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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years ago

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A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

#Loki #spoilers #episode 5 #review #Rolling Stone #Alan Sepinwall

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f4liveblogarchives · 4 years ago

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Fantastic Four Vol 1 #238

Tues May 05 2020 [02:04 AM] Wack'd: Have some Wolverine publicity

[02:05 AM] maxwellelvis: It BEGINS [02:06 AM] maxwellelvis: THERE's the John Byrne we know and... sigh because the guy who comes up with great covers like these is still the guy who sabotaged Jean Grey's spinoff attempt. [02:06 AM] Wack'd: John Bryne: fun dude but still a friggin dude [02:07 AM] Wack'd: So here we go. The secret story of Frankie Raye [02:08 AM] Wack'd: Turns out this is naturally what she looks like naked, plus a spiffy pair of elbow-length gold gloves

[02:08 AM] Bocaj: He didn't notice the gold gloves at any point? [02:08 AM] Wack'd: All this stuff just...vanishes when she puts clothes on [02:08 AM] Wack'd: Yeah no Johnny is like "I've seen you in a bikini" and she puts her robe back on and the gold clothes vanish [02:09 AM] Bocaj: "My terrible secret is that I'm a never nude" [02:09 AM] Bocaj: "There are dozens of us. Dozens" [02:09 AM] Wack'd: I understood that reference [02:09 AM] Wack'd: So anyway Frankie has been somehow psychologically conditioned to never notice that a superhero outfit appears on her whenever she's naked [02:10 AM] Wack'd: As well as not to think too hard about the fact that she has no memories before age 14 [02:10 AM] Bocaj: Uh. [02:10 AM] Bocaj: Well y'know what fair enough. I try not to think about that stretch of time either [02:11 AM] Wack'd: Her earliest memory is waking up in a dingy warehouse under an old labcoat [02:11 AM] Wack'd: She lived alone in a deserted apartment and got checks for a thousand bucks in the mail every week [02:11 AM] Wack'd: And was psychologically conditioned not to think about how off-spec that was for a teenager as well [02:12 AM] Wack'd: A lot of nonsense here resting on, essentially, a Somebody Else's Problem Field [02:12 AM] Wack'd: Whoever set all this up probably would've had a lot easier of a time if they just...gave her a normal life? [02:12 AM] Bocaj: I feel that however this explains her fear of fire from earlier on, this cannot have been what the original plan was even a little [02:13 AM] Wack'd: Anyway somehow meeting Johnny started to make the conditioning decay [02:13 AM] Wack'd: She freaked out when Johnny flamed on because it made her think too hard about things, but she was attracted to him in part because of that [02:14 AM] Bocaj: uh [02:14 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Johnny pushes her to explore this whole ordeal further, because she feels like the dam is finally about to break [02:14 AM] Bocaj: I have a dumb thought [02:14 AM] Wack'd: And break it does

