It's a superhero comic! It's a sci-fi comic! It's a horror comic! It's relevant! It's freaky! It's Atlas Seaboard's Morlock 2001, and it's the focus of today's adventures into the...
Michael Fleisher was the master of weirdness during the Groovy Age. Not only did he give us the coolest and most vengeful Spectre ever, not only did he co-create Atlas' answer to the Spectre/Ghost Rider phenomenon with the Grim Ghost, but he also turned heads (and stomachs) with Morlock 2001. Atlas/Seaboard, always one to try to jump on a trend, must've wanted a Swamp/Man-Thing like character. Fleisher delivered one, blended with equal parts 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Captain America, and a dollop of Omega Man (I Am Legend/Last Man on Earth). To say the strip was freaky is an understatement of awesome proportions.
Allen Milgrom, the artist who created Morlock's look couldn't figure out how the strip was going to work. According to an interview with Milgrom in Comic Book Artist #16, the artist actually found the strip "unsavory". Why? Well, our hero, Morlock, is actually a laboratory-created creature. He looks human, but is actually a plant. Created as a "super-soldier", Morlock is quickly put to use as a government assassin. The government, however, is of the "Big Brother" variety, so it isn't long before the plant-man rebels against his masters. Got all that? Now, dig this: in his human form, his touch turns people into vegetation; in his plant form, he liquefies and absorbs people. Morlock has little control over his changes from human to plant (only a small sample of a serum can keep the metamorphosis in check), which makes him a danger no matter what his intentions. In issue #2, for example, the creature Morlock murders a blind girl. Small wonder this very cool but very disturbing mag didn't last. In Milgrom's words, "...I wasn't ready for an anti-hero who was so anti that he was eating blind girls." Neither, I suppose, was anyone else. 'Nuff said?Nope! Morlock 2001 is a comic that has to be seen to be believed. So, my Groovy Ghoulies, here is issue #1 (November, 1974), along with Milgrom's original cover concept (before being revised and inked by Dick Giordano). Dig in!
