Readers of this blog who have been following it for a while will probably have noticed the relative dearth of DC Comics-centered posts in recent months.  In all of 2024, your humble blogger wrote a mere eight posts devoted to DC’s offerings of half a century ago, compared to fifty-four about those of DC’s primary competitor, Marvel Comics.  That’s a far cry from 2022, when the breakdown was thirty posts about DC books to thirty-four about Marvel’s.  And if you have noticed the change, you may have wondered: how come?

To fully explain why the blog’s coverage of DC has changed over the past couple of years, we’ll need to look at how DC itself changed during the historical period covered by the blog these last 36 months: i.e., the years 1972 through 1974. 

1972 began at DC with Jack Kirby’s extravagantly imaginative “Fourth World” epic still in full flower, running in four interconnected titles, including Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen.  Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ “Green Lantern/Green Arrow”, the flagship of the company’s vaunted “social relevance” trend, was also still a going concern (though, admittedly, not for long).  As the year progressed, O’Neil and Adams would bring us readers the conclusion of their suspenseful, Bond film-emulating Ra’s al Ghul saga in Batman, while Justice League of America would celebrate its 100th issue with a three-part storyline featuring the return of a whole team of heroes who hadn’t been seen since the 1940s, the Seven Soldiers of Victory.  Outside of the superhero genre, Joe Kubert and others were offering exciting new visualizations of Tarzan and the other Edgar Rice Burroughs properties recently licensed by DC, while Joe Orlando’s stable of light horror (aka “mystery”) anthology titles spun off a new “horror hero”, Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s Swamp Thing.  And the year ended with the debut of DC’s first full foray into the heroic fantasy genre typified by Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, as O’Neil and artist Howard Chaykin adaptated Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser characters into comics form with the new title Sword of Sorcery.

Two years later, as 1974 came to a close, a number of the titles mentioned above were gone, and most of those that remained had been through significant changes.  All of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World books had been cancelled (as had a title introduced in 1972, The Demon), leaving the King with a current slate that included Kamandi, OMAC, and “The Losers” feature in Our Fighting Forces — all of which may have been worthy projects, but none of which were connected to the mainstream DC superhero universe in the way the Fourth World had been  Swamp Thing was still around, but both of the character’s creators had departed — not just from that series but, for all practical purposes, from DC itself.  Green Lantern was gone, and while Denny O’Neil was still writing Batman stories, back in late ’73 Neal Adams had turned in his last interior art job for the Darknight Detective’s comics (at least for the next 37 years).  True, Joe Kubert was still writing and drawing Tarzan, but DC’s other ERB-based features had largely withered on the vine, and Tarzan itself was only coming out six times a year, in the form of a “100-Page Super-Spectacular”, the majority of whose pages were given over to reprinted material.  A number of other DC titles — including Batman and Justice League of America — switched to that format as well; and whatever else you want to say about the bi-monthly 100-pagers, they were probably less than ideal vehicles for extended continuities, such as the Ra’s al Ghul or Seven Soldiers story arcs that had been highlights of those two titles’ runs in 1972.

None of these developments were welcome to my teenage self, half a century ago.  Between the diminishment in overall visual appeal occasioned by the withdrawal of artistic talents like Adams, Wrightson, and Chaykin (not to mention Michael Kaluta, whose brief but brilliant stint on The Shadow came and went during this two-year period) and the reduction (as I saw it) in the narrative complexity of the stories, DC’s line was becoming less and less attractive to my tastes and interests.  While I may not have thought about it in precisely these terms at the time, from a contemporary perspective it seems pretty obvious that after briefly aspiring towards a somewhat older, supposedly more sophisticated demographic (in a 1971 New York Times Magazine article, publisher Carmine Infantino had enthused over how well Kirby’s Fourth World books were going over with “the kids at Yale”), DC had decided to retrench, and to focus on their reliable, traditional audience of preadolescent and young teen readers.

