“BLACK FRIDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY” THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT, PART 1
Chris Buse (RIP)
June 10, 1963 was a Monday. If you were in America on this day and in this year, it“s very likely that you were aware that President Kennedy was to deliver the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C. During his speech, the young President made his plans for a suspension of nuclear testing known, along with his commitment to negotiate a binding test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union and every other country that“d been able to harness atomic energy into a force for annihilation. As you stepped outside later during this mild day in late spring, to walk the dog, or to shop for groceries, or to drive the car to the shop for the regular inspection, to have it cleaned or the oil changed, you wondered if this meant that things would be ok now, if it was ok to let out a sigh of relief. Life seemed good again. The good guys had won. The Cuban Missile Crisis did seem longer in the past than only a few months. You could ask the neighbors over, or the guys from the office and their wives. Time for an old-fashioned barbeque in the backyard, your backyard with its well-hidden access to the secret underground shelter, a structure built to last and designed to protect you and your family and the dog from the radioactive fallout. If need be, you, the missus and the kids could stay down there, underground among the canned food, the containers of drinking water and the flashlights with their powerful, long-lasting batteries for many years to come, or at least long enough to outlast a war unlike any other war. Still, there was only so much room in the fallout shelter, that was why everybody did not only pack their supplies of canned goods and water and flashlights, but their service revolver, too. You liked your neighbors and the guys from the office, but if push came to shove, it was each man for himself. You all had your families to take care of. You had steeled yourself for the moment there“d be some commotion and some screams, and the missus urging you to check out what was going on, to see if somebody needed assistance. You knew that you had to refuse her, that you had to refuse them. Now, all of that seemed unnecessary. The man who ran this country had it all figured out. Kennedy had made the other guy blink. It seemed incidental that Kennedy“s day was not done yet. Later, back in the Oval Office, the President signed the Equal Pay Law, which no longer allowed employers to pay women less for the same job than their male colleagues. If you were such an employer, you usually saved forty percent on the payroll if you hired a woman for the job. So, now it didn“t matter. You could go ahead and hire the cousin of your wife or the pimply kid that you knew was a smart cookie. Thus, ironically, a law designed to protect the rights of career women in the workforce benefitted men. However, what happened on that day in America, if there was a little bit of optimism in the thoughts and prayers of men and women or if they simply went about their day, didn“t matter much if you found yourself in a foreign country, especially in this backwater of a country. If you were an American, you were either with the C.I.A. or the international press corps, and those in the latter camp were all young and very bored. Who had ever heard of a guy of the caliber of a Walter Cronkite take on a foreign assignment at his age but even those legends had started at the bottom. Still, how many reports could you file about stinking rice paddies, or pictures of the same for that matter? It was the boredom that killed you once the excitement had worn off and the thrill from cheap booze, the drugs and the prostitutes. There was very little thrill in a city like Saigon and a country called Vietnam that was tightly controlled by a hated dictator and his equally despised family. Sure, occasionally there“d be some small raids into Saigon, perpetrated by guerrilla fighters from Communist North Vietnam, but once President Kennedy had sent in hundreds of Green Berets and helicopters, things had quieted down considerably. When the troops began to use Agent Orange to kill the vegetation in the nearby jungles, this had sent the guerrilla forces packing. Then there was an attempt on President Ngo Dinh Diem“s life, but the Catholic seemed to have God on his side, and he took this as a sign to suppress the religion of those who did not share his faith and that of his family even more, which was the majority. When the workers went on a strike, he closed the factories. When the students rallied in the streets, he shut down the university. The same with the schools and the newspapers. The foreign press was allowed free rein with the understanding that they“d looked the other way. You might think this excluded the American correspondents who served no other master than uncovering and covering the truth, and with America now Diem“s biggest sponsor, but Diem was untouchable. North Vietnam, under the leadership of an old man by the name of Ho Chi Minh, a guy very deeply admired by his people who affectionately called him “Uncle Ho”“ since he had once declared that all the people of Vietnam were his children, had driven out the French. That was almost a decade ago and Ho, who had once tried to approach President Wilson in Paris when he was a young man and a short order cook to tell the most powerful man in the world the soap story of his home that was occupied by the French, was really old now. Thus, the Communist Party had retired Ho to make room for a younger, much more ruthless and decisive leader. Ho Chi Minh would stay on as the party“s figurehead, though. Whenever the politburo in Hanoi felt the masses in the North needed a bit of that old “Uncle Ho”“ magic to keep them going, the party leaders would cart Ho“s feeble, propped up body around for show. If you thought the French crew had their work cut out for themselves with a guy like Ho when he was still in top shape, you had yet to meet Le Duan, and you better recalled that the D in his was name pronounced like a Z. The new party leader of the North, who wore his jet-black hair perfectly parted to one side, looked as unassuming as if he were a teller at your local bank, that is if your bank teller had the ability to know what you were thinking, and his mind worked like that of a car salesman who“d marked you for a rube the moment your drove onto the lot of his dealership. Feeding the men and women, and later the children, of the North to the machine of war meant nothing to Le Duan, especially not since his sons attended a private school in Moscow where they burnt through an allowance that could have fed many families in Hanoi, or in Saigon for that matter. Le Duan no longer send guerrillas across the border between the two halves of the same country like “Uncle Ho”“ had. Ho“s Viet Minh fighters had never been rebels without a cause. They“d defeated the illegal occupiers, which had effectively ended the French rule over a country the foreigners had named Indochina. The Geneva Accords of July 1954 had established North and South Vietnam, with the 17th parallel as the dividing line. Along this line, mostly to the South, a demilitarized zone was established, Vietnam“s no man“s land. The agreement had stipulated that Vietnam would be unified within two years after free elections. But the elections never happened, leaving Ho with a mission still incomplete. But to inflict any real damage to South Vietnamese forces, Ho“s Viet Minh had to cross the DMZ first, only that the American military told them in no uncertain terms that this wouldn“t be tolerated. Le Duan opted for a different strategy. When he sensed an opening caused by the hatred among the population in the South against their own government, the North started to back the antigovernment insurgency that began to coalesce around the National Liberation Front, as Le Duan saw to it that the NLF“s established a military arm which they supplied with weapons smuggled in from the North. Instead of sending men, now all Le Duan had to do was to run a gun racket, the men were already in the South and they could be anyone. Soon, these men with many faces, who emerged from the shadows of neighborhoods only to retreat as quickly as they“d appeared, were called the Viet Cong. As determined as Ho“s rebels, they became the ghosts of Vietnam. To many of the American soldiers with boots on the ground, the French had always appeared weak. To take control of a country of mainly rice farmers didn“t betray much strength or military planning. When Japanese troops had invaded Indochina in March 1945, they were met with very little resistance. After Japan“s surrender once America had unleashed the powers of many suns on their homeland, the French returned, and lest they repeated their mistake, their troops were supplemented by many platoons with men who served in the Foreign Legion. Still, they had lost. To the American military, this told you much about the French. Their part had been the easy one. They knew who the enemy was and where he was. America was going up against a much more formidable super-villain and his unknowable army. But on this Monday, in Saigon at least, it was business as usual. High humidity, the same mosquitoes, the same girl prostitutes at the bars already around lunchtime. But something was different if you were among those foreign correspondents. There were whispers directed directly at them. This wasn“t new. Rumors of something important about to go down were swirling around constantly, given the volatile situation and the desire of the Vietnamese people to make their voices and their plight heard around the globe. If you were among these young men who“d once hoped for a career making opportunity when they set foot in this forsaken place but who“d mostly grown jaded by this point in time and who were aching for a nice, ice-cold coca cola sipped not here, but any place but here, you had learned to ignore those bold claims. Diem and his family and his corrupt cronies weren“t going anywhere, and their uncle, Uncle Sam, with his highly trained and equally skilled commandos would take care of the Viet Cong in no time flat. This was the United States you were talking about. So, these young men drank their whiskey sours and they shooed away the whispers like they did with the black mosquitoes that were already fat with their blood. But a handful of them, those who believed that perhaps they should follow up on any lead while they had nothing better to do, provided they made it out of bed in the heat and with a raging hangover the next day, they drove to the spot outside the Cambodian embassy in the South“s capital at the time the shifty looking men who emerged from narrow alleys and busy crowds had told them to come. If the Monday was as uneventful as most other Mondays during their time in South Vietnam, to these young men the Tuesday, this Tuesday, would be unlike any other day they“d experienced. It was the day when the horror they only knew from the movies and the comics came to a street in Saigon and their world.
