Margins
Madame Xanadu Special book cover
Madame Xanadu Special
Dance for Two Demons
1981
First Published
2.92
Average Rating
30
Number of Pages
A drug addict is caught trying to rob Madame Xanadu's place. She takes him in to help him kick his habit. Soon after, a woman visits her with a magic book of spells she doesn't understand. The woman wants to learn witchcraft, but Madame Xanadu forebodes it. As the woman is about to storm out of the house, she spots the addict, they make eye contact and have an attraction to one another. Later, behind the back of Madame Xanadu, the woman takes the addict out of rehab. The two began to live together, with drugs and as swingers. They read the book of spells and plan a costume party in order to gather brazen party-goers who also live the life of sin. At the party the two come together and work the crowd into an evil frenzy with music, booze and provocative images. At midnight the hysteria reaches a fever pitch and the demons of Ishtar and Tammuz are released. With the crowd yelling "hail, hail," Madame Xanadu unmasks herself and shouts at the two hosts to stop and look into each others eyes. She wants them to look deep inside themselves for the original bond they share, love at first sight. With thoughts of honeysuckle and happy puppies, the two smile, confess their love for one another and kiss, breaking the wicked fury in the room. The party's over. Days later, the woman visits Madame Xanadu and gives her the book of spells, as she no longer wants to pursue witchcraft.
Avg Rating
2.92
Number of Ratings
13
5 STARS
8%
4 STARS
23%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
31%
1 STARS
8%
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Authors

Marshall Rogers
Marshall Rogers
Author · 9 books

Marshall Rogers studied architectural drawing, and his work was characterized by the depiction of characters with relatively human proportions rather than exaggerated musculature, and by detailed rendering of buildings and structures. Some of his first comic-book work appeared in the black-and-white magazine The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, where he worked with writer Chris Claremont on a story featuring the "Iron Fist" supporting characters Misty Knight and Colleen Wing as the Daughters of the Dragon. He eschewed the grey wash that was used in other black-and-white comics stories in favour of applying screentone. With writer Steve Englehart, Rogers penciled an acclaimed run on the character Batman in Detective Comics #471-476 (Aug. 1977 - April 1978), providing one of the definitive interpretations that influenced the 1989 movie Batman and be adapted for the 1990s animated series. He also penciled the origin story of the Golden Age Batman in Secret Origins #6 (Sept. 1986) with writer Roy Thomas and inker Terry Austin. The two also did a sequel miniseries, Batman: Dark Detective, and had worked together on other series, such as The Silver Surfer. Also striking was Rogers' short run on DC's revived "Mister Miracle" series. Englehart and Rogers' first Batman run was collected in the trade paperbacks Batman: Strange Apparitions and the second run, Batman: Dark Detective. He did independent work at Eclipse Comics and others. This included the first Coyote series with Englehart, and his own Capt. Quick and the Foozle. Portrait by: Marshall Rogers

Steve Englehart
Steve Englehart
Author · 217 books

See also John Harkness. Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry. He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one). After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund. And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane. In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.

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