“Come In! And Know Me Better, Man!" | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Like the Classics Illustrated version, Marvel's adaptation also wastes no panels on having Scrooge nervously anticipate his next visitor. As soon as the clock tolls one, Scrooge is awake and the Ghost is beckoning him into the next room.

It's not as lavishly decked out as the Classics Illustrated story. There's plenty of food scattered around, but the floor isn't exactly covered in it. It certainly doesn't mound to form the Ghost's seat, though I like that his throne is carved to represent food. 

The Ghost is giant-sized. Just how much doesn't become clear until they hit the street later, but he's huge. He also has the cornucopia torch, represented as an enormous horn of plenty that the Ghost has to hold two-handed, with light pouring from it's large opening. That's not how I imagined it, but I'm probably influenced by movie adaptations (particularly the George C Scott one). This is a valid way to represent it and I like it.

Instead of a green robe with white fur, Marvel's Ghost has a red robe with white fur, probably to suggest Santa Claus. That likely also explains why the Ghost's long hair and beard are snowy white when Dickens specified that they were dark brown. The drawings are vague enough that it's hard to tell if he's bare-chested or wearing a shirt under his robe, but he is barefoot. The holly crown has no icicles and the sheath without a sword is also missing.

This version includes the line about Scrooge's learning a lesson the night before, which is nice to see because I've been worried about this Scrooge. He began the story almost maniacal, but seemed to settle down under the influence of Christmas Past. He's making progress and I hope he doesn't relapse.

The Ghost invites Scrooge to touch his robe, which Scrooge does, and the room immediately disappears.

“Another Idol Has Displaced Me” | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Marvel's adaptation has Belle and Scrooge lounging in a nicely furnished parlor. It doesn't try to explain where they are, but it seems inconsistent with anywhere the miserly Scrooge might live. Belle is of course poor, even in this version, so maybe they're visiting with friends and have sneaked away for a quiet conversation. Thinking about it makes me curious to see what settings the other versions put the couple in. Dickens was vague about it, so there's lots of room for interpretation. Classics Illustrated also had them in a fancy room.

Belle is wearing a green dress and there's no mention of her parents, recently deceased or otherwise. And also as with the Classics Illustrated adaptation, she just seems to have finally had enough of Scrooge's attitude about money as opposed to being driven to this decision by any specific incident.

The conversation goes more or less how Dickens wrote it and ends with Old Scrooge holding his head and begging the Spirit not to show Scrooge any more. I noticed last year that the mania Marvel's Scrooge exhibited in the early scenes has tapered off and this scene continues that. Scrooge reacts like he does in Dickens: a man severely hurt by the memory of losing Belle. Maybe these memories, even this painful one,  are healing Scrooge when coupled with the Spirit's curative touch.

True to Dickens, the Ghost isn't quite done with Scrooge yet though and takes him to Belle's later home where she lives with her husband and children. I only count a total of four kids, including the young woman that Dickens obsessed over, but we only get a couple of panels with them and it's possible that there are more. They're not excessively boisterous, but Belle's husband does come home with Christmas presents and a daughter rushes at him in the first panel while the second has her and two brothers ripping into the gifts in the background.

It's interesting that Belle's husband doesn't ask her to guess which old friend of hers he saw that day. He simply tells her that he saw Scrooge and that his partner is on the point of death. I don't care for the guessing game in Dickens, so this is a nice change for me.

The Ghost doesn't physically force Scrooge to watch any of this. He's cold to Scrooge's plea to be removed from the scene though, so Scrooge grabs what at first looks like a curved trumpet from the Ghost's belt. I went back and looked and it's not in any of the earlier drawings of the Ghost, so it's just appeared here for this scene. It ends up being a candle snuffer with a long handle, but it doesn't look anything like a cap and the bell-shaped extinguisher part of it is way too small to be headgear for the Spirit, even if the handle wouldn't make it impossibly ridiculous to wear. In fact, Scrooge looks rather silly in the panel where he's pressing it against the ground, presumably trapping the Ghost underneath (although, as in Dickens, light is still spilling out).

