Fear #6 [1972] – The Midnight Monster

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A 7-page Kirby/Ayers reprint from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #79 (1962) leads this collection of reprints. This is a variation on the Jekyll/Hyde story, with a brilliant but arrogant scientist developing a serum which makes plants and animals immortal, but also makes them huge and monstrous. When his affections are spurned by a young woman he vows revenge, and tries the serum on himself.

Fear #6 [1972]

For the record, this was originally published the month before HULK #1.

He goes on a cross-country rampage looking for that engineer who he thinks stole his woman, only to eventually fall into a trap, a deep hole constructed by that same engineer, not even realizing that he was being pursued (though you’d think he might have heard from either his old room-mate or teacher, who the monster threatened in pursuit of him, but maybe he actually killed them both between the panels).

Nice short story, both for the variation on the Hulk concept and some of the staging, like the final scene where the monster is falling down the pit.

Published 1972

2 thoughts on “Fear #6 [1972] – The Midnight Monster

  1. Anonymous

    This was always one of my favorite Kirby reprints — even Gil Kane’s trumpets it as the highlight of the giant-sized issue. Seeing stories that formed the basis for later, more successful characters is always a treat.

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  2. Stephen

    I read this as a child, presumably around 1962/3, and never forgot it. The ending is haunting but it was the scene of him testing the serum on the cat that was most memorable for some reason.

    Somehow, I knew it was Kirby art, just from this memory, when, much later, I learned who he was and began to admire his work.

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