Guest Post | Chris KL99 - Space Adventurer

By GW Thomas

Edmond Hamilton has many claims to fame in a science fiction writing career that spanned fifty years. He began in the pages of Weird Tales, contributing the most SF of material in the largely horror magazine. He also explored his own brand of fantasy and even wrote a few legitimate horror tales. Hamilton's style of cosmic-sized adventure won him the nickname "World Wrecker" Hamilton, though he was also capable of writing deeply personal stories too, like "He That Hath Wings" (Weird Tales, July 1938). In 1940 he was chosen to write the Captain Future series created by Mort Weisinger. Hamilton's career peaked in 1949 when he wrote his most famous novel, The Star Kings.

In 1946, Ed made another choice that would affect his direction for the next twenty years. He began writing comics for DC's Superman and Legion of Super-Heroes. He would leave comics in 1966, returning to stories and novels full time. Before that day, Hamilton would write largely superhero fare, but occasionally he got to return to his SF roots in comics like Strange Adventures. In the inaugural issue he began his "Chris KL99" series, which would appear in seven issues. Loosely based on the Captain Future formula, Chris KL99 is a space explorer who flies around in his ship the Pioneer, with his three sidekicks: a Martian adventurer named Halk, the Venusian scientist Jero, and his chameolonic dog, Loopy. (Interestingly, Hamilton wrote six more Captain Future novellas for Startling Stories while penning this comic. There were enough space adventurers around in the comics to not make this a conflict of interest.) Chris got his name from Christopher Columbus, because he was the first baby born in space. The KL99 is his status from the Space Academy where he scored 99%. All seven adventures were drawn by Harold Sherman.

The first cover went to the adaptation of Destination Moon, but Chris KL99 opened the issue. His first adventure is "The Menace of the Green Nebula" (Strange Adventures #1, August-September 1950). Chris and his buddies are lured into the Green Nebula by a fake distress call. Unscrupulous types follow them to the planet of the nebula to steal its rich radium deposits. This turns out to be the food of the radioactive men who dwell there. It's up to Chris and his friends to make things right. Fortunately, Chris knows a little science about radium that saves the day.

"The Metal World" (Strange Adventures #3, December 1950) begins with mysterious raiders stealing metal treasures like the Eiffel Tower and Brooklyn Bridge. Chris KL99 and his team find the ion trail of the thieves and follow them to their planet-size spaceship. After being captured, Chris comes up with a scheme that will save earth's treasures and the inhabitants of the Metal World.

"The World Inside the Atom" (Strange Adventures #5, February 1951) has Chris answering a distress call from a miniature universe. Shrinking to microsize, he and his two comrades go to Ruun, a planet that is dying because its sun has gone out, allowing monsters to attack its citizens. The distress call came from Drimos, who turns out to be a tyrant, ruling the people with his artificial light. Chris discovers that Drimos is actually the king's twin, Karthis, and that the true king is imprisoned. He uses his size control to rescue Drimos, but Karthis vindictively destroys the light that holds back the monsters. Chris and his friends grow to immense size and restart the sun by throwing a dead planet into it. Obviously inspired by stories like Henry Hesse's "He Who Shrank" (Amazing Stories, August 1936), the atomic science of this story is quite dated even for 1951.

Up to this point, Chris KL99 had been the headliner of Strange Adventures. By #7 he started to appear later in the issue, and often last. This may indicate that other strips in the magazine were more popular, like the non-series stories by Gardner Fox or "Captain Comet" by Edgar Ray Merritt (John Broome). But more likely, Hamilton was busy with Superman and other, bigger titles.

"The Lost Earthmen" (Strange Adventures #7, April 1951) is Chris KL99's first origin story (this will be changed in future guises). In this episode, we learn why he jumps from planet to planet, exploring deeper and deeper into space. He is on the trail of the Starfarer, a ship his mother and father used to find a new Earth. When they did not return, Chris joined the Space Academy so he could go in search of them. He finds their ship on a remote planet where the survivors remain. His parents died as heroes, saving the doomed ship, hit by an ether-wave. But the survivors are once again in trouble. The ether-wave that made them crash will destroy the planet by drawing a storm of asteroids. Chris and his friends have to hurry, using parts from abandoned ships to repair the Starfarer. His quest now finished, Chris plans to quit space forever. He finds a recording from his father and mother that inspires him anew to carry on exploring the universe.

"The Exile of Space" (Strange Adventures #9, June 1951) is Halk's origin story. As chief scientist of Mars, he ruined the great crystal that pumps the planet's water. He has been searching space for a replacement. This he finds on a world that has sent a distress call. When the three arrive, after a couple of close calls with energy beings and an asteroid belt, they find the local tyrant has several power crystals and uses them to oppress the people. Chris and his friends, using gravity inhibitors (a la Buck Rogers), fly up to one of the crystals and take over. Using that crystal, they blow up the others. As a reward, the people ask Halk to take the last remaining crystal with them. Halk is able to make amends for his mistake, but doesn't give up his life in space.

