By August, 1973, Marvel Comics had been publishing comics about Robert E. Howard’s sword-and-sorcery hero King Kull for over two and a half years — or, to be more precise, for thirty-two months — but only had ten issues of Kull the Conqueror to show for it.  That record was in marked contrast to that of Howard’s better known barbarian protagonist, Conan, who’d made his American comic-book debut just five months before Kull’s, but who’d so far racked up thirty-one regular issues of his own title, plus a “King-Size” reprint special and two appearances in the black-and-white magazine Savage Tales, to boot.  But while from our contemporary perspective it may seem obvious that Kull of Atlantis — despite his having actually preceded Howard’s Conan of Cimmeria in terms of the chronology of their respective creations by Howard — was destined to always come in a distant second to his younger compatriot in terms of audience appeal, fifty years ago, the powers-that-were at Marvel — especially editor-in-chief (and Howard fan) Roy Thomas — had yet to receive that memo. 

Less than three years in, the publishing history of Kull at Marvel was already a twisty one.  First turning up in December, 1970 in a short tale in the tenth issue of the anthology title Creatures on the Loose, Kull had graduated to his own ongoing title just three months later.  But then, after only one additional bi-monthly installment, Kull the Conqueror had abruptly ceased publication.  Over the next twelve months, Thomas managed to keep the hero from sliding completely out of Marvel readers’ sight (and mind), first via a back-up strip in Conan the Barbarian (issue #10 [Oct., 1971]), and then by way of an appearance in yet another anthology book, Monsters on the Prowl (issue #16 [Apr., 1972]).  Those outings were both originally meant to serve as the first episodes of ongoing features in their respective titles, though both ended up only as one-issue stands.  But while the Conan berth went away simply because Marvel decided to back-pedal on a decision to go to a line-wide giant-sized format after only a couple of months, the move out of MotP had a happier cause — namely, that Kull was coming back in his very own comic book once again.  And, indeed, just three months after the release of MotP #16 — though eleven months since the publication of Kull #2 — Kull the Conqueror #3 (Jul., 1972) arrived on stands, to be warmly greeted by such sword-and-sorcery comics enthusiasts as your humble blogger.

Since that time, things had remained relatively stable for Kull, creatively as well as in terms of publication frequency.  The book reliably came out every two months, drawn (as had been every issue since #2) by the brother-and-sister team of Marie and John Severin, while the writing was handled primarily by Gerry Conway (who’d taken over from Thomas as of #4; a single issue, #8, was scripted by Len Wein).  It was a consistently good series; and sometimes, at least on the artistic side, a great one.  But that quality didn’t translate into strong sales, which remained anemic — especially in comparison to Conan, which — after a brief stint of being knocked back down to bi-monthly status from issues #14 to #15, returned to monthly frequency in April, 1972 (coincidentally — or perhaps not — the same month that Kull #3 was finally published), and never looked back after that.  (Well, not until 1993, anyway.)

Even if Roy Thomas hadn’t deemed a mid-1973 course correction necessary for Kull the Conqueror, change was already coming to the title.  John Severin — who, in addition to inking his sister’s pencils on the interiors, had rendered the covers for #3 through #8 (plus MotP #16) solo — gave up the former gig with issue #9, and made his last cover contribution (though as inker only) with #10.  The latter issue proved to be Marie’s last, as well; and though her pencilling was as fine as ever on both cover and story, the replacement of her brother’s inks with Frank Chiarmonte’s for the latter underscored just how vital John’s role in their collaboration had been.  A note to readers in #10’s letters column explained the Severins’ mutual departures as a matter of their being overly committed elsewhere; John was giving up the gig “due to the press of other work” he was doing (primarily for DC Comics and for Cracked magazine, though the note-writer didn’t say that), while “mirthful Marie” would “concentrate her immense talents on our new CRAZY magazine” (Marvel’s upstart competitor to Mad and its ilk, including, naturally, Cracked — though the note-writer didn’t note that, either).  A later letters-page note, in issue #13, added that Marie hadn’t wanted to continue on Kull without John, “since she had always regarded it as a family affair.”  However, in an interview conducted for a New Jersey fanzine in 1977 (and finally made available to a wider audience in Alter Ego #95 [Jul., 2010]), Marie indicated that there were other reasons for the Severins’ leaving Kull beyond the press of other commitments, or even of family feeling:

We had to stop, because we were spending too much time on it.  Each page was like doing a Sunday comic strip page.  You cannot exist financially doing work like that.  I had responsibilities here [at Marvel], and he had other things to do, so we stopped… John works an awful lot at Cracked magazine…  The plotting and pencilling here, really, doesn’t pay enough for his work, because he’s really detailed.