To be clear, I’m not claiming that the comics DC was putting out in 1974 were necessarily “worse” those they’d released a couple of years before; if I’d been ten years old at the time, rather than seventeen, I might well have been drawn to, and appreciated, the Superman and Flash and Wonder Woman comics of this period.  There’s nothing wrong with producing comics aimed at younger audiences, after all.  But at the time, these books weren’t doing it for me… and since I didn’t buy ’em and read ’em then, I couldn’t write about ’em for the blog fifty years later, either.*

But changes were coming to DC once again, as the calendar turned over from 1974 to 1975.  In response to several market-related concerns — the primary one seems to have been a determination to keep from being crowded off the stand by an expanding Marvel Comics, not to mention an upstart new competitor called Atlas/Seaboard — the company unceremoniously ditched the 100-Page Super-Spectacular format, returning titles like Batman and JLA to a more frequent publication schedule as they did so (indeed, both of those well-established titles went to full, 12-issues-a-year monthly publication for the first time in January, 1975).  More importantly, they significantly increased the number of individual releases each month; while December, 1974 saw DC publish a mere 23 new comic books (7 of which were 100-pagers), January brought fans 36 distinct new issues.

Just based on numbers alone, you might assume that the odds of seventeen-year-old me finding something new and interesting from DC’s January, 1975 offerings were fairly good — and you’d be right.  Which brings us, at long last, to Beowulf #1 — one of four “number ones” that were published by DC in that month**… and the company’s first attempt at on ongoing sword-and-sorcery series since the cancellation of Sword of Sorcery with its fifth issue, back in August, 1973…

Beowulf — or, as it says in the title logo, if not the book’s indicia, Beowulf Dragon Slayer — was of course based on the old English epic poem most of us English-speaking adults were required to read for school at one point or another.  Of course, given that this was intended to be an ongoing series, even in 1975 most of us understood that it wasn’t going to be a literal adaptation of the classic work (if nothing else, the young woman in a modified string bikini depicted on both the cover and opening splash page pretty much gave the same away).  As a piece on this premiere issue’s text page attributed to the series’ writer, Michael Uslan, put it:

At 23 years old, Uslan may have been new to comic-book writing — his only prior professional scripting credit was for The Shadow #9, which had come out just a couple of months prior to Beowulf #1 — but he already had a very interesting (and virtually unique) history of working with, if not exactly “in”, comics, as he’d been responsible for teaching the first accredited college-level course about comic books while still a law student at Indiana University.  If there was anyone then working in the industry who had the kind of academic credentials to be able to straight-facedly claim “specific educational value” for a comic book (as the writer in fact did, elsewhere in his Beowulf #1 text piece), Mike Uslan was probably that person.

Joining Uslan on the creative team was another name new to American comics, that of Peruvian-born artist Ricardo Villamonte.  There appears to be very little information about Villamonte online, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you how old he was in January, 1975, or even what work he might have had published outside the U.S. before making his stateside debut some seven months earlier, in Skywald Publications’ Nightmare #20.  Even so, it’s abundantly clear from his artwork for this issue that he was already an accomplished craftsman, regardless of how long he’d been on the job.

That’s some pretty interesting headgear Beowulf’s wearing, isn’t it?  According to a later issue, rather than being the skull of some random bull or other horned animal, it’s actually the skull of a minotaur.  And if you don’t recall any references to that creature of Greek myth in Beowulf the poem, well, your memories are accurate.

On the other hand, the character of Wiglaf does come straight from the Anglo-Saxon source — as does another member of Beowulf’s war-band who’s introduced on the very next page, Hondscio…

With the first speech of the mysterious, purple-clad “wanderer”, we encounter some of that alliteration and internal rhyme that Uslan promised us in his text-page piece; these poetic devices are quite appropriate in this context, since the character employing them will soon be revealed as a scop — an Old English word meaning “poet”.

Ricardo Villamonte may be taking all sorts of liberties with “authentic” Dark Age Scandinavian architecture in the above splash (as he of course does elsewhere with the costume of the period), but when the result is an illustration as gorgeous as this one, who wants to complain?

