An inordinate amount of attention is suddenly being paid to the Scarecrow stories I wrote for Marvel back in the ’70s, especially considering the lack of attention that was paid to them at the time. The recent reprintings of the tales in the Legion of Monsters hardcover and the Essential Marvel Horror volume two trade paperback has caused a flurry of blogging about those ancient stories lately, such as the comment from Greg Hatcher over at Comic Book Resources this week that “there are moments of real potential in Scott Edelman’s work on the Scarecrow.”

Whether there was or not, that potential remained unfulfilled, as I only ever got to script two issues about the character. But since people are talking about the Scarecrow again, it seems a good time to share some never-before-reprinted art which appeared in Marvel’s UK titles when the stories were reprinted there.

First up, three covers of the weekly black-and-white book The Super-Heroes from the mid-’70s:

Perhaps you’re wondering how the Scarecrow could have been featured on three covers when he only appeared in two standalone adventures. That’s because Marvel’s British books never reprinted stories in a single piece as they were originally published. The U.S. tales were instead broken down into chapters to more closely ape the UK style at the time. In fact, my first staff job at Marvel had me taking Marvel classics from the ’60s and carving them into 5-6 page chapters, creating a new splash page for the new installments. So those two U.S. stories were spread across four UK issues (though the Scarecrow only made it to three of the covers).

That’s why the following splash pages exist. Each of the two stories was broken in half, with a new splash created for the second half. The first of these is an original piece of art, while the second was the repurposed cover to Marvel Spotlight #26:

And finally, here’s a pin-up which appeared in one of the issues:

I wish I could give all of the artists nods for their work, but except for that last piece, which was penciled by Dave Wenzel and inked by Duffy Vohland, the others are uncredited. I’m guessing that the new splash was drawn by Ron Wilson, who was doing much of the needed British art at the time, but it could just as easily have been Arvell Jones, who also pitched in frequently. If anyone out there can identify the art styles, please jump in to correct me.