The comic skips from Scrooge's grabbing the extinguisher straight to his holding it against the floor, so there's no final transformation of the Ghost into the other faces from Scrooge's past. And the very next panel is Scrooge lying in his own bed, exhaustedly falling asleep, with the snuffer discarded on the floor nearby.

“Why, It’s Old Fezziwig!” | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project

Marvel gives two pages to Fezziwig's party in its adaptation. Weirdly (for Christmas Carol adaptations), Fezziwig appears to be just a normal, everyday businessman. He wears no wig of any kind, isn't even fat, and his desk is just the normal kind.

Dick Wilkins is named and Scrooge observes, "Look -- look what a good friend he was to me!" It's an odd exclamation, because at that moment Dick isn't really doing anything other than standing with Scrooge and receiving instructions from Fezziwig. But that doesn't really matter. Scrooge is feeling the emotion of his old friendship and it doesn't have to be because he's actually witnessing a particular act at the moment. Just seeing Young Scrooge and Dick together again is enough to trigger the memory.

Which makes me wonder now whatever happened to Dick. I don't think Dickens ever says and I've never thought about it before. Maybe he's dead by Scrooge's present?

Fezziwig instructs Scrooge and Dick to "have the shutters up" and "clear the room." We don't get to see them putting up the removable shutters, but there's a panel of them scooting desks and chairs away to make room for the food tables and dancing that will replace them.

As a crowd of people enter the room (the fiddler among them), a caption box lets us know about the guests. It mentions Fezziwig's three daughters and their "followers." The text also says that the other guests are made up of Fezziwig's other employees, both from the warehouse and in his household. There's no mention of anyone that makes Fezziwig sound like he's especially compassionate towards outsiders, though. He's very kind and generous towards his guests, but they're all already his people. Belle is not one of them either, but that's a) true to Dickens, and b) to be expected from a version that's already condensed for space.

So far Marvel's Scrooge has appeared to be seriously mentally ill. He had extreme mood swings and hallucinations in the opening scenes, but I found even more evidence at the schoolhouse flashback. That flashback may have been more therapeutic than I realized (in conjunction with the Ghost's possibly putting a healing touch on Scrooge's head), because Scrooge seems better at Fezziwig's. He enjoys watching the party and he defends Fezziwig's kindness when the Ghost facetiously questions it. And he looks appropriately remorseful when Fezziwig's kindness makes Scrooge think about his own treatment of Bob Cratchit. This is the first time I've actually felt any kind of hope for this Scrooge. I wonder if it'll continue to get better. Since most of my reading is based on trying to make sense of inconsistent art - which is a problem I doubt improves as the story progresses - I'm fearful that we're going to get a relapse at some point. Fingers crossed.

There's no scene of Young Scrooge and Dick praising Fezziwig after the party. As with the Classics Illustrated version, Old Scrooge's defense to the Ghost takes place during the party itself and then the Ghost whisks them both away to the next scene.

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Never a publisher to pass up a chance for exciting action, Marvel's adaptation has the Ghost of Christmas Past whisk Scrooge out the window for a super-powered flight over the city and into the countryside (with Scrooge showing entirely too much thigh for me in one panel, but maybe that's your thing).

My read on Marvel's Scrooge is that he's legitimately mentally ill, but that the ghosts are real and are trying to help him heal. His severe mood changes from his office reassert themselves in this scene so that he does experience the full joy of seeing his childhood companions again, but also the full despair (complete with visual sobbing) of re-experiencing his childhood loneliness. He's also hearing voices that aren't there. The Ghost's line about the "solitary child neglected by his friends" is given to a caption box, so no one is saying it aloud, but Scrooge responds anyway with, "Yes... I know," before breaking down into tears.

Scrooge is running the gamut of emotions in this scene and it appears to unhinge him even more. It adds a scary, but fascinating element to Scrooge's vision of the literary characters and his insistence (right out of Dickens) that "one Christmastime when I was left here all alone, Ali Baba did come -- just like that!" Is this the moment when Scrooge snapped?

Marvel takes out some of the lesser known literary friends from Dickens and replaces them with Aladdin and his genie (while explicitly showing that Scrooge is reading 1001 Arabian Nights). As the visions conclude, Scrooge explains that he had been "left all alone to manufacture his own Christmas joy." This isn't from Dickens, so I give it extra meaning in describing the mental state of Marvel's Scrooge. This is no random Christmas plucked from Scrooge's childhood. This is the one that broke him.