"The Missing Moon" (Strange Adventures #11, August 1951) starts with a visit to a planet of astronomers who give Chris an interesting photograph of earth. In the picture, there are two moons. Chris begins a quest to find earth's missing moon. He follows a trail in space that leads him to the moon, where a civilization of technology haters arrest him and his friends for sacrilege. He learns that there was once a war between the two moons. Giant energy weapons destroyed the surface of our moon, while thrusting the second moon out of orbit and into the galaxy. Escaping the moon-men, a new problem threatens everyone. A dark star is drawing near and only the projection weapons can save them. Halk and Jero hold off the moon-men long enough for Chris to divert the moon away from the star. He even parks the moon around a warm sun, improving life for the moon people. Shades of Space: 1999!

"The Rival Columbus of Space" (Strange Adventures #15, December 1951) features Shan Kar, a fellow explorer from the planet Zor who is Chris KL99's only rival. Shan Kar decides he will enter a deadly, bell-shaped dark cloud because he thinks a planet lies inside. Chris warns Shan Kar off and everyone thinks he is jealous. Both explorers head out in their own ships. Monsters attack Shan Kar's ship, but Chris saves him, allowing them to arrive at the planet inside. Shan Kar lands, even though Chris warns him again. Shan Kar finds gigantic jewels, but the rays from these cause him to grow to a giant size and unable to return in his ship. Chris has been to the planet before and has devised a metal that can counter-act the rays. He joins Shan Kar on the planet and begins smelting ore to make a covering for the giant. Shan Kar is shrunk back to normal and they all go home. Once home, Shan Kar declares Chris the true "Columbus of Space."

The character of Chris KL99 would live on at DC after its original author was gone. In later comics, his origin was changed and he made several cameos in other titles. But the great days of Edmond Hamilton stand nicely separate from these later changes. Here is space adventure of the simplest, pulpy kind as only "World Wrecker" Hamilton could provide.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

Guest Post | DC Flirts with Sword-and-Sorcery, Part Two: Horror Anthologies

By GW Thomas

Nightmaster failed to become DC's first sword-and-sorcery title, but DC kept trying in the horror magazines. “The Eyes of the Basilisk” (The House of Mystery #184, January-February 1970) was written by E Nelson Bridwell and drawn by Gil Kane and Wally Wood. The plot has the country of Karinek invaded by the deadly serpent. The king offers his daughter’s hand in marriage to anyone who can slay the basilisk. Many try, but fail. Two brothers, Ursus and Ulfar, go to defeat the monster using a polished shield. Ursus doesn’t look into the basilisk’s eyes, but in the shield. The terrible gaze freezes him and the serpent kills him. Ulfar goes to avenge his brother, lifting the shield and reflecting the monster’s gaze into its own face. The basilisk turns itself to stone and Ulfar becomes king. It is only at the end that we find out Ulfar is blind.

Kane and Wood’s presence here is significant. Wally Wood was the artist responsible for “Clawfang the Barbarian” (Unearthly Spectaculars #2, December 1965) five years earlier and he had drawn several pieces for his own fanzine, Witzend. He would go on to do both Hercules Unbound (1975) and Stalker (1975) for DC. Gil Kane would draw many sword-and-sorcery pieces, some based on Robert E Howard’s stories for Marvel in the pages of Savage Sword of Conan and Conan the Barbarian. Perhaps his best of all of them was his adaptation of “The Valley of the Worm” in Supernatural Thrillers #3 (April 1973).

DC’s next ploy to test the waters was to reprint three of Joe Kubert’s Viking Prince stories from the pages of The Brave and the Bold from 1955, in DC Special #12 (May-June 1971). More Viking Prince episodes would be used to fill out the backs of DC Special #22-25. These giant-sized magazines featured new stories about the Three Musketeers and old Robin Hood reprints.

Gil Kane tried again with “Sword of the Dead” in Adventure Comics #425 (December 1972). This time Kane wrote and drew the six-pager. The story concerns two warriors. The first is Evlig, a merciless killer who murders the family of the second warrior: John of Gaunt, a retired knight turned farmer. John suits up and finds Evlig. The two square off with lances, sending John to the ground. Evlig tries to finish him off, but John rises up and slays him. Only after Evlig is dead does John see his own slain body. His righteousness was so powerful, his spirit accomplished what his body could not. A few things come to mind about this tale. One: the villain’s name is so obviously a form of the word Evil, while John of Gaunt was an actual historical person. The idea of the dead who kills reminds me of Robert E Howard’s “The Man on the Ground” (Weird Tales, July 1933) where a Texas feuder also sees his dead body after a fight. Kane was a fan of Howard, so this isn’t surprising.

This was followed by DC's first sword-and-sorcery title launch: Fritz Leiber’s two best thieves in Lankhmar, in Sword of Sorcery (March-April to November-December 1973). Before the five-issue run, drawn largely by Howard Chaykin (another artist linked to the feel and look of sword-and-sorcery with his work for Marvel), Fafhrd and Grey Mouser first appeared in Wonder Woman #202 (September-October 1972) in an introductory episode that did little but pit them against Diana Prince. This tale was written by science fiction master, Samuel R Delany and drawn by Dick Giordano. Sword of Sorcery failed after only a few issues, as would titles like Stalker, Beowulf, Dragonslayer, and Claw the Unconquered. Success was to be found in the science fiction-tinged The Warlord by Mike Grell, running for 133 issues with new material up to 2008. You would think after all this trying, DC would have ended the sword-and-sorcery appearances in their horror titles, but this was not so.

