Enjoyed the video. I got a few issues of Fear & Man-Thing when they were new on the racks in the mid-70s and really loved Gerber's writing. Filled in the most of the holes in my collection much later. Also loved Swamp Thing, although I didn't start collecting that until the '80s, getting the classic Wein & Wrigthson run and Alan Moore's run. Just as an aside, I think the real reason Marvel didn't make too much of a fuss about Swamp Thing was that both Man-Thing & Swamp Thing strongly resembled the Heap, created in 1942 by Hillman Periodicals, and revived (at least in name and form) in a magazine called Psycho printed in March 1971 by a company called Skywald. The Heap, in return, was very likely inspired by a horror story by Theodore Sturgeon called "It" published in 1940. Lee likely realized that if he tried suing DC for "copying" their swamp creature, DC had a clear defense in that Marvel had copied the Heap. Skywald, btw, was co-founded by Sol Brodsky, a long-time production manager for Marvel and it was Roy Thomas himself who gave Sol the idea to revive the Heap character, of which Thomas had been a big fan, and this was apparently after Marvel's Man-Thing was already in the works, although the new Heap's debut in Psycho came out about two months before Man-Thing's debut in Savage Tales. At any rate, despite similar origins, as you noted, Man-Thing and Swamp Thing had significant differences, and Gerber even consulted with Wein to make sure that his muck monster stories were nothing like anything Wein had planned for his own muck monster tales. I'm rather glad they worked that out as both turned out classic horror tales with some excellent artwork from Wrightson, Mayerik & Ploog, among several others, not to mention Howard the Duck and Moore's outstanding run on Swamp Thing with wonderfully creepy art by Bissette & Totleben, et. al.
I've come to love Swamp Thing since finally getting to Moore's run over the past few years. I never gave Man-Thing much thought, but Vince from one of my favourite comics podcasts 11 O'Clock Comics is a huge fan. Long story short, I found the omni at a great price and jumped on it. Looking forward to digging into Man-Thing now. Great video!
I knew nothing about Man Thing...I only knew Swamp Thing...mostly from the Adrienne Barbeau movie. This is also my first comics review I've watched. Great job Z! I'm going to look back through the archives! I LOVED POWER RECORDS!!! I had a million Book & Records!
I always liked Man Thing more than Swamp Thing (who is cool too). I wonder what would've happened to MT if Alan Moore wrote him in the 80's instead of ST.
I got most of vol 2 cheap. Pretty good stuff with Chris Claremont trying to keep it going. #4 had a Dr Strange crossover. I am glad I read those first, because I sat in my bedroom, amazed, with each Gerber tale. I read Defenders around that time. Great stuff to enjoy as an experienced reader in my 30s. He may have sometimes felt he was producing something near TV show level (if only it could have been TV!). But he resonates, especially once Manny has his own series. Hard to believe he considered leaving when Ploog left. I love that last year. I only had #13 as a teen and wasn't sure what to make of the pirate part one ( not a favorite of Steve's apparently.) Foolkiller was awesome 👌
Great video! Such an interesting character since man thing is almost incapable of thought his stories center around the people he encountered one of the only books that focuses on characterization more than action I think this book was way ahead of its time, also thought he looked cooler than swamp thing
As much as I like the “works on instinct” behaviour I do wish that there was a story where Man-Thing was just a tiny bit smarter. But not the R.L Stein version... wisecracking Man-Thing was not something the world needed.
I agree I was excited when I heard Stine was gonna do a run then was pretty disappointed wtf, there was a good miniseries in the late 90s by JM DeMatties (kravens last hunt)that was great, actually delved into his human mind again with his ex wife and the art was great
I see you have acquired a Giant-Sized Man-Thing for your collection. I unfortunately don't. It's an interesting concept of a character that's set off by one's fears and issue 5 is really something I wanna read one day from the sounds of it.
Thy could do what whichever company owned transformers in the early 2000 did when they rereleased the transformers trade of the first 4 issues of the comics when they edited out the black suit Spider-Man which was originally in there (I had those issues but my parents put that and all my origanal Tmnt stuff in a storage locker my first semester of college and then let it go)
That was the original IDW set of Transformers. They later made a deal with Marvel so they didn't have to do that with their second set of the series, which I have. That isn't the issue with these, though. Marvel owns everything to do with Man-Thing.
