Warlord #12 - A brief review.

. . .take it away Darth. . .



Stac

After the Oceans Drank Atlantis: The Warlord Volume One Review.

DC Showcase Presents The Warlord Volume One

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell

Published by DC Comics

Let's talk about the joy of faith rewarded for a moment.

Longtime readers of TCD may recall that my initial review of the recent relaunch of Mike Grell's sword and sorcery hero The Warlord met with a relatively lukewarm review. I didn't hate the book, but it had yet to wow me with the same intensity as I'd remembered from reading my cousin's comics so long ago in Ostrea Lake, Nova Scotia in the early '80s. Hearing that DC was going to be collecting Grell's run on the title into their affordable black and white Showcase volumes gave me some cause to hope, and I awaited it's release with eager anticipation. I plunked down my 23 bucks plus tax and took it home to my To Read pile atop my computer desk. And there it waited. . .

. . .and waited. . .

. . .and waited some more.

I was afraid. Afraid that--as with so many things in our lives--that time and experience would dull my enthusiasm for something that I'd loved so much as a kid. I put off reading it for as long as possible until my pile thinned out enough so that the iconic cover above was staring up at me every morning as I rose to check my e-mail. With no other option open to me, I warily picked up the tome and began to read, hoping against hope that the book would be as epic as I remembered. It wasn't the first time I've been wrong, and it won't be the last.

This book wasn't as epic as I remembered. It was even better.

It's more metal than an Iced Earth/DragonForce double-bill, and that my friends is pretty damned metal.

The premise is elegant in it's simplicity: in 1969 at the height of the Cold War, Lt. Colonel Travis Morgan of the United States Air Force is tapped to fly a reconnaissance mission in that hazy airspace between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. along the North Pole. He's spotted by those rascally Ruskies and his plane is damaged, sending him spiralling out of control. He manages to ditch at the last minute, his navigational instruments having gone haywire, and parachutes into a strange new world. A world of eternal sunlight, a world of ancient technologies that might as well be magic, and primitive beasts from epochs long past. I think the alternating tag lines of the series puts it best:

'From the sky he came, to a world of eternal sunlight and eternal savagery--Travis Morgan, a man with a lust for adventure and passion for freedom! As his fame spreads, so grows the legend of--THE WARLORD.'

And

'In the savage world of Skartaris, life is a constant struggle for survival. Here, beneath an unblinking orb of eternal sunlight, one simple law prevails: if you let your guard down for an instant, you will soon be very dead.'

If you ever wondered what a grindhouse sword and sorcery film would look like, look no further than Mike Grell's The Warlord. The storytelling engine is so simple and so elegant that the work and care that's gone into it might almost be lost. Grell's Skartaris is a world unto itself, a land where time stands still (quite literally, as Morgan finds himself back in his own world at one point to discover the year is now 1977. What have been days and weeks for him have been years for the rest of the Earth) and a variety of perils can be thrown at strong-thewed heroes with a lust for life and adventure. Grell's creation is the heir of heroes like John Carter and Eric John Stark, men from our world who've literally fallen down the rabbit hole into a world where their prowess in combat can be more asset than the liability it might prove in more 'civilized' surroundings. Here, life and death is decided by how quick you are with a sword, and sudden danger lurks around that next corner or over that jungle mesa.

Morgan is our protagonist, but he has a pretty solid supporting cast too. Tara, warrior-princess of Shamballah and the love of his life, Machiste the gladiator turned lieutenant in Morgan's crusade to overthrow the tyranny of his arch-nemesis Deimos(whom will get to momentarily), and Professor Mariah Romonova of Moscow University, an archaeologist and fencing champion who takes Morgan up on the chance to see history's savage past life in the flesh. . .which she tends to bare in an outfit that makes Red Sonja look like an extra in a Jane Austen novel. Grell has a talent for distributing equal measures of beef-and-cheesecake, as most everyone who fights to survive in the savage world of Skartaris does in fact tend to look like they stepped off the cover of Men's Fitness and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Running from marauding dinosaurs, fighting blade to blade against bandits, and wrestling eldritch-spawned horrors amidst ancient ruins from the ancient past probably provides for good cardio and chiseled physiques. Maybe Grell could share the secrets of the Warlord's fitness regimen in the current series.