“The Survivor” in Weird War Tales #15 (July 1973) was written by Jack Oleck and drawn by Gerry Talaoc. Oleck was a mainstay of the DC horror titles, and not surprisingly, he wrote more of the stories featured here than anyone else. Here is the first of two about Vikings. Lars Ironhand and his crew are stranded on a weird island where the monsters of Throna the Witch attack them. Defeating all her minions, Throna leads them to water. Drinking the liquid causes the Vikings to grow small in body but large in head. Lars, the last survivor, writes a warning to anyone else who might end up on the island and be changed by the water. By the time he finishes, he has changed into a monkey.

“King of the Ring” from Plop #23 (September-October 1976) is an unusual outlier that has to be mentioned. Written and drawn by Wally Wood, the strip is one of the first comic parodies of The Lord of the Rings in the manner of Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings. While not sword-and-sorcery exactly, the funny piece packs many of the highlights and characters of Tolkien’s masterpiece into only six pages. Woody uses silly variations such as Gondeaf for Gandalf and Snyder for Rider, etc. He has a crew of dwarves with names like Slappy, Droopy, Sleazy, Groucho, Harpo, Snoopy, and Shlepo. There is an incognito king who announces he is incognito, the frog-like Glum who wants his “sweetums,” Nazighuls, norks, Schlob, and the ring finally gets destroyed when Frodo shoves Glum over the edge. Wood ends it with the ring flying out of Mount Doom to Gondeaf’s hand. The wizard decides to keep the ring and be evil. Drawn with Wood’s best Mad Magazine-meets-The King of the World style, it is a classic parody.

“Valley of the Giants” was written by Jack Oleck with art by Jess Jodloman for Secrets of the Haunted House #6 (June-July 1977). Jodloman drew King Kull for Marvel’s Kull and the Barbarians (1973) and this experience serves him well in this tale of Vikings. Oleck has a ruthless band of Vikings - lead by Rurik - raid the English coast where an old witch prophesies that Rurik and his men would die by giants. A storm drives them to the African coast. There they attack and capture an Arab ship. One of the Arabs tell them of a fabulous treasure in a valley of giants. The Vikings kill all the Arabs to protect their ship and then press on into the jungle. Pygmies attack them with poisoned arrows. Rurik and his men die fighting the pygmies, but before they die Rurik laughs, knowing the giants of the prophecy are not their opponents but themselves.

“Bruce the Barbarian” in Unexpected #205 (December 1980) was written by JM Dematteis with art by Vic Catan. Bruce E Platt is an unpopular disc jockey who uses the occult to create a fantasy world in which he is a heroic barbarian. This alternate reality becomes so real that when his former girlfriend, Cornelia, comes to his apartment, he kills her by accident. When the cops come to arrest him, they find Bruce being tormented for eternity in a very real hell. This type of story, the fantasy fan as escapist-loser is one of my least favorite tropes, being the shallow reaction of non-fantasy fans: whether it is Harlan Ellison’s “Delusion For a Dragonslayer” (1966) or the anti-LARPing film, Mazes and Monsters starring a young Tom Hanks (1982). Dematteis would pen the final issues of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, so I suspect he’s not an anti-fantasy fan.

“Troll Bridge” in Unexpected #220 (March 1982) was written by Gary Cohn; art by Paris Cullins and Gary Martin. This tongue-in-cheek tale of a troll who works his way up to larger and larger bridges ends when he is tricked into wearing a magic cloak by the wizard Wendik the Trollsbane. The cloak sends him to another dimension where he finds a new home under the Brooklyn Bridge. This goofy tale appeals to me with its cartoony style that reminds me a little of Shrek and by not taking itself too seriously.

“No Penny, No Paradise” in Unexpected #222 (May 1982) was written by Robert Kanigher of Wonder Woman fame (as well as SF titles like Metal Men) and had art by Keith Giffin and Larry Mahlstedt. Not really a hardcore sword-and-sorcery tale, the plot follows Alexander the Great as he conquers Asia. Before his death, he reminds Philo to place a penny on his tongue. When Alexander arrives at the River Styx, Charon refuses him entrance into heaven because he has no penny. Alexander goes back to haunt Philo. The thief defeats him by placing a penny in his own mouth before dying. Alexander is powerless to stop Philo from crossing the Styx while he is damned forever. Giffin got his start with the later issues of Claw the Unconquered. Unfortunately he did not ink his own work. Malhlstedt’s inking lacks the weird flavor of Claw. The cover art was provided by Ernie Colon, the artist who created Arak, Son of Thunder with Roy Thomas.

With that final issue, DC Comics said goodbye to short sword-and-sorcery, but not all heroic fantasy. In 1982, the company had the unpopular Arak, Son of Thunder, Arion, Lord of Atlantis, Masters of the Universe tie-ins, The Warlord (no longer with Grell), The Atlantis Chronicles by Esteban Maroto, and the on-again-off-again Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. By 1988 though, the ranks of DC would not include sword-and-sorcery. In fact, by the 1990s, only old cornerstones such as Conan, Elfquest, Masters of the Universe, and television fare such as Xena, Warrior Princess would be in evidence. The 1990s would not be kind to sword-and-sorcery. DC Comics, like everyone else, had tested the waters, but ultimately gone back to superheroes.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

Guest Post | DC Flirts with Sword-and-Sorcery, Part One: Nightmaster

By GW Thomas

Sword-and-sorcery comics have become a thing in their own right. Titles like Conan the Barbarian, The Warlord, and Red Sonja have been successful franchises spanning hundreds of issues. But back in the late 1960s, while Lancer was virtually coining their own money with the purple-edged Howard paperbacks, the response in comics was slow. Heroic Fantasy had yet to find a foothold in mainstream comics. Artists like Wally Wood and Gray Morrow experimented first in fanzines then later in the black-and-whites pages of the Warren horror magazines. Slowly, the big boys took notice. DC beat Marvel to the punch, but their first attempts gained little notice. By 1970, with the swelling success of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, DC had to take a second look at this new thing, this “Conan stuff” that was part fantasy and part horror.

