover painting (one mobster has been shot through the pearly whites and is geysering all over his beautiful tux).

GRADE: C+

#4: The Worst Way to Die (January 1974)

By its fourth volume a series that ranged from fairly enjoyable to downright hysterical becomes downright crud. This time Rock targets the Labrizi Brothers, two particularly despicable Dons who seemingly do nothing more than eat in expensive Italian restaurants. The new wrinkle added to Rock’s repertoire with this adventure is Johnny’s newfound love for donning make-up and disguises. After Rock is beaten and almost offed by a couple of thugs, he decides that maybe his mug has become too familiar (ostensibly forgetting that, back in Blood Oath, he had become the centerfold for vigilantes worldwide) and learns the art of prosthetics and greasepaint.

The “mafia mowdown scene” of this snoozer takes place, of course, in an Italian restaurant and I kinda hoped I’d see the Bruno Rossi version of Mrs. Doubtfire: While Johnny Rock surveys the Labrizis from a corner table, he is horrified to learn that his prosthetic nose has slid into his linguine and clam sauce. By the climax of The Worst Way to Die, the reader will become convinced that Johnny Rock, The Sharpshooter, has finally plummeted from his steep precipice of sanity when he murders the father, mother, and one of the younger brothers of the Labrizis in cold blood. It’s a chilling scene, two pages that pack more punch than the 170 that precede them.

GRADE: D