SKYWALD:
DC's Swamp Thing and Marvel's Man-Thing burst on the comics scene at roughly the same time, but little is ever heard about the muck-monster which predated them both: Skywald Comics' The Heap (SEP 1971). I plucked mine out a bargain bin somewhere. The cover of my copy is detached but intact, and the comic itself is slightly water damaged. The price is 25 cents four 48 pages, including four unidentified "Heap Tales of the Unusual." The package itself reminds me very much of the comics which would be published a few years later by Atlas/Seaboard. Issue #1-and-only is scripted by Bob Kanigher with art by Tom Sutton and Jack Abel. The editor is Sol Brodsky. For more information on Skywald Publications, click here.
I don't usually like writing summaries, but I am going to enjoy this one.
The story opens with a blind girl in a field of daisies being stalked by an escaped circus lion. She runs and trips over the titular Heap. while the girl, Sybl, lies unconscious, Heap breaks the lion's neck. When the girl awakens, she doesn't quite twig to the fact that Heap is a monster, despite having touched his face and putting her head to his chest to hear his heartbeat. (I mean, there's blind and there is blind.) She also has the annoying habit of speaking in questions: "I've never touched a face like yours before?"; "Let me help you?"; "I've heard [those sounds] before?"
Three men with rifles from the circus appear looking for the lion and fire on the Heap. He dispatches them quickly, then leaves the girl behind. "Let me take you to my guardian?" the Girl asks. "We live near her, on the moors. He's a famous scientist. He'll heal you!" As he is walking away and Sybl is yelling, "Stranger--wait! Wait! Please?" in the very same panel he thinks, "Somewhere... somehow... there must be a scientific genius who can reverse the chemical anarchy that has taken possession of my body--and change me back into a whole man again!"
This retreat gives him the opportunity to review his origin. He was a crop duster named Jim Roberts who lost control of his plane and crashed into "USA Chemical Warfare Depot X-G." Presumably it is the mixture of herbicides which transforms him into the Heap. "My pores are like suction pads!" he realizes as he shimmies down the side of the tank. He then wanders into a cemetery where he encounters Master Scythe ("Sinister Scythe" on the cover) and his band of "Satan's shadows, the freaks!"
After he defeats them he realizes that Sybl's scientist guardian might be just what he needs after all, so he makes his way to the castle on the moor. The scientist is Dr. Frankenstein, an actual descendant of the Baron Frankenstein. He has a painting (which looks like a movie poster) of his ancestor and the monster hanging in his lab. He has promised to cure Sybl of her blindness, but not until he duplicates his ancestor's feat of creating life. The Heap makes himself known, and Frankenstein makes a deal: "Let me present you to the world just as Baron Frankenstein introduced his monster--and I will cure Sybl's blindness! After the world has applauded my achievement--I will treat you. Is it a bargain?"
"It's a bargain," Heap responds, "if you cure Sybl first!" Frankenstein agrees and, "in keeping with tradition," locks the Heap up for the night, "just as the Baron chained his monster!" The next night, the procedure begins: "My surgery is completely automated and computerized! My assistants are robots! My operating technique decades ahead of its time! My anesthesia works!" It's a good thing his anesthesia works because he sutures the corneal transplants in place. His "robot" assistants look more like zombies, but at least they are wearing surgical masks while he himself is not.
When Sybl awakens she can see... and immediately (and predictably) screams in horror at the sight of the Heap, who breaks his bonds and races out into the stormy night. He is struck by lightning and immediately disintegrated, but soon rises from his own ashes. "I'm doomed to live on!" he laments. But why? For what purpose? Whose instrument am I? Who's hand is moving me? God's or the Devil's? When will I find out? When? When? When?"
"Don't miss the eerie enigma's next startling adventure" the blurb advises us, "in his agaonizing quest to find... A Way Back to Mankind!! THE END -- of the Beginning!" (Actually, it turned out to be "THE END"... full stop.)
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There sure was a lot of interest in the Heap and similar concepts in the early 1970s. Perhaps the character had recently entered public domain? I would not know.
If I had to guess, there were a number of factors that sometimes furthered each other's effect. The CCA was becoming more tolerant of horror at the time; the Summer of Love had come and gone while Vietnam war and the petrol crisis brought a lot of uncertainty to the general American public; Nixon achieved power; and, as the current Wikipedia article on the Heap tells us, Sol Brodsky asked Roy Thomas for advice on new characters to publish in his new publishing venture (Skywald). The cover image above, of "Psycho" magazine, shows the Skywald take on the Heap.
