Kull The King!

I've always liked Kull. Robert E. Howard's other sword and sorcery hero, the prototype to the much more financially successful Conan is at once the same and different from his more famous glowering brother-creation. He is a King, and with that comes age and maturity and a greater comfort with the supernatural than Conan ever displayed. Conan as King of Aquilonia is familiar with dark magic but it still makes him bristle, while Kull battling black magic always was opposed but never quite dismayed by it. Kull was a bit more learned perhaps than Conan, at least I always imagined it so. Kull's Atlantis was less barbaric by a small bit than Conan's Cimmeria maybe.



When Conan became something of a hit for Mighty Marvel they of course looked for more of the same. The published comics featuring Gullivar of Mars, Thongor of Lemuria, and even a few Brak the Barbarian stories. But far and away the most successful second banana to Conan was Kull who helmed his own series for several years, though it was a tough slog.


Kull debuted in Creatures on the Loose #10 in a short story adaptation featuring some luscious artwork by Berni Wrightson. Off that he got his own title with scripts by Roy Thomas and art by Ross Andru and Wally Wood. But that team didn't last as Thomas stayed a bit but the art was taken on by the brother-sister act of Marie and John Severin. Marie offered up some muscular pencils in the brawny Marvel style while John inked them in a way that evoked more classic comics like the work of Hal Foster and others. The synthesis of these two was remarkable and made for good comics. Gerry Conway took over for Roy after a short time (as he did on almost all the comics at some point) and Kull rumbled along with a hiatus here and there. The sale weren't great so a reboot was done bringing in Mike Ploog, but eventually even this lost momentum and Kull became a sidebar in the B&W line.


Dark Horse is now putting out those vintage Marvel comics and I've long wanted a good trade version of the great Serverin issues to sit alongside my Conans. And this one does that, though I have to say the artwork was not as clean as I'd have hoped. Maybe it's the original materials but the work seems a bit muddy to me compared to the other volumes Dark Horse has reproduced. The stories are still great though, and they offered up many fine moments of pleasure and dallied with the trade for a few days.

Good read, and recommended.

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