Something I like is that writer Doug Moench doesn't try to blame this on Scrooge's schoolmates. The description of them is right out of Dickens, which means that we can take the word "friends" seriously and understand their neglect of Scrooge to be without malice. We don't see any interaction between Scrooge and the other kids, so it's possible to read it either way, but I prefer the idea that Scrooge's profound loneliness is the product of thoughtlessness rather than deliberate ill-will. Not that this makes it any better. If anything, it's a challenge for us to always be on the lookout for people who feel excluded so that we can welcome and draw them in.

Marvel doesn't spell out the condition of the school, but does mention after the time jump that it's "a little darker and more dirty" than it was before, implying that the school's administrators aren't keeping it up very well. This could be another form of neglect as easily as it could be evidence that Scrooge comes from a poor family. It might not be that this is the best Scrooge's father can afford. Maybe it's all he cares to give the poor kid.

Fan does mention their father. Her dialogue is pretty faithful to Dickens, so she says that Father is kinder now and that he considers Scrooge old enough to leave the school. Like Dickens, she also implies that the trip home isn't permanent: "You're to be a man! But first, we'll be together all Christmas long and have the merriest time in all the world!" That's all we know. There's no suggestion about why Scrooge's dad has been unkind in the past.

Fan is younger than Scrooge, but not by much. Like the Classics Illustrated version, she looks to be in her early teens. Possibly a bit older. And unlike Dickens, she's driven the coach herself to the school. There's no postboy (or schoolmaster) in the scene. Scrooge just gets in the carriage with her and leaves.

There's also no mention of how Fan dies, just that she does. Which may be what Scrooge is thinking about when a final caption tells us, "Although they had just emerged from the school, Scrooge felt an uneasiness of the mind." That's a paraphrased line from Dickens where it refers to Scrooge's thoughts about Fred. In Dickens, Scrooge's memories of Fan is causing him to regret how he's treated her son. This is less clear in Marvel though, and "uneasiness of the mind" only further solidifies my reading of Scrooge as needing mental healing, having re-witnessed the events that disturbed him in the first place.

“Your Reclamation, Then” | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

The Marvel adaptation also spends several panels faithfully having Scrooge wake up and fret over the weird passage of time. It does some different things with the Spirit, though.

It does away with both holly branch and extinguishing cap, but the biggest change is the choice to make him decidedly masculine (including a beard) and not at all childlike. He's not an old man by any means, but he's essentially a younger version of the Spirit of Christmas Present.

He does have the bright glow (not from the top of his head, but I like the dazzling aura effect as it's drawn). What's weird is that Scrooge still makes the comment about wanting the Spirit to put his cap on, even though there's no cap. I'd tally that up with the other evidence in this adaptation that Scrooge is mad, but the Spirit also refers to the nonexistent cap as if it's there. I haven't been able to come up with an in-story explanation that makes any sense, so no Marvel No-Prize for me.

There's also a lettering flub where the Spirit mentions Scrooge's welfare, but Scrooge's response is omitted. So when the Spirit says, "Your reclamation, then," he's not replying to anything verbal. Maybe he's reading Scrooge's thoughts, but we aren't privy to them as readers.

Then there's one other oddity around the Spirit's touch. Instead of putting his hand on Scrooge's heart, he simply holds his hand out, palm up. And he says, "Bear but a touch of my hand... here." Not "here" as in, "On your heart." But as in, "Here's my hand for you to touch."

I don't know why Doug Moench changed the line, but it does something interesting in conjunction with the art. The way the hand intersects with Scrooge's cap, it's possible to read the panel as the Spirit's touching Scrooge's head. That's very interesting to me in a comic where I've been questioning Scrooge's sanity for a while. Instead of Scrooge's heart needing healing, perhaps it's his mind. That's obviously not the intended reading, but it fits with the other things I've been noticing and forcing onto this version.

Finishing out the scene, I like how it holds the end of the Spirit's sentence ("and you shall be upheld in more than this!") until the following panel as he's dragging Scrooge out the window and into the air. It's quite dramatic.