Sometimes, the grotesque horrors from our darkest nightmares will take over the main stage with grand gestures of showmanship and eight gallons of blood to celebrate a spectacle of grand goignol as they“ll announce themselves to their audience, and to the world, in a puff of smoke that suspiciously smells of Sulphur. They did on March 13, 1954. It was a Saturday. For the French soldiers and their allies stationed at their massive stronghold located in Dien Bien Phu, a small city situated in a valley in the northwestern part of Vietnam, the day started like any other day in a region that was of little value to Paris other than that their rule was proof that they were able to maintain an empire that dated back to the glorious days of expansion and colonization. The report for that day could have read “situation normal, all fouled up”“, since the boredom of endless drills and basically doing nothing was wearing the men down. Though the Viet Minh had been driving the French back for months now, the French High Command was convinced that this would avail them naught in the long run other than an unimaginable and unsustainable loss of life. The French on the other hand felt well prepared now. At their garrison in Dien Bien Phu, which was impossible to take due to its well-fortified walls and its overall strategic location, they had amassed not only 10,800 regular troops of the French armed forces, but they“d brought in reinforces of 16,000 men from elite units together with French Foreign Legionnaires and heavy equipment like aircrafts and many quadruple 0.50 caliber machine guns. Not even hell or high water would shake Dien Bien Phu, and thus by extension the French military“s presence in Southeast Asia. In the thick jungles, the Viet Minh picked them off men by men, but not behind these walls from where the troops could let bullets rain down on any fool who wanted to test his luck, artillery commander Colonel Charles Piroth boasted to his gunners and anyone who was in earshot as he strode across the place d“armes to inspect the morale among the men and the armaments that“d been installed to stamp out this audacious insurgence of lowly peasants once and for all. A hero of the Second World War now on his third tour in Indochina, Colonel Piroth told his men that he had more guns than he needed as he also exulted that they weren“t in any real danger. It was situation normal, for all intents and purposes. With their superior artillery, now it was their turn to do some picking off if the enemy dared to show their faces. They did, nearly 50,000 faces of them as they began to surround the garrison while keeping the French under constant heavy shelling, employing a strategy that ran counter to what was known in France about military planning and what the men had been trained to do. The Viet Minh started their campaign on this Saturday. On Monday, the battle for Dien Bien Phu, set on a stage in this theatre of war that would become known as “The Valley of Death”“, did claim his most prominent victim. After he“d made the rounds in the camp to apologize to his fellow officers, Piroth went into his private bunker and removed the safety pin from a grenade. Desperate to uphold the fighting spirit among his men, his suicide was covered up for days. But word spread outside the well-guarded walls of the stronghold, and soon newspapers that reported on the Colonel“s act were dropped from planes on the camp. His successor was flown in quickly, one of the last few airdrops that the enemy granted the French. Ho“s Viet Minh were establishing an ever-tighter control of the airspace. The siege of Dien Bien Phu and its garrison lasted one month, three weeks and three days. While many of the men behind the thick walls began to grow desperate, thousands of volunteers, the very peasants the French had mocked, carried in food and weapons to the brave besiegers, and of course ammunition in near uncountable quantities. In the French stronghold, after several failed attempts to shake off their Vietnamese prison guards, the men received orders to stay strong as they were told that surrender was out of the question. To raise the white flag after the troops had offered so much heroic resistance would surely be a cowardly course of action the French High Command in Paris surmised. Consequently, when a flag was flown on May 7, it was the Viet Minh who proudly signaled that they had captured the French headquarter at Dien Bien Phu. The French had suffered more than 9,000 men dead, wounded or missing in battle. But those 11,721 soldiers who surrendered on that day, their nightmares were far from over. Ho“s decisive victory over the French, won by the generals and military advisers the wise “uncle”“ to all the children of Vietnam had picked, became legend immediately. Whereas President Woodrow Wilson most likely would have ignored the pleas from the short order cook who“d tried to talk to him in Paris, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was very well aware of who Ho Chi Minh was. His predecessor had lost China to Mao and his people“s republic, which were fancy words for saying communist. This was a lapse of judgment he didn“t intend to repeat. With the defeat of the French, Ho“s increased popularity and a country divided, the guy who“d wanted to speak to the leader of the League of Nations, had tipped one domino. It was enough to link America inextricably to Vietnam, hell or high water be damned. This was a history that was known to the foreign correspondents who arrived at the road outside the Cambodian embassy on the morning of March 11. It was the story that had given rise to the man they called “Uncle Ho”“, and to men like Le Duan, and in the South, to President Ngo Dinh Diem. His residence, which was a palace, though the rectangular structure had the cold, efficient look of an office building, was located in the third district and the seventh ward of Saigon, which meant it was only a few blocks away. Catholic Diem had recently begun to step up his attacks on Vietnam“s Buddhists. When protestors took to the streets in the central city of Hue last month, Diem mobilized South Vietnam“s Governmental Military to disperse the peaceful protest. Under his command, they did so with lethal force which left eight dead, including several children. Though his extreme favoritism toward the Catholic minority of Vietnam and a cold willingness to shoot his own people, alienated him from the majority of those under his rule, and he“d become more and more isolated, Diem did have the support of a military ready to attack Buddhists. To the journalists who covered the brutal suppression of freedom of religious expression, and who had gone on to call it the “Buddhist Crisis”“, this was another sad story among many. But in Saigon, the loud, crowded streets were back to the usual hustle and bustle that is typical for any major city in Asia or any other country in the world, with their population forced together, busy with trying to impress or to just survive. Given the situation, what those few journalists who“d followed the whispers and who“d turned up on this Tuesday morning saw, was a most peculiar sight. Almost as if they“d materialized out of thin air right in front of their eyes, a group of around four hundred Buddhist monks and nuns begun to walk towards them in a somber procession, preceded by a single, beat-up sedan. Still, only a few of the men took out their Kodaks, including Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press. As the procession which moved in two phalanxes, knew only one direction, namely Diem“s palace, this was just another demonstration, or so it seemed to most of the men who watched them go by. Most of the Vietnamese bystanders hardly took notice since they had their own problems to worry about. But then the vehicle stopped, and the protestors stopped as well. Three men emerged from the car, all three of them garbed in attire that easily identified them as Buddhist monks. One of the men placed a cushion right on the pavement not too far from where Browne and his colleagues were standing. The other man opened the trunk of the vehicle which was an American model and took out a five-gallon can of gasoline that he brought to the cushion. As the third man, who was the oldest among them, a thin man well into his seventies, began to assume the lotus position on the cushion and the pavement, the assembly rallied around him in a nearly closed circle which still allowed observers to see what was going on. And as the old monk, of whom the journalists would later learn that his name was Thich Quang Duc, rotated a set of wooden prayer beads in his hands and the priest recited words in a language they didn“t understand, the other man doused him with the entire content of the container he was holding. The gasoline soaked the seated monk“s robes and glistened on his skin and his bald head that now reflected the light of the lustrous morning sun. With many of the journalists too stunned to say a word, to move or to reach for their Kodaks, they saw how the ancient priest produced a match which he lit and dropped onto himself. They knew this image. You know it, too. Maybe you don“t remember it, but if you try, really try, you can recall it from the edges of the land where the memories from your childhood live, memories that scared you back then. Recalling the image now, seeing it like those men did, in the radiant light of the morning sun in June, it seems silly and out of place. Those journalist with their press credentials and their Kodak cameras around their necks, those twenty-somethings who“d been bored and who craved some action that was a bit more interesting than yellow men in pajamas fighting other yellow men in some river bed or godforsaken rice paddy, they knew the image from the drive-ins back home. If you were trying to get to second base with a girl called Sue or Debbie as any guy would who had just gotten his license and his old man“s car, taking your date to a scary film would do the trick. She“d be frightened by what unfolded on the screen, maybe a bit faux scared if she was really into the other thing, and she“d get closer to you. You knew she was really into you if she moved really close if there was some silly monster on the loose. Often some poor slob in a poorly-fitting costume with an oversized-head made from cardboard, or they used shots of a spider, superimposed over a desert landscape to make it appear really big, like they did in “Tarantula”“, or it was puppet with an odd-looking face, supposedly a gigantic bird from an antimatter universe like in the film “The Giant Claw”“, which was an absolute stinker. You knew she had something else in mind if she leaned closer, because nobody other than your little brother was afraid of those. Or you learned very quickly that she simply wasn“t interested. Well, in that case you still had Mara Corday in an extremely tight pencil skirt you could ogle and boy, her skirts were really tight. With “Dracula”“, or “Horror of Dracula”“ as this British production was known in the States, it was an entirely different story.
