RAR #42: THE RED MAN and MANTOKA

Here's the first of two obscure Native American heroes, both of whom had just two Golden Age adventures. In both cases, online reprints carry just one of those two adventures, but not the other.

In the case of "the Red Man"-- the strip's full title being "The Red Man of the Rockies"-- he may have had an origin in his first appearance, but in his second and last appearance in Centaur's FUNNY PAGES, he just roams around solving white people's problems with his ambiguous powers, which include the making of rain, as shown here. If he had any other name, it's not shown herein.

Much more salutary is MANTOKA, MASTER OF INDIAN MAGIC, by the renowned artist Jack Cole. Cole created a sort of "Indian Spectre" who could do almost anything with his magic, and who is seen in his first story defending his people from evil white exploiters. The opening page, in which Mantoka symbolically "dies" to gain magical power, is better than the rest of the story. Given that a little later Cole would concoct the oddball and somewhat offensive Indian villain Great Warrior, the mere existence of Mantoka indicates that the artist wasn't totally insensitive to the plight of the "red man."

MONSTER MASHUPS #50

In SALLY FORTH #4-- a reprint of Wally Wood material from some previous decade-- the often-bare naked lady comes across a castle where she meets various classic movie monsters.

There's the Frankensteinian butler, Jeeves.

Then there's an unnamed bandage-victim:

Then there's a vampire whose name makes "Count Chocula" sound classy.

And finally, there's a werewolf and a Guy with a Hairy Paw:

MONSTER MASHUPS #49

"Bat's Tail" spins a short three-page tale of a human victim captured by winged vampires for food. Throughout the vampires keep nattering about a fearsome "beast-man," so guess who the innocent-looking human turns out to be?

Nice Russ Heath art and a predictable Stan Lee "gotcha" script, but this tale is one of the few times a werewolf is seen being the scourge of a whole group of vampires.

RAR #41: BLACK BISON

I recently reread the first appearance of the supervillain Black Bison in the FIRESTORM comic, and he seems as boring now as he did then: just another of Gerry Conway's poorly conceived eco-terrorist bad guys. I don't think anyone ever made anything of the 20th century character, though his 19th-century ancestor appeared to good effect in a Rick Veitch SWAMP THING continuity.

MONSTER MASHUPS #48

SPOILERS, but-- here's the big surprise in SUPER FRIENDS #10: a bunch of aliens who look like classic monsters are actually-- superheroes!

MONSTER MASHUPS #47

The cover to 1964's CREEPY #7 looks like it's going to invoke the standard images of vampire vs. werewolf in a big fight:

However, even the title of the interior story, "Duel of the Monsters," is a cheat, since it's just another extended EC-style joke tale, taking place in medieval Spain for a change of pace. SPOILERS before anyone reads the big reveal below.

ANTI-MASHUPS (-3)

Just screened the 1964 FLINTSTONES episode "The Gruesomes," and decided that this one does not meet my standards for a mashup. The three members of the Gruesome Family-- pretty transparently modeled on the Addams clan-- are all the same sort of green-skinned freakazoids, so they all belong to the same species of whatever-they-are, unlike, say, the Munsters.

The family does have a menagerie of monsters-- "crocosauruses," octopi, a killer plant, and even a couple of giant furry hands that may or may not have hairy bodies attached. But all of these are just various types of animal, not monsters, and so they don't register, any more than the various fauna of Skull Island register as distinct from the monsterhood of King Kong.