The Living Eraser!!!

Many of you have written to me and asked, "snell,who is the best character that Marvel hasn't used in 20 years? (editor's note--no one has written him)

We here at Slay Monstrobot know that you really meant "who is the worst character that Marvel hasn't used in 20 years?"

And the answer is the greatest. most neglected Lee/Kirby creation--The Living Eraser!!

Let's start in the park, as a hot dog vendor (who would clearly be the Stan Lee cameo in Living Eraser--The Movie) gets in someone's way:

OK, you have to admit...that is AWESOME!

And...

Of course, next on his list is the redoubtable Henry Pym...

Of course, it turns out these people aren't actually being actually erased. Rather...

...they're victims of the least efficient dimensional teleportation system in the history of the multiverse. I mean, it took 4 freakin' hand-swipes, and what, 30 seconds, to teleport the hot dog vendor?

Of course, having the Living Eraser have to jump around like an alien cheerleader to transport people has a certain aesthetic value, but probably only when Kirby draws it.

And what if he stops midway? Are you only half-teleported to Dimension Z? Do you just walk around with a big portion of your torso and arm missing? Are those missing portions just hanging around in Dimension Z??

Sadly, such questions are never answered, and Pym rescues the kidnapped scientists (and Stan the hot dog vendor). And the Living Eraser was not heard of again for 13 years, until...

 Holy crap, that's a random mish-mash of concepts, isn't it?

After Benjy and Morbius un-erase themselves, the Living Eraser is gone for 16 years, until he turns up in a very silly issue of Byrne's Sensational She-Hulk in 1992.

And since than, naught.

What a terrible great concept to leave fallow for so long!

So, everybody at the NYC Con next week, please agitate Marvel to make sure that the Living Eraser gets his own Marvel NOW! title.

BONUS NOTE:

Pym takes the Eraser's "atomically-printed circuit," and uses it to get everyone home:

Which means he should still have it somewhere, and knows how to work it. So why the hell hasn't he done anything with it?

All I'm saying is, maybe the next Marvel NOW! title can be The Ant-Eraser, or Giant-Eraser, or...

Panels depicting the glory of Living Eraser's debut are from Tales To Astonish #49 (1963)