With the second speech Uslan gives the “wanderer” — or, as we’ll henceforth be calling him, the Shaper — we get some kennings added into the poetic mix (“world-candle“, “life-sphere” and so on), for still more of that authentic Anglo-Saxon feel.  (Although “rosy-fingered dawn” — which is technically an epithet, rather than a proper kenning — has been nicked from Homer’s epic Greek poem, the Odyssey, rather than any Old English source)

In a column written for the text page of Beowulf‘s second issue, Uslan cites three specific inspirations for his characterization of the Shaper:  the Joker, the Master of Ceremonies from the musical Cabaret, and Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  But the character’s name, if not his personality, comes straight from a source cited as an influence by Uslan in his earlier text piece for issue #1: John Gardner’s 1971 novel Grendel, which retells the first part of Beowulf the poem from the monster’s point of view.  “The Shaper” is what Gardner calls King Hrothgar’s scop (a minor character in the original poem), evidently based on the idea that “scop” is etymologically related to the Old English word scapan, meaning “shape”.  And now you know.

Grendel is, of course, unstoppable…

We’ll pause here to note that Uslan has drastically compressed the time-scale of his source material, where Hrothgar and his people suffer the recurring depredations of Grendel for a dozen years before Beowulf determines to come to their aid; in this version, Beowulf is already coming to the rescue before the monster has dismembered a single Dane.

A siren, is it?  Clearly, Mike Uslan knew (and was fond of) his Odyssey...

Dropping his club, Beowulf leaps into the air to grapple with his winged assailants…

No, there’s nary a woman warrior to be found in Beowulf the poem, Swedish or otherwise — let alone one with such an improbable name as “Nan-Zee” (a moniker bestowed by Michael Uslan in honor of his wife, Nancy).  But, setting aside both her inauthentic name and her equally inauthentic (not to mention impractical) attire, methinks this new addition to the comic’s virtually all-male cast is a welcome one.  (If nothing else, the expression Viilamonte gives Beowulf as he’s dropped into the mud by Nan-Zee is priceless.)

This would seem to be an appropriate spot to discuss the mix of Christian and pagan elements in our story — something that has its roots in the poem it’s based on, which (as you may remember from English class) was composed after the advent of Christianity in the British Isles, but is set in an earlier, pre-Christian Scandinavia.  Thus, the poem has references to the primary embodiment of evil in Christian belief, Satan, as well as to Wyrd — the pagan concept of Destiny, or Fate, as a universal force dominating the lives of human beings.  In elaborating on the interplay of these ideas as found in his source text, Michael Uslan literalizes them, eventually making both Satan (whose face we glimpse in the storm-clouds in the last panel above) and Wyrd (who’s worshiped as a god) active characters in his narrative.  The results may not be plausible even as pseudo-history — but as a backdrop for a fantasy adventure, it’s a workable piece of world-building.

With the exception of Nan-Zee, virtually all of the proper names in Beowulf #1 come from Beowulf the poem, and such is the case with Unferth (whom we actually first met a few pages back) — although in the poem, he’s merely a warrior who impugns the Geatish hero’s reputation when the latter finally arrives at King Hrothgar’s hall… and who later seems to want to make amends by loaning Beowulf his own sword.  He’s definitely not an evil wizard (by the way, you should read his spell backwards if you want a mild giggle).  Nor, as far as I know, is the poem’s Unferth regularly accompanied by a sidekick called the “Silent One”.

And as this issue comes to a close, the narrative jumps the tracks of its source material completely, so as to send our hero and his boon companions off on a side-adventure involving Swamp Men!  With the equally non-canonical “Slave-Maiden of Satan” waiting in the wings!  Well, Michael Uslan did tell us not to rely on Beowulf the comic for our book reports, so I’d say there’s no real cause for complaint on that score.  And, after all, this series is meant to run indefinitely, so clearly the plot of its source text is going to have to be padded out with additional material; still, I’m sure that Uslan and company will work hard to keep the new stuff in line with the tone and themes of the original epic poem.  Remember what he wrote in that issue #1 text piece about how we’d “have a hard time telling what is straight from the poem and what is not”?  Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be just fine…

