Creepmas Day 11: Marvel Comics Christmas Specials (!?)

So this year I'm celebrating Creepmas! 

From the 13 Days of Creepmas website: 

"A reaction to the continuing incursion of Christmas into Autumn and Halloween, CREEPMAS is a good-natured chance for Halloween lovers to exact revenge by bringing some spooky good cheer into the holidays or, more appropriately, the Hallowdays..." Read more about the inspirations behind this 13 day celebration HERE. 

Today's entry may have a few of you scratching your heads and going, "Huh?" 

But I can assure you that sometimes there is nothing creepier in the Marvel Universe than the Holidays.

This first one is one of my favorite Christmas themed comic books ever. I got it back in 1991 and it is an 80 page GIANT collection of 8 stories and assorted pin-ups.

I'm going to just cherry pick the Creepmas-y stuff here, so if you're interested in the whole book I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. The first story, "A Miracle A Few Blocks Down from 32nd Street," features Santa Claus as the most powerful mutant in the world with a truly disturbing power to apparently transform people into action figures... and wipe people's memories. And generally mess with reality. He's Proteus or the Beyonder in a red suit.

Next up is one of my all-time favorite Christmas stories involving super-heroes period. in "A Christmas Coda," we have a bizarre evening in the life of Franklin Richards where he meets the ghost of Jacob Marley and trades away his most prized possession (in this case an X-Mutant Killer Krocodile Christmas ornament that his mother bought him) in exchange for a magic key that will unlock his ghostly chains.

By the end of the story literally every choice Franklin makes is nullified because fate just WANTS him to own this ornament I guess, but along the way he get's to FEEL like he's making a sacrifice, and help out a ghost in need of redemption.

There's a Thor story, "'Twas a Midwinter's Night," with an evil troll-thing, and a Santa with a goat-drawn sleigh. Moving on...

My second favorite story in this collection, "Ghosts of Christmas Past," (a title chosen for resonance, not for relevance) stars Ghost Rider and a little blind boy named Willy. Willy's parents are rich and Willy has been kidnapped for ransom, but Ghost Rider saves him.

What really makes the story special however is that because Willy is blind, he mistakes the Spirit of Vengeance for the Spirit of Christmas.

He thinks the Ghost Rider is Santa Claus! And of course, because he's sort of like a demonic robot of justice, Ghost Buster sort of takes this all in with an emotionless stoicism.

As goofy as this whole premise seems, the touching part is in the faith the child has that this is indeed Santa, and how thankful he is to be saved.

Just the absurdity of the concept and the pure affection this kid shows towards Ghost Rider because he can't see the outer surface... makes this a classic story for me. 

The next collection is one that was actually given to me recently by my friend, Brian of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame. It is the Marvel Holiday Special from 1994. There's not a whole lot that's Creepmas-y about it to be honest, except we get a fun little story, "Hopes and Fears," where Spider-Man tries to stop Mephisto from destroying the spirit of Christmas...

The whole thing is very "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"-esque. But there is a wager between Spider-Man and Mephisto to see if he can save the spirit (he can't) and then we see the repercussions (there are pretty much none).

We find out this is a sort of ritual these two beings go through every Christmas, and it turns out the same way every time.

There is another Ghost Rider story, "Harvey Teabiscuit's Yule Log," in this issue as well, although its not nearly as endearing to me as the last one. But we see a put-upon average Joe get a little vengeance in his everyday dealings, courtesy of a little Christmas cheer.

The third special I'll feature here is an interesting one starring the Great Lakes Avengers X-Men. I used to really be into the GLAX but I kind of got over it. To be honest, I forgot I even owned this Christmas issue. But it has a few nice details included.

There's a villain named Dr. Tannenbaum who uses all Christmas-themed devices to fight and kill, including killer Christmas trees and wreaths that tighten around your throat and strangle you.

Doorman, a member of the team has recently become an angel of Death. He is home for the holidays and dealing with his persnickety father. He also meets Santa Claus.

Of course, being an angel of Death has its downfalls.

This Howard the Duck Holiday Special is from 1997. It is ridiculous. It's not particularly creepy in and of itself... but there was one thing I wanted to feature:

We find out that tinsel is made out of dead elves. 

