(More Fun Comics 066, 1941)
Out of nowhere one day, giant monsters attack Cliffland, New Jersey!
After driving them off a couple of times, the Spectre manages to follow them back to their base of operations, a weird painting of unknown provenance hanging in a Cliffland museum. There he finds that the monsters reside in a metal city ruled over by a man referred to only as the Man.
The Man is clearly modeled after the fascist dictators of the day and spends his time whipping his monstrous subjects into a frenzy prior to a wholesale invasion of the real world. While I don't appreciate the attempted-destruction-of-humanity of it all I must admit that he has some wonderful turns of phrase. Maybe being a fictional entity allows you to tap into a poetical mindset more easily.
The Man's schemes all come to nothing as the Spectre invades his world and decimates his forces, then overcomes the Man himself (despite the Man deploying not only a variety of magical powers but a surprise eleventh-hour monster transformation) and destroys both the painting and the world it contains.
I have to say that despite not particularly loving the monster designs here I do love the idea of an outsider artist putting so much of themself into a work that it gains a life of its own. BRING BACK the Man, I say, whether in another work by the same artist or as a fictional parasite who appears in other paintings until he can find one that he can use as a portal to the real world. He would be a great addition to the ranks of the DCU's magical weirdos.
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