Marvel's attempt to extract some supernatural horror from the Arthurian saga was somewhat less successful than Jack Kirby's The Demon for DC. Modred the Mystic debuted in the first issue of Marvel Chillers, one of the many short-lived titles Marvel launched onto the stands in the Bronze Age. Marvel Chillers is most famous for the debut of Tigra's series which kicked off in the third installment, but the first two issues featured a time-lost magician who seemed to have some trouble figuring out his motivation.
Modred was an apprentice magician who gets orders to attend Merlin in Camelot. (It was that bogus Merline who went on to become the Maha Yogi.) But since this means he'll have to forever renounce the girl he loves, he defies King Arthur's order and instead seeks out the Darkhold, a dangerous tower filled with deadly magic. The Darkhold seizes control of him, and he spends centuries in a trance until he is released by two 20th Century archaeologists. The trio head to London where Modred seems somewhat delusional and attacks the local police who seeks to corral him. It seems he is under the influence the dark powers of the Darkhold and despite his efforts to defeat them, by the end of the second issue his destiny seems really unsettled.
Created by Marv Wolfman and scripted by Bill Mantlo, this series lacks the punch of most Marvel efforts of the time. The first issue was drawn by Yong Montano and the second by Sonny Trinidad, both highly skilled professionals in Marvel's Filipino Bullpen. But both issues have that unfinished look which afflicted so many of Marvel's efforts in the Bronze Age as the professionalism in the New York offices was suspect as editorial control shifted from hand to hand.
The story gets picked up a few years later, as did so many, in an issue of Marvel Two-In-One but this too is an exceedingly weak outing. Part of a four-issue tour of England, this story co-stars the newly minted Spider-Woman who by the story's end has formed a partnership with Modred.
That seemed largely forgotten by the time his next appearance in the pages of The Avengers where his connection to the Darkhold makes him more of a villain than a hero. He will suffer mightily in these pages.
Sometime later he shows up in Captain America where he confronts both the Living Legend and Captain Britain. After this he slips around the MU, his connection to the Darkhold at the center of his goings and comings. I lost track of him at this point.
I wasn't aware Modred appeared in any other books after his rather bkand initial 2 issues in Marvel Chillers.
ReplyDeleteThe unintentional beauty of failed series back then was the rich array of characters introduced, just waiting for the moment when they could shine.
DeleteWhen I reread the first Modred appearances in the last year for some blogposts on Spider-Woman, I found it hard to understand what the creators had in mind for the character of Modred, had Editorial promoted the mystic to a series.
ReplyDeleteTo take another example of a short lived series of the time, I understood exactly what the rationale of Marvel's Golem series was. The little ensemble of forgettable human goodguys revived the Golem; an evil sorcerer wants to possess the stone guardian; back and forth battles transpire.
But with Modred. there's no clear rationale. His sleeping for centuries is very Arthurian, but he doesn't have a major foe waiting for him when he reawakens. (The Living Mummy was another character who found various foes all lined up for a contretemps.) Modred just has these vague demonic forces, to which he seems vaguely allied. Thanks to his weird backstory, he wanted to become a super-mage in response to some nasty activity by Merlin in Camelot, but we never see said activity, we're just told about it, like the writer was in a hurry to get past that part. Later, someone or other retconned that part of the story to claim that Modred was reacting against a mutant guy called The Warlock, who had masqueraded as Merlin and who later got revived in the 20th century (lot of that going around) to fight Thor, back when Thor didn't have that many good villains. But given that Merlin is usually portrayed as wise and beneficent, the original Modred backstory made little sense.
Mark Gruenwald had the best idea of how to tie up Modred's loose end: to just go ahead and make him a villain's pawn. But from glancing at the Wikipedia page, it seems like that became his new career for the most part, when he wasn't just deluded for some reason. It's only because I happened to be going through my stock of MARVEL TWO IN ONE issues that I can tell you that in one of those junky magazines is a story where a mentally muddled Modred changes the Thing and his sorta-kinda pop-in-law The Puppet Master into miniature versions of themselves.
A writer would have to do a lot of work to make Modred seem like a compelling character.
Thanks for the data and insights. I can see Modred being compelling, but not in the modern age.
DeleteA shame you did not put any pictures of his 90s look from the pages of the Darkhold series. Personally I preferred his classic look.
ReplyDeleteIt's the classic look for me as well.
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