Lost Marvels 1: Tower of Shadows

 Tower of Shadows is the first volume in Fantagraphics Books' Lost Marvels line, dedicated to titles that Marvel apparently has no interest (re: financial incentive) in reprinting. 

It's a promising start. The sturdy hardback reprints most of the first nine issues of the short-lived anthology from the 1970s. "Short-lived" in its original incarnation, at least. With the tenth issue, Tower of Shadows was relaunched as Creatures on the Loose, took a more sci-fi/fantasy bent, and would eventually house the Man-Wolf solo series. 

The stories are not the main draw here. While a stellar collection of comics writers (Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, and Gerry Conway among them) fills these pages, the tales they spin are perfunctory rehashes of stories EC Comics did much better a few decades earlier. When Jake Wyatt grouses about the possibility of a robot taking over his drilling job in a mine in "Look Out, Wyatt ... Automation's Gonna Get Your Job" (Gary Friedrich, writer; John Buscema, penciler; and John Verpoorten, inker), the reader knows exactly what type of machine is going to show up soon and the role the setting will play in serving old Wyatt his just desserts. 

But let's face it, most readers will buy this for the art, by such standout draftsmen as Gene Colan, the aforementioned John Buscema, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Joe Tuska, many of whom are stepping away from the standard superhero fare that marked the majority of their careers. 

The best pieces are the ones where the artist also serves as the writer. This doesn't save them from formulaic, O. Henry-style plotting, but in most cases, the artists give a little extra to help them transcend the ordinary. We're talking "From the Brink!" by Johnny Craig, "Flight into Fear!" and "The Ghost-Beast!" by Wallace (Wally) Wood, two efforts from the severely underrated Tom Sutton, and, of course, "At the Stroke of Midnight" by the legendary Jim Steranko. That last one won an Alley Award and is, as the book's introduction states, "probably the stand-out story of the Tower of Shadows series." Unfortunately, it's also the first piece in the collection, so everything after is a slow coasting downhill where story satisfaction is concerned. 

The book's reproduction is great, given that these issues are fifty-plus years old. The art isn't garishly recolored but is presented in decent scans on paper that is far better than the original newsprint but still gives off the comics vibe. 

One caveat is that the book does not reprint two stories adapted from H.P. Lovecraft's work because of "legal questions." Nor does it reprint the stories that were themselves reprints of earlier Atlas/Marvel titles. The editors say they've been "naturally omitted," but I wonder how much it would have affected the price of the volume to include them, especially with the cutting of the Lovecraft material. 

Readers who like horror anthology comics (which I generally do) and/or the artwork of any of the gentlemen listed above will find much to like here. If you're looking for something that will compare to the glory of EC Comics in its heyday ... well, this isn't it. But then again, so few things are.