Product Description: A voodoo virtuoso. A devil-tainted demi-druid. A half-mad minister. A creature of the crypts, a man-mountain of marble, and a giddy giggling ghoul - these are the horrific heroes who protect the world from forces even more frightening than themselves! Demons, zombies, warlocks, and terrorists - all in these nightmarish narratives from the shocking scarefest of the seventies! Guest-starring Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, and the Thing! Collects Supernatural Thrillers #5 and #7-15 (Living Mummy); Strange Tales #169-173, Tales of the Zombie #6 and #10, and Marvel Team-Up #24 (Brother Voodoo); Haunt of Horror #2-5 and Monsters Unleashed #11 (Gabriel the Devil Hunter); Strange Tales #174 and #176-177, and Marvel Two-In-One #11 (Golem); Marvel Chillers #1-2 and Marvel Two-in-One #33 (Modred the Mystic); and Dead of Night #11, Marvel Spotlight #26, and Marvel Two-In-One #18 (Scarecrow).
Inconsistent, but enjoyable! Essential Horror vol. 2 was a highly anticipated volume of comics for me due mostly to the fact that I was familiar with just about all the characters featured within its pages but had never actually read any of their stories. I found The Living Mummy and Brother Voodoo series to be especially enjoyable. The Mummy's origin is particularly good. The rest of the collection is so-so but it's fun to read about characters such as Gabriel, the Scarecrow and Modred the Mystic.
Can't win 'em all, I guess. I fully expected this heterogeneous collection to be very unequal, so my hopes did not go beyond that of being mildly entertained. Unfortunately, although there are a few gems in here, most of the material is either of merely average quality of downright poor.
The previous "Marvel Horror" compendium (an artificial name avoiding the use of a possibly controversial title like "the son of Satan") collected stories featuring Daimon Hellstrom and his sister Satana, two characters from the colorful 70s. It was one of my favorite Essentials, combining the writing skills of Steve Gerber (among others) and some gorgeous art by the likes of Esteban Maroto.
This new book is not a follow-up to the preceding one, apart from the fact that the characters it features also deal with supernatural themes. The problem is that most of them are third-stringers who mostly had short and undistinguished careers (for good reasons, one would say).
The Living Mummy who opens the book has a neat origin story : having rebelled against his Egyptians masters during the days of the pharaohs, a warrior-king gets embalmed alive and spends a few thousand years in a sarcophagus before being revived in our modern age. He then spends quite a few issues fighting a ridiculous quartet of bozos with elemental-based powers and stupid names like "Hydron". The Living Mummy was a cool concept but does not live up to its potential.
The following Brother Voodoo segment has art by the ever-competent Gene Colan; it tells the story of a man who inherits the mantle of "master of Voodoo" (for whatever that means). He is, in effect, a Voodoo version of Dr. Strange. The Haitian context from the origin story could have made for interesting stories, but as soon as he gets his powers, good Brother Voodoo moves to the US to fight Voodoo-themed supervillains... Including a guy who dresses up like a giant chicken. As will be the case for many of the characters in this book, Brother Voodoo's adventures here conclude in a Team-Up book, Marvel Team-Up, fighting alongside the decidedly un-Voodooesque Spider-man.
The next section of the book reprints the adventures of exorcist Gabriel ("devil-hunter"), who at least manages to make his opponents look scary. There are sadly too few of these stories, as the character never gets a chance to develop. Thankfully, he doesn't team up with the Thing at the end of his adventures.
The Golem is next, in which the creature from Jewish legend comes back to defend the innocent. In no time at all he, too, gets to fight elemental demons who dress like Mephistopheles in Berlioz' "the damnation of Faust" and obey a wizard awkwardly named "Kabalah". The Golem gets to fight alongside the Thing as his series concludes in Marvel Two-in-one in a very, very, bad story.
Modred the mystic is the next protagonist : a sorceror apprentice from King Arthur's days, he has been placed in suspended animation until today. Two short issues and wham! Here comes Ben Grimm for a Marvel two-in-one team up! The two heroes (joined by Spider-woman) engage against (you guessed it) four elemental villains with names like "Aero". Argh!!! What is it with elemental villains and team-ups in this volume? This particular issue of MtiO is, by the way, probably the worst Marvel comic I've ever read (including the bad one woth the Golem, as seen above).
The volume concludes with a bright spot (kind of): the Scarecrow. This one is especially good since, having seen only three publications, he retained his air of mystery. The art by Rico Rival and Ruben Yandoc is very good, and the script by Scott Edelman would probably make a good horror movie. In a nutshell, there exists a painting of an evil god named Kalumai that can act as a portal for him to enter our world. At some time in the past, the picture was painted over by the depiction of a scarecrow. This scarecrow is apparently a guardian who keeps Kalumai from entering our world, and as we can see here he can leave his canvas to fight Kalumai's followers in the physical world. Unfortuantely, the Scarecrow's story ends in a Marvel two-in-one issue in a fight against an elemental villain (Noooooooo!!!) who, being made of fire, destroys the painting.
Overall, even taking into account the inherent silliness of most second-string comic-book stories from the 70s, this collection is disappointing. Given its very low price, I would recommend it for the Scarecrow feature and for a few bright spots here and there... but that's about it.
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