So, Kull the Conqueror was going to need a new artist… or, more accurately, two.  How much the decision-making at Marvel regarding the title’s future direction was driven by that simple fact, and how much by its chronically sagging sales figures, is, at this late date, anyone’s guess.  But however things went down behind the scenes, big changes were coming with Kull #11 — as our anonymous note-writer of issue #10’s letters page, having already confirmed the departures of writers Gerry Conway and Len Wein as well as of both Severins, went on to explain:

…with KULL #11… KULL THE CONQUEROR takes on a new artist, a new writer, a new direction, and even — lo and behold! — a new name.

 

The artist: one Mike Ploog, whose recent work on WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, FRANKENSTEIN, and GHOST RIDER has boosted him to the top ranks of comic-book pros!

 

The writer: Roy Thomas, whose Kull story “The Death-Dance of Thulsa Doom” was nominated for an award by the professional Academy of Comic Book Arts, and who considers KULL #1 probably his personal favorite among the hundreds of stories he’s written for Marvel.

 

The new direction: well, we’ll just have to keep you in suspense a couple of months on that one. The new name: nothing less than — KULL THE DESTROYER!

That Roy Thomas would himself return to Kull — at least for as long as it took to establish the series’ “new direction” — wasn’t all that surprising.  On the other hand, the choice of Mike Ploog — a young artist whose work to date had been almost exclusively in the horror genre (with his stint on Ghost Rider coming as close as he ever would to drawing conventional superhero comics) — as the replacement for the well-seasoned Severins was more unexpected.

Asked in a 1998 interview for Comic Book Artist #2 if he came to the assignment feeling “an affinity for the barbarian material”, Ploog replied:

Not the barbarian material so much as the fantasy.  I had kind of a secret love affair with fantasy.  When we did Kull, the first few issues dealt with a lot of fantasy, and I really enjoyed the hell out of them.  Just this invincible, half-naked man doesn’t appeal to me all that much.

But whether he had an affinity for “invincible, half-naked” barbarian heroes or not, the artist certainly demonstrated an aptitude for drawing same, from the very first page of his very first issue of Kull:

Ploog’s take on Kull and his milieu is obviously very different from the Severins’ — his is visceral and expressionistic, while theirs is more grounded and illustrative.  One isn’t necessarily better than the other (your humble blogger is a huge fan of both), but one can see how, in 1973, Marvel might have thought that Ploog’s more energetic, in-your-face style would be more appealing to the average fan than the Severins’ classicist approach.

As noted in the opening page credits, Thomas’ script for “King Kull Must Die!” has been “freely adapted” from a Robert E. Howard short story.  Written in 1929, “By This Axe I Rule!” was one of Howard’s final tales of King Kull, and was never published in his lifetime — unless you count those portions of it that remained after the author finished reworking it into his first Conan story, “The Phoenix on the Sword”, which saw print in the Dec., 1932 issue of the pulp magazine Weird Tales.  The phrase “freely adapted” is particularly apt here, since, as we’ll discover, Thomas will abandon Howard’s plot before the story reaches its original climax, using the source narrative as a springboard for taking Kull in a direction his creator likely never imagined.

The “Rebel Four”  — Ducalon, Enaros, Kaanuub, and Ridondo — had been introduced all the way back in Kull the Conqueror #1, and had been recurring characters ever since then.  All were creations of Robert E. Howard, though only the latter two were ever mentioned in any of the author’s “Kull” writings other than “By This Axe I Rule!”.

At around this point in the original short story, Howard introduces a subplot involving a young nobleman named Seno val Dor and his beloved, a slave girl named Ala who belongs to none other than Ducalon, one of our conspirators.  Valusian law forbids a noble to marry a slave; Seno asks Kull for an exception, but the king feels his hands are bound by the traditions of the nation to whose throne he’s ascended, and reluctantly says no.