The final issue I want to showcase tonight is this issue of Daredevil, #266 from May of 1989. May. This is a Christmas story the put out in May. Written by Anne Nocenti and illustrated by John Romita Jr., "A Beer With the Devil" is the name of this stand-alone tale.

It is Christmas is New York. The Inferno arc wrapped up in the last issue and Daredevil is fallen on some hard times. He is injured both physically and spiritually. I can't remember what time of year the Inferno event was supposed to have taken place in, but the world has moved on here.

Daredevil is spending Christmas in a bar elbow-to-elbow with some of the most pathetic low-lives the city has to offer.

Into this scene comes a haunting stranger that appears differently to everyone who looks upon him or her. In fact, even the sex and race of the stranger changes depending on the observer. This stranger is intent on seducing Daredevil with talk of betrayals and petty crimes. And kissing.

While these two are kissing, a murder takes place in the bar. The feeling here is that the stranger's presence and actions are somehow influencing the actions of two brothers sitting in a different part of the bar. One brother kills another while Daredevil makes out with:

Mephisto! This revelation completely exploded my 11 year old brain back in the day. The whole story is pretty simple though, Mephisto is testing to see how much Daredevil has given up. How ripe he is for taking over to the dark side. Nocenti's run on Daredevil was pretty heavy on the Mephisto/Blackheart stuff around this time (it's a pretty great run to be honest, with an Acts of Vengeance cameo by a multiple-personality suffering Ultron that actually made a lot of poetic sense in a bizarre way, and a demonic dentist taking center stage during one of the Inferno issues) and this was sort of an underlining of all that... but honestly this story works really well all on its own. We don't really need to know what the crisis of conscience is that Matt Murdock has been struggling with. It's a familiar feeling. We don't need to know Mephisto's ultimate goal in corrupting Matt. He's evil. We assume he's just one of those parasitic opportunists who try to kick you when you're down. And why Christmas? Because Christmas is classically one of those times when we struggle with morality and spirituality and its a perfect canvas to paint this story on.

John Romita Jr.'s Mephisto is my absolute favorite interpretation of the character EVER by the way. But this little Christmas morality play ends with a slight twist of hope. Mephisto can't quite take Daredevil under his wing just yet... and Daredevil crashes back to earth, tearing down a bunch of neighborhood decorations with him.

He lands in an alley where a couple of the pathetics from the bar find him and instead take him under their wings. They give Matt Murdock the sliver of hope an goodwill towards men that he was needing to keep his spirits up. And this is where the story ends. There's not really a heavy-handed moral to the tale to be honest, just a sort of ambiguity about how to feel about life in general and a sense of warning about losing your way. It's the idea that as long as we're all just sort of getting by then at least we're still human. We may not have perfect lives, but we can still manage decency. And for Daredevil at this point in his life... that was enough.

Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with another entry in the countdown, which may or may not involve a Goodwill Goody! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Geek Mailbag: A Package from Miss M!!!

Long overdue is my reporting on this wonderful piece of mail that I received... a package from my good friend Miss M over at Diary of a Dorkette!!! Miss M and I have both recently begun podcasting with Geek Fallout, which is a part of the Atomic Geeks Network. SO I get to talk to her a lot more now and she never fails to impress! We've also been package-pals (not as dirty as it sounds) for a while now, sending boxes back and forth filled with lots of awesome goodies we think the other may enjoy. So I was pretty ecstatic when this showed up: 

Be careful. This box may melt your face off Arc-of-the-Covenant-Style. But let's throw on our sunglasses and check out what she sent me anyway... 'kay?

Let's start with this koosh yo-yo thing that straps to your wrist. I threw this on, grabbed my hackey-sack, got a bandana on my australian shepard and went to the park to toss him a frisbee... because that is my lifestyle. No. Actually, I pretty much spent a good half-hour wanging this koosh ball around my cave and knocking random sh*t over. Most. Exciting. Half-hour. That room. Has seen. And a TMNT skateboard and ramp set from McDonalds!