[02:14 AM] Bocaj: She was completely naked in that- HOLY BEANS [02:15 AM] Bocaj: she was completely naked in that scene where she had the breakdown in that other issue and she didn't get the gold booties there [02:15 AM] Wack'd: She didn't but also because up until that point she was Somebody Else's Probemed into not seeing them, remember? [02:15 AM] Wack'd: And so we the audience didn't either [02:16 AM] maxwellelvis: Like the clown graffiti all over John's house [02:16 AM] Wack'd: Johnny uses his fire absorption powers to keep the building from burning down and gives chase [02:18 AM] Wack'd: He catches up to Frankie and gives her a crash course in steering and pacing herself before she and her new ecstasy for life burns down New York [02:18 AM] Wack'd: And she explains Frankie Backstory 2.0 [02:19 AM] Wack'd: She was raised by a simple repairman, a good man, who suddenly lost his friggin composure when the Fantastic Four arrived [02:19 AM] Wack'd: Ranting about how dare Johnny call himself the Human Torch, he dragged her to an old warehouse and began raving about old experiments [02:20 AM] Wack'd: Frankie humors him for a bit but while carrying an old oil drum it bursts into flames, leaving her miraculously unharmed [02:20 AM] Bocaj: Simple repairman has a point. Kind of rude, Johnny [02:20 AM] Bocaj: Jim was a war hero, ya dink [02:21 AM] Wack'd: And then dear old stepdad hypnotized her and abandoned her [02:21 AM] Bocaj: 😐 [02:22 AM] Wack'd: A year later a package arrived with a tape recorder and a gold costume. The tape recorder hypnotized her into putting on the costume and then erased her memories [02:22 AM] maxwellelvis: What a drip [02:22 AM] Wack'd: Anyway from all this Johnny deduces her stepdad was Phineas Horton [02:22 AM] Wack'd: But you guys already figured that out, I bet [02:23 AM] maxwellelvis: I forgot who he was. [02:23 AM] Wack'd: Jim Hammond's dad [02:23 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh [02:24 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Johnny decides to become her mentor and, after she tries to fly as high as possible and runs into that pesky atmosphere problem, takes her back to the Baxter to have Reed run some tests and figure out what her limits are [02:24 AM] Bocaj: I'm for once not sad that Ultron killed him after forcing him to turn the original human torch into the Vision [02:25 AM] Bocaj: Until Byrne retcons that to not be the case because dude loves him some jim hammond [02:26 AM] Wack'd: Anyway I misremembered what Frankie's deal was. I assumed android [02:26 AM] Wack'd: But Reed thinks that whatever was in that fateful oil drum was some sort of superscience chemical that mutated her [02:26 AM] Wack'd: Not sure what the point of her being a nevernude was [02:27 AM] Wack'd: Or why Phineas Horton brainwashed his fourteen year old daughter into wearing a strapless bathing suit at all times [02:28 AM] maxwellelvis: The guy labeled Jim a renegade when he showed the first signs of not being completely under his command [02:28 AM] Wack'd: It sure is a good thing this teenager with no parental guidance never did anything where that bathing suit might've become a problem! [02:28 AM] maxwellelvis: guy's a drip [02:29 AM] Wack'd: Reed has proven his hypothesis that biological sex determines how flame powers work I guess??!?!?

[02:29 AM] Wack'd: What sort of cis nonsense is this [02:30 AM] maxwellelvis: Johnny speaks for us all [02:30 AM] Wack'd: What all that means is "after a period of suitable training, we may be calling our friends at Marvel Comics and telling them to start publishing the Fantastic Five!" [02:31 AM] Bocaj: This is a thing that marvel does sometimes [02:31 AM] Wack'd: Good news for all those Spider-Girl fans I guess [02:31 AM] Bocaj: They've decided that Laura Kinney's foot claw is what girl wolverines be like [02:31 AM] Wack'd: *sigh* [02:33 AM] Bocaj: I'll say that Spider-Girl did it better by not saying, as far as I recall, that the difference was because man vs woman. [02:34 AM] Wack'd: Okay so we have another story in this issue [02:34 AM] Wack'd: Well, two, kind of [02:35 AM] Wack'd: First a brief interlude in which it is established at some point the Four will be going to the tiny town of Benson, Arizona to investigate cases of people being "frightened to death" [02:36 AM] maxwellelvis: @Wack'd My primary suspect is this man [02:37 AM] Bocaj: Put those tingles away [02:37 AM] Wack'd: Here's a Sue pinup which I'm mostly crossposting to see if I can wrangle a coherent set of interests out of her bookshelf

[02:38 AM] Wack'd: Pogo's on there. Sue has good taste in comics [02:38 AM] Bocaj: I was about to say [02:38 AM] Wack'd: And now on to our second feature [02:38 AM] maxwellelvis: She's got a copy of Shogun in there [02:39 AM] maxwellelvis: Dangerous Visions, a sci-fi anthology [02:39 AM] Wack'd: Meet Crow T. Rob--I mean, HERBIE 2.0

