A minor entry in the Swamp Monster stakes, Marvin The Dead Thing still has a lot to recommend him, not least his wonderful name / title.
The first appearance is written by Al Milgrom, weirdly, and illustrated perfectly by Esteban Maroto, who comes up with a great design for Marvin, him being second only to Pablo Marcos in terms of delineating dripping grue and slime.
I also like the fact that, in a nice bit of parody, non-entity Marvin's first thought on being resurrected in Muck Monster form is that he's late for work. Too many Man & Swamp Thing's bemoan their fate without paying attention to their responsibilities these days.
And although Marvin is as lonely and outcast as all the other Bog Dwellers, he at least gets to experience a happy ending. In a Warren way.
The Dead Thing's second and last appearance, from Bill DuBay and Rudy Nebres, is nastier and gorier, though follows similar lines, with Marvin mostly relegated to walk-on silent narrator duties, much like Man-Thing used to. Nebres' art is of course, beautiful, and it's a shame there were no more stories for this cute little swamp family. Would've been interesting to see what happened next.
