Stephen King’s run on Marvel’s ‘Dead of Night’: An alternate history
In the late 1970s, Marvel Comics’ publisher Stan Lee and Stephen King discussed creating a comic book adaptation of King’s novel, The Shining. Contractual obligations prevented King from doing an adaptation, so nothing came of the effort.
But in a parallel universe, something did…
Excerpt from A People’s History of Marvel Comics:
Stan Lee and Stephen King had discussed the possibility of Marvel Comics adapting King’s novel The Shining into a comic book. Although it was determined that King’s contractual obligations prevented an adaptation, Lee was inspired to ask King if he wanted to write comics for Marvel, and was overjoyed when the acclaimed author accepted the offer.
King was eager to try writing for a new medium, and hoped to create a high-quality horror comic like the EC Comics titles that he loved reading as a kid. Sales for Marvel’s horror titles had been declining since the mid-1970s, but Lee saw King’s talent and celebrity as a means to reverse this trend.
Finalizing the details with King, Lee loved the writer’s vision for a modern horror comic, but had concerns that King’s plans would test the standards of the comic industry’s self-censoring review board, the Comics Code Authority. But earlier in the decade, Lee had challenged the restrictions of the Code, publishing a Spider-Man story (which depicted the use of narcotics, albeit in a negative context) when the CCA refused to grant code approval; King’s passion for the project — as well as the publicity King’s name would generate for Marvel — inspired Lee to risk CCA disapproval.
Lee proposed a relaunch of the Marvel horror comic Dead of Night; the anthology comic, which had reprinted short horror tales from Marvel’s 1950s era, had ceased publication in 1975. King liked the name, so in 1979, Marvel’s Dead of Night #1 hit the newsstands, promising “A bold new series from the master of horror — Stephen King!”
Lee and King had persuaded veteran artist Alex Toth to illustrate the comic. Toth, a perfectionist, was a fitting collaborator for King’s creative ambitions; both envisioned Dead of Night as an enduring work of art, and Toth’s artwork brought a visceral quality to King’s horror saga.
While Marvel’s previous Dead of Night series was an anthology, the new series presented a single ongoing narrative with an expanding cast. With Lee’s encouragement, King brought a literary sophistication to Dead of Night that was a delight to new and veteran comics readers.
The series features Danny and Helen Nash, a struggling working-class couple in New York City who stumble upon a lost spell book previously stolen from sorcerer Dr. Strange. Danny opens the book and unwittingly summons the demon Teneshad.
The demon grants Danny’s selfish wishes, but Helen suspects that Teneshad has a sinister agenda. With every wish, Teneshad grows larger and tiny demons began to fill their apartment. Danny is dismissive of Helen’s concerns, and is increasingly abusive towards her. The real monster of the story is not Teneshad but Danny, as King uses the story’s supernatural elements as a metaphor for addiction and spousal abuse.
As Lee hoped, King’s involvement generated unprecedented mainstream publicity — and sales — for the comic. The Washington Post and The New York Times ran articles about Dead of Night, while Rolling Stone interviewed King, putting him — with a gruesome image of Teneshad posed behind him — on the cover. A photo of comedian John Belushi reading the comic (with a look of shock on his face) was widely circulated in tabloids.
The fifth issue sees Helen — chained to a bed while Danny leaves the apartment — entertained by Teneshad, who tells a story to pass the time: the story’s setting is outer space, where the last survivors of an alien humanoid race (whose planet was destroyed by Marvel’s world-eating destroyer, Galactus) are adrift after their spaceship runs out of fuel. The survivors turn to cannibalism when their food runs out, and a young girl named Aza fights to survive as she is pursued by her hungry male shipmates.
Aza’s plight is a narrative reflection of Helen’s, with the sexual undertones in both stories apparent, and Toth’s artwork creates an atmosphere of despair.
For this issue, Marvel was forced to publish Dead of Night without Comics Code approval, and subsequent issues would also be published without the CCA’s endorsement. Marvel noticed that this lack of approval had no negative impact on the comic’s sales.
Because Toth was falling behind schedule on the artwork, another artist — Mike Ploog — illustrated issue six, in which Helen has a disturbing dream about a bullied Kansas teenager who discovers that he is a secret agent for the alien Skrull empire, with orders to kill his neighbors in preparation for an extraterrestrial invasion. (While this scenario is plausible in Marvel’s narrative continuity, the ambiguity of King’s story suggests that the teen may just be a delusional psychopath.)
When Helen wakes, she dismisses her vivid dream as a nightmare, until she reads about the Kansas murders in the Daily Bugle.
Although Dead of Night references Marvel’s superhero characters, King never used established Marvel characters in the comic and he expected the same courtesy for his characters. However, Marvel was eager to leverage King’s success on its other titles, which caused friction between Marvel and King.
King and Toth were furious when an editor allowed another creative team to use Aza in an issue of Marvel’s licensed toy comic, The Micronauts. Lee pleaded ignorance and promised them that the Dead of Night characters would not be used in other comics again, but the damage had been done. Toth, struggling to meet deadlines and angry at Marvel, informed King and Lee that he was quitting.
King, with no desire to continue the series without his artistic partner and eager to focus on his prose work, decided to leave the comic. Respecting King and Toth’s wishes, issue nine was the last published issue of Dead of Night. Though short-lived, the series is regarded as one of the best and most influential horror comics ever published, inspiring subsequent horror comics at both Marvel and DC Comics, such as Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s bold work on Man-Thing and Frank Miller’s spooky Lovecraftian reboot of Angel and the Ape.
In the final issue of Dead of Night, Helen escapes her abusive husband, stabbing Danny in the eye and setting fire to their apartment (including the spell book) before running out of the apartment building. An angry Teneshad drags Danny to Hell.
However, in the story’s epilogue, Helen visits a doctor, who confirms that she is pregnant. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one of Teneshad’s tiny demons, suggesting that Helen’s story — and, perhaps, that the creation of sophisticated, gripping horror comics — is far from over.
NOTES: This alternate history is intended as an affectionate tribute to the respective work of Stephen King and Alex Toth, as well as the creators and characters of Marvel’s horror comics.
To provide a sense of what King and Toth’s Dead of Night comic might have looked like, the author used edited images from existing comics. Below are the real credits for the fictional Dead of Night images referenced above:
- Dead of Night #1 and Dead of Night #3 — these images come from the public domain “Murder Mansion” story in Adventures into Darkness #5; also, the characters Helen Nash, Danny Nash, and Teneshad come from this story. Credits: pencils by Alex Toth, inks by Mike Peppe, and letters by Herb Field.
- Dead of Night #7 and Dead of Night #8— these images come from the public domain “The Shoremouth Horror” story in Out of the Shadows #5. Credits: pencils by Alex Toth, inks by Mike Peppe, and letters by Herb Field.
The public domain comics referenced above can be found at the Digital Comics Museum site: http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
Stan Lee references the discussions with Stephen King to adapt The Shining in a December 18, 1979 Washington Post article (“Face It — This Guy Has Characters”).