Dracula was the ultimate monster from the id, savage sexuality and raw lust all rolled into the tall, lanky body of actor Christopher Lee who looked like an English nobleman once all pretense of sophistication had been stripped away, a predatory beast made worse for his inbred aristocratic privilege. His Dracula was the ultimate seducer, the hunger of the flesh, a rapist of the mind and the senses. Lee made Dracula a ferocious beast that would stop at nothing to get the girl he desired, he wanted to control. The movie, that made even you a little scared and Debbie a bit too fascinated by this commanding man in the black cape, offered one guy who could defeat this monster, only that he wasn“t the typical broad-shouldered, lantern-jawed hero you were wont to see in a picture made in America. He was a nerdy type in his mid-forties, normally a friend or a colleague of the protagonist who was only there to deliver some scientific sounding mumbo-jumbo or some expository dialogue. But he, Peter Cushing“s Van Helsing, this rail-thin older gentleman with his sunken, gaunt face who still radiated a ton of charisma off the screen and who moved around like he was Batman, a Judo-Christian Batman, he was an unstoppable force, too. There“d be only one survivor once it was time for the final showdown which took place at Count Dracula“s castle. Though it would seem that the vampire had the upper hand, especially once his vice-like grip clasped around his opponent“s throat and he brought his long fangs very close. But Van Helsing, with a will and determination made of steel, managed to persist. He shook the monster off, and with his eyes scanning the count“s reading room, he spotted the only thing that kept the sunlight of a new day from getting to Dracula, knowing that the rays of the sun were deadly to this vile beast of ancient lore brought back to haunt our waking dreams. Racing along a table, Van Helsing (Cushing“s stunt double in this one instance) jumped into the air, tearing down the heavy brocaded curtains with his own weight. Still, this beast had a few corners available to him to which he could withdraw. But never on Van Helsing“s watch. In lieu of a crucifix, the crafty, resourceful man grabbed a pair of ornate candlesticks which he slammed together in such a way as to fashion a makeshift cross. With this symbol of his religion and his unwavering faith, Van Helsing drove the Prince of Darkness back into the light of the morning sun which had already cost him a foot and a part of one leg. Now fully exposed to the light which he couldn“t face, the count began to disintegrate until nothing was left of his terror but a heap of dust carried away on the wind, a startling and equally haunting effect shot that was created in camera with an almost documentary like feel to it. With an image this iconic, made by Hammer Films, not its low-rent American cousin AIP, and the staging of the scene expertly handled, you could be easily forgiven if you mistook this burning monk for Dracula or Frankenstein“s Monster set ablaze by the torches of angry villagers. And perhaps to those journalists, to the pedestrians who now interrupted their running to and fro, and the police officers who“d arrived on the scene with the Presidential Palace and an embassy close by, Thich Quang Duc was a monster. It was a monstrous act after all. The flames, which had quickly consumed his modest robes and his flesh, both of which they had caused to become black, were creating a black oily smoke that emanated from Thich Quang Du“s burning body, still situated in the lotus position. All the while another monk repeated two sentences over and over into a microphone that was hooked up to a loudspeaker system, with this message delivered in English and Vietnamese: “A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr.”“ Some of the spectators had begun to wail, others prayed or stood in silence. Most of the foreign journalists currently in South Vietnam had chosen to ignore the whispers that had reached them on the day before. Those who“d made it to the intersection at Phan Dình Phùng Boulevard were rendered motionless by an image that was too unreal, too movie-like to be fully absorbed in ways that transcended memories of the language they“d learned from watching Western horror movies. But then, if Thich Quang Duc was the Dracula of this story, he had even claimed seniority to ensure his role when a fellow priest had offered himself, some of the journalists would later find out, logic demanded, at least Western logic, that there had to be a hero, a Van Helsing like character who pulled the curtains down to expose the beast to the light. AP bureau chief Malcolm Browne was this hero as he took several pictures on that morning which went around the world across the wire services. One photo in particular, which depicted the priest, who was calmly seated on the pavement, as a black figure engulfed in flames, galvanized public opinion around the world. This one image which could have been a single still picture from a Hammer horror film, or due to its visceral urban grittiness and its black and white quality, better yet a shot from a lower-budgeted American International Pictures production, forced America to better rethink its overall strategy for South Vietnam. Like Cushing“s Van Helsing, armed with a camera instead of his faith and a pair of candlesticks, Brown forced a man into the light only that it was the light of one man in flames. His picture, which was voted “World Press Photo of the Year”“, and the image it depicted, had the ability to turn a monster into dust as a man who set himself on fire pulled an empire into a war. You had to wonder who the real monsters were. Who were the heroes? It was easy to answer who the villain in the North was. His face belonged to a man who“d make you buy a new car for a price too high. The problem was, that America“s ally South Vietnam had its own set of villains, not only President Diem. There was his corrupt brother who seemed like a choir boy when compared to his wife, Madame Nhu, the unofficial First Lady in the Diem government. Madame Nhu, an elegant, attractive woman who was wont to wear the latest fashion from Paris, spoke perfect English and she knew how to ingratiate herself with South Vietnam“s American benefactors, but to her people she was the Bride of Frankenstein. Nhu loved posing for pictures, clad in a clingy haute couture cocktail dress, one arm raised, fingers clutched tightly around the grip of a firearm, the left eye narrowed to a slit, taking aim at whoever was the enemy to her family“s total reign, and those were plenty. Madame Nhu loved to parade her wealth and status around as if she were an aristocrat born to privilege, but sans a modicum of decency. With her brother-in-law trying to avoid further escalation, as he made sure that the generals of his military had his back (they had, but only for show), Madame Nhu, who had actually converted from Buddhism to the Catholic faith to ensure her ascent into the ruling class, was having none of that, as she happily proclaimed that if there were others wanting to follow Thich Quang Duc action, she would “clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show”“. Shortly thereafter, President Diem, who was highly susceptible to his sister-in-law“s advice, stated that the elderly monk had been drugged and that in fact he“d forced to commit his act of self-immolation. The C.I.A. knew that statements such as hers and the global reaction to Browne“s picture of a priest who became a martyr, the utter shock and outcry, would only help to quickly increase the number of men in the South willing to support or to outright join the Viet Cong. After deliberations among the operatives in the Saigon bureau of the Vietnam branch office, a situation report was hastily related via cable from the U.S. embassy to the State Department. It contained a single question: “What if the Americans stationed in Saigon stepped back and did nothing?”“ The message and the question did reach a State Department official who didn“t have the clearance to pass it on, but who understood the urgency inherent to such a plea for further instructions of how to best proceed. With most senior level officers having left for the weekend, the cable was passed along the chain of command, sidestepping a number of stations that normally would have had to review the validity of the report, to determine the most sensible course of action that had America“s strategic interests in the region at heart. And then it reached President Kennedy who was on vacation himself. With the now accompanying text that offered some guidance poorly worded, the President had to come to the conclusion that the recommendation he received had been vetted by the most senior personnel in the State Department. Based on this intel, Kennedy agreed with the C.I.A. agents on the ground. The course of action, under these circumstances was for the C.I.A. and the military to do nothing. Consequently, the C.I.A. related the President“s word to the opposition that had begun to form among Diem“s generals in his military. In November 1963, the same generals led a military coup against President Diem, taking the Presidential Palace which was only a few blocks from the spot where Thich Quang Duc had set himself in fire. A Buddhist priest had become a monster, truly. You could see other monsters on the loose now. In fact, if you were looking for zombies to walk with, were these not the men, soldiers and ordinary citizens of Saigon who besieged the church where Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu had taken refuge? It was the only safe place they“d left after they“d turned an entire city and half a country against themselves. In an ironic twist of fate, this seemed like a cosplay reenactment of Dien Bien Phu, only that the men they eventually surrendered to did show them less mercy than Ho“s Viet Minh had. Diem and his sibling were slain once they had left the sanctity of the house of God. Then their bullet-riddled bodies were put on display. As this went down, Madame Nhu was on a goodwill mission in America, in Beverly Hills to be precise. The woman who loved to show off her diamond crucifix and her handgun in public and who wore dresses so tight that a French reporter once had commented that she was “molded into her dress like a dagger in its sheath”“ while she saw to it that her brother-in-law“s government passed “morality laws”“, went on to live a long life, however one filled with many tragedies. As for what came next, in South Vietnam one general soon replaced another.
When she looked over one shoulder and she saw that the man was running as well, that he was running after her, she ran faster. Catherine Susan Genovese and Winston Moseley had never met, and they had not seen each other before Friday, March 13, 1964. Moseley had a slightly above average IQ, still he led what many would consider an ordinary life, but purely on the surface. He was employed. He was a good husband and a good father. But he“d committed around thirty burglaries in his neighborhood. When he no longer found the satisfaction, he desperately craved doing this, he approached a girl who was waiting at a bus stop. He forced her at gunpoint into a nearby alley where he ordered her to satisfy him orally. This sense of control was new, and it was thrilling, and he knew he wanted more, that he needed more. That was back in the spring of 1963, around the same time Catherine Susan and Mary Ann began dating. They lived in a motel room together, secretly, then they moved in with each other at the apartment in Kew Gardens. In July, Winston Moseley broke into another residence and when he encountered a young girl, fifteen-year-old Barbara Kralik, he raped and killed her in her parents“ home in Springfield Gardens. Only a few weeks ago, after the calendar had just turned to show a new year, Moseley assaulted Annie Mae Johnson at her apartment. He shot her dead with a .38 caliber pistol he had legally acquired, then he set her body on fire. Johnson“s residence was in South Ozone Park, not far from where he lived with his family. On the night he saw Kitty Genovese as she left her place of employment on Jamaica Avenue, he“d been cruising for a woman, a woman he wanted to kill. He“d brought his hunting knife, a knife that he now pulled as he was catching up to the woman he“d been following and who possessed the instinct to run away from him. As she is now running faster towards the building that is directly ahead and he“s increasing his speed as well, the hunting knife in one hand, she does something unexpected. She starts to back away from the swanky Tudor style house where he was sure the woman lived. Winston Moseley didn“t know her. He didn“t know her at all. It was Kitty who was running towards her apartment house, but it was Catherine Susan, she who“d identified this monster, who“d figured that she“d have to run the whole distance around the dark building since the entrance to her apartment was around back. Instead, with her mind which is good with numbers processing her options, she creates a plan. She races towards Austin Street. There“s a bar that is usually open way into the little hours. As she is running up a hill now and she“s getting closer to Lefferts Boulevard, the monster is catching up with her. She can feel its hot, frantic breath, but she“s almost there. She can well-nigh see the lights above the bar, she can hear music and the laughter of the patrons. But what Catherine Sue didn“t know, what Kitty didn“t know, is brought home to her in a moment of utter shock. The place has just hired a new fellow to tend the bar, and with business slow on the night before the weekend, he“s already locked up. The bar is as dark as the entire block. She“s too stunned to scream. But then Moseley stabs her with his long knife in the back. Now she screams. She screams: “Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!”