Supernatural Thrillers - Volume 01 Issue 07

My Rating

“The Return Of The Living Mummy”

N’kantu stood in the dark chamber with the remnants of his enslaver’s culture on display as if it no longer existed. What year was this? Didn’t he help his people revolt and kill the Egyptians who abused his Swarili brothers? Blind rage filedl the now living mummy, N’kantu’s confusion left him with only one choice, escape this room by any means necessary.

New York Museum – 6:38 am, the NYPD swarmed the front of the museum after receiving a call from a frantic security guard earlier in the morning. Someone, or something had destroyed a large section of the Egyptology wing while trying to exit the building. Inside several officers rushed in armed with shotguns and pistols, but nothing remained inside for them to arrest. The scene looks like pure mayhem. It wouldn’t be until 7:42 am, when the Curator arrived with her consultant, one Dr. Scarab, before they had any real answers to what attacked the guard.

Is this attack tied to the reported rampage in downtown Cairo the previous year? Did the mummy come from the very same digsite Dr. Skarab worked on in Giza? What happened to the enslaved people of the Swarili tribe?

“He Came From Nowhere!”

Upstate New York, alarms go off as prison guards begin to search the grounds for an escaped prisoner. It’s too late as the career criminal Joe Morgan has already made it out past the property line and works his way southwest under a moonless night. “They said I could never escape,” Joe chuckles. “They never built a prison that could hold me!”

Four hours later the stress of fleeing in the cool fall weather has peaked Joe’s hunger. There, a campfire in the near Distance. Look, a couple of hobos with some grub. Maybe they will share some? Joe pulls a .38 caliber snub-nose out of his waistband. “Or maybe I will just take it all,” he says to himself with a smirk.

Joe Morgan quickly makes his way through the brush towards the derelicts but a bright light engulfs his surroundings as if a spotlight had just targeted his position. Is it the state police? No this is something very bizarre indeed. Before Joe has a chance to squawk in protest a well dressed young man steps out of the light, from the nothingness. Joe, say hello to Groff…the man from the future!

Reviewer Notes

I have returned to the classic Marvel series Supernatural Thrillers for some good old-fashioned mummy action. The last we saw of N’kantu the Living Mummy, he had been electrocuted in Cairo by the Egyptian military. Now his fate is in the hands of Dr. Skarab and New York City’s boys in blue. What will it take to stop a 3000 year old king unjustly entombed by a dark sorcerer?

All I know is Steve Gerber is at the helm of this storyline, and it will definitely be a doozy. I love this era of Marvel as it was a time when Stan Lee was transitioning out of his chief editor role, and a lot of new talent was hired with fresh ideas for the waning horror genre. Thanks to guys like Steve Gerber, Marv Wolfman, and Mike Ploog, the horror comics would continue to be fashionable in some forms for decades to come.

For this issue, we get a few pages of back story on the Living Mummy, which is basically a retelling of Supernatural Thrillers #5, but Steve Gerbe fleshes out the character as N’kantu regains his memories. Was this mummy as popular as Dracula and Jack Russell’s werewolf by night? Not exactly, but neither was Universal Studios’ Boris Karloff series, which faded into obscurity. Slow walking monsters are just not as entertaining on the big screen. That’s until the 1999 resurgence.

Am I the only one who ever imagined a mummy attacking a major American city? This book will definitely help spark that debate. I give issue #7 of Supernatural Thrillers four out of five stars. If you can find a copy, definitely check it out.