“More of Gravy than of Grave” | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project

Marvel's version does what I expected with the knocker-to-face transition. It's a knocker in one panel, Marley's face in the next, then a knocker again in the third. Nicely done.

Scrooge is visibly shaken, as in Dickens. But this version of Scrooge is already mentally unstable, and the effect of the ghostly knocker feels especially dangerous. The text mentions the width of the staircase and says that its size "is perhaps why Scrooge thought he saw a phantom hearse going up before him into the gloom." That's right out of Dickens, but then writer Doug Moench adds sinisterly, "And perhaps not."

Grammatically, "perhaps not" doesn't refer to Scrooge's seeing the hearse; it refers to why he saw it. And he clearly does see it, if we're to believe the art in that panel, which shows the sickly yellow hearse ascending the stairs. In Dickens, it's pretty clear that fear is playing tricks on Scrooge's mind, but the comic removes all doubt about what Scrooge is seeing and then directly questions Scrooge's mental state. Dickens claims that "Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven-year's dead partner that afternoon," but if we accept the theory that Marvel's Scrooge is already somewhat unhinged, then it's not hard to imagine that being reminded of Marley by the solicitors may have done something to Scrooge. It's possible, then, that Marley's ghost is exactly what Scrooge is going to claim it is: an hallucination.

On the other hand, Scrooge's seeing ghostly carriages doesn't mean that he's not also being visited by a real ghost. It's also possible that Marley really did appear at the knocker, but his appearance snapped something in Scrooge and made him imagine the hearse. Moench allows that possibility in the next panel, when he adds that the darkness was "hardly the sort of lighting in which you'd trust your eyes." As much as I like the possibility that Scrooge's redemption is all the result of his own, damaged mind, that's clearly not what Moench and Company are actually going for. So I'm going to stick with my theory that Scrooge is ill, but accept that supernatural forces are working to heal him.

Upstairs, Moench's text mentions Scrooge's "meager" fire, but - as usual for this comic - the art contradicts the text and shows a roaring blaze (long before Marley's ghost has a supernatural effect on it). The fireplace does have tiles in which Scrooge imagines Marley's face, but they're introduced very abruptly and confusingly, with no mention of what they are or that they depict Biblical scenes.

When Marley does show up, he's definitely transparent and colored a similar yellow to the phantom hearse from earlier. The artist of this scene must not have ever seen another Christmas Carol adaptation though, because he wrongly draws Marley's bandage around the ghost's neck like a scarf. Which makes no sense when Marley does eventually pull it off and his jaw drops open to an unnatural degree. I guess the bandage was supposed to be holding the jaw up from the bottom instead of tying it to the top of Marley's head?

Moench pulls a lot of text right from Dickens, so he also makes it clear that Scrooge's humor in this scene is all about "merely trying to keep down his terror." That fits with what we've seen of this Scrooge so far. Unlike some other versions, there's been no levity in Marvel's Scrooge. And terror is certainly what Scrooge seems to be experiencing all through Marley's visit. He's angry for a bit when he's trying to convince himself that Marley is an hallucination, but mostly he's just terribly, terribly scared. As in Dickens, Marley's purpose is simply to frighten Scrooge into acknowledging that he might need to change. But Scrooge is neither convinced that he can nor determined to try.

Faithful to Dickens, this Marley puts the coming ghosts on a three-night schedule. Then he steps out of Scrooge's window to join a mist-obscured host of fellow phantoms. There's a panel where they're all trying to help a young mother, but weirdly, her need isn't food and warmth, but assistance with with her baby carriage that's overturned and tossed its contents out on its little, blonde head.

Alone again, Scrooge is still visibly shaken. In Dickens, he only gets the first syllable of "humbug" out. In Marvel, he's able to complete the word, but he's clearly not feeling confident about it.

His Usual Melancholy Tavern | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Marvel's version makes a bold choice and has the tavern being not melancholy at all. On the surface, this seems like an obvious fix of Dickens' text. Of course there would be Christmas celebrants at a gathering place. But places have character just like people do and this being Scrooge's "usual melancholy tavern," I expect that part of the reason he frequents there is that there's something about the place that discourages festivity. There's an interesting story behind why the place wouldn't be celebrating Christmas; Dickens just isn't telling us what it is.