“ Lights flicker on in the building that sits across from the bar, a ten-story building, Mowbray Apartments. Subsequent reports will vary. With the initial report from the New York Times by reporter Martin Gansberg stating that there were thirty-eight witnesses, once more journalists descended onto this quiet neighborhood in Queens, the number grew. There had to have been forty-nine people in total who simply stood at their windows in the Mowbray, people who claimed that they thought that the girl was either drunk or in fight with her boyfriend. A woman went on record to say that if a young woman was out this late, she deserved what was coming to her. A man on the third floor switched off all the lights and turned the radio on, so her screams would not unduly bother him any further. One man who was a child when the assault occurred, later claimed that he distinctly remembered how his dad had called the cops. But he reported an attack since he saw that the victim was on her feet and “staggering around”“. Using a tree and a parked vehicle for support, Catherine Sue had managed to get up. Winston Moseley had made good on his escape, or so it seemed. A man on the seventh floor of the Mowbray had screamed at him from his open window: “Let that girl alone!”“ But nobody else did anything to help her. Nobody came down from their apartment to check on her despite the fact that she was still screaming since she was in pain. But they all kept on watching. As Catherine Susan staggered to the entrance to her apartment, which was across the street and around the block, and she was bleeding profusely from her two wounds, the doorman of the Mowbray turned a blind eye when she passed him. Those eyes however that followed her saw something that she could not see from the level of the streets she moved along. The perpetrator had backed his car out of the lot where he and she had met, but he wasn“t driving away. Instead he was now parked at the curb. As he cursed and his warm breath fogged his windshield from the inside, he waited. Five minutes had passed. Then another five minutes. Kitty had made it to the entrance of her apartment building. She managed to climb up one set of stairs. There was another flight of stairs ahead of her, but she knew she couldn“t make it on her own. She could still scream and that was what she did. Karl“s apartment was the closest to the stairs and she knew he was a night owl. She could hear him move about. Then the door opened, but the footsteps moved away from the stairs. She wondered what he was doing. Perhaps Karl“s phone wasn“t working. Karl“s telephone was fine, but he wanted to talk to one of the neighbors to hear what they should do. Then another guy joined them. It was impossible not to hear Kitty scream. Meanwhile Winston Moseley who was certain that she lived in the Tudor style building and not the Mowbray, got out of his car. Like a beast he soon detected her blood trail which did lead away from the tall building and to the back of the house she had initially ran towards. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He could hear Kitty, too. Ross and the other two men heard him moved around. They could make out what Kitty was screaming. Then there was silence. Moseley had stabbed her in her throat so she couldn“t scream any longer. He then raped her, and assuming that she was dead by now, he left her in the hallway. He“d found the satisfaction he craved. Moseley did take something from her other than her dignity and her life. He stole the forty-nine dollars she carried on her person. After the brutal attack, which had lasted thirty-three minutes, Catherine Susan Genovese wasn“t dead. Awake and alarmed by all the commotion in the hallway outside her apartment and in the hallway one floor beneath, Kitty“s friend Sophia charged Karl Ross with calling the police as the seventy-year old woman ventured down the stairs. She sat with Kitty who was barely conscious but showed signs that she was aware of the woman“s presence. Sophia and Robert Mozer, the man who lived on the seventh floor of the Mowbray were the only people who had been willing to leave their nuclear fallout shelters. When detectives made it to the scene, finally an ambulance was called. Catherine Susan Genovese was picked up nearly an hour after she“d parked her red Fiat and she“d seen the monster that was Winston Moseley. She died on route to the hospital. What this case left police detectives with, was a puzzle. Stranger on stranger violence with the intent to kill was a relatively new phenomenon, though in Boston the “Phantom Strangler”“ was still on the loose. He was eventually identified as Albert DeSalvo when he showed remorse towards the woman he“d picked as his latest victim. DeSalvo was handsome but antisocial. Once he hit puberty, he began acting weirdly. His first arrest for battery and robbery came when he was twelve years old. There was nothing that tied Winston Moseley to Catherine Susan Genovese and, of course, Moseley was an unknown to the police. Like the French officers at Dien Bien Phu who understood how to follow a strategy they knew and not much else, the homicide detectives assigned to the murder case displayed zero imagination. Why would a stranger attack this woman? It made no sense. Disregarding the many eye-witness accounts they had on record once the entire neighborhood had been canvassed, the investigation focused on Catherine Susan“s relationship with her roommate. Even though the detectives hadn“t heard the word sociopath, they sensed that there was something abnormal about this case. Why look for a phantom or a monster under the bed if the solution was this close? Not to appear guilty themselves, Karl Ross and others soon did some finger pointing, and the women“s secret was out of the bag and out of the closet. Then, much to Mary Ann“s relief, who“d become the number one suspect, another coincidence occurred. Residents in Ozone Park did get involved when they suspected a robbery in progress. With one man making a call to the cops while the other went so far as to disable the suspect“s car lest he could beat a hasty retreat, Winston Moseley was arrested for an attempted burglary. One of the arresting officers noticed his car which matched the make, model and color of the vehicle seen at the Genovese crime scene. During his interrogation by the homicide detective working the case, he not only admitted to the murder of Kitty Genovese, but to the other two killings as well. The detectives found all of this rather surprising, and at first, they thought he was an attention seeker. Unlike Catherine Susan, they couldn“t see any monsters.
Meanwhile, self-appointed pundits have come forward with the intent to discredit the original reports. According to them, it was next to impossible that there were that many witnesses, and didn“t medical records show that Moseley“s first stab had penetrated one of Kitty“s lungs? Wouldn“t this have kept her from screaming? Others wondered, perhaps rightfully so, with six hundred murders committed in New York City in 1964, what made her case special, why do we recall the murder of Kitty Genovese after all? People remember this case, they remembered it. And if they didn“t, they got a reminder ten years later. If you picked up the December 27, 1974 edition of The New York Times, there it was. “A Model“s Dying Screams Are Ignored At the Site of Kitty Genovese“s Murder”“, the headline proclaimed. Once you read the article and the reporting that followed in the next days, you learned that this sensationalistic crime, so it would seem, bore little resemblance to what had happened to Catherine Susan, and the erroneous reporting was plain as day, already in the headline. The victim in this case, twenty-five-year-old Sandra Zahler was not a model. She was a beautician by trade who had been bludgeoned to death on Christmas day, a crime discovered only on the following day by her current boyfriend. As for the people ignoring her screams, something the Times alluded to in their headline when they made the connection to Kitty“s death from ten years earlier, the newspaper quoted one woman, her next door neighbor, who said she had heard screams and what sounded like an “apparent struggle”“ between two people, a woman who, according to the newspaper, “recalled having heard the screams of Miss Genovese 10 years ago.”“ Still, nobody else noticed anything strange going on in their building, nor did they hear screams in the night. It was the holidays. The tenants were either fast asleep after their Christmas Eve celebrations, or visiting relatives, like her other next-door neighbor, the superintendent of the building, which perhaps explains why it took more than a day for her body to be discovered. What connected the two crimes, and eerily so, were the time and the place. Sandra Zahler was killed at around 3:30 a.m. Kitty Genovese had been stabbed by Robert Moseley on Austin Street at that time, which happened in view of the Mowbray, the very same address where Sandra Zahler lived and where she died violently. Some strange coincidences for sure, yet this was where the similarities ended. Whereas the homicide detectives in Kitty Genovese“s murder had originally investigated her death as a so-called “crime of passion”“, because experience told them to do just that, Sandra Zahler had indeed been killed by the man she“d been involved with for two years, a relationship she“d only recently ended. As for her neighbor, Madeline Hartmann told the Times that she hadn“t called the police because she was certain that the man who lived next door to the young woman had to have heard her screams as well, and he was the superintendent of the building after all. It“s interesting nevertheless that obviously the Times reporter tried hard to connect the two cases while he completely ignored what stands out by contrast. Suraj Narayan, the forty-year-old unemployed shoe salesman who was arrested and confessed to the crime after securing legal representation with a little help from a rival newspaper he“d petitioned, The Daily News, had lived with the victim for two years in her apartment. But then he no longer did. The residents of the Mowbray were aware that he“d moved out when she“d moved on. The elevator operator of the apartment building knew. After he heard about the murder, he called the police to let them know that he“d taken Narayan to the fifth floor where her one-bedroom apartment was located. That was on Christmas morning shortly before she died. Winston Moseley and Catherine Susan Genovese on the other hand had never met. Her killing was not a “crime of passion”“ at least not in a traditional sense. Moseley didn“t know that his victim liked girls. Kitty didn“t run away from him because he was black. With people leading double lives that couldn“t be reduced to a simple equation of good versus evil, Kitty knew, and Moseley knew, the world wasn“t black and white. When a man who called himself H.H. Holmes, a medical doctor no less, bought a pharmacy in Chicago in the late 19th century, word of his good looks and his charisma spread far. With some of the attractive women even arriving from out of town, the popular pharmacist soon held auditions to fill several jobs. All the ladies who applied, and those who were hired, looked like the super-models of their day. Holmes was a bigamist and a notorious womanizer, but after he“d built a new two-story building which was to house his private living quarters and a newer, bigger storefront for his expanded business, he embarked on a killing spree. Eventually, he was found out, with the media now dubbing his house “Murder Castle”“. In 1996 Holmes confessed to twenty-seven murders, though some historians claim that his victim might run well into the hundreds, and consequently, the “Devil of Chicago”“ was executed in the same year. It was the year in which Bram Stoker began work on a novel that featured his famous literary villain, Count Dracula. Though it“s well established that the antagonist in “Dracula”“ (1997) is very obviously influenced by Stoker“s employer, actor Henry Irving, a man of many faces in his own rights, some of the cruel ones exclusively reserved for his employee who had a huge crush on him, the idea of the dark seducer comes straight from the Holmes murder case. Holmes had secret trapdoors and pathways built into his castle. Holmes is considered the first American serial killer, a rarity at that time. Though men would kill multiple victims throughout the next decades, in the 1960s something changed. It was the decade when the idea of the man who hunted for his victims was born, quite literally. Ed Kemper killed his grandparents when he was only fifteen. He soon moved on to college co-eds he“d pick up while they hitch-hiked. The Zodiac Killer loved nothing more than to kill and to taunt the police and the media with his random murders. Though the identity of The Zodiac is unknown, many of his dark siblings were seen as outsiders (Kemper was almost freakishly large and socially awkward), 1974 saw the start of a chain of murders committed by a man who appeared as well-adapted as Winston Moseley had, and who had the good looks and the charm of H.H. Holmes. Like Catherine Susan Genovese, early on, he had decided to give himself a name and a personality to better ingratiate himself with different social circles, albeit with an air of cockiness about him, and a slightly grading smarminess in equal measure. By the end of the year which was closed out with the death of Sandra Zahler, Theodore Robert Bundy, a political campaign aide and an honor student with a major in psychology who, for a time, worked at Seattle“s Suicide Hotline Crisis Center, a nice young man all around and by all accounts, had killed thirteen women. Though he“d later resort to using trickery to abduct his victims, when he was Ted, he was all smiles and charm. No woman who was looking for a ride since hitchhiking was still a thing, especially if you were a student, suspected a thing. Ted Bundy looked like a movie star, and still he was a monster. For a long time, at least in public, Bundy knew how to be on his best behavior. He was controlled and methodically. He also killed without any sign of remorse and most brutally. There was nothing black and white about him, but chances are that with one look at him, Catherine Susan would have been able to see this man, this monster for who he truly was. Despite The New York Times“ best (and perhaps worst) efforts, the 1974 murder of Sandra Zahler is mostly forgotten. So is the name Norman Morrison, a thirty-one-year-old Quaker who hailed from Baltimore. On November 2, 1965 he kneeled down below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara“s office at the Pentagon. Morrison, a pacifist who“d come to Washington to protest America“s involvement in Vietnam, had doused himself with kerosene, like the Buddhist priest had done before he“d set himself on fire, a scene depicted in a photo that had upset the young Quaker. Again, people who were busy with their lives, stopped on a street. But then again, nobody took a photo.
