October 31st, 1963
"Mr. Price, how do you spend Halloween?"
On the tv-screen, a middle-aged man with a neat moustache and stylish dark hair, a man who in my mind has been dead since I was six years old, answers in a familiar, slightly unsettling voice "Well, I guess I spend it like most other parents in the United States, standing by the door with a large sack of jellybeans and candy, ready to get rid of the kids by trick-or-treating..."
The host, a balding man with potruding ears who might as well be invisible considering the man he's interviewing is Vincent Fucking Price, responds "What you're describing is a very fine act, yet you ham it up a lot in your horror pictures."
Price smiles "Well, I don't think that's so bad, in fact most of the horror pictures I've made have been based on the works of one of America's greatest writers, Edgar Allen Poe..."
"Bull-SHIT!"
My exclamation startles Bruce, who's reclining in the other chair, half-watching the TV, and half flipping through a book of some incomprehensible physics theories "Excuse me?!"
"Oh, heh, sorry Bruce. I got a bit caught up."
Bruce adjusts his glasses, giving me a bland look "I take it you don't agree with Mr. Price's opinion?"
I shrug and reach for the bag of candy I picked up while I was out in the city earlier. "I mean, honestly? I like Poe just fine, but if we're talking GREATEST horror writer, as of right now? My personal favorite is Howard Phillips Lovecraft."
Bruce leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the cover of his book "Lovecraft... Lovecraft... it does sound vaguely familiar, but I don't think I've ever read any of his work before."
"I'd be surprised if you had" I say as I tear the wrapper from a Hershey's bar. It's not Marabou, but they're not bad "The man isn't exactly a household name, he was a pulp writer in the 20's and 30's, but his work has been gaining ground lately." For all the good it did him. I've looked it up, and Lovecraft died of cancer in 1937, just like he did in my own timeline. Apparently he still wrote all of his stories even though some of them were actually sort of true in this timeline, though that's not a thread I'm planning to go tugging on anytime soon.
The fact that Robert E. Howard still existed here, and still wrote the Conan stories, is giving me enough of a headache. Because Conan the Barbarian was well established as having existed in the distant past of the Marvelverse, and I don't even know how to begin untangling how that is supposed to work.
On the plus side, it means there's a higher than average chance I'll eventually see Red Sonja in her chainmail bikini, so it's not all bad.
"Just a heads up thoug" No point in covering up the bad parts "The man was unbelivably racist, I mean, cartoonishly so. I'm pretty sure a lot of his work was just allegories for his fear of mixed racial marriages."
Bruce just blinks "I...see. I'm surprised you'd be supportive of that type of literature..."
"I'm not, the problem is that his work is great as standalone horror, the man was a pioneer in horror literature. He was also a xenophobic, racist, anti-semitic lunatic who looked down on everyone who couldn't trace their family history through 400 years of English upper-class ancestry. But the stories are still scary, so if you're in that kind of mood, I say go for it!"
Of course, my real favorite horror writer is Stephen King, with Lovecraft a close second, but considering that King is currently 16 years old, and attending high school in Maine somewhere, writing self-published short stories, it's not really a name I can drop just yet. Hell, Carrie won't even come out for another decade!
"Hmm, I'll keep it in mind, but I don't really read a lot of horror these days. When you've literally lived out Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, it loses a bit of it's charm." He sees that I'm about to protest and holds up a hand "Don't get me wrong, I'm... in a better place about my condition than I was, but I hope you understand why those early weeks after my transformation were rather terrifying."
"I guess I can't argue with that." Whatever else I was going to say is interupted by the sound of heavy boots walking down the hallway, and the sudden appearance of the huge form of Thor in the living room door.
"Greetings, friends!" Thor booms cheerfully "And a joyous All Hallows Eve to you!"
"Thor, this is a surprise" Bruce says, putting away his book "You don't come around the mansion very often"
"Aye, 'tis true, Donald Blake's task as a healer takes up much time I'd wish to use to bond with my fellow warriors, but I have found myself free this night! So I have come here to ask you to join me in sampling the festivities of All Hallows Eve in the city!"
"Well, Tony is busy with some Stark Industries business, and I think Janet dragged Hank away on some charity benefit, but hell, I'm up for it. Sign me up, Thor! What do you say, Bruce?"
Bruce shakes his head "Sorry guys, not really my scene, but you go ahead."
"Welp, looks like it's just you and me, big guy" I jump out of the chair, tossing away the candy wrapper as I go "Too bad we don't have any costumes"
Thor grins "Why, Sunshine, I don't believe we require any new guises"
.....