But Marvel's not wrong for giving a different take. There's also a deeper story behind why this group of merrymakers chose to invade this particular tavern; Marvel just isn't telling us what it is. But it adds some fun irony to the word "usual" and highlights how withdrawn and pathetic Scrooge is as he sulks and reads in the background. Coloring him a cold blue helps with this, too.

Like Classics Illustrated, Marvel also mentions that Scrooge's home used to belong to Marley. It adds the detail that the other rooms in the house have been rented out, but omits the part about their being offices.

The art does a nice job of communicating the dreariness and seclusion of the place. It's colored in the same cold blue that Scrooge was in the previous panel. The dark, looming gateway in the foreground creates space between it and the distant house. It's a more open space than I imagine when I read Dickens though and gives the impression of a once luxurious mansion. I've always pictured the house being at the end of a long alley and closely surrounded by other buildings. But I don't want to read too much into this one, small panel. It's hard to tell much about the house and its grounds from the angle of the drawing.

"If Quite Convenient, Sir" | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Writer Doug Moench and the various artists he worked with on Marvel's version have already shown us a Christmas street scene in their introduction to Scrooge. It wasn't a very good one, because the art looked neither Christmasy nor even wintery. I complained about it at the time, because the scene looked so sunny and pleasant while the text claimed that it was "cold, bleak, biting weather." It's still a horrible mistake and bad comics, but if I was feeling charitable I could make a case for its being an intentional juxtaposition between the facts (it's miserably cold outside) and the way people feel about it (it's Christmas, so the weather doesn't bother us and we're acting as if it's beautiful).

As the solicitors leave Scrooge's office though, there's no contradiction. Moench tells us how cold it is and sure enough the artist for that page has some snow. The people on the street still look happy though, which is Dickens' point.

There's no sliding scene, but Moench does include the carolling boy and has him singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." Scrooge even grabs a ruler, which is a detail I expect most adaptations to change or skip over.

This version hasn't given us a clear vision of Scrooge and Cratchit's relationship yet, so I looked to this scene would give me some clues and sure enough I think it does. Scrooge brings up the day off in the same word balloon where he's still complaining about the singing kid. Maybe he's just on a roll and wants something else to complain about. He looks smug as he gripes, so he doesn't get any sympathy points for that.

Cratchit looks timid as he replies that it's only once a year. Unlike the Classics Illustrated version, there's an imbalance of power between these two men. Scrooge is going to let Cratchit take the day, but he's also going to make the process as uncomfortable for Cratchit as he can.

He also leaves first, making Cratchit stay behind to lock up. And since the comic leaves Cratchit there so that it can follow Scrooge, there's no indication that Cratchit is leaving right behind his boss. As far as the comic is concerned, Cratchit could have another hour or two of duties to perform while Scrooge runs off to begin his evening. As Scrooge exits, Cratchit is running his hand through his hair with an expression that reads mostly like he's perturbed.

That's a weird transition for Cratchit, from timid in one panel to perturbed in the next. But it's no less flighty than Fred was during his visit, or than Scrooge was while talking to the solicitors. The Marvel artists continue to have a hard time with consistency in their storytelling, so all the characters feel manic. Earlier, Cratchit looked cowardly when Scrooge fussed at him about the coal, but then had the bravery to clap and shout, "Bravo!" after Fred's speech. It's like he doesn't really know how to act appropriately around Scrooge. Which makes total sense if Scrooge is also prone to sudden mood changes (something that might run in his family, if Fred is any indication).

If we take Marvel's portrayal of these characters seriously, their Scrooge may actually be mentally ill. That casts a disturbing light on the whole story then as Scrooge has visions and experiences a dramatic change in personality, but it's a fascinating take, even if it's unintended by the storytellers. I'm going to use that as my working theory and see if it holds up as I keep reading the Marvel version.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project

Before I get to Marvel's version of the charitable solicitors, I just want to acknowledge a couple of Christmas Carol adaptations that I'm not covering this year because they don't include the scene. Teen Titans #13 is only loosely following Dickens story as it contemporizes it (to 1968) and works in a criminal plot for its teenage superheroes, so it's understandable that it jettisons our charitable gentlemen. I was a little more surprised though to see them gone from Rankin-Bass' The Stingiest Man in Town. It's a shorter adaptation and we've already talked about how this scene is an understandable cut, but the even shorter Disney version manages to keep them in.

