Amazing Adult Fantasy #11 - Apr 62
     "The ice-monster cometh!" - Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
Strange Tales #67 - Feb 59
     "I was the invisible man!" - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Christopher Rude
Tales Of Suspense #15 Mar 61
     "Goom! The thing from Planet X!" - Jack Kirby with Dick Ayers (writer unknown)

Review/plot:
Ok, we've got three random stories reprinted in the back of Giant-Size Man-Thing #1.

The first is a pretty straightforward twisty monster story. You've got a classic Steve Ditko criminal.

And he dresses up as the legendary Ice Monster to scare away all the townspeople so he can dig up his hidden loot.

But then of course the real Ice Monster shows up, mistakes the criminal for its mate, and drags him back to its cave where it presumably rapes him.

Now that's a twist ending!

The next one's sort of a lost opportunity. If this story had been published a few years later, this guy might have been retroactively added to Marvel's Silver Age roster, like Henry Pym.

You've got the pipe smoking scientist:

The lab accident:

And then... super powers!

He calls himself the Invisible Man even though his powers also include super-speed. And he's a bit conflicted, i'd say. In that panel above, he's stealing money from criminals, and he gives the money back to the police. But he does decide to use his powers to make money for himself. Although his method for doing so is a little... unfocused.

He messes up sporting events...

...and screws around with teen agers.

But on the other hand, he helps build homes.

His goal was to make a name for himself and then cash in, but unfortunately it turns out that his powers also age him prematurely.

He's too old to go back and revise his formula by the time he finds out.

I am shocked that Adam Clayton was never brought back.

The third story is Goom! The thing from Plant X!

There's a scientist who's convinced that there's intelligent life out there, and he finds a civilized planet "just beyond Jupiter". He contacts the planet, and Goom shows up.

But Goom isn't a nice guy (i know... he's so cute it's hard to believe). He's here to conquer the planet. And he's got the power to do it. In addition to being huge and monstrous and able to fly, he's also got a disintegration ray...

...the ability to transform people into infants...

...and mental powers that allow him to levitate a portion of a city into space.

He's also got an awesome bird space-ship.

The good news is that the scientist who brought him here is undeterred in his idealism, and he continues to reach out to the other planet, and eventually good Planet X-ers show up and take Goom away.

Soon Goom's son Googam will follow in his father's footsteps.

Monster Age stories are always fun.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - Adam Clayton and Goom!

Chronological Placement Considerations: This has to take place before Marvel Universe #4-7, because in that story, Makkari tries to pass himself off as Adam Clayton for a while.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Giant-Size Man-Thing #1

At this time, the Goom writer would have been Stan Lee or Larry Lieber.

Adam Clayton somehow de-aged himself and went on to become the bass player in U2.

Adam Clayton was mentioned as an assumed alias of Makkari's in the "Monster Hunters" series in Roger Stern's short-lived Marvel Universe anthology title. Bloodstone then reveals that he knew the real Clayton and that the latter died of premature old age, revealing Makkari's true nature to the others in the Monster Hunters.

Whoops, sorry, I misremembered; it was Dr, Druid, not Bloodstone, who learned the fate of the true Adam Clayton and exposed Makkari int hose stories.