That first attempt at sword-and-sorcery was to be found in their horror titles. (If it hadn’t sunk the Warren magazines, why not?) “In a Far Off Land” in The Witching Hour #3 (June-July 1968) was written by Steven Skeates and drawn by Bernie Wrightson. The plot follows a man of Earth who is drawn into a fantasy world by magic. The wizard who has summoned him has also locked away his memory. Charged with defeating the barbarian invaders, armed with a magic sword, he prevails by killing the evil Lafhards and winning the girl. When his memory is restored, the man finds he is a murderer who rests in a prison cell. He is given the choice of staying in the fantastic realm or return to Earth. He chooses (rather stupidly) to return and pay for his crime. Skeates would go on to write other sword-and-sorcery stories for Warren’s Creepy and Eerie. Wrightson would achieve fame as the artist behind such horror titles as Swamp Thing, but during this time he produced more sword-and-sorcery for DC and Marvel.

“In a Far off Land” set the pattern for a longer version of this test entitled Nightmaster, using the same man-from-our-world goes to a fantasy realm (what we now call portal fantasy) and has poorly hidden jokes in the names. The three-parter (each bearing a Joe Kubert cover), beginning with DC Showcase #82 (May 1969), was written by Denny O’Neil, a writer who had penned Charlton’s Adventures of the Man-God Hercules under the pseudonym Sergius O'Shaugnessy. This first issue was illustrated by Jerry Grandenetti and Dick Giordano. Grandenetti had drawn several sword-and-sorcery pieces for Warren. The first issue tells how rock musician Jim Rook transcends dimensions to Myrra, a land of fantastic creatures. He meets King Zolto, who relates how Rook is the descendant of Nacht (German for "night"), a hero sent to our dimension by the wizard Farben. Zolto arms Rook with the Sword of Night and sends him to defeat the Warlocks who hold his fiancee, Janet Jones (long before Gretzky). Rook’s assistant is a strange boy named Boz (the character is entirely white and never really explained). Before Rook (now titled Nightmaster and given a rather superhero-looking costume) can defeat the Warlocks, he has to pass through a magical gate. To do this he needs the three magic words from the Ice Witch. The duo ride giant grasshoppers to her mountain and scale the steep walls while Warlock troopers throw icicles at them, but finally defeat the witch after she assumes Janet’s appearance. End of Part One.

In an editorial at the end of the issue, O’Neil lays out his background and mission in “Take That, You Hideous Magician, You! Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Swordplay.” He mentions the big guys: Burroughs, Howard, Leiber, Tolkien, and Moorcock; claiming their inspiration for all the people involved in the comic. “We wondered why nobody was publishing a sword-and-sorcery comic magazine. It seems to us that the comics medium is perfectly suited to sword-and-sorcery’s blend of action, grotesque beings, eerie places. Yet the few attempts in the past to embody sword-and-sorcery in panel art have been dismal failures. Readers left them languishing like ugly kittens. Perhaps these earlier attempts were badly done (and perhaps they weren’t). More probably, potential fans simply hadn’t discovered the special joys the pages offered.” In 1969, this statement is true. Nobody was publishing a real sword-and-sorcery title. O’Neil hints at his stint “at another company” on Hercules and perhaps means himself when he means under-appreciated.

According to Like a Bat Out of Hell: Chatting with Bernie Wrightson (Summer 1999), Wrightson was supposed to draw all three issues, but he was pulled when the first seven pages proved unsatisfactory. Grandenetti was working with O’Neil on The Spectre and was called in to start things off. Wrightson did complete the last two segments. With issue #83 (June 1969) and #84 (August 1969), Wrightson inherited Grandenetti’s rather un-Conan-looking hero and a new companion is almost immediately added: Tark. This ram-horned Szaszian barbarian is much closer to what fans expect of sword-and-sorcery. His real name is Tickytarkapolis Trootrust, but Nightmaster dubs him simply Tark (thank goodness). The trio becomes a group of five when the heroes rescue two sirens who have had their voices stolen by the Warlocks. Breaking into Lord Spearo’s castle, they fight empty suits of armor called Hackies and rescue the sirens’ voices. Using the magic of the sirens, they defeat the present Warlocks, but still have to stop the Warlocks’ plan to cross dimensions and conquer our world. End of Part Two.

