Yesterday I touched on the history of our Pumpkin Man Halloween Special sub-saga. Before the new issue posts tomorrow, I'd like to recap the previous installments in this saga.The first appearance of the infamous Big Giant Pumpkin Headed Man was in Issue 9 (the cover says 5, because it was the 5th story and we were numbering them by story, not issues back then). This is one of the first stories Steve Surine drew for us. He actually worked on this story the same time he drew Ion Bunny issue 1. In writing this story, Andy decided to try something a little different, start with a flash back, and giving the other characters a chance to play "narrator." I personally love doing the voices of Farmer Bill (my impression of late character actor, Pat Buttram) and The Pumpkin (a generic gravely cockney voice) and this gave me a good chance to use them both a lot. I actually had the idea to use these two voices because of the character of King Stanely I voiced in our "Ode To Mother's Day" video we had made several years prior.
The story took place soon after the formation of the Terrible Trio and featured them prominently. After fighting over who should lead their bad guy gang, Super Cold Frozen Man used his ray gun on a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch in hopes to create a new villain to help him prove he should be in charge. This pumpkin grew into a giant jack-o-lantern as it lodged itself on the head of Farmer Bill (a previously unseen character in the Hatman Universe). The Pumpkin Head was imbued with telepathic and telekinetic powers but was symbiotically linked to the farmer, if the farmer could get him off his head, he would reduce to a normal pumpkin and be innocuous. After reading Super Cold Frozen Man's mind, the Pumpkin Head flew off to kidnap Blonde by levitating a normal pumpkin and riding it. He also telepathically convinced the Narrator that he should go on vacation. By the end of the story, Hatman, Indigo and Blonde were all tied up and the Pumpkin revealed that Super Cold Frozen Man was his "father." As the Terrible Trio gloated at their success, Farmer Bill's son, Billy Boy, walked in the barn (where our heroes were being kept). Startled, Super Cold Frozen Man shot Billy with the ray gun. The power of the ray gun aged Billy to a full grown man, gave him a green costume and the power of "regular." As Regular Man, Billy could negate Hatman's powers as well as those of anything that had indirectly come about as a result of Hatman. Thus Regular Man saved the Day by powering down the villains and rescuing his father and the heroes.
After re-watching it in preparation for this recap, I noticed that we really have come a long way. There should be a lot more told by the narrator(s) and the art, while good for Steve's first Hatman book, doesn't always tell the story properly. More panels could have helped greatly. The sound effects and editing (my job) felt forced and "acty" and the ending was abrupt.
Jason
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