Issue(s): Man-Thing #13, Man-Thing #14
Cover Date: Jan-Feb 75
Title: "Red sails at 40,000 feet!" / "Tower of the satyr!"
Credits:
Steve Gerber - Writer
John Buscema / Alfredo P. Alcala - Penciler
Tom Sutton / Alfredo P. Alcala - Inker

Review/plot:
After last issue's depressingly introspective issue, we're now onto something completely different. Ghost pirates.

The Man-Thing wanders onto a boat chartered by a scientist who loves the sea...

...and she turns out to be the reincarnation of a female pirate.

After a group of pirate ghosts attack, the Man-Thing gets launched into space.

The pirates then take the scientist to an island that has nothing but a medieval tower on it. A satyr lives on it. The Man-Thing is on the island too, having landed there after shooting through space like a meteor. The lady pirate agrees to stay with the satyr.

The other pirates all die fighting the Man-Thing and the modern sailors.

Then the Man-Thing returns home.

I don't really get the point of it all.

When i first read this, i didn't have the first part, and i only had a smattering of Steve Gerber Man-Things. Every time i read a good one that made me think i should get some more, i would hit an issue like this, which is just silly for silly's sake stuff. Having now read through them all up until this point, i see that the series really would just wildly go in all different directions so you never really know what you're getting. I've felt the need to add them all for historical importance. But i haven't really grown to love them any more. Adding the first part to this story didn't really help.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Captain Fate, who Chris Claremont will bring back in the second Man-Thing series.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place after Giant-Size Man-Thing #2, so i've pushed this forward in publication time a bit. See the note there for more details.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I've delighted in the weird Gerber stories and recall this one mentioned as a divergence from the character study-driven issues before it...an effort to play along with comics' conventions for a change. My ESSENTIALS vol. 1 was misprinted so the end of #8,all of #9, and the Giant Size #1, I've still yet to read.
Even where I disagree, I enjoy your analysis. What I write about certain comics has been said to be better than the comics themselves (see Integr8dfix.blogspot.com for yourself!), so your grades are a reminder how often a Marvel fan overlooks dated and kooky trappings to connect with the characters laboring beneath them.