Post by MacNimon on Aug 7, 2011 15:12:17 GMT
Is it a superhero comic? Is it a sci-fi comic? Is it a horror comic? It’s actually a bit of them all, totally freakish but in unbelievably bad taste. Now and again you come across something which is just so bad that it’s unmissable, and Morlock 2001 falls into that category. This really has to be seen to be believed. It’s awful! It’s also unintentionally hilarious…unfortunately (or probably that should be thankfully?) this only lasted 3 issues in 1975 and so there’s no way of knowing exactly where the storyline was going to go…
Set in a totalitarian 1984-style future where books are banned etc, a scientist manages to grow a human looking plant in a giant pod. (That’s the sci-fi bit!) The creature looks totally human but unsurprisingly is actually a living plant which is born/hatched (?) wearing what looks like a superhero costume (that’s the superhero bit!) and gets given the name Morlock after characters in a long-banned book. Unfortunately anyone who gets touched by Morlock immediately starts to transform into a plant, rooted to the ground wherever they are standing. Worse yet, If Morlock doesn’t regularly take a special serum (of which there is only a very small amount in existence) then he turns into a mindless walking tree creature, which eats anything it touches and turns their bodies to slime. In the second issue, the creature even kills off an innocent young blind girl who is trying to protect him! (Of course this is the horror bit!)
It’s impossible to say for sure if the character was popular or not, but judging by the retitled third issue Morlock 2001 and The Midnight Men (with The Midnight Men part taking up the largest part of the logo) it’s probably safe to say it wasn’t. An equally ridiculous story by a totally different creative team sees Morlock apparently killed off on the last page, bur as a fourth issue was never published it’s not certain whether this was meant to be a cliffhanger or whether the series would continue simply as The Midnight Men.
But what really makes thing worse is the people involved in creating this mess…they really should have known better…writer Micheal Fleisher (of Jonah Hex fame) and artist Al Milgrom (of various Marvel titles) were behind the first two issues. Both were replaced in the third issue by writer Gary Freidrich (Ghost Rider etc) and artists Steve Ditko (on pencils) and Berni Wrightson (on inks).
This was published by a short-lived (and largely forgotten nowadays) company called Atlas (referred to nowadays as Atlas Seaboard, to save confusion with the 1950s pre-Marvel Atlas) who were set up with the intention of being major competitors for DC and Marvel. I have vague memories of buying a couple of Atlas comics at the time in a local newsagents, although given the local distribution problems of any US comic which wasn't Marvel, it could even have been a couple of years later; unfortunately Morlock wasn't one of them...I don't think I'd forget reading that!
A scan of the first issue can be found at diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2008/10/really-weird-heroes-week-continues-with.html...click on thumbnails for enlarged views.
The second (most controversial) issue is here...
diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2010/10/countdown-to-halloween-2010-grooves_23.html
And finally the Ditko-drawn Morlock 2001/Midnight Men can be found here...
diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2008/12/lo-there-shall-comeendings-morlock-2001.html
Told you it was weird!
I love the first cover, btw...not that it makes much sense. It shows Morlock in both his human and monster form.