The finale has the Warlocks sending giant spiders to kill the heroes on strands of smoke. Spearo and the Warlock Lord (this predates Terry Brooks’character of the same name in The Sword of Shannara by eight years) set a trap for the Nightmaster. They take Janet Jones, change her appearance, and erase her mind. She is turned into Mizzi the Maid, guest-drawn by Jeff Jones (you can recognize his style) in a cutie-pie fashion. Rook and his crew recruit the grumpy wizard Mar-Grouch to help the heroes and retrieve Janet magically. Rook is disappointed when it is Mizzi who is rescued. Now a member of the group, Mizzi tries and tries again to kill Rook, first by stabbing him, then by putting yellow crystals in his flying gear. Green crystals would have worked fine, but the yellow attract the deadly Arivegs, giant man-eating flying plants. They defeat the Arivegs and corner the conspiring Lord Spearo and Warlock Lord. The magician puts them to sleep with a spell and the heroes are captured. Mizzi frees the heroes, but not before the Warlock Lord turns her back into Janet. Using a portal that looks like a big ink blot, the Warlocks cross over to our dimension to begin their conquest. Rook forces them back into Myrra then destroys the portal. He and Janet are standing on the street, wondering if it was all a dream, but the glowing sword in his hand says otherwise.

The writing style of Nightmaster is forcibly scarred by dated language. Rather than having Rook talk in normal phrases he replies in slangy earth references. This constant jarring makes the story a bit of a lark in the Harold Shea vein rather than serious sword-and-sorcery. Perhaps unwisely, Nightmaster was portal fantasy while Conan and Tolkien are not. In the art department, Wrightson got help from two other sword-and-sorcery artists, Jeff Jones and Mike Kaluta. These three, along with sword-and-sorcery superstar Barry Windsor Smith, formed an artists’ commune in 1975 known as The Studio. In this way, with Smith at Marvel and the other three working on Nightmaster, all four contributed to early sword-and-sorcery comics.

DC Comics tried to gain a foothold in the world of sword-and-sorcery comics with DC Showcase’s Nightmaster, but it failed. What would have followed a successful run of Nightmaster can only be guessed. Would the comic have become a superhero comic set in our world or would Jim and Janet have gone back to the realm of Myrra? We will never know what Denny O’Neil would have done if the comic was a hit, but we can be pretty sure what others would do. In 2005, fans of the old series created Shadowpact, a collection of old characters who fight in a superhero group. This superheroing seemed inevitable from how O’Neil finished the tale. Working out of the Oblivion Bar, now owned by Jim Rook. 2011 saw writer Adam Beecham and artist Kieron Dwyer give us Nightmaster: Monsters of Rock, in which Rook does go back to Myrra to fight Lord Meh and rescue the Shadowpact superhero group. His companion is an elderly hippie. Berni Wrightson did a great cover for the last entry.

Next time, DC tries again...

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | The Sinister House of Secret Love

About a month after the debut of Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, DC launched a companion series called The Sinister House of Secret Love. Like Dark Mansion, Sinister House featured young women in romance stories with a malevolent, sometimes supernatural twist. They even both featured artists Tony DeZuniga and Don Heck, but Sinister House also got comics legend Alex Toth for an issue.

It's that issue, #3, that my buddy Siskoid and his pals covered on an episode of The Lonely Hearts Romance Comics Podcast. It's an excellent episode of an excellent podcast and you should listen to it. You can also see some of the pages that they discuss on the LHRCP site.

Sadly, also like Dark Mansion, Sinister House was renamed and refocused after only four issues. It became Secrets of Sinister House, yet another horror-suspense anthology, though with a gothic-inspired cover for the first issue after the change. And true to its gothic romance roots, Secrets got a young woman as its horror host: Eve, who was cousin to Cain and Abel from House of Mystery and House of Secrets.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love

In the Autumn of 1971, DC launched not one, but two gothic romance titles. I've read neither of them and can't speak to the differences (if there are any), but the first was The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love. It usually featured full-length stories and a text piece by various writers and artists, but the artists are legendary: Tony DeZuniga, Don Heck, and Ernie Chan.

As with the run of gothic covers on House of Secrets, DC's experiment with full gothic romance comics was short-lived. The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Secrets was cancelled after four issues and retooled in early 1972 to become Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion, a straight horror-suspense anthology. Though the gothic covers did continue for a couple of issues into that series as well.

This Autumn, DC has sort of revived the original title with a mini-series starring the character Deadman. Written by Sarah Vaughn (Alex + Ada) and drawn my Lan Medina (Fables), Deadman: Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love tells the story of a young woman in an old mansion who teams up with Deadman to battle whatever evil is infesting the house.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | The House of Secrets

DC's House of Secrets comic was never officially a gothic romance series, but it did sport a nice run of gothic romance covers in the early '70s by Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, Bernie Wrightson, and Nick Cardy.

The series was conceived as a mystery/horror/fantasy anthology title in the late '50s, but it was cancelled 10 years later and then revived again a few years after that. During this revival, the comic got its horror host Abel (brother to Cain, the host of DC's House of Mystery) and focused mostly on spooky, EC-style horror tales.

Even though the stories in the comic weren't gothic romance, starting with issue #88 and lasting for about eight issues there were a lot of young women running from spooky, old houses (even though "There's No Escape from... The House of Secrets") or otherwise being menaced by sinister figures (including Swamp Thing, who debuted during this period). It's interesting that even if DC wasn't willing to turn The House of Secrets into a gothic romance series, it was willing to publish misleading covers to attract fans of the genre. It just goes to show how popular gothic romance had become.

And it's not like DC was opposed to publishing gothic romance, because it was also during this time that they went ahead and started an actual, proper gothic romance comic. But we'll talk about that tomorrow.

