Issue(s): Giant-Size Man-Thing #3
Cover Date: Feb 75
Title: "The blood of kings! / The land between night and day! / Fates and fables! / Meanwhile, back in Katharta..! / This world and next...!"
Credits:
Steve Gerber - Writer
Alfredo P. Alcala - Penciler
Alfredo P. Alcala - Inker

Review/plot:
This is a fun fantasy story focusing on the Dakimh/Jennifer Kale/Korrek side of the Man-Thing's repertoire.

Dakimh senses that Korrek is in trouble, so he sends the Man-Thing to help out.

It turns out that Korrek's kingdom was taken over by a group of evil wizards and warriors. Korrek's kingdom is worthless from a strategic or material point of view, but a prophecy says that certain powers will come to the prince of the land, currently Korrek (the bad guys are already wary of Korrek because he's spoken of his past adventures with Man-Thing and company: "He says he has visited other worlds... that he converses with water fowl..!").

The fight eventually winds up back on Earth, at Citrusville.

Dakimh is seemingly killed, and passes his powers to Jennifer.

Dakimh will have a number of additional appearances as an astral projection, though.

The bad guys are defeated but Korrek is stuck on Earth.

The Man-Thing occasionally shows signs of intelligence. There's a brief initial recognition of Korrek. And then later, one of the nicest scenes in the book is when the Man-Thing comes across Dakimh's alchemy set and at some deep level it reminds Ted Sallis of his career as a scientist. The Man-Thing experiences a sense of loss and anger and smashes the lab.

One of the coolest scenes in the book is the Man-Thing battling a dragon with a Stop sign.

Nice, kinda weird art by Alcala.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - "death" of Dakimh the Enchanter

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place between Man-Thing #14-15 (or at least that's the way the Essentials trades published the issues, and the MCP seems to agree. Man-Thing doesn't actually appear in issue #15, though, so there's no direct dependency).

References:

• Korrek's previous adventures were shown in Fear #19 / Man-Thing #1.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Man-Thing vol. 2

Klonus and Mortak (the bad guys) appear again in Man-Thing 21-22.

Thanks. Added them.

Btw, you've helped point out a bunch of minor characters that are not tracked by the MCP: these guys, Balkatar, Brian Lazarus, Professor Slaughter. Mark just pointed out Kthara.

King Gerark is tracked as "Cat King" for his WCA and FF appearances but not for Fear.

Don't know if it's worth alerting the MCP about these guys. I recognize they're pretty minor characters.

I do have a liking to Alcala's veiny, creepy rendering of Ol' Carrot Nose. I'd dare say Manny's fight scenes make him look fast, even fluid (no pun intended), something I didn't think possible.

I like the art by Alcala but it looks like at some point it might have been intended for a black and white magazine. Because there's so much black on each page, it ends to be a little too dark after the addition of color. Looks a bit muddy in spots, and some of the background detail tends to get lost in the blackground.

That's just the way Alcala drew. He did the same thing a lot for DC's mystery titles, and outside of Kirby's two efforts, DC never went for b&w back then.

It's really beautiful in any case. I like his black and white art too. There are several examples of it here: http://www.supermegamonkey.net/cgi-bin/mt512/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=3&Template=chronocomic&search=Alcala