"Perhaps the "new generation" of comic monsters is best epitomized by those created by Stan Lee's Marvel Comics, where for every superhero such as Spiderman or Captain America, there seem to be a dozen freakish aberrations: Dr.Octopus (known to children all over the comicreading world as Doc Ock), whose arms have been replaced by what appear to be a waving forest of homicidal vacuum-cleaner attachments; The Sandman, who is a sort of walking sand dune; The Vulture; Stegron; The Lizard; and most ominous of all, Dr. Doom, who has been so badly maimed in his Twisted Pursuit of Forbidden Science that he is now a great, clanking cyborg who wears a green cape, peers through eyeholes like the archers' slits in a medieval castle, and who appears to be literally sweating rivets. Superheroes with elements of monstrosity in their makeup seem less enduring. My own favorite, Plastic Man (always accompanied by his wonderfully screwball sidekick, Woozy Winks), just never made it. Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four is a Plastic Man lookalike, and his cohort Ben Grimm ( aka The Thing) looks like a hardened lava flow, but they are among the few exceptions to the rule."
Stephen King
Danse Macabre
1981