Let’s jump forward now to March, 1975, and the arrival on stands of Beowulf #2.  As with its predecessor (and all subsequent issues, besides, save as expressly noted below), Ricardo Villamonte supplies the cover as well as the full interior artwork, while Michael Uslan continues as writer.  This episode finds Beowulf and his pals sinking into quicksand (which at least puts them out of reach of those nasty Swamp Men), only to resurface in the Underworld, where they encounter not only the Slave-Maiden of Satan, but also a horde of Troll-Demons — and even a Magic Dragon named Pough (sound it out) — before ultimately confronting the Big “S” himself.  Satan explains that he’s been bored of late, and intends to play a little game with Beowulf and his cohorts.  He gives our hero a quest: to gain the power needed to defeat Grendel, Beowulf must first travel to the Darklands to drink the venom of the Black Viper, then journey to the Far East to similarly consume the ambrosia of the Zumak Fruit.  That done, Satan sends the warriors back to the threshold of their original destination, Castle Hrothgar — where they arrive too late to halt Grendel’s latest depredations, but are nevertheless greeted warmly by the court (excepting Unferth, of course).  But they won’t be hanging around there along, as the issue ends with Beowulf and his crew preparing to set sail for the Darklands — joined now by Unferth, the Silent One, and the Shaper.

Two months later, Beowulf #3 features the group’s adventures in the Darklands — clearly intended to be identified with sub-Saharan Africa, based on the stereotypical “pygmy head-hunters” that the voyagers encounter there.  Beowulf succeeds in killing the Black Viper — a giant serpent, incidentally, which at least goes some way to justifying the title logo’s “Dragon Slayer” tag well ahead of the hero’s draconian encounter in Beowulf the poem (which, if you’ll recall, is ultimately fatal to both participants) — and in guzzling down its venom.  Along the way, the band of adventurers is bedeviled by an imp named Little Omen, who briefly exiles them to a dreamscape named Nightmareland (the sequence’s nod to Winsor McCay is obvious in retrospect, though I’m sure it went right over my younger self’s head in 1975).  Oh, and perhaps in anticipation of her trip to the Darklands (and perhaps not), between issues #2 and #3 Nan-Zee has traded in her blue-green two-piece for a leopard-skin number, going for a “jungle queen” look she’ll maintain for the remainder of the series.

Clearly, we’ve now moved into narrative territory that the anonymous author of Beowulf the poem would (and could) never have imagined — but we can still tell ourselves that Uslan and Villamonte are continuing to adhere to the general “spirit” of their source material, more or less; or that the whole thing at least works as a historically “inspired” fantasy of a world that never was.  That task becomes considerably harder, however, when July, 1975 beings us Beowulf #4, in which Uslan opts to interpolate the real-world 15th century ruler of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler, into the storyline.  Even fifty years ago, your humble blogger knew that almost a thousand years of history lay between whatever kernel of fact may have inspired the Beowulf legend, and the well-documented career of the bloodthirsty warlord also known as Dracula; and so, this episode — which finds Beowulf coming to the aid of the desert-dwelling Ashers (one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel), in their struggle against “the son of the dragon” — was a breaking point for me in terms of being able to take issue #1’s claim of “educational value” for the series the least bit seriously.  (Not that that kept me from continuing to buy the book, you understand.)  That said, even here Uslan manages to include one scene directly from the poem, as Satan arbitrarily teleports our hero and his best buds, Wiglaf and Hondscio, back to Castle Hrothgar for just long enough for Hondscio to meet his violent (but source-faithful) death at the mauling hands of Grendel.

September, 1975 sees the arrival of Beowulf #5, which features the only cover not illustrated by Ricardo Villamonte — Dick Giordano does the honors, this time — and the only writing credit for someone other than Michael Uslan, as the “idea” for the story is attributed to assistant editor Allan Asherman.  That story’s plot, it must be said, is an absolute fever-dream, which not only riffs on the “ancient astronauts” theories popularized by Erich von Däniken’s 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? (in Asherman and Uslan’s defense, there was a lot of that sort of thing going around in the Seventies), but also manages to work in the continent of Atlantis (still above the waves when the story begins, not so much by its ending) and even the great Greek hero Ulysses, aka Odysseus, whom Beowulf frees from the suspended animation in which he’s been held for centuries by the evil space aliens.  Yeah, better not go using this issue for your book reports, kids.