Anyway, Doug Moench and Friends offer a severely trimmed version of the scene in Marvel's adaptation. One notable addition to it is Scrooge's repeating the word "liberality," which drives home nicely for younger readers the humor of the solicitor's mistaken assumption. After that though, the conversation is so truncated that when Scrooge says that they can put him down for nothing, that's the first chance he's had to object. The gentlemen are understandably confused and offer him the opportunity to be anonymous. This is the second time we've seen the scene work that way (the Shower of Stars episode being the first) and I like it. It makes more sense than Dickens' version, frankly.

What doesn't make sense is the violence with which Scrooge finishes the scene. His response to the offer of anonymity is to shake his cane in the second gentleman's face and the panel that follows that one is a close up of Scrooge's face, enraged almost to the point of insanity as he shrieks about the surplus population. If Fred was acting a little inconsistently in the previous scene, Scrooge is even more so in this one. The problem is that the various artists are trying to add energy to the story, but are doing it in unnatural ways. Characters can't just be frustrated with each other, they have to be furious. All the reactions are extreme, including in the last panel of the scene where the two gentlemen literally run out of the office as if frightened for their lives. It makes for a visually exciting comic, but not for organic storytelling.

'Merry Christmas, Uncle!' | Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978)

I like Fred's sudden appearance in Marvel's adaptation. He walks into the office unannounced as the caption is still talking about how cold and miserable Cratchit is. Fred's a dapper, young man who looks like a sea captain once he takes off his top hat. He's not festively decked out, but he's mostly smiles except for one bit where he loses his temper.

Though Marvel only uses a page-and-a-half for this scene, the dialogue between Scrooge and Fred is pretty much unaltered except for some very minor trimming and a couple of interesting substitutions. Instead of "What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough," Doug Moench writes, "You're poor as a door mouse." That's just a weird simile and I have no idea why Moench uses it. It doesn't make anything clearer, unlike another change when Scrooge threatens that Cratchit's in danger of losing his "job" instead of his "situation."

The main page of this scene is rather text heavy, but I like how much of Fred's speech it includes. It's during the speech that he looks angry, or at least passionate, so that's appropriate. In general, this scene is a lot better done than the introductory one. I also dig how as soon as Fred finishes his speech, he plops himself into a chair and lackadaisically invites Scrooge to dinner. It creates an almost bipolar Fred, but communicates the character pretty well in an abbreviated way. Fred is generally easy going, but he's also passionate about Christmas and what it represents. Moench's script even includes the line that I like so much about thinking "of people less fortunate as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

When Scrooge refuses the dinner invitation, Moench tweaks it just a little to read, "The day I dine with you will be the day we're both roasting in --" He leaves it as unfinished as Dickens does, but also intensifies it. I wish he'd completed the line though, because there's no good reason for Scrooge to cut it off. Fred does speak next, but it's in a different panel, so it doesn't appear that he's interrupting. The rhythm sounds like Scrooge was ready to swear, but inexplicably censored himself.

The comic stays focused on Scrooge and Fred, so though Cratchit applauds Fred's speech and Scrooge threatens Cratchit's job, it's only in one panel that shows Cratchit clapping from the shadows of the office. We don't learn anything more about Scrooge and Cratchit's relationship in this scene, except for when Fred leaves and says goodbye to the clerk. Moench includes the line (slightly altered), "There's another lunatic - my clerk, earning fifteen shillings a week, with a wife and family, talking about being merry."

He closes the scene with another interesting dialogue change. In Dickens, Scrooge says, "I'll retire to Bedlam," indicating that all this Christmasing is driving him crazy. Moench changes that to, "He'll (referring to Cratchit) retire to bedlam." It doesn't have as nice a ring to it as Dickens' line, but it's actually funnier since Scrooge has just been talking about Cratchit's wages. The only retirement plan Bob has is the insane asylum.

