Sword Of Sorcery - New 52!

Sword of Sorcery collects the series of the same name. The series featured Amethyst, bringing back a world I looked at few years ago here. My interest in getting hold of this series was mostly the back-up features for Beowulf and Stalker, but I've always been impressed with the Amethyst stories. So let me begin there. 

We meet a young girl who is an outsider because she and her Mother are always on the go. We quickly learn she is a girl with grit, and then we learn she's not of this world. She was brought to Earth to hide her out by her out of her Aunt's clutches. She is a new world in which politics are brutally pursued by those in power, but she very quickly adapts to this new universe and to her new superpowers. This is a story well told of a young woman's coming of age by writer Christy Marx and artist Aaron Lopresti. These stories are gorgeous. John Constatine is a regular guest in the series and one of my favorite villains, Eclipso, makes a visit. The arrival of Eclipso changes the balances of power in this world and old enemies are forced to become allies to face him. 

Here are the covers for the series. For more on the back-up features check down below. 

And now for Beowulf and Stalker. 

For the first three issues of this series the back-up feature was Beowulf. It was full-blown reimagining of the hero as we are cast some undated time into the future, but it's a future in which at first glance one might think they were back in olden times of the Danelaw when the poem of Beowulf was inspired and composed. Quickly we learn differently as polished technology is in evidence. Beowulf it turns out is a super-soldier of some sort from the past and when he is called upon to help with the murderous Grendel, he responds with a berserker rage which leaves only the very young Wiglaf to lead him. When he's settled down, he gets to being more of a hero and confronts the dread secret of Grendel and Grendel's Mother. This one caught me completely by surprise and I enjoyed it thoroughly. As is evidenced by the above cover for DC Univers Presents, Beowulf found his way into the modern world of the New 52 as well. 

As for the Stalker, his revised story begins in the past when a brutal king finds his wife dying and makes a deal with the Devil for a soul. But as usual the Devil finds a loophole which brings misery to Stalker. He is "gifted" with immortality to regret his choices and becomes a killer, both in war in peace. When the Devil reappears in the modern day to Stalker and promises him some resolution if he will only find a certain girl, Stalker agrees and does the job quite quickly. But as usual with the Devil there is a twist which causes Stalker to revolt against him. It ends poorly. 

And that wraps up my look at these Adventure heroes. Out of the batch we got one true hit (Warlord) and one impressive run (Claw the Unconquered). The rest fell to Earth pretty quickly, though I am delighted to know that the folks at DC have not forgotten them even after all these decades. 

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Hero And Villain In One Day!

This seems like the perfect day to dig out this wonderful DC Showcase volume starring the one and only Eclipso, the character who cannot make up his mind if he's a villain or a hero.

For sure this was a stranger than usual premise, a man overcome by the magical power of a mystic gem triggered by eclipses which transformed him utterly into a being of great power. What he did with that power was an open question. Created for the House of Secrets by the wildcard writer of DC Bob Haney, this character was illustrated by great pros like Lee Elias, Alex Toth and Jack Sparling.  If you haven't sampled some Eclipso, take a snort, it's pretty tasty. Here is my review from the prehistoric days of the Dojo.

(This issue is not in the collection, but I love the Gil Kane cover.)

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A Full Eclipso!

I finished up reading DC's Eclipso Showcase volume this week. It reprints in glorious B&W stories from House of Secrets #61-80. I'll have to say right away that I was a bit surpised by this collection. It wasn't as awesome as I'd always thought it might be.

That said, I did like the artwork for the most part throughout the volume, including the Jack Sparling stuff on the later Eclipso stories. Sparling is a hit-or-miss artist and seeing it in B&W probably helps here. The artistic highlight is of course the Alex Toth stories, which are typically elegant and taughtly drawn. Lee Elias does a great job kicking off the series and the two Prince Ra-Man stories by Bernard Bailey were neatly done.

Now about the writing. I'm usually a fan of Bob Haney, the writer of all the stories here. His plots are wacky, but usually pay off. Here the wackiness is in evidence but the very nature of the Eclipso-Gordon duality works against the dramatic tension of the stories. There are too many details to work out when Eclipso emerges. First we have to have some elaborate reason for Bruce Gordon to come under the effects of an eclipse, something a bright guy like he's supposed to be should be able to avoid pretty easily. That he keeps falling under the spell of some eclipse effect makes him seem rather dim after a time, pun intended. Next in the early stages Eclipso takes over Gordon's body so they have to waste a panel explaining how he gets his costume. Later Eclipso actually splits off from Gordon and just has it on so that detail is dealt with. It's illogical but it helps the stories move briskly.

And that is the strength of the stories. As convoluted as they get, the changing nature of the Eclipso and how he emerges and expresses his powers alters throughout the series. That gives the story a nice variety in the face of a rather stagnant general plot structure. Once they split Gordon and Eclipso the stories get rather more interesting dramatically. The original concept made for one or two good stories but seemed cramped for a full ongoing series.

Also much is made of Eclipso's gangland involvement and his crimeboss persona, but we don't really see him out and away form Gordon enough to justify this. Clearly this must happen between stories, because there's no way he could become such a connected criminal in the few moments we get to see him plying his evil trade. He's got hidden bases and labs everywhere and I don't know how he does it.

One thing I did like was the ongoing relationship between Gordon and Mona Bennett and her dad Professor Bennett. This reminded me of a mildly more mature triad than existed in the Hulk with Bruce Banner, Rick Jones and Betty Ross. Gordon and Mona have a romance and she is actually helpful and understanding of his plight, though I'd argue both she and her dad are tolerant of some pretty hairbrained schemes that Bruce develops to eiliminate or modify Eclipso.

I liked this collection after it is all said and done. It wasn't as stellar as I'd expected given the talent involved, but it was sturdy and typical for DC at the time done with a real professional polish.

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