10. Supernatural Thrillers 3, April, 1973
"The Valley of the Worm"




My guess is that this won’t be the only mention of this particular Robert E. Howard story, and certainly won’t be the only mention of Howard. It popped up in Supernatural Thrillers, another of those anthologies that got off to a good start but couldn’t sustain the quality of its first few entries.

And this entry was one of its best, a rousing pedal-to-the-metal REH epic, which meant most of his tried and true tropes in ample supply: legendary warrior paired with a dark-skinned noble savage; duels with all kinds of beasts; the notion that “primitive” man was not as primitive as the civilized kind might have thought; the superiority of Cro-Magnons (Aryans) to Neanderthals (All other races); the warrior’s code derived straight form the Vikings; shattered bone, split skulls and the heady brew of berserker-style battles; and women as arm-candy.

And yet…

There is a thin patina of sophistication in that the protagonist, one James Allison, is near death at the story’s start and is fever-dreaming about his exploits in a previous life as Niord, the hero of his people who must go one-on-one with the foul Worm’s-Bane of the title if his race is to survive.

Howard is channeling Jung and his theory of archetypes, and foreshadowing Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, as this magnificent two-page spread informs us: 



Nothing subtle here, just a rip-snorting adventure from the dawn of history in which Niord, aka Allison, enacts the archetypical struggle between the great hero and the dragon.

The real treat here is the absolutely drop-dead art by Gil Kane, who was not just yet drawing in the minimalist style that marked so much of his late work. The backgrounds are jam-packed with detail, the characters are uniquely designed and costumed, and the layouts are stunning.

Much of the reason the art sings, though – and I frikkin' can’t believe I’m going to say this, Slam_Bradley – is Ernie Chua's excellent inking. Damned if he doesn’t seem to have become Ralph Reese for a day, and embellished Kane so deftly that he doesn’t obscure the details and still gives Kane’s lines a rough, primitive look.

I can remember reading this and being knocked out, even though I was beginning to worry that sword and sorcery was getting so popular that there was too much of it starting to appear and that the quality and uniqueness of the different titles was going to be impossible to maintain. That would eventually happen, but not on this one.

As good an adaptation of Howard as you were-- or are -- going to see in a tidy 21-pager that presented him as the atavistic, unsentimental, fatalistic man born after his time that he was.

10. Doc Savage: Man of Bronze #1 - 4 (Millennium, 1991)



When this year's topic was announced, I found myself wondering if a Doc Savage tale would make my list. I am a huge fan of the Man of the Bronze, but he has never been particularly well-served by his comic book incarnations. Which is odd given that he was a huge influence on the development of both Superman and Batman.

But, for some reason, his comic appearances have generally been lackking: from the underwhelming (Marvel's colour series) to the adequate (Marvels b&w magazine) to the misguided (DC's 1980s book) to the regrettable (DC's First Line book). And I found myself wondering why this is. The conclusion that I came to is that the comic books insist on putting Doc front and centre of the action. This is understandable. He is the central character after all, and the most visually interesting. But, in the novels, Doc tends be 'off-screen' for much of the action, with events seen through the eyes of Doc's aides, who are just as much in the dark as to Doc's plan as the reader. This strips Doc of much of his mystique. And the adaptations insist on shoe-horning all five of Doc's aides (and often Pat) into every story. Very few of the novels actually featured the entire cast, and this results in the comics feeling crowded, and not much room for character development among the Fabulous Five.

So, after this 'insight', I found myself wondering if any of the adaptations did warrant a place on my list. To my surprise, I can up with two possibilities. After weighing things up, several intangibles, I decided on the Millennium series; partly because I feel it is the more obscure. In particular their first miniseries Doc Savage: Man of Bronze (which, despite sharing a title with the first Doc Savage novel, is not a retelling of it).

This is a solid little tale. The writer understood the beats of a Doc Savage novel, and managed to hit them perfectly. And included some jokes for the fans, such as talking about getting the jetpack from a kid in California (a Rocketeer reference). And he did not feel the need to rewrite Doc to update him, or make him 'relevant'. What we ended up with is a solid Doc tale that would not be out of place in the novels (and would be better than some of them).

The later minis are decent, but always felt a bit rushed, and the artwork deteriorated as the run went on, before finally sinking along with the rest of Millennium. But it is good to know that there is at least one example of Doc savage done right in comics.

10. Doc Savage: Man of Bronze #1 - 4 (Millennium, 1991)



When this year's topic was announced, I found myself wondering if a Doc Savage tale would make my list. I am a huge fan of the Man of the Bronze, but he has never been particularly well-served by his comic book incarnations. Which is odd given that he was a huge influence on the development of both Superman and Batman.

But, for some reason, his comic appearances have generally been lackking: from the underwhelming (Marvel's colour series) to the adequate (Marvels b&w magazine) to the misguided (DC's 1980s book) to the regrettable (DC's First Line book). And I found myself wondering why this is. The conclusion that I came to is that the comic books insist on putting Doc front and centre of the action. This is understandable. He is the central character after all, and the most visually interesting. But, in the novels, Doc tends be 'off-screen' for much of the action, with events seen through the eyes of Doc's aides, who are just as much in the dark as to Doc's plan as the reader. This strips Doc of much of his mystique. And the adaptations insist on shoe-horning all five of Doc's aides (and often Pat) into every story. Very few of the novels actually featured the entire cast, and this results in the comics feeling crowded, and not much room for character development among the Fabulous Five.

So, after this 'insight', I found myself wondering if any of the adaptations did warrant a place on my list. To my surprise, I can up with two possibilities. After weighing things up, several intangibles, I decided on the Millennium series; partly because I feel it is the more obscure. In particular their first miniseries Doc Savage: Man of Bronze (which, despite sharing a title with the first Doc Savage novel, is not a retelling of it).

This is a solid little tale. The writer understood the beats of a Doc Savage novel, and managed to hit them perfectly. And included some jokes for the fans, such as talking about getting the jetpack from a kid in California (a Rocketeer reference). And he did not feel the need to rewrite Doc to update him, or make him 'relevant'. What we ended up with is a solid Doc tale that would not be out of place in the novels (and would be better than some of them).

The later minis are decent, but always felt a bit rushed, and the artwork deteriorated as the run went on, before finally sinking along with the rest of Millennium. But it is good to know that there is at least one example of Doc savage done right in comics.