A good hero is nothing without a good villain, and with The Warlord as our stalwart protagonist Grell meets that challenge with the scheming mastermind Deimos. Replete with his ebony hair, pointed goatee, and wizard robes with flared collar, he is the quintessential evil sorcerer. Of course, as we learn over the series he isn't using actual magic so much as the ancient technologies of the first peoples of Skartaris, the survivors of Atlantis. With their super-science Deimos does his ample best to set himself up as the lord and master of all he surveys. It's just too bad Travis Morgan is always on-hand to topple his every scheme, even killing our villain fairly early in the series. Of course, you can never keep a good baddie down long, and Deimos proves to be just as unkillable as the Joker, and even more ruthless given his plots and schemes as the story progresses.

Mike Grell's artwork is a joy to behold; he clearly has a blast depicting Morgan cutting loose with sword and .44 pistol against dinosaurs, dragons, and assorted dastards. Unlike some other Showcase editions the artwork here is actually helped by black and white format, giving the reader an appreciation for the detail and frenetic energy Grell bring to his battle sequences. Grell's prose is lean and services the story in carrying things through from the jolting start of each issue to it's conclusion, usually tying things up with our heroes in triumph(though on occasion he delves into an epilogue that foreshadows storm clouds to come). These books are products of the late 1970s, where newsstand distribution was still king and each story had to work hard to provide a complete reading experience in and off itself. Threads are picked up over the course of the 29 issues contained herein, but this book is tight, lean, mean and refreshingly free of the decompression of more contemporary fare.

This book was everything I hoped it could be and more. If you want an enjoyably escapist read that's self-contained and doesn't require a degree in comics continuity I'd encourage you to seek out Showcase Presents The Warlord Volume One. It's a comic that takes the sword and sorcery genre in all it's ale-swigging, sword-slinging, vine-swinging glory and runs with it. A delight from start to finish, I recommend it as highly as I can.

Stac

Why this is gonna be a good week in one image:

THE WARLORD #4
Written by Mike Grell; Art by Joe Prado and Walden Wong; Cover by Mike Grell
Revolution in Shamballah! The Warlord has been captured, and his allies must convince the downtrodden populace of the Shadow Lands to rise up against the terrible and enigmatic master who holds them all prisoner. But our heroes just might be martyred by the Minosaur first!
DC Universe 32pg. Color $2.99 US
On Sale July 8, 2009

Studies show that Minosaurs increase the Awesome Quotient (AQ) of any week by at leasy 82%. Studies. With science.

I cannot wait to read this thing. Expect a follow-up review to The Warlord soon, but in brief I have to say that after a shaky first issue things have picked up quite nicely.

Stac

The Warlord #1 Review.

DC Comics

Writer: Mike Grell

Penciller: Joe Prado

Cover: Mike Grell.

The Warlord is a character that has been a part of my life for a number of years, though I confess I have yet to read his original 1970s-80s series in its entirety. Most of my familiarity comes from reading old copies of his comics at my cousin's house waaaaay back in the early '80s, but that helmet, the sword and sandals trappings, the conceit of a gun in a fantasy setting. . .it stuck with me for a long, long time. Now that I actually have a chance to sit down and think about it, The Warlord was probably my earliest introduction to Sword and Sorcery fiction, to say nothing of the Underground World/Other Planet stories of writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs. Needless to say, it had an impact, and when word reached me that Mike Grell would be penning another series set in the hidden world of Skartaris, it was a certainty that it'd be on my pull list for last week. So great was my anticipation for this volume that I didn't engage in one of my oldest and most sly of comicbook store tricks; that of leafing through the issue in a quick speed-read to see if it was worthy of an actual purpose or a simple return to the shelf from whence it came. No, going in blind and on faith that this book would rock harder than an Iced Earth/Dragonforce double-bill, I set the book confidently down on the counter and whipped out my debit card.

