10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A book burns on amazon, October 12, 2008
This review is from: Essential Man-Thing - Volume 2 (Essential (Marvel Comics)) (Paperback)
At last, the rest of Steve Gerber's superb run on Man-Thing is out in the essential format.
The first half of this book really is essential, as it showcases some of Gerber's best work on this strip, including the classic stories 'The Kids's Night Out' & 'A Book Burns in Citrusville' ( dealing with school bullying & censorship respectively ). Most fun is Steve's last script on the regular series 'Pop goes The Cosmos', where he guests himself alongside the mindless muck monster, a tricky proposition in a lesser writer's hands.
Gerber was writing comics for adults decades before it became fashionable, and this is one series that should always be in print, in my opinion.
For art buffs, you also get the likes of Alfredo Alcala, John Buscema, Tom Sutton & the massively underrated Jim Mooney, whose sedate, mannered art always bounced brilliantly off of Gerber's insane surrealism.
Unfortunately, after the halfway mark, the quality takes a bit of a nosedive.
Marvel brought back Manny in the '80's, and at first gave him to longtime Jonah Hex writer Micheal Fleisher, who contributes some interesting scripts for the first three issues, but then they gave the book to Chris Claremont....
Claremont has always been my least favourite writer, his work at best soporific, and at worst, plain cringeworthy.
His time on the book seems to be spent doing lame riffs on Gerber's original stories, bringing back characters and then having no idea what to do with them. He even closes the run the exact same way Gerber did, by clumsily inserting himself into the story, but by that point I'd had enough of him.
No one but Gerber ever seemed to know how to write Man-Thing properly, but he somehow could always make mindless creatures compelling. ( See also Essential Tales Of The Zombie! ) Just one reason why he was great.
Buy this absolutely, I can't recommend the first half too highly, but after the Fleisher stories, you don't need to read anymore.
( As a sidenote, I notice on this volume that Marvel are now copying the DC Showcase look on the spine, which now makes the Marvel part of my bookshelf look really crap. Should've stuck with what you had, boys...)
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Eclectic Collection of Marvel's swamp creature, January 17, 2009
This review is from: Essential Man-Thing - Volume 2 (Essential (Marvel Comics)) (Paperback)
This is a mixed bag, some good stories, some not so good. While there's only so much you can do with a mindless - though empathic, voiceless character that is limited to a near uninhabited geographic environement (unless you count the trip to the Himilayian Mountains where he was mistaken as a Yeti??? - an issue from this collection)
Reading through this you get the sense that it takes a special persepctive and talent to write a good Man-Thing story and its even rarer to be able to do it issue after issue
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Half of this is really great, March 17, 2010
This review is from: Essential Man-Thing - Volume 2 (Essential (Marvel Comics)) (Paperback)
Just to reiterate what a previous reviewer said. The first half of this book contains some of the best work Steve Gerber did on this title, culminating in an extended storyline that begins with the "Book Burns" story and covers everything from politics and censorship to emotional vacancy and far-out sorcery. A fitting end to a classic run on a character that doesn't get its due nearly enough anymore.
The second half of the book, written by Michael Fleisher, is just total crap. By-the-numbers comic book adventures with the mute, unthinking Man-Thing just shoe-horned in like a walking plot device.
Still, the book is very much worth buying for the first half. Overall, the quality of Gerber's writing is much better issue-to-issue in this book than it is in the sometimes-spotty Volume 1.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No