It also fits well with Dickens' segue to the next scene when he writes, "This lunatic (again, referring to Cratchit), in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in." In Dickens, that makes two potential lunatics: Cratchit and Scrooge. Moench condenses it to one.

Old Sinner: Marvel Classics Comics (1978)

What made me think of Classics Illustrated yesterday was getting ready to talk about Marvel Classics Comics #36 from 1978. Marvel Classics was basically their version of Classics Illustrated with each issue adapting a different piece of literature from a wide variety of genres. They covered Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Black Beauty and The Iliad. The Christmas Carol issue happens to be the last in the series, but we won't let that give us a complex. If you want to read along, Diversions of the Groovy Kind has great scans of the entire issue.

The '70s were an exciting time for Marvel's readers with the publisher's exploring a bunch of new genres outside of superhero stories. But whether the genre was horror, kung fu, or blaxploitation, Marvel always managed to put a superhero twist to it. The result was heroes like Ghost Rider, Shang Chi, and Luke Cage. And while we shouldn't expect to see Scrooge crossing paths with Captain America or Man-Thing in this adaptation, I'm curious to see how much of Marvel's familiar style affects their interpretation of the story.

Scripted by Doug Moench and illustrated by various artists, it begins with a splash page showing Scrooge in bed; surrounded by the three Spirits. The text presents the "old sinner" description followed by the tease, "Then he met the Spirit." I'm reminded of The Stingiest Man in Town, which used a similar device to excite its presumably younger audience.

The story proper starts on the following page. In the first panel, Marley's coffin is lowered into the ground (shown from inside the grave, because it's visually more exciting) as the text informs us of Marley's death and his business relationship with Scrooge. It also borrows straight from Dickens the bit about Scrooge's being Marley's sole everything.

The next panel then has Scrooge leaving his counting house where "Scrooge & Marley" is clearly seen. Moench points this out in the text, adding the detail that at Marley's funeral Scrooge vowed to leave Marley's name on the sign, a scene we'll actually get to see in Patrick Stewart's version. When Stewart does it, it brings a sentimental element to Scrooge, but here it just makes him look foolish. Moench writes that Scrooge "solemnized" Marley's funeral by pledging to leave the sign alone, but since we don't get too see it, there's no reason to believe that he's serious. In the rest of the text, Moench follows Dickens' lead in mocking Scrooge, so while leaving the sign unchanged is a conscious decision of Scrooge's (in most versions, he seems to just not think about it), the only emotion attached to it is greed.

Scrooge is drawn younger than usual in this version. Maybe it's a coloring error, but there's a hint of blonde in Scrooge's hair. He's certainly grumpy and serious, but instead of looking elderly, he could be in his late middle-years. I'm not sure how this could affect the characterization, but we'll keep an eye on it.

The first page ends with Scrooge's walking through the streets of London as the text informs us that he's just as miserable as Marley was. A man on the street glares judgmentally at Scrooge as he passes.

Page two opens with another street scene, but without Scrooge. As a result, the people look a lot happier. Unfortunately, the relationship between art and text gets very sloppy here. Though there are no visible decorations or any sign of snow we're told that it's Christmas Eve and that the weather is cold, bleak, and biting. We're also informed that there is fog when there isn't any. The art in the next panel matches the text better, but goes too far the other direction. Moench lets us know that "Scrooge sat busy in his counting house" and sure enough, he is. I have to remember that I'm not reviewing this for the proficiency of its storytelling, but so far, it's pretty dismal.

Inside the counting house, we find Scrooge and his clerk working. There's also a quick panel of the clerk's trying to add some more coal to his fire. When I covered Dickens' text for this scene, I cut it off just before the coal argument, because I was trying to get just the introduction to Scrooge's character. In next year's section, Dickens goes inside the counting-house and the story actually begins, so I planned to include that with the opening scene of the nephew's arrival. Of course, movies and comics don't have the luxury of an introductory section, so they use the coal argument to show what Dickens spends several paragraphs telling us. The coal argument is often the only intro to Scrooge's personality that we get. Because of that, I should have included it in this year's discussion of the text. Next year I'll have to come back and cover some of these coal arguments again once we've had a chance to look closely at what Dickens wrote about them.