Project: Second Genesis! (Adventure into Fear #21) (1974)

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 HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2026


Writer: Steve Gerber

Artist: Gil Kane

Inker: Vince Colletta 

Letters: Tom Orzechowski



Sent as a bloodsucking assassin by an occult priest who has taken hypnotic control of him, Morbius is shocked to discover the identity of his target.



Although outrage over the atrocity he has been commanded to commit allows Morbius to break the spell, his own intrinsic bloodlust cannot be so easily dismissed. (Although the addition of Gil Kane to a book’s creative team almost always improves it, I must say that Paul Gulacy in the previous issue depicted Morbius’s hunger with a desperate savagery that Kane doesn’t even approach.)



His prey, however, is not as helpless as he thought.



She is able to manifest a future version of herself.



Defeating (and feeding on) the warrior woman seems to cause injury to the child. Before Morbius can rush her to a hospital for a transfusion, a group of mysterious cowled figures intercept him with promises that they are her only hope.



They are the Caretakers, centuries-old alien survivors of a crashed spacecraft who guided the ancestors of mankind toward civilization. Now they are dying, but they have begun Project: Second Genesis to protect their legacy. 



Morbius follows directions to the lair of his new target.



Before Morbius can strike, Daemond summons a demon who restrains the living vampire…and he learns the identity of the woman who accompanies the priest.



SORRY... MR. HOPKINS!

Reprinted from Mystic #8 (May 1952), one of Atlas/Marvel’s pre-Code horror titles

Writer: ?

Penciler/Inker: Bill Everett


We’re telegraphing the end a bit here.



Mr. Hopkins’ miserable life takes a turn one day while visiting a fair with his shrewish battleaxe of a wife.



Charmed and deceived by a “beautiful” gypsy “girl,” Mr. Hopkins commits both murder and robbery and brings the spoils back to her so he can get his promised kiss and begin their lives together. But…surprise!



I like how Steve Gerber’s story is shaping up. Although I think Gil Kane is a much better all-around artist than Paul Gulacy, Gulacy has such a distinctive take on this character that I’m sad to see him go.


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