If you missed the last one…
The third installment takes Stalker to the Burning Isle, which is kind of like Iceland but without the tourism. In the last episode he defeated Prior F’lan for the secret location of the door to hell. Stalker is going to spend his time with the lovely Srani and learn some dark history. We learn more about Dgrth too, and how he spends his time. Levitz/Ditko/Wood all do their usual excellent work in a story that is a bit longer than previous installments.
(A complete aside here, I noticed that this comic had the typical ad configuration of 1970s DC comics. These were done in sets of four on corresponding pages. If you wanted you could tear out an ad page (an ad on both sides) and the page that fell out — because they were printed saddle-stapled– were also ads. This meant you could remove all the ads and not lose any story pages. It also meant your comic got really thin. I can remember doing this then regretting it. All the collectors are shaking their heads!)
We start off in the ocean where Stalker is sailing his small craft to the Burning Isle. Dgrth sends magic weather to try and sink him, then a winged demon. Stalker ends up in the drink…
…to be stranded on the island of his destination. There he meets Srani, a woman who was exiled by her village because they thought her a witch.
She survives on the burning and frozen isle on berries from the sparse bushes. Stalker wonders why she did not build a raft and escape?
She offers to show him why. She takes him to a spot…
The many-headed monster shows up and the hero must kill it.
Srani congratulates him and calls him a god. Stalker insists he is just a man.
Meanwhile, Dgrth stops watching TV long enough to notice what the hero and witch are doing. He enjoys the game that is playing out before him.
Srani gives Stalker the tour of the ancient city that once sat on the island. The people were destroyed long ago. Something is following them through the ruins!
The shadowy form turns into a red demon and attacks Stalker. He is unable to draw his sword! He kills the thing by breaking its back over a boulder. He chastises Srani for not helping him. She claims she thought he was a god and needed no help.
Srani reveals the history of the city. Once gods came from the sky in ships that flew through the air. The people resisted these gods and fought a terrible war. The dark gods, except for one, were driven through a portal.
Stalker recalls that the one god was left so that humans might not invade the dimension to which the gods fled. Srani gives up the ruse and turns into her demon form.
Stalker battles her in the air. (And just like a boy he pulls her hair.) He defeats her…
…and insists she show him the portal door. She does with a warning and turns to vapor before he can finish her off.
Stalker now stands at the door to hell. Next time he will pass through and fight Dgrth on his own turf.
Levitz has finally shown his influences for the background of his flat world. He has ships coming from space, and the humans fighting their extraterrestrial conquerors. They manage to drive all the dark gods through a mystical door except one. The pseudo-science of Erik Von Danikan’s Chariots fo the Gods? (1968) is obvious. Also lurking here is H. P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos, both popular features of the 1970s. Levitz doesn’t let either overpower his own ideas, which is nice. The many-headed hydra and the harpy images are all classical Greek mythology.
We won’t get to see what Levitz does with this background but it is a pretty good chance we would have written some Science Fiction style stories eventually. (Perhaps something akin to Jack Katz’s The First Kingdom.) Wally Wood began work on Hercules Unbound the same month as this comic. That Gerry Conway comic was a good example of SF-tinted Sword & Sorcery in a Thundarr the Barbarian kind of deal. Much of the S&S of Warren’s 1984 comic was also a F/SF mix. Wally would contribute some of the best of the Sword & Sorcery there too.
Next time…our last issue!