Readers who were intrigued by the introduction of Satana because they liked the story by Roy Thomas and the art by John Romita, or they liked this character who was basically Marvel“s version of Vampirella but who was still somewhat unique, were certainly caught off guard once they opened up the next issue of Vampire Tales. With the first story in Vampire Tales No. 3 (February 1974) given over to the beautiful spawn of the devil herself, Satana certainly looked different, and the city she moved in, was definitely not New York. Once they flipped through this 10-pager, appropriately titled “The Kiss of Death”“, to see what else this horror mag had in store, readers came to a text feature penned by Carla Joseph who was a secretary first at Marvel and then at Curtis. Stan Lee had a nickname for everybody who hung around the bullpen, his nickname for Carla was “Cute”“. In any case, the article told you about how John Romita had created the character visually, with much praise going to “The Jazzy One”“, only that in her new tale, and in the artwork shown throughout the issue, Satana didn“t look anything like Romita“s original design except for the fact that she still had long, red hair but even that had changed. There was a pin-up near the end of the issue and save for the fact that her name appeared on the page, she was unrecognizable. Satana wore heavy goth eye shadow and a crown on her head with the horns of a ram or an Aries if you preferred the Zodiac sign, a symbol of strength, creativity and sacrifice. Speaking of sacrifice, ritualistic sacrifice, there were near naked bodies all strewn around her and a dude with a hood and a giant axe at her side who looked like he came right out of the opening of “Blood Sunday.”“ While Romita“s version had a wholesome American farm girl look about her, this Satana was erotic and dangerous, and she“d eat you alive should you dare to cross her. Literally, since Satana was succubus who feasted on the souls of men. In a cheerily tone, with which she somewhat awkwardly tried to emulate the voice of her boss Stan Lee, “Cute”“ Carla let readers know that the changes, the new design ideas, they were Romita“s. If they were, the artist had surely taken some classes in European art styles, classic art, and in the occult in the three months that had passed since the issue that had introduced the character had hit the high shelves at your local drugstore, those that held the magazines for older readers. Spinner racks were for little kids. As it were, the radical look, considerably toned down for the comic story itself, was the work of one man who“d found his way to the Marvel offices (not literally, since he lived in Spain and he send in his artwork via mail), because Jim Warren had run into trouble. When he“d started putting out comic book magazines that circumvented the Comics Code since they weren“t displayed as comics, he“d hired a group of old stalwarts from the EC Comics days like Al Williamson, Reed Crandall and Angelo Torres, or guys like Jerry Grandinetti who hailed from their stints at DC Comics. But Jim managed his successful brand rather poorly and distribution even worse. Soon he was hit with a shortage of cash, and with no moolah to go around, his top artist left quickly, them being freelancers and all. But if Warren was a poor businessman, he was still a crafty fellow. Soon he and his editor Archie Goodwin made overtures to one of the most untapped markets for comic book art, namely Europe. Since these excellent artists had no idea about the page rates that were paid in America, Warren sold them a bridge. The Spanish revolution was well underway at Warren Publishing when Marvel began to poach some of Jim“s talent. They“d also recruit some of the best artists directly from Spain, like Esteban Maroto and Enrique Romero, the latter already hard at work on the British sky series Modesty Blaise for writer Peter O“Donnell. Still, the guys wanted to work for Marvel, because who hadn“t heard of Marvel Comics, only that this wasn“t comics, it was better. But the art was only one part of the equation. With Thomas too busy with being the Man“s successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel, virtually every writer in the office had wanted a piece of Satana, especially once the first pin-ups by Maroto made it to the office, with artwork that was steeped in raw sexuality and came with a vibe of European horror cinema and no, not of the tame Hammer variety. As the heir apparent to Stan and Roy, Gerry Conway got the assignment. Conway was just twenty and he was writing Marvel“s biggest books. In 1971, Thomas had co-created Morbius, the Living Vampire, more of a throw-away Spider-Man villain who surprisingly had gotten a new lease on life in the magazines his new assignment appeared in. Morbius was on the cusp of getting really popular. Gerry was ready to do the same for Satana. She was definitely better looking than Michael Morbius. To achieve just that, the writer moved her from New York with its gloomy shadow of the Kitty Genovese murder to California, a land of hippies still, but more of cultists and often of the more satanic kind. Satana, specifically Satana as Maroto drew her, was perfect for this setting. Conway“s first story was nothing to write home about, though, except for his wicked sense of humor. He cast Satana in a world in which a Christian leader was the bad guy and an idealistic girl, a member of a cult of hobby Satanists no less, became a martyr when she saved the Devil“s Daughter from certain death, who, unbeknownst to her, was the genuine article. After this adventure, Thomas moved Satana to a different mag, The Haunt of Horror. So far, she hadn“t clicked with readers. She also got a bit of competition from her brother, Daimon Hellstrom, also known as The Son of Satan, of course. He appeared in comic books, though. When Gerry Conway began to plot the next stories for Mr. Hellstrom“s sister (unfortunately Esteban Maroto had moved on), he did quickly realize that he needed to do something unusual. Conway began to break down a character arc for her during which readers would learn why Satana was on Earth, not in Hell. The Four, a powerful cabal from the netherworld were making a play for daddy“s throne. Their agents on Earth had used powerful magic to sever all communications between father and daughter, with the latter now doomed to the walk the Earth. Naturally, the fiery redhead was pissed when she learned about this plot via her own dark magic. Satana was now the roommate of a friend of Ruth Cummins“, the young woman who had given her own life so Satana could live. On the downside, her soul didn“t even go to her daddy“s collection since she“d died saving a life, Satana“s. Like Ruth, Gloria Hefford, Satana“s latest BFF, wasn“t in on who her gorgeous, red-haired roommate was. For Satana to have someone to talk to who knew, the writer gave her a cat, a talking cat called Exiter, her familiar. While spying on the agents of The Four, Satana learned that they needed to make a sacrifice to seal the deal. Satana didn“t care much for that aspect, but she had learned the identity of the man who led the agents of the Four here on Earth. His name was Miles Gorney and he was a business tycoon. He was literally the man. However, before she could plot her revenge, Satana needed sustenance, and for a succubus, that meant taking the soul of a man. Santana hunted, and since she was in Los Angeles, she went to club on Sunset Boulevard, where she picked up an old womanizer, literally old. The guy she left with was way past his prime. While he“d gone to seed, he was surrounded by girls half his age who didn“t see him, not with his belly and his head going bald. Thus, when the sexy redhead in her revealing black leotard had approached him, he didn“t ask questions. He wouldn“t much longer anyway, because Satana killed him in an alley. Next she did some shagging herself when she got a Vietnam vet to do her bidding. Soon, the young guy, First Lieutenant Richard M. Corbett, waited on a roof with his M-16 in hand and the rifle“s telescopic attachment locked in on his target, the man Satana wanted killed. He fired, because Satana or no Satana he cared little if he killed the Viet Cong or this man he hadn“t heard of before she mentioned his name. Only seconds after he“d pulled the trigger, Satana appeared next to him on the roof, yet instead of rewarding him with her body, she killed him with a kiss that sucked all life from him until he was an empty husk and his soul a butterfly she sent to hell. He had done what she had asked him to do, what she had commanded him to do, but she had made a mistake. Gorney wanted to die. He was the intended sacrifice for her enemies. And thanks to her, he had become a martyr. It was anger at herself that made her kill Corbett. The story is interesting on many levels, the format is especially. Conway didn“t relate the events in a comic, but in a prose tale, which came with a set of illustrations like in a pulp magazine, courtesy of Pablo Marcos. Conway“s writing style is actually very good. As for the story structure, amazingly, we enter the story from the point of view of a cat, who is Exiter, only that we hadn“t been introduced to Satana“s feline familiar yet. Thus, we follow this cat as it prances around in the garden of an apartment building complex that is as uniquely Californian as it“s lightyears away from Thomas“ New York City, or Kitty Genovese“s for that matter. Then the cat finds its mistress who“s lounging in a garden chair. This is where Gloria Hefford lives, and a killer, who“ll become Satana“s assassin, not her killer, but a killer for her, and with the way Conway describes the sexy demon, with well-chosen words in lieu of Maroto“s pencils, we know this Army vet won“t be able to stand up to her. Neither would we: “Her hair was so red it was almost on fire, and her eyes were feline and gray as a cat“s. Her face was classic in its beauty, feminine yet austere, sensual yet cold, hard yet somehow soft. Her eyebrows were arched even in relaxation”¦ And though the night was cool, she wore an outfit that was barely decent, a black leotard with several swathes cut from its cloth to reveal pale white skin. She did wear shoes, but they were strange ”“ unwieldy fur boots that rose almost to her calves, with bits of bone and other trinkets attached to fur rim like ornaments.”“ She also had a most peculiar birthmark on her neck, the satanmark. A soul-stealer with the ability to control men, she was Asa by a different name.