[02:40 AM] maxwellelvis: "You listen to me, 'Mr. Fantastic', you are NOT my real father!" [02:40 AM] Wack'd: "I want to decide who lives and who dies!" "So long as Franklin is in the 'lives' category I'm strangely okay with that" [02:41 AM] maxwellelvis: "Hey, Franklin, the secret word for today is 'booger'! Booger booger booger booger-AAAUGH!" [02:41 AM] Wack'd: Anyway this is not the only surprise Reed has in store today! [02:42 AM] Wack'd: He also has A Cure for Being the Thing Number Fucktillion [02:42 AM] Bocaj: Panel 2 Franklin does not look like a child [02:42 AM] Wack'd: He looks like a 1950s Western bit player [02:43 AM] maxwellelvis: "Oh great, another cure! How does this one work, and where can I hide when it backfires?" [02:43 AM] Wack'd: Ben is skeptical but as Reed points out science is always marching on [02:44 AM] Wack'd: He has more data than he's ever had [02:44 AM] Wack'd: Ben you've never asked her that before because it's literally never come up before. Fuck she's dated you while you were cured! Remember when you were riding around in that robot suit?

[02:45 AM] Wack'd: Anyway [02:45 AM] Wack'd: The machine blows up [02:46 AM] Wack'd: Welp

[02:47 AM] Bocaj: Could be worse [02:47 AM] Bocaj: At least its not pinecone grimm [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh that's coming [02:47 AM] Wack'd: Could be covered in bees. That'd be pretty bad [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Not for Ben it wouldn't. [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Unless they flew into his mouth. [02:47 AM] Bocaj: "Hahah sting you fuckers" [02:48 AM] Bocaj: "This time it is permanent!" Reed shut up [02:48 AM] Wack'd: Anyway this sure is weird nostalgia baiting [02:49 AM] Wack'd: Folks have done plenty of Lee/Kirby throwback stuff but was anyone nostalgic for this, like, at all [02:50 AM] Wack'd: Also like. C'mon Bryne, integrate your story developments naturally. You shouldn't need an entire issue where all that happens is status quo changes [02:50 AM] maxwellelvis: @Bocaj You might know, had Byrne ever written a comic book before his FF run? [02:51 AM] Wack'd: I guess Frankie was integrated a little naturally (even if she went from recent love interest to team member in no time flat) but the Ben is fairly hamfisted [02:51 AM] Wack'd: You can just check Marvel Wiki [02:51 AM] Bocaj: He co-plotted with Claremont I know [02:51 AM] Bocaj: And Claremont was big on the idea of co-plotting. [02:51 AM] maxwellelvis: But this would be his first, like, his first time flying solo? [02:52 AM] Wack'd: Dude has a lot of X-Men credits and some Captain Americas [02:52 AM] Bocaj: His first writing credit was on Iron Fist apparently [02:52 AM] Bocaj: at Marvel [02:54 AM] Bocaj: But from a skim of wikipedia fantastic four was his first extended solo writing thing

#1981 #John Bryne #The Main Book

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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Marvel's 31 Best Monsters

https://ift.tt/3430jzo

Marvel is more than just superheroes, they've done their fare share of horror characters, too.

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Halloween isn't just for monsters anymore. For every Frankenstein Monster that comes to your door, there are probably sixteen Iron Men and a few Rocket Raccoons. It seems that Marvel (and DC) heroes have infringed on the monstrous monopoly of Halloween, but that’s OK, because to even things out, the Marvel Universe has its fair share of monsters dwelling under beds, behind walls, and in gothic mansions (mansions usually expertly drawn by Mike Ploog) to even things out.

Starting in the late Silver Age, the Comics Code became less restrictive (because Frederic Wertham was killed by a mummy...actually, no he wasn’t), and Marvel was able to bring in all sorts of boogeymen to share page time with the likes of Thor, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four. These new, Universal-inspired monsters joined the Kirby Kreatures like Fin Fang Foom and Googam as the Marvel Universe became a world where things that go bump in the night became as commonplace as superheroes.

Join us as we journey into the darkest realms of the Marvel Universe and celebrate the greatest monstrous creations that ever sprang from the nightmares of the House of Ideas.