Lena Thorul, Jungle Princess [Guest Post]

By GW Thomas

The 1960s get a lot of press for being a time of civil unrest, counter culture, and music. Another thing it was, was a time of experimentation with alternative ideas, such as yoga, meditation, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Beatles meeting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and adopting Asian beliefs (or in some cases, just the clothes). It was a time of astral projection and pyramid power. It was also the age of ESP.

Let's forget that science fiction had driven that bandwagon over a decade earlier. It took ten years for everyone else to catch up. And the comic books were no different. Jack Kirby at Marvel created Professor X for X-Men #1 (September 1963). Psychics came two years earlier to the Superman franchise, specifically Supergirl, with the telepathic character of Lena Thorul, who was secretly Lex Luthor's sister. Beginning February 1961 in "The Curse of Lena Thorul," she was brought to life by Superman's original creator, Jerry Siegel.

Lena helped Supergirl with her powers until the cat got out of the bag in Action Comics #313 (June 1964), written by Leo Dorfman and drawn by Jim Mooney. What could possibly happen to the lovely Lena if she found out? Amnesia, of course. Followed by life in the jungle and some zebra underwear. If it worked for Lois Lane in 1959, why not Lena Luthor five years later?

What chance did Lena have, being telepathic and having to interview Lex as part of her FBI application? The truth slips from Lex's mind and snap. Off Lena runs to anywhere - Africa - where she acquires a movie starlet's costume for a film that is being made. Without memory, she adopts the clothing and with her amazing abilities she tames the jungle animals around her. She becomes a legend of the jungle, the Jungle Princess! When a stray bullet creases Lena's head, giving her back her memory, she goes back to Metropolis to perform with her lions and elephants. There she also cuts into Supergirl's business, rescuing some people from a collapsing balcony with the help of her savage friends.

During Lena's premiere she is once again tortured by the idea of being ridiculed as Lex Luthor's sister. She can't perform, so Supergirl takes her place. Since she can't control the animals with her mind, it is Supergirl's strength that saves her from the lion's mouth and the elephant's foot. As Superman saved Lois Lane from harm in "Lois Lane, Jungle Princess," Supergirl does the same for her friend this time.

Meanwhile back in prison, Lex Luthor has become the "Plant of Metropolois Prison." With Supergirl's innocent help, he gets quantities of "Vitagron" and "Energite" (nothing suspicious there!) and grows a vine down the walls of the prison. He comes to the theater, expecting Lena, but is captured by Supergirl. The green flowers he has brought for his sibling are special, having the power to erase Lena's bad memories, which they do. (Lex wisely guards himself from the fumes with a handkerchief, pretending to have a cold.) Heading back to prison, Lex is happy he has been able to help his sister forget his terrible legacy.

This second trip to the jungle doesn't have as much "jungle-ness" to it, but it still gets in some minor Tarzania. Lena, when she speaks to her animal friends (more for effect than need, as she can control them silently) she speaks the "jungle language," which the animals can understand, including "Urtah! Itay! Kabray! Despite sounding like Pig Latin, it is descended from Tarzan's "Bundalo" and "Kreegah!" that is familiar to fans of both the comics and original stories. Typical to most jungle queen stories, Lena uses her amazing powers to stop poachers who are stealing from the Elephant's Graveyard. She also directs one of her apes to rescue a man from quicksand.

Once again DC Comics showed a lasting interest in the heritage of the jungle. Or were they simply catching the rising tide? Ballantine Books was selling millions of copies with their new Tarzan editions in 1963-64. This new wave of Tarzan fever would see Ron Ely play the ape man on TV in 1966. DC would have loved some of that jungle action, but Western Comics would keep the Burroughs' properties until the early 1970s. Still, a good, generic jungle princess now and then couldn't hurt.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan of the Comic Books

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Griffin covers the history of Tarzan in comic books from the character's first appearance in Tip Top Comics #1 (above) to his current status at Dark Horse. True to the roots of comic books in general, the earliest Tarzan comics were simply reprints of his newspaper strips. United Features started running the Sunday strips in 1936 in Tip Top, while the dailies began getting colored and reprinted two years later in Comics on Parade.

In 1939, Dell got into the game with new adaptations of Burroughs stories starting in Popular Comics #38. It would also be Dell who published the first original Tarzan comic book story in 1947's Four Color #134 with art by Jesse Marsh. Four Color was an ongoing anthology series in which each issue was devoted to a single character, but Tarzan got another issue that same year with #161 (the series wasn't a strict monthly and often had multiple issues each month). Those issues sold so well that Dell gave Tarzan his own series, with Marsh still drawing it, the following year.

Marsh worked with writer Gaylor Dubois to create a new continuity for Dell's Tarzan that combined elements of the Burroughs novels with those of the Johnny Weissmuller films. The series lasted 131 issues until the summer of 1962 when it switched over to Dell's publishing partner Western and its Gold Key imprint. Gold Key kept Dell's numbering and its Tarzan series ran another 75 issues until 1972. A major change in the Gold Key era was that Marsh retired in 1965 and his assistant Russ Manning began drawing the series.

In '72, the Tarzan license went to DC. They changed the name to Tarzan of the Apes and identified the switch with a big, yellow bullet that said "First DC Issue." But like Gold Key, they kept the numbering from the old series. Issue #207 featured a new adaptation of Burroughs' first book with art by Joe Kubert. And though DC got a lot of mileage out of their five years with the Burroughsverse, they ultimately lost it to Marvel in 1977.