Thomas’ script includes no equivalent to any of this material; nevertheless, I’m bringing it up because, later in this post, I plan to share with you Howard’s resolution to the tale, which differs sharply from Thomas’ adaptation — and it’ll make little to no sense without some knowledge of the original story’s romantic subplot.

Did you notice that Thomas uses “Val Dor”, the name of the young nobleman from the excised subplot, for that of the complaining count mentioned by Tu?  I suspect that our writer/editor saw that as a way of subtly acknowledging the character’s omission for Howard fans who might notice; but it’s also possible that he simply needed a name, and had that one lying around, otherwise unused.

At this point, Thomas puts his ongoing narrative on pause, to devote the next three or pages to an extended flashback of Kull’s personal history before he became king — his feral childhood, his adoption by the Sea-Mountain Tribe, his exile from Atlantis for interfering in a public execution, and his subsequent years as a galley slave, outlaw, and gladiator.  It’s a logical move for Thomas to make in an issue which he and others at Marvel must have hoped would provide a good jumping-on point for new readers, and Ploog’s artwork for the sequence is terrific; but seeing as how most of this information has been presented in the pages of Kull before this (and is also likely to be familiar to any readers of this blog post with even a passing interest in the character), we’re going to go ahead and skip to the end, where we’re told how Kull, having risen through the military ranks of Valusia to become commander of its Black Legion, had “but one step upward left to take —”

From the dialogue, it’s clear that Narda has been a, um, fixture at the royal palace since the days of the late King Borna — so you’d think we would have seen her in a Kull story or two before now.  But we haven’t, at least not as a named character with a speaking role.  (There was another young female companion of Kull’s whom we briefly met in issue #3, prior to her getting killed through the machinations of the evil wizard Thulsa Doom, but her name was Shiva.)  For the record, she’s not in Howard’s “By This Axe I Rule!”, either… which, to be honest, is hardly surprising, since the Kull of the original short stories was consistently characterized as being “not interested in women.”  (That’s a direct quote from Howard’s “Delcardes’ Cat”,  though Marvel left it out of their adaptation of that story in Kull #7.)  Indeed, “By This Axe I Rule!” itself states that Kull “had never been a lover”.  But Marvel seems to have determined that a Kull who wasn’t perceived to be all that (hetero)sexually active wouldn’t be as appealing a fantasy figure for an audience of mostly cis hetero teenage boys as the ever-randy Conan.  (They were probably right about that.)

Thanks to Kull’s presentiment of danger, when the renegade Black Legionnaires break down his chamber’s door a couple of panels later, expecting to surprise their target lying abed, they instead receive an unpleasant surprise of their own…

And so does Ridondo, “the mad minstrel”, meet his end — or at least he does in Howard’s story.  The Marvel version of the character would be rather more fortunate, though we readers wouldn’t learn that for a couple more issues.

From the text of Robert E. Howard’s “By This Axe I Rule!”:

Kull placed his back to the wall and lifted his axe.  He made a terrible and primordial picture.  Legs braced far apart, head thrust forward, one red hand clutching at the wall for support, the other gripping the axe on high, while the ferocious features were frozen in a death snarl of hate, and the icy eyes blazed through the mist of blood which veiled them.  The men hesitated; the tiger might be dying but he was still capable of dealing death.

 

“Who dies first?” snarled Kull through smashed and bloody lips.

For my money, this is the most dramatic and memorable moment in Howard’s story; and Mike Ploog has captured it magnificently, as well as faithfully (unless one wants to quibble about Ploog’s Kull holding his axe low, rather than “on high”, and I don’t).

