Uncanny Unicorn - Fred Hembeck sketch card

The very unique Uncanny Unicorn!

Love it when Fred Hembeck goes to the periphery and captures some characters that are off the beaten path. The Uncanny Unicorn is one of those characters that doesn’t have a real impact but for some reason I really do enjoy, it’s a character that is insignificant and obscure, a truly Uncanny Unicorn in modern comics (maybe he has a presence somewhere, or did he even really exist).

Milos Masaryk (The Unicorn) first appeared in August of 1964 in the comic Tales of Suspense #56, as a foe for Iron Man. A few years later (1966) he appeared donning the name of UNCANNY UNICORN, in the 1963 X-Men series, issue #22. I have that page in my CAF gallery, see image below for his Uncanny debut.

Hembeck does a great job of capturing this odd character, with a power blast from his head, and wearing a weird unicorn type creature on his shirt, but for some reason it looks to have a beak for a mouth on a horse’s profile and two horns, maybe one of them is ears, not sure. But this creation is truly uncanny to go with the unique character.