The series’ next (and, as it turns out, last) issue is, by contrast, almost sedate.  In Beowulf #6, the titular hero finally completes his Satan-ordained quest, overcoming the Minotaur of Crete to obtain the precious Zumak fruit.  (Wait, wasn’t the Zumak supposed to be found in the Far East?  Well, yes, but you see, all of the Far Eastern supply had already been harvested by those evil space aliens for their own nefarious purposes; luckily, Ulysses clued in Beowulf that the magical fruit could also be found on the island of Crete, right before the goddess Athena whisked him back through time so he’d be on hand for the finale of the Odyssey.)  Meanwhile, back in the Underworld, Grendel learns that he’s been replaced as Satan’s favorite by Dracula (whom Big Daddy Devil contrived to have slaughtered and turned into a vampire at the end of #5), and is really pissed off about it; in retribution, he rams a silver stalactite (one simply can’t trust stone for a job like this) through Satan’s chest, killing him, and setting up a future showdown with Dracula for the throne of Hell.  Hmm, did I say this issue was “almost sedate”, before?  Maybe I should rethink that.  (For the record, this story was the only time Villamonte had assistance with the art; Ric Estrada did the layouts, while Elizabeth Safian is credited for “embellishment”.)

Re-reading all of these books in a bunch a half-century after their original publication, it’s hard not to feel that Michael Uslan’s attention began to wander as his storyline progressed, resulting in his ultimately losing the plot (and I don’t mean just the plot of Beowulf the poem).  According to remarks he’d later make to writer Andy Mangels for a series retrospective published in Back Issue #43 (Aug., 2010), however, the scattershot, anything-goes approach was the plan all along:

I wanted to separate out Beowulf from everything else [in the sword-and-sorcery genre]. I wanted to play with every different type of mish-mosh of mythology…  I mean, we were all over the map with it, trying different directions and shaking things up and trying to be very, very unconventional with it, and I think we were…

 

If I truly wanted to do an educational, academic comic-book version, it would have been done as a Classics Illustrated, as opposed to an ongoing DC series…  But that’s certainly not what we were doing.  And then why use Beowulf at all?  Well, you use it because it was a brand…

Well, maybe.  Your humble blogger feels obliged to note those earnest statements about “specific educational value” and trying “to capture the flavor and spirit of the poem” that Uslan made back in issue #1.  And then there’s the Shaper’s use of Old English poetic devices, which was abandoned over the course of the series, with the character ultimately coming to be treated more as an eccentric wizard than as a scop; a change which to me indicates that the author’s overall approach to the series evolved over time.  And even setting aside the whole “educational, academic” aspect of the enterprise, there’s the matter of Unferth’s mysterious compatriot, the Silent One, whom Uslan heavily intimates in the early issues will have a significant role to play, but who in the end does literally nothing at all.

Let’s look at some further comments made by Uslan for the Back Issue article, which may (or may not) help clarify the reasons behind what seems, from a contemporary perspective, to have been a haphazard approach not just to narrative structure, but to theme and tone, as well:

We knew this was going to end at any moment.  We didn’t know if we were going to get three issues, four issues, five issues, and were even shocked to get the sixth.  Once we got underway, we knew we were already running out of time.  And we knew there were a million different wacky ways to take this thing and things that could be injected into it…  So I think at that time there was almost a panicky feeling,like how many different kinds of things could we throw in, which normally would take place over 24 issues, that we could sprinkle in to indicate different ways this thing may go or could go…  I think it was like, “Let’s throw in the kitchen sink, let’s do everything we can possibly think to do and if somehow, this stuff survives, that we actually do get some time to develop real story arcs, we would have kind of tested the water and played around with different things and then we could kind of choose your own adventure from there and figure out where we go.

In the end, of course, there would be no opportunity to choose a more definite direction for the title from the several already explored, since Beowulf was unceremoniously cancelled in November, 1975.  No mention was made of the series’ demise in the final issue’s letters column, indicating it was a rather abrupt decision; still, if you were paying close attention come the very last story page, you could probably figure it out.

Having just chowed down on the Zumak, Beowulf immediately finds that it, combined with the Black Viper’s venom, has endowed him with super-strength.  He shows off for Nan-Zee by demolishing the nearest stone structure…

Unlike with every preceding issue, there was no “Next” blurb to whet the reader’s appetite for what was to come… just “The End”.  But hey, at least you could go read the poem to see how things would turn out… more or less (you were of course on your own with that Grendel vs. Dracula subplot).

