In my post yesterday about Lin Carter and his involvement with the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, I mentioned that eight Marvel comics featured Carter's Conan knock-off Thongor of Lemuria. The first of these appeared in March 1973 and, along with another published in May of the same year, partially adapted the story "Thieves of Zangabal." Purely from a historical perspective, these issues are worthy of mention because George Alec Effinger wrote the scripts for them.
Even more intriguing than these eight comics is the unrealized Thongor movie(s) that could have happened during the 1970s. This page contains a great of information on the subject about which I knew nothing until now. Chief among the remarkable details revealed there is that none other than David Prowse, Darth Vader himself, would have played Thongor – a fascinating alternate universe indeed!
while you are perusing 900 year old sword and sorcery comics, COTL #1 had a Kull story in it. Conan exploded, but marvel did not know what to do with him, so he bounced around. most appearances for a while were by Marie Severin (art) but Monsters on the Prowl #16 was by John Severin, her more famous brother from EC. I have it, along with his regular series (three of them) and Severin's (both) art are fantastic.
ReplyDeleteRick
I am nothing if not oblivious.
Deletedangit, typo alert. COTL #10, not #1. there is no #1
DeleteIt's the first issue of CotL, so I knew what you meant.
Deletethese old marvel S&S comics are getting hard to find. Old Savage tales, and savage sword as well. used to be piles of them at comic cons, etc but now, if they are there at all, the prices have quintupled.
ReplyDeleteHey, I remember Thongor. Awful lot of pulp fantasy Conan imitators back in the comics of the mid-70s. Think my favorites were Mike Grell's Warlord (which lasted forever and was noteworthy for having pages 2-3 of each issue as a single big splash panel) and the much shorter-lived Claw the Unconquered from DC. Slightly more interesting character concept than most, and I recall the art being quite good in some issues as well.
ReplyDeleteI wrote posts about both Warlord and Claw the Unconquered a few months ago, actually.
DeleteMy favorite Conan comic-clone is DC's Arak, a Native American warrior who adventured in the myths and legends of medieval Europe and beyond.
ReplyDeleteArak was created by Roy Thomas, who also launched the Conan series at Marvel.
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