As noted earlier, Howard cannibalized this story to craft the Conan tale, “The Phoenix on the Sword”; and while he didn’t have to worry about the latter work’s similarities to its predecessor (which he assumed would never see the light of day), that wasn’t an attractive option for Roy Thomas when the time came for Marvel to adapt “Phoenix” to comics form.  Taking his cue from Howard’s pseudo-historical essay “The Hyborian Age”, Thomas had established as early as Conan the Barbarian #1 that Kull and Conan were part of the same fictional universe, even though their respective eras were separated by thousands of years.  So, while he didn’t necessarily need to explain why history seemed to be repeating itself in this particular episode of Kull and Conan’s respective careers when he scripted the Marvel version of “The Phoenix on the Sword” for Conan Annual #2 (1976), it made sense to at least acknowledge it — which he did, at the same dramatic point in the story where the hero’s back is quite literally against the wall (see right; art by Vicente Alcazar and Yong Montano).  Really, when you think about it, there could be no better choice.

Just in case you’re curious and/or obsessive enough to want to compare all of the iterations of this scene — both of Marvel’s and both of Howard’s — here’s the relevant text from the original prose version of “The Phoenix on the Sword”:

Conan put his back against the wall and lifted his ax. He stood like an image of the unconquerable primordial – legs braced far apart, head thrust forward, one hand clutching the wall for support, the other gripping the ax on high, with the great corded muscles standing out in iron ridges, and his features frozen in a death snarl of fury – his eyes blazing terribly through the mist of blood which veiled them. The men faltered – wild, criminal and dissolute though they were, yet they came of a breed men called civilized, with a civilized background; here was the barbarian – the natural killer. They shrank back – the dying tiger could still deal death.

 

Conan sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly and ferociously.

 

“Who dies first?” he mumbled through smashed and bloody lips.

And with that, we’re ready at last to move on.  And so is Roy Thomas, who with the very next page will abandon his source material, and soar off in a completely different direction…

If all you know about Marvel’s Kull comics is what you’ve read on this blog, you might be forgiven for concluding that the king of Valusia must have fought this skull-headed sorcerer almost every damn issue.  Honestly, that’s not the case — there are plenty of Kull stories that don’t involve ol’ Bony-face at all.  But Marvel did go to some pains to establish him as our hero’s arch-foe, and he therefore figures into many of the best, or at least most significant, of Marvel’s Kull tales.

Anyway, for the record: the only Robert E. Howard story Thulsa Doom ever appeared in was “Delcardes’ Cat”; the Ardyon of Howard’s “By This Axe I Rule!” is a completely different guy — an outlaw, who’s got plenty of smarts and chutzpah, but no magic… though that doesn’t prevent him from getting the drop on Kull in the original story, when, a few moments after uttering that immortal “Who dies first?” line, the king takes a moment to wipe the blood from his eyes.

Luckily, at that very instant, Seno val Dor shows up and hurls a knife into Ardyon’s throat, killing him dead and saving Kull’s life.  Seems that Seno’s beloved Ala overheard her master Ducalon conspiring with his fellow rebel Kaanuub, and she tipped off Seno in time for him to come to their king’s rescue.  (See, I said you had to be familiar with the romance subplot to understand Howard’s ending.)  Kull is so grateful that he responds by declaring the ancient law forbidding the young lovers’ marriage null and void, a decree he underscores by bringing his bloody axe down on the very stone tablet containing said law, smashing it into a hundred pieces in front of his horrified councilor, Tu, and roaring, “By this axe I rule, mofos!”  Or something like that.  The end!

At least, that’s the end of the story in the Robert E. Howard Universe.  In the REH corner of the Marvel Universe, things go a decidedly different way…

And so this issue of Kull the Destroyer ends on a cliffhanger — something that had never happened while the book was called Kull the Conqueror.  And while this inconclusive denouement doesn’t quite set the series’ new direction in stone — after all, who’s to say that Kull won’t escape, triumph over Thulsa Doom, and regain his crown by the end of the following episode? — the presumably permanent changes wrought this issue to the book’s title, as well as to its visual approach, would naturally lead one to suspect that the final pages of Kull #12 won’t provide a return to the previous status quo… and, of course, in two months’ time such suspicions will be proved correct.

