The Original Muck Monster
The Heap, possibly inspired by the Thomas Sturgeon short story “It” from 1940, went on to inspire characters like Swamp Thing, Man-Thing and Sludge.
The original monster of muck in comic books has continued to shock, disgust – and sometimes inspire – over the past 80 years.
Comics’ first swamp monster was The Heap, first appearing in Air Fighters #3 in 1942. Harry Stein and Mort Leav created the flying ace Baron Eric von Emmelman, who was shot down during World War I and crashed in a mystical Polish swamp. The baron’s indomitable will to live over the next 20 years allows him to merge with vegetation to become a massive plant monster. In his first appearance, the former German pilot helps Allied pilot SkyWolf defeat a group of Nazis; the irony of a former German turned into a literal monster realizing the monstrosity of the Nazis was likely part of the initial appeal.
Air Fighters became Airboy, and The Heap went from a sporadic guest star to a backup tale, where he remained until 1953, causing mayhem and sometimes inadvertently fighting against evil in his mute, often horrific way. He even gets a teen sidekick for a time, Ricky Wood, with whom The Heap bonds over a shared love for a model airplane. Skywald revived a version of “The Heap” character in the 1970s. Chuck McNaughton joined artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito for Skywald’s “Heap” series of stories in the pages of Psycho, in which a crop dusting pilot crashes into a silo of experimental nerve gas, which turns him into the lumbering monster “The Heap.” The publisher also released a “The Heap” one-shot.
Eclipse bought many of the assets of Hillman, and brought back “The Heap” in the pages of their version of the Airboy comic in the 1980s. The Heap even briefly became an ally of the superhero team The New Wave. Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane introduced The Heap to the ‘90s in Spawn #73, as bum Eddie Beckett merges with “necroplasm” and becomes the monster. In 2011, Moonstone published a version of The Heap that features a Nordic deity who merged with a fighter pilot to become The Heap. PS Artbooks reprinted the Golden Age adventures in Roy Thomas Presents The Heap Vols 1-3 starting in 2013 (FEB131113).
The Heap, possibly inspired by the Thomas Sturgeon short story “It” from 1940, went on to inspire characters like Swamp Thing, Man-Thing and Sludge. Will The Heap again rise from the muck? Keep your eyes open at your local comic shop to find out!
