Turok Son of Stone Volume Nine from Dark Horse reprinting those fascinating Gold Key comics from the 1960's is perhaps the strangest collection of Turok stories yet. The concept of two Amerindians lost in a vast Lost Valley filled with cavemen primitives and dinosaurs is one that has proven to have legs, but Paul S. Newman seems to be straining at this point, a little over a decade after the debut of the comic, to find fresh ways to present this fundamentally strong dilemma without simple repetition. The key is to make the threats to Turok and Andar increasingly offbeat and at times downright weird. The previous volume saw Monkey Men, Spider Men, and an especially enormous "Honker" lost in time. The weirdness only picks up from there and delivers what I think is the strangest Turok tale that Gold Key ever told.
The fifty-first issue begins with "Captives of the Beaver Men" in which we see artist Rex Maxon step in to fill in for the regular art team of Giovanni Ticci and Alberto Giolitti. Turok and Andar try to cross a river only to be snatched by the Beaver Men who live in strange homes in the river. The two try many things to escape but are only able to do so when in the second part titled "The Red Scourge" Turok and Andar find a way to stem a deadly tide of ravenous fish. The text piece discusses "Stone-Age Music" and the "Young Earth" feature tells the tell of early flightless birds and how eventually they came to lift off into the sky.
The regular team of Newman, Ticci, and Giolitti are back in the next issue which sees our two heroes trying a desperate gambit by climbing a sheer cliff to enter the nests of deadly flying honkers that shred the flesh from the bones of any creature they chance upon. They hope to find a cave through to the world they left behind so long ago. They are lucky to escape with their lives in a two-part tale titled "The Savage Shadow". The text item is about "The Mystery Men of Hudson Bay" a tribe of strange primitives. The "Young Earth" relates the discovery of the ancient ancestors on the island of Java and how those prehistoric folks might have lived.
The search for water is paramount in the story "Drought". Turok and Andar cannot find water and fear the worst when suddenly they are waylaid by desperate primitives who think they can find water when no one else can. Even the Honkers are desperate for drink, making them even more deadly. Two one- page stories tell of "A Living Link" about the Coelocanth, and "Australopithecinae" about an early variation of man. The text tale is about "Prehistoric Ancestors" who turn out to be possible Japanese sailors who might've been the first to discover South America. The comic closes with "The Secret of the Black Water" in which Turok and Andar have to face a weird tribe who smear themselves with an odd oily water and live among pools of oil. They do not yet know its flammable nature.
The fifty-fourth issue of Turok Son of Stone is a reprint of issue twenty-five from 1961. It features one of George Wilson's most dramatic cover scenes. You can find my review here.
In issue fifty-five Turok and Andar confront many bizarre "Monsters of Legend". In the first part titled "Into the Cavern of Danger" they follow a possibly deranged caveman into a deep cave inhabited by many strange threats, but which might lead to a way out of Lost Valley. While they do find danger they also find the caveman has exaggerated the monsters. In the second half of th story titled "Journey Without End" they have to fight their way out of a the dangerous cavern which seems filled with different kinds of Honkers. There is a one-pager on the dinosaur the "Hesperonis" and a text piece titled "The Stone Age Museum" about a particularly rich discovery. The "Young Earth" piece is "The River Crossing" and shows how primitive man might have learned to ford great rivers to find good hunting.
"The Monster Master" begins with Turok and Andar low on poison arrows when they encounter seemingly tame Honkers commanded by a caveman who uses a strangle flute to keep control. How he is able to do this is never explained but eventually the duo escape his clutches through trickery. "Prehistoric Apartment Dwellers" is a text item about a bizarre discovery of an area in which many ancient people lived together in relative harmony for many ages. "Young Earth" is about how early man learned to hunt the mighty Mammoth in "The Easy Prey".
Issue fifty-seven is a reprint of issue seventeen from 1959 when the title was a Dell production. You can read my review of that issue here.
The fifty-eighth issue of Turok Son of Stone might well be the most bizarre single yarn in the comic book's long history. Turok and Andar encounter aliens. "Things from the Sky: Strange Visitors" finds Turok and Andar asleep when their camp is attacked by a deadly Honker, a Honker who quickly ends up as a pile of ash due to a strange beam from the sky. Later they encounter primitives who talk of sky people and then they see it, a flying saucer. It lands and they meet some incredibly friendly aliens who are returning to Earth after a long absence to check up on its progress. There are two one-pagers about the "Iquanadon" and the "Heidelberg Man", a text item about some bizarre balls found by archeologists titled "The Secret of the Spheres" and a "Young Earth" story about a small but highly successful dinosaur called Coeleopterous. "Things from the Sky: The Incredible Sight" has the friendly aliens see their spaceship damaged but still workable enough to fly Andar out of Lost Valley where he sees his people. But they go back for Turok and things go very badly for our heroes and for the friendly aliens.
Issue fifty-nine has Turok and Andar snagged by a particularly deadly predator which seems equal parts dinosaur and spider in "The Web of Danger". The text piece is "The Kanapol Hominid" about one of our early ancestors and the "Young Earth" story "The Loner" describes what life might have been like for a Neanderthal who breaks away from his tribe. "The Monster's Lair" sees Turok and Andar battling glowing water Honker when they try to find out why modern fish turn up in a stream. Sadly as we already know the trail is a frustrating one. As 1967 nears its end our two Indian heroes are still trapped in a world they never made. More next time when we take a gander at the tenth and final Dark Horse collection.
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I rarely this comic on sake in my area and sadly never bought an issue of Gold Keys Turok, but from your recent blogs I think its one I would have enjoyed. Those covers are sublime. I do remember seeing the revamped Turok back in the early 1990s by Valiant but despite having some nice art it never really appealed to me
ReplyDeleteIn my back issue collecting days I wish now I'd been a more devoted Turok collector and had put together a full set. I have all of the Valiant stuff since I adored the character and for a time adored Valiant, but the premise was never as strong as the original.
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