We’re going to have a lot of other fifty-year-old comics to talk about come October, 2023, however, so we’re going to go ahead and hit the main plot points of “Moon of Blood!” in this post — though, before we do, it behooves us to make note of a few adjustments Marvel made with Kull #12 which, while not as dramatic as the big changes of #11, might be taken for warning signs that either the publisher’s commitment to the series’ vaunted “new direction”, or its ability to follow through on that commitment, might not be all one would have wished for.  Perhaps most seriously, the number of story pages devoted to the lead feature (i.e., Kull) was cut from 19 to 15, with the remainder of the issue filled out with an unrelated 4-page reprint from Journey into Mystery #70 (Jul., 1961).  In addition, Mike Ploog was no longer inking his own pencils; rather, finishes were applied by Sal Buscema (pages 1-10), as well as an uncredited John Romita (pages 11-15).  Finally, Roy Thomas had already surrendered responsibility for writing the feature to someone else — namely, Steve Englehart.  I suspect that, back in 1973, this change may have been the least concerning to my sixteen-year-old self, seeing as how Englehart was probably my favorite comic-book writer at the time (or, if he wasn’t there yet, he was awfully close).  But even if I wasn’t worried about this change back then, in retrospect it clearly didn’t bode well for the future that just one issue into Kull‘s new direction, that direction’s architect was unable or unwilling to continue his direct creative involvement with the project.

Anyway, to pick up our narrative… “Moon of Blood!” opens with King Ardyon the First decreeing that the defeated and deposed Kull will die by beheading “at the settling of the moon this night”…

Narda has returned to the mountains whence she came, where she’s despised for having left home years before to become “the perfumed plaything” of Valusia’s kings.  Even so, she begs her people’s chieftain Kargan to help Kull; and despite his contempt for her (and his lack of concern over Kull), he sees potential here for advancing his own aims, and so goes to his community’s resident witch to ask of her a certain amulet…

Krogan passes the amulet on to Narda, who gallops at speed back to the City of Wonders, arriving just five minutes shy of moonset.  After flirting a bit with the on-guard headsman,  she convinces him to let her bring Kull the amulet, saying it’s a bauble he gave her the night he slew King Borna, and she wishes to return it to him ere he meets the same end as his royal predecessor…

In the confusion that follows, Kull and Brule evade the soldiers of the Black Legion on foot long enough for them to reach horses supplied by the ever-resourceful Narda; and then all three are riding for the northern hills.  Upon their arrival, they are welcomed by Kargan…

Things seem to be going just fine, until Kargan’s guards bring in a prisoner — a member of Brule’s own race, the Picts — whom they claim is a bandit, though the man himself swears he’s only a wanderer.  Kargan decrees that the man will have to fight a captive tiger as punishment, armed only with ber claws strapped to his wrists.  An unnaturally subdued Kull is acquiescent to this; Brule, not so much.  But when Kull’s companion vehemently protests the cruel treatment of his fellow Pict…

As you’ve probably already noticed, at this point in the story John Romita has taken over the inking — and with all due respect towards that recently passed Marvel great, I have to say that it’s not a very good look.  Sal Buscema might not be an ideal embellisher for Mike Ploog, but the penciller’s distinctive style is at least discernible under his brush; Romita’s heavy-handed inking, on the other hand, all but obliterates Ploog’s own artistic personality.

Kargan’s warriors rush to the defense of their chieftain, but Kull — his recent ordeal notwithstanding — mows them down with relative ease, until the survivors turn and flee.  That leaves Kargan standing alone against the man he’d helped to save, and then betrayed; to his credit, he doesn’t back down, but rather lunges at his foe, hoping to slay Kull with one swift sword-thrust…

As the maimed Kargan stumbles away, Kull turns to see to Brule, who has escaped with relatively minor wounds; alas, the same can’t be said of his nameless fellow Pict, who has succumbed to the ravages of the tiger’s claws.  Kull proceeds to ask the remaining villagers for water and bandages for his friend; and, asserting that they’re glad to see their former chieftain gone, they agree to help…

Just in case anyone still had any doubt after Kull #11, the conclusion of “Moon of Blood!” makes the series’ new direction absolutely clear.  While Kull the Conqueror had been a comic book about a barbarian warrior who’d improbably risen to become a king, Kull the Destroyer would be about how that same warrior, dispossessed of his throne, seeks to get it back — regardless of what (or who) he has to destroy to achieve that goal.