Turns out that Thor might have overestimated how well we'd blend in on the street just because everyone else would be wearing costumes too. For one thing, it's much rarer for adults to dress up for Halloween in the 60's than it was in my own time, there are still some grown-ups in costume walking by, but most of the people milling around on the sidewalk are children. Second, wether it's Halloween or not, it's hard to imagine anyone mistaking Thor for some random guy pretending to be him. He's still a musclebound, physical god with perfect hair. As a result, we're getting quite a few stares as we make our way down Fifth Avenue, which Thor seems cheerfully oblivious to as he looks at the Halloween decorations littering the stores and buildings around us. Even my own disguise as Mr Sunshine doesn't really seem to fool anyone, despite my own build being a good deal more average than Thors, aside from height.
"Ah, it is heartening to see the youth of the city in such high spirits" Thor says as a cluster of children dart past, laughing and yelling as they go, and I can't help but note that one of the boys is wearing a crude Iron Man suit made from a pair of cardboard boxes. The costumes I've seen so far are a good deal cruder than I remember seeing in my own time, but this is long before Halloween became a social media contest, so wearing a storebought plastic devil mask isn't a badge of shame here.
Though even with that said, whoever thought those weird sack costumes that are supposed to look like jack o lanterns were a good idea really needs to go back to design class, because even the nicest ones look like characters from an eastern european cartoon.
"Yup, nothing like letting your kids run around unsupervised and extort complete strangers for candy!" I'm interrupted as a little girl in a witches costume comes darting down the steps to the brownstone next to us and nearly runs into me before running off to join another group of kids further down the street "Jeez, like these kids need more sugar"
"You do not approve of this tradition?"
I shrug "It's always struck me as a little odd, I guess, but I don't disapprove or anything. Halloween just isn't really a thing where I'm from..." Not for lack of trying on behalf of the store chains anyway, it almost got a little pathetic at one point "All we have is that lame Christian holiday where we're supposed to sit around and feel sad about all the people we know who have died. I mean, remembrance is one thing, but but this-" I make a motion outwards, indicating the various decorations all around us "-is doing it right, it's not like the dead people care about how we remember them. Hell, in Mexico, their Day of the Dead is almost better than Christmas! Sure beats standing around in a cemetary and feeling depressed, I'll tell you that much..."
"Aye, 'tis a sad sight to see the old ways fall by the wayside. I belive Stark mentioned you are a descendant of the Norsemen who once worshipped me and my family?"
"Uh, technically yes, but I doubt my family have actually been in Sweden literally since the Viking age, and I know for a fact my grandfather is part Romani" I stop by a stall where a vendor dressed in a skull mask and a bodysuit with a skeleton painted on it is selling candied apples. I'm tempted, never tried one before, but eating something that sticky when I'm wearing a face mask seems like a bad idea. "Actually, I've been wondering about something... I know you're the actual Thor the vikings worshipped, but how much of those myths are actually true? I mean, I was majorly into mythology as a kid, and some of those stories..."
Thors face falls "I did not wish to wear a wedding dress, but I had to fool the giants so Mjolnir could be regained!"
"...Dude, I was thinking of Loki and the horse pregnancy thing."
"Ah. This may be a discussion better suited over a few tankards of mead."
"Well, we're all out of mead" I say as I push open the door to a bar a little further up the street "but some of that cheap swill Americans think is beer works almost as well in a pinch."
.....
A Derelict Apartment Building, Somewhere In Greenwich Village
In a filthy, abandoned apartment, a lone figure kneels on the floor in front of a makeshift shrine, decorated with crow feathers, rat bones, and a single silver mirror that seems to somehow shine in the gloom, despite the darkness inside the room. Perched everywhere around him, on his shoulders, on the broken and decaying furniture, on the shattered lamps, sits dozens of crows, silently observing the scene beneath them.
"I've done what you asked, my lord" the figure says, his voice rough and worn "The ritual is complete. My pets will serve as the conduit of your power!"
"Good..." another voice, low and hissing as if it's coming from somewhere far away "You have done well, slave. When I came to you in your dreams, you were nothing but a petty thief, but now, you've proven yourself a fitting servant for the master of the Dream Dimension. You will serve as the source of my power in this reality, and through you, your animals will carry fear to this miserable city worse than anything their pathetic minds could imagine! And this time, that miserable sorceror will not stop me!"
The figure bows his head down, prostrating himself "It will be done as you commanded, Lord Nightmare. Before the end of Samhain, New York will know true fear!"
"Then rise, Ebenezer Laughton, rise as my avatar in the waking world!, and discard your old identity!"
The man once known as Ebenezer Laughton reached out for the burlap mask lying on the shrine on top of a pile of bird bones, before slowly pulling it over his head.
"Rise, Scarecrow - The Avatar of Nightmares!"
AN: Before anyone asks, yes, Marvel does in fact have a supervillain named Scarecrow.594