THE 100 GREATEST CROSSOVERS OF ALL TIME #40

Though Robert E. Howard's Conan stories were revived for 1960s paperbacks, my first exposure to the battling Cimmerian was in Marvel's 1970 adaptation of the character to comic books, written by Roy Thomas and delinated by Barry Windsor-Smith.Within the first year, it seems that Marvel knew that it had a hit, for in issues #14 and #15 the barbarian played host to a renowned sword-and-sorcery hero created for the decade of the sixties: Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone. I've never read any behind-the-scenes stories regarding how Moorcock-- who owned his character outright-- came to allow Marvel to adapt Elric. It would seem plausible that both Moorcock and Marvel were "testing the waters" to see whether or not Elric would resonate with enough Marvel-readers to make more adaptations profitable for both parties. .
But Elric would not be adapted by Marvel until much later.

At the time of the two-parter's publication I was captivated by both heroes as presented by Thomas and Smith, and I didn't lose any time reading the prose adventures of both-- though I would always find Howard the writer much more appealing than Moorcock. The two-part story favors the mythic complexity of Moorcock's world, hurling a variety of sorcerous characters seen and unseen at the reader-- and at the barbarian, who says that his head spins "with names I have no faces for." But the strength of Conan's character still holds its own, even when he only has two support-characters with him: Zukala, a wizard whose name was plundered from a REH poem, and his daughter Zephra, created entirely for the comic.

There's nothing special about the "two heroes meet, then become allies" plot, but Thomas' script is chock full of good characterization moments, and Smith's pre-Raphaeleite visuals are consistently excellent.  It's sad to recall how far Marvel's Conan titles fell with respect to this initial high point.

THE 100 GREATEST CROSSOVERS OF ALL TIME #7

American pulp magazines, more than any other single pop-media source, set the template for the production of American comic books. Even the comics' general disinterest in the later fan-fetish known as "continuity" may have been influenced by the pulps' disinterest in the idea of keeping their fictional histories straight.

However, certain authors in the pulp magazines were strongly self-referential, particularly the famed Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, who built complex-- if erratic-- continuities out of diverse stories, and who, during their lengthy correspondences with one another, frequently borrowed elements from one another's universes. In this post I'll concentrate only on Robert E. Howard.

Over and above Howard's repeated use of similar character-types and themes-- a common facet of all professional authors-- he possesses a broad conception of real-world history that centered upon the persona of the "noble barbarian." Howard featured many such heroes in both modern and archaic periods, but all were united by this barbarian aesthetic.

The most substantial Howard crossover, IMO, is the short story "Kings of the Night," first published by WEIRD TALES in 1930.  The illo above bills it as a story about his character King Kull, who existed in a prehistoric fantasy-realm that included Atlantis and similar kingdoms. In truth it's far more of a story about Howard's character Bran Mak Morn, a chieftain of the Caledonian Picts in the very historical era of Rome's British invasion.  The story can be summed up briefly thus: Bran, hemmed in on all sides by Roman forces, needs the help of a contingent of Viking warriors. The Vikings will not help Bran unless he provides them with a king of their own race, as opposed to a "Mediterranean-looking" king like Bran himself. With the help of a Pictish sorcerer, Bran summons the living form of King Kull to his own time. The Vikings are impressed with Kull's regal bearing and join Kull and the Picts in beating back the Romans-- at least, for a while.

As a story this is only good but not great Howard: the main attraction is that of seeing two Howard heroes sharing the same story, in addition to the author's trademark barbaric pessimism and his view of the living world as an "insubstantial pageant faded."

Slightly later, a story entitled "The Dark Man," published by WEIRD TALES in 1931, gave the Pictish chieftain the pleasure of being resurrected at a later date. Centuries after Bran's death, a Gaelic hero named Turlogh-- whom Howard also featured in a half dozen stories-- accidentally resurrects Bran by calling upon the power of a Pictish idol. This too is good Howard, but not as memorable overall as the "teamup" of the king of ancient Valusia and the chief of the embattled Pictish nation.

 

REVIEW: THE DRUID STONE (1967)

I first read THE DRUID STONE twenty or thirty years ago, and recalled it only as a rousing sword-and-sorcery throwaway.  Though the name on the cover is "Simon Majors" (as in the legendary occult seer "Simon Magus,") experts agree that the actual author was Gardner F. Fox, better known in this century for his comic book works (JUSTICE LEAGUE in particular) than for his novels.

Even in my younger days I recognized that Fox's novels were almost without exception simple and derivative, though in general they made for a good quick read.  THE DRUID STONE, though, isn't even good trash.  On the spine it reads "occult," and the first third of the book concerns a psychic experiment by three occult experts.  But it quickly veers into into sword-and-sorcery territory, as one of the three finds himself-- viewpoint character Brian Creoghan-- in a sorcerous world, "Dis" by name, and that he inhabits the body of a mighty-thewed warrior, given the unfortunate name of "Kalgorrn."  Both Brian and his alter ego are boring and their mutual struggle to save the world of Dis lacks the visual flourishes Fox often brought to his prose fiction.

For historians of paperback fiction DRUID STONE's only significance is that it was among the earliest original paperbacks that tried to capitalize on the Lancer Books reprints of Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Barbarian" stories; reprints which were key to the revival of Howard's reputation and Conan's rise to iconic prominence.  Since "sword and sorcery" had not yet become established, DRUID STONE was marketed as an "occult thriller."  The early part of the novel presents something of a Cook's Tour of exotic locales, as Brian reminisces on his encounters with Mau Maus, Tuaregs, "ju ju priests of Kunasi," and "Dyaks of Borneo."  But most of this is just trivia, with one exception. At one point Brian remembers having a piece of art made for him "in Hong Kong by a one-eyed brute with the fingers of a Praxiteles."  While Fox was a great originator of comic-book myths-- his Golden Age "Hawkman" for instance-- in his prose fiction this seems to be the main outlet he found for his considerable myth-knowledge: recapitulating rich myth-motifs-- like that of Zeus's artisans, the one-eyed Cyclopes-- into offhand touches.