A hot piece of brother and sister action! Wait... No. First we have Johnny Storm from the 2008 Marvel Legends Ares BAF line. And a Jessica Alba as Sue Storm action figure that, funny enough, is the same one I bought for my daughter when the movie came out back in 2005. They look pretty rad together right?

Next up is this set of Men In Black Burger King toys from 1998. The set on the left is pretty disgusting actually. You fit the little guy with the green goo INSIDE the big blue guy. Yeah. And then there's the hangar looking thing with the peek-a-boo creature poppin out the top. Creeper. 

Miss M knows I like a good, goofy food mascot toy... and these guys for Sonic, called "Brown Bag Juniors" are right up my alley! I don't have a Sonic around where I live, so these are a great get! I do want to mention that Sonic could have stepped up their game a little and come up with a better mascot than a brown paper bag. Honestly Sonic. 

Some miscellaneous fast food vehicles. One pull-back, one dump truck that becomes a horrific open-mawed monster, and a race car that, less threateningly, becomes a pen. 

Random handful of action figures. The original puffy-faced Batman action figure from the 1989 film, and a couple of Happy Meal toys, including a Beast Wars Transformer and a Small Soldier. 

Some toys from Bobby's World! Howie Mandel's 90's kid's show got a set of Happy Meal toys that showcased different fantasies of Bobby's being lived out, as his wagon transforms into a racecar and his pool toy becomes a sub.

Miss M also knows I like me some creepy creepy... turkey jokes? There's a LOT of eclectic reading material in this pile... from ghost stories to... talking turkey..?  Miss M knows that I like me some creepy short story anthologies, and holiday books!

Two of my FAVORITE items in this whole package are these Jack in the Box mascot "Jack" toys. My brain melted a little bit when I pulled these out and beheld them. There isn't a Jack in the Box restaurant anywhere near here... and I absolutely ADORE their ad campaigns. The character of Jack is irreverent, only very mildly creepy, and always unexpected. Being able to add these to my shelf of fast food ephemera is a real treat!

Next up is this trio of Toy Biz X-Men from the mid 90's. Captive Sabretooth, Weapon X Wolverine, and Mutant Armor Beast. Once you get out of the first two waves of the X-Men action figures from Toy Biz I started to lose a bit of interest... I do appreciate the insanity of lines like the Mutant Armor subset though, and the details on both Sabretooth and Wolvie are pretty great though! What really got me squealing though was these:

Toy Biz Storm and Magneto from the very first wave of X-Men figures! I FLIPPED OUT when I realized Miss M had bestowed these action figures upon me!!! Storm was one of a very small handful of female action figures I owned as a kid, and I treasured her for it! Magneto was never really an A-list villain when I became familiar with the X-Men as a kid. He was just sort of easing out of his position as Headmaster at the New Mutants school and taking his place as a member of the Hellfire club... but he wasn't really doing much villainy at the time. Even Emma Frost was starting to lighten up a bit by this point. And by the time he became the leader of the Acolytes I wasn't as faithful to the main X-books as I once had been. But as an adult I have developed a true love for all things Magneto, and I was astounded to have this old fave back in hand. But then I pulled this out of the box: 

Pure. Sex. In black leather. Longshot!!! This is a Marvel Legends figure from 2006, and it features one of my all-time favorite X-Men characters, Longshot! Longshot is from "my" X-Men. When Inferno was starting out, and I was discovering the X-Men for the first time, the entire world believed them dead, they were invisible to all electronic means of detection, and they had a home-base in Australia that they had taken over from the cyborg Reavers. Longshot was a member of the team alongside Dazzler, Rogue, Storm, Colossus, Havok, Wolverine, and Psylocke (who was still a purple haired british woman at the time, not an Asian ninja sex-doll).  Longshot left the team shortly after, and was not heard from again for a very long time, but he brought plenty of mythos to the table, introducing the X-Men to a couple of their weirdest and yet enduring villains: Mojo and Spiral. 

I can't thank Miss M enough for this spectacular package!!! I always appreciate getting neat toys in the mail from good friends, and Miss M is definitely that. Don't forget to check us out over at Geek Fallout, with our other good friend Brian, the Trash Man from Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture, and the regular hosts, Chris, Evan, and Rich! 

That's all I've got for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!