Here's another classic cover from circa 4th grade. Clearly I didn't concern myself with words usually forbidden other kids, as good old h-e-double hockey sticks is right there on the cover, and as far as villains go, why not just go for broke and pit the heroes against Satan himself. The Freedom Fighters were clearly up to the task. They were my version of The Justice League of America, or The Avengers. Their roster would change and expand over time, but these original four members; Daredevil (a costumed stuntman, and not based on the Marvel character surprisingly enough -- this was the era of Evel Knievel after all), Mrs. Fantastic (not sure who Mr. was), Captain Patriot, and the Invisible Man, remained the team's core to the very end. I'm guessing that the Freedom Fighters won since Satan never made a return appearance.
Was Satan a disembodied claw, or just too big to show on the page? I'm hoping he was just a claw.
ReplyDeleteI think I'd recently figured out the advantage of the imagined vs the shown, and was giving a shot at implying something truly horrible by allowing the viewer to extrapolate the rest of Satan's terrible form from the mere suggestion of his hairy, clawed hand.
ReplyDeleteThough, considering how many comics I wrote that involved monstrous hands of one form or another, it's not unlikely that he would have turned out to be no more than a giant disembodied hand.
Giant disembodied hands are as apt a symbol as I can imagine for the machinations of a universe that controls our destiny.
ReplyDeleteDino Buzzati has a short story called "The End of the World" about a giant hand in the sky. It's a fist actually. I suggest it wholeheartedly. (The story, not the fist.)