Marvel's Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle - with art by John Buscema - ran 29 issues until 1979, at which point Tarzan comics ceased to be published in North America for more than a decade. Malibu published American editions of some European Tarzan comics in 1992, but it wasn't until 1995 that Dark Horse got the license and began doing brand new stories again. In addition to a 20-issue ongoing series, they published numerous mini-series and crossovers in which Tarzan met up not only with other Burroughs characters like John Carter and Carson of Venus, but also Predators, Superman, and Batman.

Though Dark Horse still has the Tarzan license, it's not currently publishing original Tarzan stories. Instead, it's focusing on archival reprints of classic comics by guys like Marsh, Manning, and Kubert. I'm happy for those, but that leaves new Tarzan comics to Dynamite, who's adapting Burroughs' public domain Tarzan stories in its Lord of the Jungle series. I understand that those are very good (and have the first volume creeping its way up my reading pile), but I'm also eager for new, original tales. Hoping Dark Horse gets back to those soon.

The Outsiders hate cephalopods

Quote of Day | "The system suffers from exhaustion and burnout"

My suspicion is that both [DC and Marvel] have a hard time selling comics that aren't event comics because there aren't enough readers to maintain high numbers on standard comic books. When readers are told what to buy, you have a hit. When they are joined by people that haven't been buying many comics at all, or at least that kind of comic, you have a potential mega-hit. But for the most part the system suffers from exhaustion and burnout.

--Tom Spurgeon

I don't have a lot of commentary on this. I just want to record it somewhere so I can find it again later and since it relates to my recent post on event-fatigue and DC, this seems like a good place.

I guess I will comment long enough to observe that Tom's basically saying that the kind of comics I still like from Marvel and DC are the kind that don't sell. That's always been the case though (starting with the very first series I ever collected, Alpha Flight). What's frightening is his question about "whether or not there's a system there to be salvaged long-term, and if so, if the major players are able to make the necessary investments to make that system as vital as it can be." I hope there is, but agree with Tom that the outlook doesn't look good from here.

Dumping DC

The title of this post isn't technically correct. I don't plan to boycott DC anymore than I've boycotted Marvel. But the Marvel Universe as a whole hasn't held my interest for a few years now and DC (as a collective line of comics) is about to follow it off my radar.

DC and Marvel get their bread and butter from enormous, line-wide events. They survive by telling their dedicated fans over and over again that "this is the story that you need to read; this changes everything; this is important." And for fans of those universes, they're not lying. I want to make it really clear that I'm not down on anyone who's a fan of those universes and still buys those events. I'm kind of down on you if you're doing it without getting any enjoyment out of it, but if you like big DC and Marvel events, that's excellent. Not that you need my permission to enjoy what you enjoy.

For me, I stopped enjoying them in 2008 (Final Crisis and Secret Invasion were the last scoops of dirt on the grave) and stopped buying them. The rest of this post is going to reflect that, so if you're a fan of that kind of storytelling and think you might be offended by my picking at it, please don't read any further. It's not my goal to make you angry; I just want to record some thoughts as I'm having them.

I grew up with Marvel and DC characters, but never had the money to read as much about them as I wanted. I'd get to a part in the comic where Spider-Man references some fight he had with Electro three issues back and there'd be that infuriating little editor's note: "See issue # whatever." As a kid, I dreamed of a time when I'd actually be able to go "see issue # whatever;" when I'd be able to afford as many comics as I wanted and finally get The Complete Story. For many years as an adult, I enthusiastically bought series after series and event after event - whether or not I was enjoying them on a story level - because I was finally getting The Complete Story. I was following every major thing that was happening in these two universes.

That's the lie though, right? There's no Complete Story. There may be Universe-Changing Events, but the very nature of corporate-owned comics means that they're making this up as they go along. There's no master plan. When I was a kid, I imagined that Marvel and DC had a guy whose sole job it was to make sure that continuity was adhered to and that everything fit together with everything else.

Once I realized that no one's on top of that stuff, the more Marvel and DC tried to maintain that deception, the more frustrated I got. It's like I'd discovered the man behind the curtain, but instead of coming clean about it, he kept pulling the curtain closed and insisting that the Wizard is real.

After 2008, I threw up my hands and quit. No Dark Reign for me; no Blackest Night. I didn't quit reading everything by Marvel and DC though; just the big events.  I still had a few titles that were mostly managing to stay out of all that. For Marvel, that was X-Men Legacy, but not much else. Alpha Flight when they rebooted that. Agents of Atlas of course. There'd be a tie-in or reference to whatever event was currently going on, but I didn't let those hook me. I just stuck with what I liked. I was done following the Marvel Universe.

It was the same with DC for three years until they came up with the New 52. Honestly though, it may have been even worse for DC. I can't tell you which - if any - DC comics I was buying from 2009 to 2011. What I loved about the New 52 wasn't that everything was fresh and sparkling again. (Actually, everything wasn't fresh and sparkling again, because they wanted to eat their cake and still have it by declaring a fresh start while also haphazardly incorporating popular stories from the past into the new continuity.) What I loved about the New 52 was the absence of crossovers and line-wide events. Since everyone was focused entirely on setting up their series, I could pick up any DC book and not have to follow it to another one. The whole DCU was an open playground and I could try out anything I wanted. So I tried a lot and got interested in way more DC series than I had been in years. For the past year, DC's been getting a lot more of my money than Marvel, but they're gearing up to kill that now.