This, I thought, is going to rule.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of my review, a bit of backstory might be in order. The premise of the series is that in 1969 U.S. Air Force pilot Travis Morgan passes through a hole in the Earth's crust at the North Pole and enters into an otherdimensional realm called Skartaris, a bronze-early middle ages world inhabited by wizards, warriors, dinosaurs and other fantastic creatures. Armed with only his pluck, a sword, and his .44 AutoMag pistol, Morgan battles foes such as the evil sorceror Deimos and a variety of tyrannical kings in a series of swashbuckling adventures. Along the way he meets stalwart allies such as the former gladiator Machiste and the seductive cat-woman Shakira (no, not the singer), and eventually finds his queen in the form of the warrior woman Tara. The series ran from 1976 to 1989, with 133 issues and six annuals. Take into account that this was a book that had a marginal at best connection with the DC Universe proper and featured no capes or tights and you can begin to see what a diamond in the rough this series was. You can understand my feeling of utter glee as I sat back in my easy chair, soda in easy reach as I opened the covers of the new volume, the legend 'ENTER THE SAVAGE WORLD OF THE WARLORD' emblazoned on the front. Invitation gladly accepted, I sat back and devoured the book in a single sitting. The verdict?

It was. . .good.

That's about all I can say. It was okay. Now, don't get me wrong, I see a lot of potential here and I can understand that Grell is doing his best to be accomodating to new readers and longtime fans alike. . .but it was adequate when I was expecting awesome.

The issue opens in the present day with a group of mountaineers in Tibet discovering the preserved remains of a dinosaur frozen in the ice. They bring it to a professor of paleontology who immediately contacts an old friend and daredevil adventurer, who brings his photographer pal along. They go to Tibet, get into a dust-up with the Chinese armed forces, and then pass through a portal (that looks suspiciously like a triangular Stargate) and presumably into Skartaris. We don't see the resolution of their arc, as it immediately cuts to Travis Morgan(who hasn't really aged a day since '69, time working differently in Skartaris) and we get a scene with him and Shakira in bed as he remembers his origin(Shakira's in cat form so there's no hanky panky). Travis' reflections are suddenly interuptted by a giant bird thing that's been driven from it's normal habitat in the north. They slay it handily, then find themselves dealing with yet another wave of refugees from the lands of the Shadow Kingdom(Skartaris is a realm where the 'sun' has a fixed position in the heavens, thus its always day. The aptly named Shadow Kingdom is where the sun doesn't shine. Literally). Travis looks over a wounded boy and gets a shock; a wound in the son's chest and a hole in his breastplate that looks amazingly like their source was a bullet. Dun dun dun!

Okay, so I get it. We need to introduce new readers to the book, so we focus on the assembly of this band of characters that we'll deal with later. My problem arises with the matter of pacing. The Interpid Band get a whopping 16 pages to set up their scenario, whilst Travis and Skartaris get a mere 8. This out of an issue that contains ads and a 7-page Power Girl preview for her upcoming series. So out of a 32-page comic, only 8 pages are actually devoted to the title character. 8 out of 32. 8 out of 24 for the actual story. That's a mere 33% of my expected quotient of sword and sorcery awesomness! What the hell Grell?! I signed up for The Lost World of the Warlord, not The Cast of LOST in the Land of the Lost Featuring the Warlord. I wanted the book to live up to the awesome mission statement of your cover and it only just barely managed it.

The writing gets us where we need to go at a steady clip, and it's clear Grell's enthusiasm for the character and his world hasn't diminished over the years. Joe Prado's art has a nice hint of Grell's original style while still being it's own animal, so I'm eager to see where they're going to go with this. I just wish the first issue had been a bit stronger. But perhaps its just a case of my anticipaton trumping my objectivity.

I'm in for the first four issues at least, but with misgivings. Thusly I must grant this book a rating of three and a half out of five, with a point-five boost for the nostalgia trip. C'mon Mike Grell, I know you can knock this one out of the park. I want this book to succeed.

Rating: 3.5/5

Until next time,

Stac

Visit scenic Skataris!

To balance my feelings of disgruntlement, I'm going to share something that makes me ever so happy:

DC is bringing back Mike Grell's kick-ass series The Warlord in April. Back in the day, this centre of the Earth sword and sorcery epic was one of the company's top sellers. I remember reading my cousin's back issues and finding Travis Morgan to be the most badass character in comics who wasn't a superhero. Apparently there are plans to give the previous run a slick trade paperback treatment, though to be honest I'd take a black and white Showcase-style phonebook of the classic series without a smidge of protest.


I mean seriously, look at this:
And this:




If babes, brawn, and awesome winged helmets aren't your bag you could always try something else. Crochet maybe. For me though, this is epic.


Epic metal.

Stac

Ps. Comic Book Resources has a great interview with Grell (from which I. . .uh. .. appropriated these awesome covers) to be found here. Check it out, it's quite good.