The conclusion of Beowulf #6 represented the end of the road not just for its titular hero, but also for Michael Uslan and Ricardo Villamonte as a creative team; though, naturally, both would continue to work in the field for years to come.  Villamonte would stick with DC for another couple of years, pencilling strips for such anthology series as House of Secrets and Weird War Tales before moving over to Marvel in 1977; there, he’d work primarily as an inker, though he did eventually pencil several issues of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones and The Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior, both in the mid-1980s.  As for Uslan, his post-Beowulf career path would prove to be just as distinctive as the one he’d followed prior to landing that assignment; after writing or co-writing another nine or so stories for DC, he’d take the highly unusual step in 1979 of going in with a movie industry veteran, Benjamin Melniker, to buy the film rights to his favorite DC hero.  That move may have taken a decade to pay off, but ultimately worked out very well for “the boy who loved Batman“, ensuring that his name would appear in the credits of every Bat-related motion picture from 1989 through… well, infinity, I suppose.

Actually, despite what I said above, the closing scene of Beowulf #6 wasn’t quite the final appearance of DC Comics’ iteration of the famous epic hero.  Although it took some thirty-three years, the Prince of the Geats finally had a return engagement in Wonder Woman (2006 series)  #20-23 (Jul. through Oct., 2008), as writer Gail Simone and artists Aaron Lopresti and Matthew Ryan teamed him up with the Princess of the Amazons.  (Grendel showed up in this one as well, and even made a follow-up appearance a year later in Simone’s Secret Six series — where, DC continuity buffs please take note, he claimed to have been fathered by the immortal Golden Age supervillain Vandal Savage [!].)***

We’ll wrap up this post by noting that the aforementioned Wonder Woman serial (reprinted in the 2009 trade collection Wonder Woman: The Ends of the Earth, by the way) also featured two other long-unseen DC sword-and-sorcery heroes, both of whom made their debuts in the months immediately following Beowulf’s own… though to learn more about those guys, you’ll have to check back in this space in February and March, respectively.  (Yeah, I’m sure the majority of y’all out there reading this already know who I’m talking about, but what can I say?  It’s fun to be coy.)

Additional cover art credits, per the Grand Comics Database:

• Jimmy Olsen #147 (Mar., 1972): Neal Adams and Murphy Anderson
  
• Green Lantern #89 (Apr., 1972): Neal Adams
  
• Swamp Thing #1 (Oct.-Nov., 1972): Bernie Wrightson
  
• Sword of Sorcery #1 (Feb., 1973): Michael W. Kaluta

 

*I should also note that since I paid absolutely no attention to DC’s war or Western titles, I may have missed out on material in them that would have appealed to my “mature” tastes, had I given it a chance.  And my general dislike of the reprint-heavy 100-pagers led me to largely pass on the Archie Goodwin-edited run of Detective Comics, meaning that I missed most (if not quite all) of Goodwin and Walt Simonson’s “Manhunter” serial when it came out, not to mention Goodwin’s fruitful collaborations with artists such as Jim Aparo, Sal Amendola, Howard Chaykin, and Alex Toth on the lead “Batman” feature.  Then there was my inexplicable indifference to the Legion of Super-Heroes as a concept, so that I never saw any of Dave Cockrum’s well-remembered work on that series, and… well, you get the idea.  If I’d only been more on the ball, you’d have likely seen considerably more than eight blog posts about DC in 2024 — though still not, I think, anywhere near as many as you would’ve about Marvel.

**For the record, the other three January premieres were Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #1, Secrets of Haunted House #1, and 1st Issue Special #1; my younger self passed on the first of those, but I did buy the latter two, and you’ll be reading about the third of the group here in a couple of weeks. (UPDATE: 1/22/25, 1:00 pm: The original version of this post neglected to mention my purchase of Secrets of Haunted House #1, simply because I’d forgotten all about it.)

***For completeness’ sake, I should also mention the “New 52” version of Beowulf, who appeared in a short-lived series that ran as a backup to the lead “Amethyst” feature in Sword of Sorcery (2012 series) #0-3, as well as in DC Universe Presents #19 (Jun., 2013).  This take was set in a post-apocalyptic future, and featured completely different character designs for Beowulf, Grendel, et al.; other than its logo, which is adapted from that of the 1975 series, it has nothing in common with the Uslan-Villamonte Beowulf that it doesn’t also have in common with the original source material.  For that reason, I see it as its own separate thing, rather than as a revival of the Bronze Age feature; your mileage may vary.