31. The Glob

Listen, I’m not going to exclude a character named the Glob from this list, am I? The Glob was once Joe Timms, a petty criminal, who like every other comic book swamp character ever, was transformed into a muck encrusted monstrosity by a mysterious bog. Glob fought the Hulk a few times before Timms was recreated into the being known as the Golden Brain and used as a weapon by the villain Yagzan and the crazed Cult of Entropists (and holy shit, did I just get an almost sexual rush from typing that sentence).

read more: 13 Essential Horror Comics

As the Golden Brain, Glob was defeated by Man-Thing because of course he was.

The strange bit of business is that there were three other Globs in Marvel history. There was the monstrous Glob from Strange Tales, a creature that was originally known as the Glop from Journey into Mystery, and the young X-Man known as Glob Herman.

30. Scarecrow

There have been many comic book characters that have used the Scarecrow moniker, but this obscure Bronze Age Marvel creation might be the most twisted. This isn’t the iconic Jonathan Crane of DC lore or the lesser known Marvel villain that fought Iron Man and Ghost Rider many times. No, this Scarecrow is a demonic figure that dwells within a painting and, at times, walks the world of man.

Sometimes known as the Straw Man to avoid confusion with the Iron Man rogue, this Scarecrow only had three Bronze Age appearance but he was bursting at the seams with potential (and with hellspun demonic straw). The Scarecrow first appeared in Dead of Night, where the hapless Jess Duncan purchased the painting and began a story of Lovecraftian cults and cackling madness. But it was a story that was never quite finished as the tale of the Scarecrow has been relegated to the dusty bargain bin memories of the '70s.

read more: The Best Modern Horror Movies

But check out that Dead of Night cover, masterfully crafted by Gil Kane and Berni Wrightson and tell me that this Marvel monster couldn’t have been one of the greats. With his cackling laughter, his smile that reeks of insanity, and his gangly body, this Scarecrow was almost part of Marvel’s monstrous greats. And that’s no straw man argument.

29. Swarm

Swarm is a very obscure villain who made his debut in the pages of The Champions of all places. So why is he on our list? Because he's a freakin' Nazi Scientist MADE OF EVIL BEES! That's absolutely terrifying!

Fritz von Meyer was once one of Hitler's leading scientists who escaped to South America after the War and grew fascinated with the idea of hive intelligence. He tried to enslave a queen bee or something nutty and was devoured by her swarm. He was such an evil piece of schnitzel that his consciousness dominated the bees and he became Swarm.

read more: The 13 Scariest Moments in Afterlife With Archie

Swarm's most notable moment was on the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon of the 1980s. The cartoon changed Swarm into an alien because I guess Nazi bees wouldn't go over well on Saturday morning after Foofur.

So yeah, genocidal Nazi bee man=monster.

28. Manphibian

In the '70s, Marvel had great success with its Universal Monsters parallels. Dracula was one of its top sellers and gained a large cult following, while Frankenstein’s Monster and Werewolf by Night each gained a level of success. Marvel had a Living Mummy so why not a Creature From the Black Lagoon knockoff?

Enter the Manphibian. Gosh, is that fun to say. Manphibian, Manphibian, Manphibian!

Anyway, old Gill Face here was kind of a tragic character. In his one and only Bronze Age tale, it was revealed that Manphibian was an alien creature that pursued a member of its own race across the galaxy after the rival creature murdered the Manphibian’s mate. The murderous swamp beast goes on a rampage until the heroic Manphibian stops it, but of course, the rest of the world now views the Manphibian as a soggy threat. Thus Manphibian was set up as Marvel’s leading Creature knockoff but it was not to be as Manny never popped up again.

read more: The Best Horror Movies on Netflix

Until recently that is, because modern day Marvel creators know that it is beyond awesome that something called a Manphibian shares the same world as Spider-Man and Wolverine. Manphibian has popped up recently in the pages of Ghost Rider, Punisher, and Daredevil and even played a major role in Marvel's recent Howling Commandos title thus proving that you just can’t keep a good alien version of a Creature From the Black Lagoon rip off down. MANPHIBIAN!