Whereas text pieces in comic books or comic magazines were usually considered throw away material that was hardly ever read, with these crudely written stories intended as one-offs, Gerry Conway made this text story and another one he“d planned, an integral part of the story arc he“d mapped out for the Devil“s Daughter, so much so, that in the comic stories he had his artist do flashback scene to this first prose story. This was highly unusual, what is even more unique, even once he dropped the ball with the middle segment, his second act, another writer would use his treatment to build to something that was even better, a story that became a trial run for one of the most beloved comic storylines in the history of the medium. His name wasn“t Tony Isabella. But first, also in Haunt of Horror No. 2, Conway opened his second act, and this time readers got a comic story, a two-parter (it continued in issue No. 4) and as Satana went to a nether dimension to see if she could cross the barrier that kept her from hell this way, and with art by Enrique Romero, you got the sexiest looking Dr. Strange story that didn“t star the Master of the Mystic Arts. This time, Satana hooked up with a childhood friend, incubus Zannarth, who she had tricked, and friend zoned back in the day. Corbett had been a tool, and what Conway told readers about the vet, there was little sympathy to go around: “Richard M. Corbett was really quite insane.”“ On a side note, Conway and Artist Ross Andru had introduced a Vietnam veteran in the Amazing Spider-Man just a few months prior, Frank Castle, The Punisher, Marvel“s first anti-hero. Still, while Corbett served as a one-night-stand for the sexy succubus, her bond with Zannarth was a spiritual one, and while the two of them stood around and looked awesome (Satana did), Conway did what he did best, he explored the relationship of these characters. Zannarth: “Your powers frighten me, female. There“s something about you that reaches into a male gut”¦ and tears his heart free.”“ Satana: “Is that why you hate me, Zannarth? Because I once did to you what I“ve done to our would-be attacker?”“ The incubus: “Perhaps.”“ But Gerry Conway did lack a proper handle on Satana“s personality, and when Tony Isabella took over for the next issue (it would be his only one), there was something vapid about his version of Satana. Haunt of Horror No. 4 (November 1974) still closed out the second act, with Satana at a turning point. Zannarth died since Satana had overestimated herself (this seemed to happen frequently with other paying the price), and after some in-fighting among the Four, the final boss showed his face, none other than Mr. Gorney. With Satana as confused about what was going on as the readers, she had yet to hit the lowest point. That she did when the third act of her character arc kicked off with the second prose story envisioned by Conway, and readers didn“t even have to wait for it, you only needed to turn a couple of pages. But what this was, was pure magic. When Thomas had been looking for a new writer for Satana, Stan“s new golden boy had first right refusal, and Isabella wanted to write her as well, because she looked nice, but another writer had thrown his hat in the ring, a writer who was two years older than wunderkind Gerry Conway, though he was a relatively new addition to the Marvel team. But what he lacked in experience, he made up in subject matter. He was born in England, but when his mother grew tired of an England, a London that was still in a post-war funk and you still only got things like food on rations, she uprooted her family. He“d later say: “My mother“s attitude was that she was tired of rationing”¦ She was tired of crap”¦ she wanted steak.”“ Thus, at the age of three he left Great Britain, but he“d visit often since there was still family to visit, and there were old myths that fascinated him. Soon, he was into the occult with like-minded friends. Thus, in his mind, the two poles came together that would shape his writing career: dark, unknowable powers, and strong women who wanted to break away from a life that consisted of little portions served one at a time, women who wanted to taste raw meat and raw experiences. Satana was tailor-made for him. Thus, Chris Claremont embarked on a journey that would lead to Dark Phoenix, a journey that began with a badly beaten Satana, discarded in a dark alley of an urban city, hardly alive, and in a way, this was Kitty Genovese all over again. It was also a do-over of Conway“s first Satana comic story, only that Claremont did it much better, and his writing style was, surprisingly, also much better. In “Doorway to Dark Destiny”“ we are introduced to a young surgeon named Michael Heron who“s just pulled a long shift at his hospital after a massive and rather deadly pile-up on one of L.A.“s highways. It triggers his memories of Vietnam which he compares to this accident (Claremont is excellent this early on when he compares the work of a medical team in a combat zone to one in an E.R. Somebody has to make the tough call who gets emergency treatment and who is too far gone to be dealt with in the little time there is). We also learn of his decision to become an ex-priest, since he couldn“t love this one kid who killed women and children and who was asking him for forgiveness. We also learn about his friend, not quite his friend, Jimmy Cruz who has stuck with it and who bounces around the intensive care unit to offer the last rites to those whose time has come. As Heron walks home in the little hours, he comes across a black cat that forces him into the alley where he finds a woman who“s barely holding on. Then strange things happen. When a man comes to the alley with a gun to finish the job, the cat transforms. Not much is left of the killer beyond that point. Heron gets Satana to his apartment because this is what the cat who is a cat again, wants him to do. A few hours later, to Heron“s surprise, a near naked Satana is up and standing in his kitchen. She“s apparently much better. But she“s also in for a surprise. He is the first man she cannot control. When Heron leaves the apartment to get a paper, things did get awkward back there, he learns how the woman got her groove back. He finds the drained body of the night porter in his hallway. Shortly thereafter, unsurprisingly, Jimmy Cruz shows up and he isn“t alone. He commands a number of Kennedy“s disillusioned Green Berets who“ve found a new cause, the destruction of all that is evil. The men take Heron captive but spare Satana whom they“d almost killed the other night, since with shots having been fired, one of the neighbors surely must have called the police by now. The Devil“s Daughter is more than ready to take the fight to Cruz and his men. With Exiter doing reconnaissance in the city and eventually at Cruz“s base of operations (the cat has telepathic link with its mistress) Satana finds one of the Green Beret. With the way she punishes the man to get him to reveal the location they have brought Heron to, if you thought of Christopher Lee“s Dracula as a ferocious beast, here you got Claremont telling you how a supremely pissed Satana beats an armed Beret to a bloody pulp. Her take down of the Vietnam vet makes your body hurt all over just from reading Claremont“s description. Then we get the final confrontation, Satana against the remaining men (Satana, she is boiling with rage since Cruz has flown in some demonic help to kill Exiter), ex-priest against priest. The latter encounter is made very poignant due to the history between the men and their understanding of the faith. Are those who kill in the name of God not evil all the same? Here“s looking at you, Prince Vaida. Once Satana has time to move on to Cruz, things don“t go so well for the man of the cloth. Pulling a Cushing, he brandishes a crucifix to drive the mad redhead back, only that it does nothing for him. Ultimately, Cruz“s own hatred has rendered him impotent like a certain group of men in Moldavia, or as Claremont has Satana put it: “You cry in vain, Cruz. As you have deserted your God, so has he deserted you. The scales are balanced.”“ Monsignor Cruz dies. Heron is ready to administer the last rites, and Claremont remains a bit vague, for dramatic effect, if even Heron makes it out alive. After all, Cruz has killed her cat. But Claremont wasn“t done yet. When Haunt of Horror No. 5 (January 1975) hit the magazine racks, a few months before Len Wein and Dave Cockrum re-launched the X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men No. 1 (with uncredited script input by Claremont), Claremont closed the third act of Conway“s Satana arc in a comic story, and did he ever do another great job. What is even more remarkable, he did it in collaboration with an artist that many would consider old school. Born in 1920, George Evans was thirty years older than the writer. During a decades long career, Evans had done it all and to this day he remains one of EC Comics“ most underrated artists. However, if you thought that the artist was stuck in the 1950s somehow, you had another thing coming. Though he kept some of that classic, clean art he was renowned for, a style that was perfectly suited for the war and crime comics he“d worked on, for “If This Be Hell”¦?”“, he adopted a sensual, slick style that gave his classically attractive characters, and even his settings, a sense of carnal lust that was surprising but wildly appropriate for the over-sexed, sweaty 1970s with their women in low-cut leotards and their men with a big mustache, broad shoulders and in open-collar shirts, this staging of machismo, bravado and sexual prowess that came with the sheen of an after shave commercial. In this decade, a man, a villain, a monster perhaps, would not be as impotent as Prince Vaida and his hooded and robed cohorts, not even when facing this woman of fierce independence and raw sexuality. Lesser men fell by the wayside, sure, as evidenced by the two men Satana demolishes at the beginning of the story, but it was time to go up against the big bad now, the puppet master behind the scenes, Miles Gorney. Satana needn“t do it alone, alas, Michael Heron had survived, and he wanted to help. Looking at the handsome ex-priest with his orderly 1960s hair and his soft features, this man who wore turtleneck sweater under his suit jacket, the gorgeous redhead concluded that he better wore protection. She bestowed a sacred ring upon him, the Azshiran, an object she deemed more effective than his faith. She was wrong. Soon, an emissary from hell showed up who presented her with an invitation to see Mr. Gorney. To make this more convincing, the trickster demon showed her his calling card: Michael Heron“s left hand, cut at the wrist, the Azshiran still worn on one of its fingers. Soon, Satana found herself in the reception room to Gorney“s corporate offices, and with this crush of beautiful assistants you couldn“t help but be reminded of H.H. Holmes. When she and Gorney met, they had seen each other briefly before, he was all that, a man“s man, and like any man with confidence, he presented the tokens of his achievements to her, only in her case, it was a freak show of horrors, a very personal one. There was incubus Zannarth, this male she“d friend zoned who had still given his life to her, only that he was in a state of dead not being dead, and that he now begged her to grant him deliverance. Then there was her cat, its eyes now blank circles since they were in want of their pupils like Orphan Annie“s. Then there was her current lover, ex-priest Michael Heron, stripped to the waist, his crucifix on a chain still attached to his neck, which was more than could be said for his left hand. If this be hell? This was hell, contained in a sleek business penthouse with an orgy going on as these events unfolded. Of course, Heron gave his life trying to save this woman.
