Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #90 (Nightmare story only)
Cover Date: 1991
Title: "...Fangu lives!"
Credits:
Steve Buccellato - Writer
Steve Buccellato - Penciler
Ian Akin - Inker
Mark Powers - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
Nightmare will be getting his own series in a few years (!) but this story isn't really about him. He's just narrating a story about a Monster Age-esque creature called Fangu.

Note that Nightmare says that even his imagination couldn't make up something like Fangu. Fangu will have a few more appearances (much, much later), so he must indeed be real, not a nightmare.

The story starts with a guy named Ian Jones staring at his lava lamp and then seeing a meteor land on Earth.

Ian puts the orb in his dorm room and then goes to ask his professor about it. Meanwhile, Ian's angry-at-the-world jock roommate Gunther comes home and smashes the orb.

Roid rage, i guess.

Ian comes home to find that goop in the orb having transformed into Fangu.

Fangu's touch severely dehydrates Ian.

Gunther notices that Fangu is afraid of fire, so he lures him to a gas station and lights him up with a flamethrower.

The twist is that Fangu was really an extra-dimensional scientist.

Not that Gunther would give a shit about that. One less nerd in the world, amirite?

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Fangu

Chronological Placement Considerations: I considered putting this in the Monster Age, but Ian's lava lamp and Dawn of the Dead poster indicate that it takes place in the modern era, so i've placed it at publication date.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A