Crom The Barbarian!

It's a new year and all but before I jump full bore into 2024 let me hearken back to Conan the Barbarian, the subject of December's Dojo posts. It turns out that Conan was adapted to comics before Roy and Barry did it for Mavel in 1970...sort of. Many fans already know about Crom the Barbarian from sundry Avon Comics from the earliest 1950's. They are pretty well-crafted little gems. Let's take a look. 

The first Crom the Barbarian story appeared in Avon's Out of this World #1 from 1950.  The story also appears in the debut issue of a pulp titled Out of the World Adventures, offering up a gaggle of comic adventures in the midst of the all-prose misadventures. Written by Gardner F. Fox and drawn by John Giunta this is a detailed little saga that relates how the blonde Crom and his blonde sister Lalla of the tribe the Aesir are kidnapped by the savage minions of a aged wizard who essentially blackmails Crom with Lalla's life to go to the city of Ophir and there steal a liquid which will return his youth. Crom does so, encounters the Queen Tanit who keeps the potent potable who falls for him. He also fights various critters including an enormous snake. To read this debut saga go here. 

The series then shifts over to another Avon title called Strange Worlds. In the second story titled "The Spider God of Akka", Crom and Lalla and Queen Tanit are attempting to return to Ophir when they are waylaid by some monkeymen called Cymri. When a ransom is sought for Queen Tanit her regent refuses and Crom and the two women have to find their own way out, encountering a giant spider along the way. Eventually they do get back to Ophir where Tanit confronts her treasonous regent who is killed by Crom after a ferocious swordfight. Crom and Lalla are invited to stay, and he becomes de facto king alongside Tanit. To read the original go here. 

In the third and final original Crom adventure by Fox and Giunta called "The Giant from Beyond", Crom and Tanit (Lalla is missing) become aware of a giant who has formed an army of sorts and threatens the outskirts of the kingdom of Ophir. Crom leads a force to confront the giant named Balthar the Terrible and after an exceedingly tough battle does win the day. To read the original go here. 

The next adventure in this slender tome turns out not to be a Crom adventure at all. There is no explanation offered but we are given a Silver Age story from Skywald Comics which pretends to be a Crom story but is in fact from the third issue of Jungle Adventures starring a hero named Zangar. Zangar's red hair is changed to blonde and the names of "Zangar: are altered to read "Crom" throughout. They even alter the indicia at the bottom of the first page. We get a whole new gaggle of characters. I can find no evidence who wrote this but I suspect it might 've been Fox. The art is by Jack Katz and it's pretty good. 

The rest of this tome is taken up with new adventures of Crom and Lalla and seem to be tales which pre-date the original three. It's almost like when we got The Phantom Menace so many decades after the debut of Star Wars. The art is by Kurt Brugel and Gardner Fox's name is on it but I don't think he contributed. It's an amateur affair with some really unfortunate trimming on pages robbing me of pertinent dialogue.  I don't necessarily dislike the art which swipes pretty heavily from Jack Kirby's Thor work in a few spots, but it doesn't feel fully developed either. A fan work for sure. 

I cannot recommend this book, which is part of the Gardner Fox Library found here, but I did find it diverting. I think that Crom is indeed influenced by Robert E. Howard's Conan but also there's plenty here to say that Edgar Rice Burroughs' work is involved as well. It's rather like what Lin Carter did so well long ago. 

And by the way, here is another detailed look at Crom the Barbarian over at World of Monsters. (Great minds and all that John.)

Rip Off