The film was a bust. Sure, you got a sexy redhead, and an airhead of a platinum blonde va-va-voom girl who really knew how to scream, but there were no vampires in “Planet of the Vampires”“. What a scam. And if you wanted to know about scams, you only needed to ask this man, who in 1969 was exactly the same age as actor Barry Sullivan. As he sat in his cramped office with magazines, proofs and paperback novels strewn all around him, on his Formica desk, on the shelves, the file cabinet and even on the floor, he was playing with the ornate ring he was wearing, not his wedding band mind you. Since he and his wife were taking a break, that one had vanished into one of his drawers underneath his desk. The ring he wore looked a little something like the Azshiran, the magical ring Satana gave to Michael Heron for protection. In fact, the redhead would have known what to do with this man who had to remind her of that Henry “Hank”“ Johnson, “pushing forty, partially bald, overweight and under-developed”“, this loser, this womanizer she“d picked out and picked up at club on Sunset Boulevard, except that Satana wasn“t real, and that he wasn“t overweight, but he wore horn-rimmed glasses, part of his disguise, a ruse, like the ring. Glasses made you look smart, and this ring, it was special. It was a gift from Aleister Crowley, the famous mystic and occultist his own mother had called “the beast”“. This ring had value, showing it off at parties got you all kinds of attention, the right kind. And if a girl was willing to go the whole nine yards, one of those naïve college co-eds in their mini dresses and knee-high boots, he“d bestow this one of a kind ring on her. Only of course it wasn“t. He had a whole box made. Anyway, this was a much more rewarding scheme, he sincerely hoped it was. At least he wouldn“t get arrested for it like in 1960, when he“d mailed a couple of obscene letters to a bunch of young girls who“d sent him fan letters since they were into horror movies, science fiction movies and all that jazz. He“d managed to build up a reputation as a super-fan, and when he and Jim Warren began to put out Famous Monsters of Filmland, intended as a one-shot originally, this thing had really taken off. A fanzine in spirit only, this was a slick magazine that opened the right doors to him, not just in literary circles, he had those from being a literary agent, but to the Hollywood crowd. He got invitations to have walk-ons in movies and he was even mentioned by name in several books and movies. Forrest J. Ackerman got it made, he only wished he could get laid by a really hot-looking girl; and the girls these days, and the clothes they wore. Again, he thought about “Planet of the Vampires”“. The two girls in the flick were surely easy on the eyes. Now if only there were vampires in this movie that looked like a crazy LSD dream with all those weird colors, vampire girls, sexy vampire girls. Then it struck Forrest J. Ackerman what an idiot he was. He jumped up from his chair and into the air, figuratively. Then he ran over to the office next door where he found Jim talking to one of the artists he worked with, mostly cast-offs from Marvel and DC, even some of those who had worked at EC until they“d ruined the industry for everybody. Back in the day, comics could get away with a lot of stuff, stuff of the kinky variety. But his publisher had found a way around the Code. Warren was not the first guy who tried this, comics camouflaged as magazines. Carl Wessler had put a comic magazine, but he didn“t have Jim“s distribution or other successful magazines to his name. For a time, Warren had even worked with Gloria Steinem. And after a few try-outs in one of the mags, with what Jim had called “Monster Comics”“, in 1964, he had begun to put out Creepy, a year later Eerie and a war comic, Blazing Combat. With that, he was well on his way of becoming the next Bill Gaines, only he wouldn“t fuck it all up. Of course, Ackerman knew, and Jim knew, that Gaines was doing just fine. The bastard who“d struck oil with MAD, now sat on the board of directors of Warner Communications. But that didn“t matter at this moment. Almost beside himself with excitement, Ackerman told Warren about his idea. She could even be a host like Uncle Creepy, in her own magazine. And there would be stories that featured her in a prominent role. Nobody wanted to see Uncle Creepy or Cousin Eerie in a yarn, but a vampire girl? You betcha. This sounded all sweet and dandy to Jim, but what about the stories and who to write and draw them? Well, for starters, the artist who had just handed in his artwork for a story for Creepy wasn“t that averse to the idea to be drawing a sexy vampire lady in a comic magazine. At Marvel Comics, the Code wouldn“t let Jim Steranko draw buttocks on his girls and if one of his sexy female spies was shown from behind, Steranko had to make sure that she wore an unwieldy belt that covered up her assets. With Jim Warren you could basically draw a girl butt naked that was if you found a creative way to cover up her private parts, the irony being that if you draw her fully clothed, you could actually get away with much more, since her attire would quite literally be painted on. But who to write a story about this girl who lived on a planet of vampires? Ackerman was chomping at the bit, but a writer of comic stories he just wasn“t. But flush with success (if not money, but neither Forrest nor the artist needed to know that) he could well imagine that another magazine would do gangbusters, if marketed the right way. Jim had to admit that his idea was actually pretty genius. Their readers were boys, he only wished he still had Wally Wood kicking around the office, but Wally got busy with paperback cover illustrations. The artist did a fine Wood impression, and thus he gave the assignment to Tom Sutton who seemed to like Ackerman“s idea as well. However, Sutton was no Wood, nobody was of course, other than Wally Wood. When they left Jim“s office, Sutton had a new assignment, and Ackerman got a sexy girl. When they handed in their work, there was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Vampirella, that was the moniker they had given to this vampire girl, was obviously a star in the making. Right on the first page, readers were introduced to her close up and personal. Very personal, since she was under the shower, only that on her planet it was not water that ran from the tap, but blood. The next page was a full-page splash that depicted her, you guessed it, naked again (well, as naked as they could). The third page came with yet another splash page, though there was a little insert panel that showed a vampire dude as he drank from a fountain of blood. The rest of the page showed a futuristic city that did look kinda neat, and there was Vampirella, in an outfit for a change. She wore a cropped, backless top and the tightest pants imaginable, the type of pants that in the world of comics came with high heels. She had wings now like a bat that carried her into the air, but you hardly noticed since in true Wally Wood fashion, Sutton had given her breasts that were nearly as big as her head, with the shape of her protruding nipples well-nigh outlined against the stretchy fabric of her top. Next, Ackerman introduced a conflict. Because of drought, her planet didn“t have one sun, but two, blood was literally running dry. But as luck would have it, there was a spaceship, an American spaceship, and Vampirella decided to see what was up with that. Meanwhile, Tom Sutton treated you to some shots of her ample derrière. Since she was too weak and she wanted to play, she changed into a vampire bat. Sure, why not? With one man a direct descendant of Dr. Thomas Kruvajan, naturally he fired at the vampire bat. Now this pissed Vampirella off and she decided to turn invisible to better attack the men who“d treated her thusly. When he had a wraith picking the men off, Ackerman was directly homaging (stealing from) Bava“s “Planet of the Vampires”“. But surely, you wanted to ogle this girl, hence she turned visible again, which gave Sutton plenty of pin-up material as she now pranced in the air as she showed off her fangs. The question why she“d need them on a planet where blood was a sustenance that flowed in rivers, you daren“t ask, not after you“d read the dialogue. Vampirella: “My Drakarate jab means business!”“ Unnamed, very unfortunate astronaut: “Hell has no fury like a woman scorched.”“ Well, at least there was another butt shot. After she had feasted on the men (you don“t want to shoot at those bats), she explored the ship. Her eyes grew really big when she saw the men that were resting in stasis in a hibernation chamber. Lo, TV dinner! The story was god awful, even for Jim Warren“s standards, but the artwork was nice, in a “this looks a lot like Wally Wood”“ way. If only she looked a bit more interesting. It needed work. Luckily, he knew the right kind of person for the job. Once he got the character designs back from Trina Robbins, here was something they could work with. Now that looked how you imagined a sexy alien vampire girl. He commissioned a cover artist. You had to see the hairstyle and especially the outfit Trina had come up with, in paint. When he showed F.J. the painting, his editor nearly fell out of his chair. The hairstyle the character had on the cover was nice and all, but that outfit, that was something else. It made the character. A red bodysuit cut like a swimsuit, but with a high collar and a daring, very revealing front slit, only that the slit plunged so far down that the cloth barely covered her entire crotch while it left her firm belly, her upper torso and plenty of skin at her round breasts fully exposed and to be leered at. What Sutton had only alluded to, on the cover, the girl“s erect nipples took center stage. She was on the floor in a kneeling position as if waiting for instructions, however, this way you couldn“t tell if she was wearing shoes or if she was plain barefoot. When you got the chance to look at her face eventually, you saw that she had a nice smile and pale blue eyes that seemed somehow off, as empty as if you were looking at a shop mannequin, not appealing. And her complexion was too pale.
