David Michelinie, Marc Silvestri, and Geof Isherwood’s Revenge of the Living Monolith from 1985 is the seventeenth entry in the Marvel Graphic Novel series. The graphic novel explores the backstory of Ahmet Abdol, the Living Pharaoh, a mutant who first appeared in X-Men no. 54 (1969) and who learned that he can trace his lineage directly back to the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. He further believed that the Egyptian gods were actually mutants. When his wife died, he discovered that he was a mutant capable of directing cosmic energy as blasts that he can fire at his opponents. He gathered followers who believe him to be a god and worked to punish the world in revenge for childhood abuse. He kidnaps the Fantastic Four, using their cosmic energy-derived powers to enhance his own, transforming him into the Living Monolith before he attacks New York City.

Writer David Michelinie describes the initial idea for the story as originating in editor James Owsley’s desire to create a story featuring a giant monster like the 1950s B-movies. The story and main villain are relatively forgettable since the Marvel continuity has moved on, though the Living Pharaoh connects to Alex Summers and Apocalypse in the X-Men titles, but this book remains more memorable due to unfortunate coincidences. The cover art portrays the Living Monolith punching through the Twin Towers in Manhattan. This, combined with elements of Middle Eastern terrorism in the story, makes it one of many works of fiction that appears to have “predicted” 9/11, though it was nothing more than a coincidental connection in a story in which the writers hoped to emulate giant monster movies from the 1950s.

In an interesting credit, the writers dedicated the story to the late Morrie Kuramoto, “who thought this was a dumb idea,” and worked as an editorial assistant at Marvel. ( )

There are a lot of eye-rolling moments in this, of the usual Silver Age-to-'80s sort--like, we all know you just completely stole Magneto's origin for the Living Monolith, Michelinie, and barely even gave it half a twist--and really, Avenger computer? All the scientists in the world--all the scientists on the Avengers--and you HAVE to have Spider-Man? And you can't even find him except by going down to the Daily Bugle? This stuff goes over sometimes--see e.g. Kree-Skrull War, which holds up very well--but in a world where supervillains destroying Manhattan has become a regular occurrence, you really do wonder why it took an extra 20 years for it to dawn on Marvel that maybe governments would get organized, superheroes would get official sanction . . . etc. The ending of this is charming, at least. ( )