Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Black and White Wednesday Groovy Guest-Post: "Snowbird in Hell" by Claremont and Montano

Welcome back, Groove-ophiles! Today's Groovy Guest-Post is by Mighty Mike Mikulovsky! Mike has already graced Groove City with several popular posts, and this'un is especially near and dear to the Mighty One's heart. Enjoy!
Like the Groovester and most of my fellow comic junkies of the 70's, we were monster fanatics, too. I collected every comic/monster mag, book, and model I could, especially the Marvel/Curtis b & w mags with all their top talent pumping out  great mags/characters month after month. I remember it being an especially cold, harsh winter in December of 1974 when I walked to one of my usual comic magazine stores. It was the only one near me that carried all the Marvel monster  b & w mags. I was already a huge Wendigo fan from his appearances in the Hulk's color mag (Incredible Hulk #162,  #180, and #181), and I actually liked the Wendigo back then much more than that little guy in the yellow, blue, and black costume with those goofy claws. When I went to pick up the latest Marvel b & w mags, I was stunned to see another beautiful cover by Earl Norem--this one with the Wendigo--fronting Monsters Unleashed #9! To me it's one of the very best covers of that whole line of monster mags. Check out that cover and, just for fun, the cover prelims, too!


The events of this story take place after Incredible Hulk #181. "Snowbird in Hell" was written by the hot All-New, All-Different X-Men's Chris Claremont and drawn by Yong Montano! 





I can still remember walking home late at night in a blizzard, hearing that howling wind in my 13 year old over-imaginative mind. You could hear the words WWWEENNNDDDIIGGOOOOO!!! WWWeeenndddiiigggooo!!! WWWWeeennndddiigggoooo!!!  

5 comments:

  1. What's even greater about this story is it reveals Wendigo as a "Curse of the Elder Gods", which was for him the N'Garai.

    And Snowbird, well who says John Byrne was behind the creation of Alpha Flight on his own;)

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  2. A fun tale and an earlier Claremont before his writing began to wrap in on itself more like itself. It's also interesting how less a monster tale this is and how much more a super hero story it is. There's nothing particularly in the story that says super hero, but the pacing, the flashbacks, and the general style is all 70s Marvel super hero.

    The B&W mags weren't always this way, but often were, which made them sort of unique in the Warren/Skywald EC throwback market (which were also great.)

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  3. Well I wouldn't call the Wendigo a hero. Much less a super one. A tragic monster yes! Like Bruce Banner a lost soul trapped in a monster's body. Having forever a bad hair day! You'd be angry 24-7 too! LOL

    I forgot to add I'm also looking for the art from this story. By Yong Montano I haven't seen one page ever surface in all these decades.

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  4. The Wendigo first appeared in Hulk # 162. - Jeff Clem

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


All other commentary and insanity copyright GroovyAge, Ltd.

As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!