It was not all a wash. Ackerman“s idea was solid. Vampirella“s outfit on the cover by French artist Aslan was what sealed the deal, if only the cover was better. He knew the right man for the cover her wanted. The cover by Aslan? He“d publish it later, for the 1972 Vampirella Annual in fact. As for the other cover, somehow Frank Frazetta managed to let her show off even more skin, and she was even paler. But the composition was much better. Since she was standing this time, with her long legs spread very far apart, you saw that she was wearing knee-high boots made from shiny black leather. But what made Frank“s cover such a standout, was the haunting quality it conveyed, and if you looked at her face, now she had a wicked smile and a come-hither look that was hypnotic. One look and you were doomed to follow her gladly as she slowly led you to your doom. And you were going to thank her for it. Vampirella No. 1 hit magazine shelves in September 1969 and the rest is history as they say, only not quite. First, Jim Warren had to decide what to with her for the next issue, and to see if Ackerman had a plan. He hadn“t. Well, that was disappointing. Still he decided to give F.J. another attempt, but with a different artist, only that Forrest J. hadn“t screwed the pooch bad enough just yet. With Mike Royer at bat, the art was markedly less over the top, though the girl was in her red bathing suit, you assumed, with the interior art in black and white. But this tale, oh the humanity. Vampirella had made it to Earth (using the crashed rocket of the ill-fated crew), contemporary Earth like in Bava“s film, and once she learned from a newspaper that a monster magazine was holding a competition for a cover girl, she had a new goal in life. Wouldn“t you know it, the guys on hand to judge the contest were Forrest J. Ackerman and Jim Warren. With the way he had Ackerman staring at Vampirella, leering and almost drooling, Royer gave the editor the creepiest smile as well. After this stinker, Vampirella needed to rest for a while. She“d still be hosting the stories by other writers in her own magazine, but for her own stories and a writer thereof, Jim Warren had to figure out what to do about that. Which meant that he“d call his other editor into his office, which also meant that his other editor would be the new writer. Sutton was back, and now Archie Goodwin picked up the pieces such as they were, meaning he“d have to build Ackerman“s vampire girl from the ground up. Vampirella was back with issue No. 8, which also featured her second cover appearance in a painted cover by Ken Kelly. This was an actually scene from the story itself, Vampirella chained to an altar, about to be sacrificed to some monster that loomed in the top half of the painting, and while this beast, it was a god in fact, was huge, Vampirella was rather small, like doll by comparison. Once you got to the story, a 21-pages extravaganza no less, you noticed that Sutton“s art had changed. Granted, the splash page that showed Vampirella half floating in mid-air but with one foot on the snowy ground, still brought the sexy, but Sutton was no longer doing a Wood impression. Though Vampirella was clad in her ridiculously tiny getup she seemed much less of a sex kitten but almost like a person with something that resembled a personality. Sutton gave her body a heft and weight and her outfit looked no longer like it was painted on but like actual fabric. For all intents and purposes, she was nearly the Vampirella readers are familiar with today. The second page was also wordless, and you got several panels of a bleeding woman trying to find shelter as she was staggering about. There were definitely shades of Kitty Genovese. In fact, if you look at Barbara Steele in the shocking opening of “Black Sunday”“ and at a photography of Catherine Susan around the time of her murder, and you look at how Sutton draws Vampirella in this issue, there“s a uncanny resemblance you cannot fail to miss. As for the story, we quickly learn that Vampirella is the sole survivor of a plane crash that“s left her wounded and disoriented in a mountainous region. It“s safe to assume that we are in Switzerland, but once she wakes up in a large, luxurious chalet, this no longer matters one bit, since we“ve entered into the world and landscape of a Hammer film. Since there was a gothic renaissance going on in all things horror, Goodwin leaned heavily into it. The girl from a world that is not ours, one she fears is dead by now, is being treated by a young doctor who is not on the up and up, and if this isn“t gothic enough for you, his nurse is called Lenore. Oh, and by the way, the good-looking doctor, he had to amputate her vampire wings. With some creepy things going on at this health resort for the rich and famous that doesn“t look that swanky to be honest, more like a set left standing from Corman Edgar Allan Poe movie, Goodwin introduces us slowly to a new supporting cast, you know, F.J., that thing you“ll need if you want to tell an ongoing story. There“s Conrad Van Helsing, an old man who is blind, but more alert than his ancient age and fragile state lets on. He“s also a psychic. And there“s his son Adam who even Sutton draws a bit like Alain Delon and who“ll soon rise to his full-blown status of a Latin Lover Hunk. Since they are Fearless Vampire Hunters it makes sense that we meet them on a cemetery, and this is when Sutton goes all James Whale on us, and a darn fine job he does with it, too. Meanwhile, Vampirella discovers that somehow, she has stumbled into the plot of Amicus Productions“ “Horror Hotel”“. She has noticed the strange amulet the nurse is wearing from a chain around her neck, and as it turns out, Lenore is bat shit crazy. She and the doctor are reincarnated version of themselves, they“ve been lovers since the old Salem days, and now the nurse who heads a freaky cult and her crew are about to sacrifice her on an altar, and with chains around her, you guessed it, Vampirella is helpless and powerless. One wonders however Archie got that idea, but the to whom she“s going to be sacrificed to is much more interesting. With Vampirella nosing around in the chalet, she is after all a vampire girl, it hadn“t really taken her that long to come across an old tome called “The Crimson Chronicles”“ and lo, what it said sounded like a recipe for disaster or pretty cool if your name happened to be Brain Abelard: “And the great god Chaos, along with his seven demon servants, was defeated and exiled to the nether-void”¦ these Chronicles survive for those who would serve his cause and work for the day when Chaos and his seven servants gain strength to war again.”“ This was Goodwin giving this series what it“d lacked the most: a compelling hook. Hence forth, Vampirella would tussle with a shady secret society, the Cult of Chaos. And instead of stealing it from the Gothic Renaissance, he took it from the American pulps. It is pretty obvious that he was leaning heavily into H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos, only that H.P. was almost forgotten by that point in time. A failure all around, the writer had died dirt poor in 1937. Though not the nicest fellow to hang out with, and ugly to boot, Lovecraft had made friends among his peers to whom he wrote endlessly. The readers of the pulp magazine his stories appeared in; they didn“t like his stuff. And normally, that would have been the end of it. But then two of his friends forged ahead. Two years after his death, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei founded Arkham House to re-publish a handful of Lovecraft“s works in one handy volume. They couldn“t even sell one hundred copies. As luck would have it, Derleth was well-heeled and he did what any guy with more money than to know what to do with it would do, he“d show the world. After several attempts, that all failed to ignite so much as a spark to get readers on board with what he considered groundbreaking if not world-changing writing, he shelled out even harder. He paid to have Lovecraft“s stories translated into other languages. Almost as if he was a member of the Cult of Cthulhu, Derleth was determined to see the ancient god live again. What happened next is what always happens in these situations. Though Lovecraft“s works didn“t move the needle in his home country, the French, they ate it all up. And they wanted more. Derleth was more than happy to oblige. Knowing a franchise when he saw one, soon he“d have writers create more stories in the rich world established in Lovecraft“s yarns, of which there weren“t all that many, frankly. And lo, finally the American audience began to catch on, more than twenty years later. Goodwin going to this well for Vampirella was actually quite original, because at that time, it hadn“t been done to death. And as far as Lovecraft“s reputation is concerned, let“s just recall that if you can only see black or white, you will fail to see the real monsters. As for what Goodwin achieved in his first story, you can“t overestimate his contribution. Despite their best efforts, as stellar as they were, Conway and Claremont weren“t able to turn Satana into a popular character. True, only fairly recently writer Jeff Parker and artist Kev Walker gave her a rather prominent and pretty cool role in Marvel“s Thunderbolts series, this time in an outfit that they stole from the closet of Dracula“s Daughter Lilith who shared her fate as a (mostly) forgotten character, but that wasn“t the Satana we last saw in Marvel Team-Up. However, when it comes to this vampire girl Forrest J. Ackerman had thought up, one reason why we remember her, why she is actually pretty famous to this day, is the costume by Robbins, the cover by Frazetta, and for what Goodwin did with her, and he did it all in the first story he wrote for her, and thus, the first words on the third page read like a mission statement for the character and the series going forward: “Vampirella must awaken; awaken to face greater terror, greater trials; awaken to learn”¦ Who Serves the Cause of Chaos?”“ In the next issue, Goodwin and Sutton continued the gothic trend. Then Vampirella skipped yet another issue, the last time her magazine would be without a Vampirella story (the series ran until March 1983 when it ended with No. 112), and when she returned, Goodwin gave the series also some levity when he had her meet a new companion, another old guy, Mordecai Pendragon, a stage magician and a drunk. Now, everything was in the right place, only not quite. One puzzle piece was still missing to turn Ackerman“s vampire girl from the stars into a character that“d stay popular beyond the cancellation of her magazine.
A comic book reader since 1972. When he is not reading or writing about the books he loves or is listening to The Twilight Sad, you can find Chris at his consulting company in Germany... drinking damn good coffee. Also a proud member of the ICC (International Comics Collective) Podcast with Al Mega and Dave Elliott.
