This One Is A Kull!

Dark Horse has done a pretty dang good job collecting up Marvel's REH material. The run of Conan trades has been pretty awesome and now that the series is into issues I didn't get off the stands, I have beautiful "new" John Buscema artwork to look forward to a few times a year.

One of the runs I yearned for them to get to was the King Kull material. The first volume featured great comics by Marie and John Severin, even if the reproduction was a bit muddy in places. The second volume caps off that classic run and gives us the lush revision by Mike Ploog. It's a shame Ploog couldn't do more of these, as issue eleven of the newly dubbed "Kull the Destroyer" is as good as S&S comics get. But with the very next issue, the inking by Sal Buscema while perfectly fine lacked the luster of the earlier installment and things go downhill from there.

Ploog and Steve Englehart left the book after a handful of issues and are replaced by Doug Moench, Ed Hannigan and the great Alfredo Alcala. But while all of those talents are great in other times and places, the final result here looks rushed and muddled. It doesn't help that there is a two-year break in the run between issues fifteen and sixteen. Kull had some B&W adventures in between there and they are key to understanding the subsequent stuff. It's not included though there are some obligatory explanations.

Marvel apparently thought that the failure of Kull was due to his being a King, as they cast him down off the throne and make him a wannabe again. This served to make him more like Conan, but it sadly also took away much that made him distinctive. In the later issues of this run, it might as well be Conan in the mix as the distinctive personality of Kull, reflective and less reflexively violent is gone.

It's a shame, but I'm still glad this material is finding a new audience. I just hope that audience is a forgiving one.












Rip Off