No. Marvel didn't pursue legal action against DC because they were worried about being sued for ripping off The Golden age Heap. My mouth dropped when Roy Thomas dropped that tidbit on me at Heroes con in the early 2000s.
So basically they knew everyone was guilty of ripping off everyone else, so best not to open that can of worms lol! Well the end result was, we got two fantastic swamp creatures with their own respective classic sagas out of it. :)
The Steve Gerber Complete Collection is an absolute must (amazon links in the description), there's finally a 3rd volume coming out in March. It has all the original stories I talk about in this video plus some later stories that he wrote. All great stuff!
Local used bookstores are usually your best bet. There's also amazon, ebay, and sites like abesbooks that specialize in OOP stuff but expect to pay more at those places.
In my opinion, there are only 4 interesting stories. The concept is not bad but for actual readers, some stories are silly or boring. A lot of concepts with no sense. Of course, numbers 5 and 6 are billiant but the rest.... man, I feel like I lost a part of my life-time ha ha ha. Great video, you have a new suscriber in me!!
The omnibus doesn't have everything. The Trades actually have more content overall, with the obvious omission of the 1979 11-issue series. And some people (myself included) don't like the omnibus format. Nearly all of the content in Volume 3 of this collection isn't in the omnibus.
My favorite character of all time!! Well done sir!!
Enjoyed the video. I got a few issues of Fear & Man-Thing when they were new on the racks in the mid-70s and really loved Gerber's writing. Filled in the most of the holes in my collection much later. Also loved Swamp Thing, although I didn't start collecting that until the '80s, getting the classic Wein & Wrigthson run and Alan Moore's run. Just as an aside, I think the real reason Marvel didn't make too much of a fuss about Swamp Thing was that both Man-Thing & Swamp Thing strongly resembled the Heap, created in 1942 by Hillman Periodicals, and revived (at least in name and form) in a magazine called Psycho printed in March 1971 by a company called Skywald. The Heap, in return, was very likely inspired by a horror story by Theodore Sturgeon called "It" published in 1940. Lee likely realized that if he tried suing DC for "copying" their swamp creature, DC had a clear defense in that Marvel had copied the Heap. Skywald, btw, was co-founded by Sol Brodsky, a long-time production manager for Marvel and it was Roy Thomas himself who gave Sol the idea to revive the Heap character, of which Thomas had been a big fan, and this was apparently after Marvel's Man-Thing was already in the works, although the new Heap's debut in Psycho came out about two months before Man-Thing's debut in Savage Tales. At any rate, despite similar origins, as you noted, Man-Thing and Swamp Thing had significant differences, and Gerber even consulted with Wein to make sure that his muck monster stories were nothing like anything Wein had planned for his own muck monster tales. I'm rather glad they worked that out as both turned out classic horror tales with some excellent artwork from Wrightson, Mayerik & Ploog, among several others, not to mention Howard the Duck and Moore's outstanding run on Swamp Thing with wonderfully creepy art by Bissette & Totleben, et. al.
That’s a lot
I've come to love Swamp Thing since finally getting to Moore's run over the past few years. I never gave Man-Thing much thought, but Vince from one of my favourite comics podcasts 11 O'Clock Comics is a huge fan. Long story short, I found the omni at a great price and jumped on it. Looking forward to digging into Man-Thing now. Great video!
Great video, definitely need to read some Man Thing.
love that you put the comic covers up very classy
Excellent. Thanks!
always wanted to read Man-thing now i just want to read it even more!
Underrated character
Bought the first trade paperback that you have on the left
Nice, enjoy! Some terrific stories in that collection.
I knew nothing about Man Thing...I only knew Swamp Thing...mostly from the Adrienne Barbeau movie. This is also my first comics review I've watched. Great job Z! I'm going to look back through the archives!
I LOVED POWER RECORDS!!! I had a million Book & Records!
Awesome job on the videos, have you tackled tomb of Dracula?
One of my favorite Marvel monsters. "Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch!"
its so funny that he picked night of laughing dead my buddy and i think its such a great story amazing story
say goodbye to your childhood clowns when you read the Man-Thing night of the Laughing dead about a clown killing himself in a swamp
I wonder what kind of reaction kids back then when they read this book
I always liked Man Thing more than Swamp Thing (who is cool too). I wonder what would've happened to MT if Alan Moore wrote him in the 80's instead of ST.
Great video, I first wanted to learn about "Man-Thing" when that SyFy movie was coming out. I really need to get up on this character for real.