27. It, the Living Colossus

Marvel has a character named Colossus, Stephen King created a character named It, put them together and you get a child eating Russian clown with steel hard skin! Sadly, that’s not the It, the Living Colossus we are talking about although this It is still kind of cool.

It, the Living Colossus was created by Jack Kirby right before the dawning of the heroic Marvel age in pages of Tales of Suspense and was revived by Tony Isabella and artist Dick Ayers in the pages of Astonishing Tales #21 (1973).

In the Kirby tales, It was one of those rare Kirby Kreatures that appeared twice in the pre-Marvel Age monster mags. This It was a 100 foot tale Golem like stature crafted as part of an anti-Communist protest. As these things go, the stature was animated by an alien intelligence and trashed Moscow.

read more: 31 Best Streaming Horror Movies

Later, somehow, the statue found itself in the U.S. and once again was possessed and went on a rampage until a Hollywood effects genius named Bob O'Bryan. O’Bryan was the protagonist of the Isabella/Ayers Bronze Age tales. This time, it was revealed O’Bryan lost the use of is legs but was able to animate the lumbering piece of anti-socialist propaganda. By the way, the original It stories were inked by Ayers who got to revisit his co-creation over a decade later, how cool is that?

It has made recent appearances in the pages of Deadpool Team-Up and remains one of the most famed pronouns in Marvel monster lore.

26. Golem

While we’re on the subject of giant, lumbering stone colossuses, colossi? colossusseses? We have Marvel’s very own Golem.

There have actually been a number of Golems in the Marvel Universe but our stone monstrosity in question first appeared in Strange Tales and was created by two absolute legends, Len Wein and John Buscema. So this Golem of ours may not have had a huge historical impact on the MU but it was created by the same bard that created Wolverine, so it has that going for it. Actually, this Golem was infused with compelling Jewish lore and really captured the ancient feel of the Hebrew legend.

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The Golem is pretty much the exact character you expect it to be with killer Buscema artwork. It didn’t have many appearances but the Golem did pop up in Marvel Two in One because if a Bronze Age monster was worth anything, it probably showed up in Marvel Two in One at some point.

25. Hannibal King

Long before Angel opened his detective agency in the Whedonverse, Hannibal King was on the case. Hannibal King was a supporting character in Marvel's immortal Tomb of Dracula series. He was a skilled private detective and also happened to be cursed with vampirism. It can be argued that King was Marvel's first vampire hero and used his undead gifts in an attempt to take down Dracula himself.

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Later, when Doctor Strange rid the world of vampirism by destroying all bloodsuckers (they got better), Hannibal King was spared. Even later, the dark curse returned and King joined the Nightstalkers, a team of monster hunters that also included Blade. Film wise, Hannibal King is notable for being played by Ryan Reynolds, before he found his one true calling as Wade Wilson in Deadpool.

24. Lilith, Dracula’s Daughter

Universal introduced the concept of a female scion of Dracula with the wonderfully atmospheric and surprisingly LGBT friendly 1936 monsterfest Dracula’s Daughter. Never one to let a monstrously good idea pass it by, Marvel introduced its own version of Drac’s little girl in the pages of the ponderously named Giant-Size Chillers #1.

Lilith was Dracula’s first child, the product of an arranged marriage between Dracula and his first wife Zofia. After the death of Dracula’s father, the future Lord of the Undead cast his infant daughter and Zofia from their homeland. Zofia was raised by gypsies because of course she was.

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One night, Dracula, now undead and thirsty, attacked the gypsies, murdering Zofia’s son. Swearing revenge, Zofia transformed Lilith into a very different kind of vampire, one not weakened by holy symbols. Marvel even tried to put a modern day twist by having the spirit of Lilith possess a woman in the contemporary age, but sadly, Lilith never quite caught on in a solo feature. Lilith still makes scantily clad appearances at times in the modern Marvel Universe and if Marvel ever decides to put a horror anthology series on TV, here’s your Elvira-like host. A fan can dream, no?

23. Godzilla, King of Monsters

Yeah, it does too count! I’ll slap you.