The implication is that Roy Thomas believed the Heap to be in the public domain at the time or soon later.
You could say there was heaps of interest, har-har-har!
Luis Olavo de Moura Dantas said:
"The Other It" is about Theodore Sturgeon's short story, but Danny Horn promises to deal with The Heap in a future installment of his Superheroes Every Day blog. I can hardly wait!
Superheroes Every Day: "Shaggy Bog Stories."
Worth reading (if you're interested in the Heap, that is).
When I posted the cover of Psycho #2 three years ago (above, previous page), I had no thought of ever owning it and no intention of seeking it out. I didn't even know it was published by Skywald, and featured the same version of the Heap from the four-color comic that leads off this discussion. But, while seeking to acquire the first chapter of Frankenstein, Book II, I inadvertantly bought the first two chapters of the Heap as well. I described the Frankenstein story as "bonkers," but it has nothing on the Heap, believe me. It is written by Chuck McNaughton and drawn by the team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Here is an example of McNaughton's prose: "Suddenly the sore flesh of his swollen ear lobes pierced at the sound of men's voices." I don't know what that means, but I love it! The whole thing is like that: so bad it's good. I had a difficult time choosing a single caption to cite. The origin story is only nine pages, but what pages they are!
PART ONE:
Characters:
The story opens with a double-page spread, but in the very first story panel, Jim Roberts has purchased a $100,000 insurance policy from his friend Bill Ryan naming Audrey as beneficiary, and immediately the reader knows exactly where this story is headed. Sure enough, by the end of the page the cable contolling his plane's rudder has snapped, and he crashes into a secret military base where nerve gas is stored. The resulting fire burns for five days. The combination of nerve gas, pesticide and fire transforms him into THE HEAP!
He stumbles into a cemetary where he witnesses two gravediggers robbing a grave. It's not clear what they have to do with the plot, because they are in only one panel. The next morning he witnesses a funeral procession... his own! Audrey, Bill and Monty are all there, burying an empty casket. He observes Bill and Audrey with their arms around each other, then he remembers that Bill Ryan's chauffeur is also Monty Elliot's mechanic! "It all begins to make sense!" he thinks. (Does it?) He follow the limo to Bill Ryan's house, where Ryan pays $2000 each to his chauffeur and the two gravediggers (who I still can't figure out what they have to do with the plot) for "keeping your mouths shut!"
Ryan's plan: "Now that Elliot is without a pilot to spray his new pesticides, he'll go broke and I can buy him out! Then I'll be able to run this country!" Why Elliot couldn't simply hire another pilot is not explained, nor is how Ryan plans to springboard from owning a crop-dusting service to "running the country," but it's a moot point because the Heap breaks in through the window and kills them all, including Audrey. Just then, outside, Monty leads the police in to Ryan's house (I'm not sure why). The Heap shambles off in hope that, "Monty's a good chemist. Maybe he'll help me, maybe cure me."
PART TWO:
This chapter is mainly narration with very little dialogue. It is 15 pages, so it just goes on and on and on. I would expect the Heap to contact Professor Elliot, but instead he falls into the clutches of the Horror Master. The Horror Master has a zombie servant named Imir, but more importantly, he also controls the corpses of Lucretia Borgia, Attila the Hun, Rasputin, Caligula, Tammerlaine, Ilse Koch, Giles de Rais and Richard III. It is not explained how he came by these corpses. The Heap breaks free and "kills" Imir while the horror Master is in the midst of turning the corpse of Adolph Hitler into a zombie (again, with no explanation of where he got the corpse). The Heap cannot speak, but he writes in the dust: "SPARE ME. MAKE ME A MAN AGAIN."
"Ha Ha Ha! Very well!" the Horror Master responds. "It is in my power to do what you ask. You shall regain your former appearance, in return you shall serve me as Imir did! HA HA HA HA HA! And when you die you shall become one of the living dead -- as Imir was. But first you must prove your worthiness..." Doesn't sound like much of a deal to me (I mean, he hasn't even tried to contact Professor Elliot yet), but he accepts the terms. The Horror Master betrays him, of course, and they are both buried in an avalanche. The next day the Heap digs his way free, then he heads to Professor Elliot's house. (Elliot has a pretty young daughter named Laurie, BTW.)
This is great stuff. I've gotta get more of it.
AFAIK, the whole run of Skywald's "Psycho" is legally available at ComicBookPlus.
I have just skimmed the whole Heap series there (up to #13, with a skipped issue or two). Let's just say that I expect that you will not find yourself wanting too much for bonkers Heap stories.
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