Issue(s): Giant-Size Man-Thing #4
Cover Date: May 75
Title: "The kid's night out! / Paper legacy! / The final silence"
Credits:
Steve Gerber & Annette Kawecki - Writers
Edward Hannigan & Ron Wilson - Pencilers
Frank Springer - Inker

Review/plot:
This is a story about a high schooler, Edmond Winshed, that was bullied and abused for being fat. Although he had almost no friends, his antagonists were mainly adults: his neglectful parents, his uncle, and his gym teacher, who eventually forced him to do so many laps that he died. His one real friend, Alice Rimes, accuses everyone of being Edmond's murderers, and threatens to publish his journal, that details all of the offenses, in the school yearbook, something that the others take extreme pains to prevent.

Whether it's due to all of the emotion coming from Alice, or from Edmond's relations, or because Edmond's spirit really possesses it, the Man-Thing storms the school where Alice is being held and extracts vengeance. He is particularly gruesome in his attacks. The young step-wife of the abusive uncle, who Edmond was friendly with but who never raises her voice in defense of him or to stop the attack on Alice, has her mouth burnt permanently shut by the Man-Thing.

And the gym teacher is burnt all the way to his heart. It's said that "through each layer of skin... through bone... into the throbbing muscle itself... at each stage of penetration, Lewis Milner was offered the opportunity to atone. But his feelings never changed. And so his heart was seared in two."

It's worth noting that bullying or child abuse are serious social topics, this story is closer thematically to the type of monster story that the Man-Thing's book would have been like if it was being written by anyone other than Gerber. It's a lot closer to Conway's story in Fear #10, for example, and it's typical of a lot of horror stories where a monster is used to as an agent of unwitting vengeance. So this is a glimpse into what the Man-Thing's title would have been like if it were written "straight", without talking ducks and peanut butter barbarians and Satanism and all the rest.

Annoyingly, most of the background on Edmond is given in the form of his journal (and an afterward by Alice), so you get 5 pages of straight text in the middle of this.

Outside of the Edmond story, one of the more interesting insights into the Man-Thing itself is in this issue, where it kind of wanders the swamp in search of emotions to experience.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place between Man-Thing #16-17; it's the day after the events of Man-Thing #16, per the opening of issue #17.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Man-Thing vol. 2