Godzilla was once a legit part of the Marvel Universe. Godzilla starred in his own comic for about two years. During the run of the title, written by the all-star team of Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe, the King of the Monsters met and fought SHIELD, the Avengers, the Champions, Fantastic Four, and even fought Devil Dinosaur. It was as awesome as it sounds.

On any other monster list, Godzilla would be towards the top, but at Marvel, Godzilla only sparked very briefly. But listen, there was an arc where Godzilla was shrunken down by Pym Particles and fought a sewer rat. So there.

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Actually, some characters introduced in the pages of Godzilla went on to become (not big at all) parts of the Marvel Universe. Such as the only remembered by Roy Thomas Doctor Demonicus. Anyway, Godzilla stomped around the Marvel Universe for a few years and it was awesome.

22. Frankencastle

Remember that time the Punisher died and was resurrected as the Mary Shelley inspired Frankencastle? Yeah, that was a thing and it was written by Rick Remender and it was way cooler than it had any right to be. It was hard hittin’, blood lettin’, limb flyin’, ass-kickin’ monster fun and if you don’t take it too seriously, it was one of the most daringly different Marvel stories ever.

It also pissed off hardcore Punisher fans which is probably not the best group to anger.

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The Frankencastle arc also featured just about every great Marvel monster on this list, so if these buggers are giving you a hankerin’ for some true monster madness, give Frankencastle a whirl. I was hoping that it would start a whole plethora of Punisher/monster amalgamations. DracuCastle, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Pun, the Punisher from the Black Lagoon…

21. Man-Wolf

Any fictional universe that has not one, but two great werewolves is okay in our book. Man-Wolf was once John Jameson, son of J. Jonah Jameson, cranky publisher extraordinaire.

John Jameson isn’t just your everyday werewolf, he’s a cosmic werewolf! Marvel actually pulled off some batshit insane sci-fi adventures with Man-Wolf in the pages of Creatures on the Loose. In addition, Man-Wolf was also right at home in straight up superhero tales as he took on Spider-Man and or in gothic driven Bronze Age awesomeness in the pages of one of the million Marvel creature features.

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As one does, Jameson was turned into Man-Wolf after he got a lunar gem lodged into his throat. He still pops up every now and then because space werewolves are never not cool.

20. Satana

The devil's daughter herself, Satana, burst open the Marvel black and white scene in the early seventies and was a nice tribute to cleavage laden, Technicolor Hammer Horror of the era. Satana is a succubus who seduced sinners and reduced their souls into butterflies, which she then kept in a little box and at times devours.

Some of the finest artists of the Bronze Age worked on Satana's early adventures starting with Roy Thomas and John Romita Sr. and moving on to Chris Claremont and Estaban Moroto. Her adventures were clearly cut for the same cloth as the Vampirella/Harris Comics stable of fright characters but they were also adult oriented, sexy, and atmospheric.

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Recently, Satana played a role as a member of the Thunderbolts in one of the coolest runs of that always underrated Marvel book. So here's to Satana, the daughter of Satan, one of Marvel's most underused and frightful bad girls and possibly the most unlikely character that Disney ever owned.

19. Simon Garth, The Zombie

The first Marvel Zombie, Simon Garth, proved his immortality by surviving the pre-Marvel Age. Garth first appeared in the horror title Menace in 1953 but was shunted into the Marvel Universe proper with Tales of the Zombie #1 in 1973 (an awesome black and white mag that I have a complete collection of. Ladies, the line forms to the right).

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Garth isn't your typical zombie. He retains a vestige of intelligence and morality which is somehow intensely disturbing. Imagine, rotting from within, but being completely aware of your desiccated state. Garth is one of those old school voodoo zombies and usually tried to do the right thing despite the thing that he is a walking maggot farm spit up from the pits of Hell.

18. The Living Mummy

As we said, Marvel had great success riffing on the classic Universal Monsters pantheon, so of course the House of Ideas had its own mummy! Marvel went a little left of center with its Mummy as it didn’t look to ancient Egypt for its shambling mound of bandages, it looked to ancient Africa and introduced N’Kantu, chief of the Northern African tribe the Swarili.