MONSTER MASHUPS #53

 

Having celebrated the teaming of Marvel Comics' big ugly monsters from the early Silver Age in previous posts, it behooves me to include HULK ANNUAL #5, in which the heroic green goliath takes on six grotty grotesques from that period. One of them, the Living Titan, had already encountered the Hulk in a DEFENDERS story or two, and that was something of an in-joke, because in the year the Titan first appeared, his original name was-- the Hulk!

The other five critters had not encountered the Hulk before and probably not since, and like the cover says, they include smoke-monster Diablo, tree-creature Groot, mud-monster Taboo, generic space-alien Goom, and the electrical alien the Blip-- who was actually a benevolent fellow in his previous incarnation, something writer Len Wein evidently forgot. 

MONSTER MASHUPS #52

 From TALES FROM THE CRYPT #33 we get the story of two crazy monster-kids in love, two-headed Enoch and mummified cadaver Princess Myranah.

There was also a teleseries adaptation of the comics story, but I couldn't locate any good screenshots with both monsters in view.

RAR #44: THUNDERBIRD AND WARPATH

 Though Marvel's X-MEN will always be remembered for debuting one of the superhero genre's most memorable Black characters, the feature didn't have as much luck with Real Americans.

Apache John Proudstar, a.k.a. Thunderbird, debuted with the other new X-heroes in GIANT SIZE X-MEN #1. Yet he was at base a forgettable character, distinguished only by a cool Dave Cockrum costume. He was nothing more than an "angry young brave," and when the editors realized that his character was not much different from Wolverine's, they killed him off in his second adventure. In death he was more impressive than in life, since his demise furnished the fledgling feature with a great deal of enjoyable angst.

Much later, the NEW MUTANTS title revealed that John had a brother named James, and he had roughly the same mutant powers as his late sibling. He hung out with the White Queen's mutant-student group The Hellions for a time, and at some point donned a reasonable facsimile of his brothers's outfit. Still later, he changed his name to Warpath, but my general impression is that in none of his identities did he compel much interest from creators or from fans.

RAR #43: MIRAGE

The character of Cheyenne superhero Danielle Moonstar-- first given the code name of "Psyche," and later the slightly better "Mirage"-- was like the rest of her "New Mutant" teammates; modestly entertaining but never especially compelling. She was one of the team's two co-leaders at a time when it still wasn't common for female characters to lead super-teams, but I've rarely heard Mirage held up as a groundbreaker.

Though her character appears in the 2020 NEW MUTANTS movie, her best outing is probably in NEW MUTANTS #41, a solo story devoted to her encounter with a cowboy-styled emissary of Death.

However, I could've done without those versions of her costume where she sports a silly little feather from her headband.

MONSTER MASHUPS #51

 

"The Pharaoh's Zoo" is an almost completely forgotten story from BORIS KARLOFF'S TALES OF MYSTERY #65 (1975). In it, two archaeologists find the dead-alive bodies of three ancient creatures stuck in an Egyptian sphinx-- though none of them are sphinxes. Instead we get a phoenix, a Cerebrus and an "Egyptian cat-woman."