The Secret History: Marshal Law bonus post
Cloak of Evil artwork commentary
It’s a Marshal Law two-parter today: this post is for all subscribers and showcases the black and white illustrations by Kevin O’Neill from our second novella: Cloak of Evil.
The second post that hits your inbox is the next instalment of my new book And Where Will It All End? The Secret History of Comics, and is the background story to how we created Cloak of Evil. Just like with previous instalments, there is a free preview, and the entirely is for my lovely paying subscribers, to whom I am extremely grateful for their support.
If you’d like access to ALL of my Secret History of Comics as I release it every week (plus other benefits, check them out here), please consider subscribing: it’s £5 per month or £50 per year. I’m offering a free seven-day trial on Iconoblast, so you can try it out. You will need to select a subscription plan and provide your payment details to do this.
CLOAK OF EVIL - COMMENTARY ON ARTWORK
This was the second and longer novella that Kevin and I wrote together and was to be published by Cool Beans, the online webcomic founded by Nick Percival. Kevin only drew four of the planned illustrations before the project came to an end. They were later published in ORIGINS in paperback form (2008) and are reproduced here. Because ORIGINS was tightly bound, the reproduction here is not as good as the first novella DAY OF THE DEAD. They were never coloured, but they show Kevin’s fine line and noir illustrations to great advantage.
The story is a superhero version of the 1960s Profumo affair which fascinated Kevin and myself. In this, we are surely not alone because the last dramatisation of the scandal was The Trial of Christine Keeler, premiered on BBC One in December 2019.
First, to set the scene, and establish the character of Kassie Kelly (inspired by Christine Keeler) and The Undertaker aka Dan Powers (inspired by Profumo), here’s my favourite sequence from Cloak of Evil, which was great fun to write with Kevin.
Back in the Golden Age of super heroes, when Dan Powers was the dashing, handsome, young vigilante known as the Undertaker, he had been the most athletic, the most menacing of the classic crime fighters. When his sinister hearse cruised through the night streets of the city, the criminal fraternity trembled. And with good reason, for he was armed with a funeral cane sword-stick, an autopsy saw, and an embalming gun in order to dispense instant justice. He had been a legend back in those days.
But now Dan sported quite a paunch. He would refer to it as his ‘pregnancy’, patting it and commenting, ‘Mine’s doing well. Six months now.’ Kassie would laugh, although – like all his middle-aged jokes – she thought it rather unfunny. Or rather, she would have thought it unfunny if she understood it.
He still liked to make love while adopting the role of the Undertaker, just like in the days when he was a pulp super hero. Then he would take girls – whom he would call slabbers – back to his secret morgue headquarters, take off their clothes and ask them to lie motionless on a mortuary slab. Playing a funeral march, he’d hold a mirror under their noses. If it didn’t mist over, he would become aroused and make passionate love to them. He was no pulse junkie. The more immobile the girls were, the better.
This was what he wanted from Kassie now: to lie on the ground as if she were a corpse and she was happy to oblige. As he had explained to her, ‘I like my women to be deathly and dumb. But go easy on the dumb.’ Dumb was no problem but playing dead was more difficult for the upwardly nubile Kassie. Still, if that’s what he liked, she would become a slabber, too.
She lay there totally rigid, the way he liked it, for thirty minutes. She spent the time thinking of all the money and presents Dan had lavished on her and what she was going to ask from him next.
Finally, she raised an eyebrow, and he came.
Superheroine Stella Maris is killed by The Cloak, a super villain with the power of invisibility. Law arrives at the murder scene where piranha fish are consuming Stella. He is met there by the obese Websniffer, whose cyber scandal magazine Web of Shame features all the dirt on super heroes.
Marshal Law scowled at Websniffer: ‘ “STAR OF THE SEA DIES IN FISH TANK”. It’s the perfect headline for you. What’s your interest in her?’
‘She’s a friend of my client, Kassie Kelly.’
‘Who is…?’
‘A call girl and model involved with the Chantry set. She’s having an affair with the Undertaker, otherwise known as …’
‘I know who Dan Powers is.’
‘What you don’t know is that Kassie is also sleeping with KGBH.’
‘The Russian super hero.’
Marshal Law fights the Undertaker, aka Dan Powers, a golden age super hero, who turns his funeral cane onto full power. Also present are the Headless Man, The Masked Man, Lord Chantry aka The Black Monocle, and Kassie Kelly – all inspired by their counterparts in the Profumo scandal.
Edge is a boot-legger, a cyber-dealer in ‘mind-benders’, electronic drugs, and his girlfriend Kassie Kelly is also one of his clients.
Thanks to mind-benders, Kassie could be whoever she wanted. Using electronic memories scanned from the originals, she could relive Celeste’s feelings for the Public Spirit, Zip Code’s sexploits and Maskara’s fabulous parties.
The Cloak decides to kill the Edge by giving him a snuff mind-bender.
Then the bootlegger started to experience all the feelings and some of the physical effects of Biogram Boy’s appalling death (in Cape Fear). His body went into similar convulsions and he began spewing.
… Then the Edge’s chest ripped open. Next, his head started shaking, teeth chattered, and his eyes bulged out on stalks as Biogram Boy’s memory of the alien’s head ripping out of his skull were relived by the Edge.
Enter Marshal Law.
Marshal Law, Kiloton, Suicida and other vets from the Zone go into Siberia to find and rescue missing comrades, super heroes held captive by the Russians where they are experimented on. It’s an unauthorised mission because Dan Powers doesn’t want any more scandals and prefers to leave the super heroes to their fate.
Marshal Law would bring the boys home…. His priority was his comrades missing in action and all his energy would need to be invested in putting together a team that could go into Russia and bring them out.
Meanwhile, Websniffer reveals more sordid revelations about Dan Powers, AKA The Undertaker, and Kassie Kelly under the heading: I WAS JUST A SLABBER TO THE UNDERTAKER. Websniffer was getting millions of clicks on his website every day.
Eventually the scandal forces Powers to resign:
Dear Mr President,
In my past statement I said that there had been no impropriety in my association with Miss Kelly. To my very deep regret I have to admit this is not true and I have misled you and the American public. I did this to protect, as I thought, my wife Black Angel and my family.
I have been guilty of a gross misdemeanour and I cannot remain a member of your administration. I have failed as a super hero. I cannot tell you of my deep remorse for the embarrassment I have caused you, my fellow heroes, and my family.
Yours sincerely
Dan Powers