We've already seen it starting in the Batman-related books with the "Night of the Owls" storyline. And there was an odd issue of Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE that tied-into a major crossover between Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Earth 2 #1 led directly into World's Finest #1, Frankenstein's joining Justice League Dark, and now there's word that another line-wide crossover is being planned for late next year. The DCU is becoming more interconnected.

It's no coincidence that this is starting to happen just as sales on DC comics are leveling out to where they were before the New 52. With the new car smell fading away, DC has to do something to generate excitement, so they're going back to familiar methods.

Unfortunately for me, the more DC ties its comics together, the less interested I am. To the extent that they still have books I'm interested in that don't require me to buy books I'm not, I'll keep buying their product. It's just that I'm no longer part of their faithful target audience. And I don't say that with any anger or even sadness, but with relief. That's that many worthwhile creator-owned series I can support instead.

Quotes of the Week: Sentient Hotdog Motorcycles

A while back I noted that televised news in the Marvel Universe must be like having professional wrestling on the air all the time, but, you know, at least that’s safely predictable. I think I’d be more comfortable watching Marvel News and seeing “Sub-Mariner and Dr. Doom have teamed up to fight the Fantastic Four,” which is something I could deal with, versus never knowing what new horror awaited me whenever I’d turn on DC News: “Top story tonight: Superman’s giant ant head…the world’s leaders react!” “The Dow dropped 300 points after today’s appearance of the Zebra Batman.”
--Mike Sterling, describing the respective strengths of Marvel and DC in as clear a way as I've ever seen.


I don't know that I could come up with anything new to say about [Superman] -- I'd probably shrink him and have him race Mr. Mxyztplk across the world on sentient hotdog motorcycles, or have him go on a reality show run by Lex Luthor wearing a blonde wig...
--Tom Spurgeon, trying to explain why he'd be no better a Superman writer than J Michael Straczynski, while simultaneously demonstrating that he's SO the man for the job.


Part of why Hamlet delays the murder of his uncle is that (and we've often spoken of his puritanism) murder is a sin. Though he was quick to swear revenge, the whole of the play has Hamlet working out how he can commit such an act (and abase himself to the level of Claudius - smiling and being a villain) in spite of his conscience. Even if we do not subscribe to Hamlet actually being mad, there is a dramatic insanity at work where a character cannot reconcile who he is and what he must do.
--Siskoid, explaining Hamlet in a way so that I can finally understand and accept the main character's inaction. Seriously, this is a big deal for me.

Quotes of the Week: In Which Wonder Woman Becomes a Professional Stripper

Photo by Mayka Mei.

Once a week, some combination of Dan DiDio, Rich Johnston and John Hodgman would try to expose the figurehead for what he is, always to be outfoxed by [DC Entertainment President Diane] Nelson and the [quirkily handsome] actor, who in turn develop a simmering sexual tension that erupts in season three in a special Angouleme episode.
--Tom Spurgeon, simultaneously describing what I wish would've happened when DC announced its new Publisher and creating a TV show that I would watch every week.

He doesn’t realize it would mostly result in stories where Wonder Woman becomes a professional stripper, beats the shit out of some ponies, then retires to bed in a shoebox with Ken lying perfectly still on top of her.
-- Shaenon Garrity, on why writing a Wonder Woman comic around a nine-year-old girl's playtime would be a bad idea.

His writing won a bunch of distinguished awards last year. By day, he works at Whole Foods cutting up pineapple samples. Somehow, this made INTERN feel terribly excited about the world, because she realized that geniuses are lurking everywhere, that there is indeed a kind of Secret Society of geniuses working at everyday jobs, and they are all too friendly and humble to mention that their work was recently featured in the New Yorker when you ask them in which aisle to find the quinoa, but if you look very carefully at their eyes you can sometimes tell...
--The mysterious INTERN, in a wonderful story about meeting one of her favorite, young authors.

And Now the News: DC Entertainment

Thanks to an unusually busy weekend, I'm a bit behind on the news from last week, but like the week before there's one story that really needs a post of its own before I can play catch-up on the rest. DC Comics is now DC Entertainment.

When I first filed that link for future reference, I wrote a note with it: "DC responds to Disney-Marvel." But as Spurgeon pointed out, that's not really the case at all, "because Time Warner doesn't work that way and nobody works that quickly." And besides, "these exact moves or their rough equivalent have been rumored for some time."

Kevin created a fantastic summary of "what we know so far" for Robot 6, so that's where you should go if you're interested. The short version seems to be that Paul Levitz' former job as President and Publisher of DC Comics is being divided into two positions. Diane Nelson (famous for shepherding the Harry Potter movies at Warner Brothers) will fill the Presidential role and assist in getting movies and TV shows made from DC's characters. A new Publisher will be announced later. Levitz will return to editing and writing.

As part of getting movie deals under control, Warner/DC has apparently pulled back on a couple of developing projects like the Wonder Woman movie that's been in the works for so long. It feels like a step backwards, but I'm hopeful that it's a temporary set-back that'll get everything in order so that work can move ahead quickly and soon. That's where most of my interest in this story is focused.