I got most of vol 2 cheap. Pretty good stuff with Chris Claremont trying to keep it going. #4 had a Dr Strange crossover. I am glad I read those first, because I sat in my bedroom, amazed, with each Gerber tale. I read Defenders around that time. Great stuff to enjoy as an experienced reader in my 30s. He may have sometimes felt he was producing something near TV show level (if only it could have been TV!). But he resonates, especially once Manny has his own series.
Hard to believe he considered leaving when Ploog left. I love that last year. I only had #13 as a teen and wasn't sure what to make of the pirate part one ( not a favorite of Steve's apparently.)
Foolkiller was awesome 👌
Now I want to go back and read some of those earlier Man-Thing stories again.
Great video! Such an interesting character since man thing is almost incapable of thought his stories center around the people he encountered one of the only books that focuses on characterization more than action I think this book was way ahead of its time, also thought he looked cooler than swamp thing
As much as I like the “works on instinct” behaviour I do wish that there was a story where Man-Thing was just a tiny bit smarter.
But not the R.L Stein version... wisecracking Man-Thing was not something the world needed.
I agree I was excited when I heard Stine was gonna do a run then was pretty disappointed wtf, there was a good miniseries in the late 90s by JM DeMatties (kravens last hunt)that was great, actually delved into his human mind again with his ex wife and the art was great
@@JohnSmith-lp1kd I'll have to see if I can find that run then.
Good video.going to comic book store
I see you have acquired a Giant-Sized Man-Thing for your collection. I unfortunately don't.
It's an interesting concept of a character that's set off by one's fears and issue 5 is really something I wanna read one day from the sounds of it.
great voice
Great video! And I'd have to agree about that issue #9 cover. Definitely looks redrawn. Weird.
They just released the Steve Gerber collection vol. 3
I know, I have it. Pre-ordered it the day it went up. Just haven't done an update video about it yet.
@@zaranyzerak Cant wait. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the R.L.Stine run, and Curse of the Man-thing
Thy could do what whichever company owned transformers in the early 2000 did when they rereleased the transformers trade of the first 4 issues of the comics when they edited out the black suit Spider-Man which was originally in there (I had those issues but my parents put that and all my origanal Tmnt stuff in a storage locker my first semester of college and then let it go)
That was the original IDW set of Transformers. They later made a deal with Marvel so they didn't have to do that with their second set of the series, which I have. That isn't the issue with these, though. Marvel owns everything to do with Man-Thing.
No. Marvel didn't pursue legal action against DC because they were worried about being sued for ripping off The Golden age Heap. My mouth dropped when Roy Thomas dropped that tidbit on me at Heroes con in the early 2000s.
So basically they knew everyone was guilty of ripping off everyone else, so best not to open that can of worms lol! Well the end result was, we got two fantastic swamp creatures with their own respective classic sagas out of it. :)
Really want to get into reading Man-Thing, what do you recommend are some absolute pick ups?
The Steve Gerber Complete Collection is an absolute must (amazon links in the description), there's finally a 3rd volume coming out in March. It has all the original stories I talk about in this video plus some later stories that he wrote. All great stuff!
The Heap predates both of them!
Yep, The Heap is definitely the most well known of all the old school swamp creatures. Though there were even more in the old 50's horror comic days.
4:27 was that editing intentional? love the video by the way.
Yes
Do you know a place where you can buy out of print books
Local used bookstores are usually your best bet. There's also amazon, ebay, and sites like abesbooks that specialize in OOP stuff but expect to pay more at those places.
Zaranyzerak thank you
In my opinion, there are only 4 interesting stories. The concept is not bad but for actual readers, some stories are silly or boring. A lot of concepts with no sense.
Of course, numbers 5 and 6 are billiant but the rest.... man, I feel like I lost a part of my life-time ha ha ha.
Great video, you have a new suscriber in me!!
Too me 9 & 10 are the greatest comics ever written….. Dawg…
they got an omnibus though of it all....
The omnibus doesn't have everything. The Trades actually have more content overall, with the obvious omission of the 1979 11-issue series. And some people (myself included) don't like the omnibus format. Nearly all of the content in Volume 3 of this collection isn't in the omnibus.
Thanks, I almost bought the omnibus, good to know this, same reason I never bought the swamp thing omnibus
That cover change..that's just chaning history which is wrong no matter what the reason might be.