It's a dreich, chilly day; typical Scottish summer holiday weather. For several years now, I've had a tradition of reading Lin Carter sword-and-sorcery paperbacks in July and August, especially when I've made a getaway to Galloway: In the Green Star's Glow; The Quest of Kadji;Tower at the End of Time; and this year, I've lined up Lost World of Time (if my budget allows for a trip in a week or two).
Carter also edited and completed stories for the 1967 Lancer collection King Kull. I have a 1976 Sphere edition and the blue-chinned warrior on the cover looks more like Vinny the Barbarian.
I've always pronounced Kull to rhyme with "skull" but does it rhyme with "cool"? I can't remember from the lacklustre 1997 Kevin Sorbo vehicle.
Of course, I can remember the first time I borrowed the book from East Kilbride's Central Library in December 1980- just after the death of John Lennon and just before I read the "Fate of the Phoenix" issue of X-Men. The Dark Man was revealed in Legion of Super-Heroes ( the tile of another REH story, adapted by Thomas and Kane for Savage Tales as "Night of the Dark God"). The parodic BBC radio series Hordes of the Things was ending. Heroic fantasy was very much the zeitgeist.
The stories in the paperback are: Exile of Atlantis; The Shadow Kingdom; The Altar and the Scorpion; Black Abyss; Delcardes' Cat; The Skull of Silence; Riders Beyond the Sunrise; By This Axe I Rule; The Striking of the Gong; Swords of the Purple Kingdom; Wizard and Warrior; The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune and the poem, The King and the Oak.
Kull was the prototype for Conan; The Phoenix on the Sword, the first Cimmerian story is a reworking, four years later, of By This Axe I Rule. Kull is a more cerebral character, I think; Fritz Leiber describes him as a Macbeth figure. He's given to musing and philosophy and 1929's "The Shadow Kingdom" is his best story. It basically invents Sword and Sorcery. The subsequent stories are much more slender and forgettable.
Marvel adapted that first story for the Kull the Conqueror series which later became Kull the Destroyer for a while. The character's series never had the success or staying power of Conan, although he had a short-lived, imitative b/w magazine title. Those black and white stories were collected by Dark Horse in the 2010 edition of Savage Sword of Kull. I got it in Forbidden Planet Aberdeen last September, reduced from £14.99 to £6.99, (having passed on it in the lamented Heroes for Sale in Inverness a few years earlier). I might then have seen the writing on the wall for FP last autumn.
What sandalled feet trod the gorgeous kingdoms and shadowy pre-human ruins of this first volume?
The collection opens with "The Skull of Silence", adapted by Roy Thomas, Berni Wrightson and Wally Wood for Tower of Shadows 10- which became Creatures on the Loose 10. I first read it in Savage Tales 2, in Arran some six years ago.
It's hardly surprising that Marvel chose to launch a sword and sorcery hero in the pages of one of its "weird mystery" titles. Joe Orlando's House of Mystery at DC (the template for Tower of Shadows) featured two Gil Kane fantasies in 1969.
"An Atlantean in Aquilonia" is a text feature reprinted from 1974's Savage Sword of Conan 1 (which I still don't own) and explains the origins of "Phoenix on the Sword", which Thomas would incorporate into both the canon of Marvel's Conan and Kull in 1976's Conan Annual 2).
"The Beast from the Abyss" is a posthumous REH/Lin Carter collaboration about a decadent city where a giant slug is worshipped. Giant slugs or worms feature in several carter novels including Thongor of Lemuria and Thongor Against the Gods. This story appeared first in b/w in '74's SSOC 2 but I first saw it in colour in 1977's Conan Annual 3 a couple of years ago. It's by Englehart and Chaykin; it's unusual to see Stainless Steve writing S&S but he did script a few issues of Kull the Destroyer.
"The First Barbarian" from SSOC 3 is a Lin Carter article of literary criticism about REH and Kull. I like his clear style and sheer fanboy enthusiasm exudes from the piece.
"Kull of Atlantis" is a portfolio of illustrations by Barry Smith, adapting Exile of Atlantis. The Thomas introduction seems to suggest it was a pitch for a b/w novel like Kane's Blackmark. Kull here is clearly a prototype Conan, down to the BWS horned helmet. I wonder if the creators intended an overt link between the two heroes?
Next comes material from Kull and the Barbarians issue 1 from May 1975. It's the first Thomas/Ross Andru/Wally Wood issue of Kull the Conqueror, "A King Comes Riding". I first saw it in the UK Savage Sword of Conan weekly, where it was first reprinted, two months earlier in March.
The second issue continuing "The Shadow Kingdom" is next, by Thomas and the Severin siblings. The antediluvian setting, the battle between Kull and the Serpent-Men and his gladiatorial career all seem a greater influence on Thongor than Conan- especially the reptilian Dragon Kings of The Wizard of Lemuria.
More Atlantean shenanigans next time, where we see where I came in, during the very early Seventies, on the Marvel adventures of the Atlantean usurper.
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