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Actually, there was one more significant element to Kull‘s new status quo that wasn’t introduced until issue #13 — the addition of Ridondo to the book’s regular supporting cast.  Yes, that Ridondo, the “mad minstrel” whom Kull had apparently put down like a mad dog back around page 14 of #11.  Seems the head wound he took at that time was serious but not fatal, and after recovering, he was able to see through Ardyon’s magical disguise to Thulsa Doom’s true visage.  (Kull accounted for this phenomenon with the sentiment, “The eye of a poet sees what other eyes cannot” — but that didn’t really explain why Ardyon had fooled the minstrel just fine prior to the latter’s nearly having his brains spilled by Kull’s axe.)  Having had this terrifying experience, Ridondo quickly decided that ol’ Kull hadn’t been so bad after all, and joined the once and future king’s tiny entourage.  (In case you’re wondering, Steve Englehart wrote Narda out of the series at the same time he wrote Ridondo back in, having her return to the City of Wonders to stay with friends and nurse her broken heart; to the best of my knowledge, she was never referenced again after #13.)

Issue #13 also continued the title’s unwelcome new format of 15-page stories, not to mention the turnover of inkers, which carried over into the next two issues as well.  But while #13’s artwork benefited from the attentions of Al Milgrom, whose style was more compatible with Ploog’s than most of his peers, #14 brought in Jack Abel, whose work was decidedly less effective.  The finished art in issue #15 was either better or worse, depending on your perspective, as Ernie Chan’s inking delivered a very attractive product — Kull had never looked so much like Conan, if nothing else — at the expense of obscuring Ploog’s distinctive sensibility every bit as thoroughly as had John Romita’s efforts back in #12.  Meanwhile, on the cover front, Ploog dropped out completely after issue #13, with #14 and #15 being pencilled by Jim Starlin and Gil Kane, respectively.

Throughout all this artistic turmoil, Englehart continued to provide stories which, while competent and readable, weren’t especially memorable.  Part of the problem — at least in your humble blogger’s opinion — was that an dethroned Kull had very little to do with the character that had been envisioned and chronicled by Robert E. Howard for a few brief years in the late 1920s.  If Kull was simply going to roam around his imaginary world fighting random sorcerers and monsters, all while paying little more than lip service to his quest to regain his kingdom, what was supposed to separate him from Conan, or Thongor, or any other sword-and-sorcery hero of the barbarian persuasion?  Of course, perhaps the series’ leading man didn’t need to be all that distinctive, if the writing and artwork were appealing enough.  But, in the end, they weren’t; at least, not so far as the comic-book marketplace of 1973 and 1974 were concerned.

The bad news was delivered in the letters column of issue #14, two months before the Marvel headsman’s axe actually fell:

Came the arrival of Kull the Destroyer #15 in May, 1974, our anonymous letters-page answer-writer confirmed that this issue would indeed be “the last of the Atlantean’s color-comic career for the time being”… before going on to emphasize that Kull would continue to have a home, only it would be over on the black-and-white magazine side of the Marvel street, in a forthcoming title, The Savage Sword of Conan, which would also feature other such Robert E. Howard-created (or -derived) heroes as Solomon Kane and Red Sonja.

In fact, Kull was about to enter a second period of title-hopping every bit as twisty as his first, as, after just a couple of showings in Savage Sword, Kull graduated to become the headliner of that book’s new b&w companion magazine, Kull and the Barbarians — a title which, after debuting in March, 1975 with an all-reprint issue, went on to release a whopping two whole further issues of new material featuring Kull, Kane, and Sonja before it, too, fell to the axe of cancellation…

…only to be succeeded by the return of, you guessed it, the color comic Kull the Destroyer, which resumed its place in America’s spinner racks in May, 1976 — exactly two years to the month since the release of Kull #15.

“He’s back!” proclaimed the cover of Kull #16.  “The sword-and-sorcery hero who wouldn’t die!!”  Well, that might be true; but as far as your humble blogger was (and is) concerned, Marvel still hadn’t discovered — or perhaps I should make that re-discovered — what made Kull Kull, and not just another generic sword-swinger in a loincloth.  And, in fact, they wouldn’t… at least not before the turn of the decade.  But at this point, we’ve wandered well beyond the fifty-years-ago purview of this blog… so we’ll defer further discussion of these matters for future posts.