You are probably expecting a piece on Dagar the Invincible but Donald F. Glut wrote some other stories under this title and secreted them away in Mystery Comics Digest. Unlike most of the contents of MCD, these were not reprints from Twilight Zone and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Half of these feature Duroc (later Durak), the proto-type for Dagar. It is these small side pieces I am interested in today. (I will get around to the full run of Dagar eventually. Be patient.)
I’m not sure why these pieces were done. Whether they were experiments (Tragg seems to be one of these) or if the editors had asked Don to produce some new material to fill out their digest. Most of the art is done by Jesse Santos, half of the team that made all of the Don Glut comics stand out. Good writing and good art is always a winner.
These comics give us a glimpse into Donald F. Glut’s early Sword & Sorcery, which will become the nineteen issues of Dagar the Invincible comic but he will also go onto back-up features for Marvel’s The Savage Sword of Conan and nine issues of Kull the Destroyer.
“Doomed to Battle” (Mystery Comics Digest #6, August 1972) has Duane the undefeated, the most unpopular knight in King Arthur’s court. A strange black knight comes to challenge him. Duane is unseated in the joust for the first time. The fight continues on foot. The knight defeats the attacker to find he is only made of enchanted bones. Duane goes to Merlin who sees a cave in his crystal ball. Duane goes to the cave to find all the dead knights he has killed over the years. They take their revenge. Duane returns a skeleton, doomed to fight in the ranks of the dead. I am not usually a fan of Speigle’s art, but he did pretty well in this piece.
“Wizard of the Crimson Castle” (Mystery Comics Digest #7, September 1972) This comic features Duroc, Glut’s first barbarian hero. Duroc comes across some lizard-men kidnapping a woman. He fights them but gets knocked out. The lizards leave him and take the woman to their master, Xorkon, at his crimson castle. Duroc awakens and follows. He fights both lizard-men and wizard, driving them away. He takes the woman away but she is one of the wizard’s creations. She turns back into a lizard. The wizard Xorkon will show up here again and later feature in a Dr. Spektor comic that also guest-stars Duroc (“The Brain of Xorkon” and “The Barbarian and the Brain”, The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor #15-16, August-September 1975).
“Cult of the Cave Bear” (Mystery Comics Digest #9, January 1973) This comic features the caveman Tragg and isn’t really Sword & Sorcery despite what it says at the top of Page 1. Tragg and Lorn are out hunting bears. Their catch is taken by a race of dead men. The chief of Tragg’s tribe has heard of these bear-worshippers. The zombie-like killers are led by the living Oosh, who attacks the caves and captures Lorn for his bride. Part of the wedding ceremony is the resurrecting of a dead bear. Tragg tampers with the ritual and the bear starts killing all the zombies. He and lorn escape while Oosh and his minions are destroyed. A very early S&S tale, I suppose. Glut could have changed the setting to a medieval one and had a Duroc story.
“The Last Dragon” (Mystery Comics Digest #13, September 1973) King George summons his wizard, Korza, to discuss his son. The prince is a coward. George wants the wizard to find a dragon for the prince to slay, proving his courage. The king’s nephew, Sir Glide, overhears the conversation and sets out to win the throne in the prince’s place. He goes to Korza and demands a sword that can kill a dragon with a single scratch. The next day, prince goes to face the dragon. Korza has created the monster with a spell since all the dragons are dead. The prince defeats the beast only to see it turn into Sir Glide, the true coward. For more on comic book dragons, go here.
“The Evil of Xorkon” (Mystery Comics Digest #14, October 1973) Another Duroc story, has the hero sucked into a whirlpool then rescued by a mermaid named Lorlee. He wants her to become human so he goes to the Crimson Castle of Xorkon, knowing the wizard can transform living things. The barbarian threatens the wizard, who has fallen since his early days. Xorkon says the spell can only be done once. He turns Lorlee into a complete fish instead of a woman. Duroc takes his revenge by throwing the wizard into the sea for the fish to eat. (I have to assume Xorkon escapes because he will be back.)
“The Golden Curse” (Mystery Comics Digest #15, January 1974) Our final Duroc tale has the barbarian’s name changed to Durak. It’s only been three months since the last one, so I assume Glut chose the more barbaric “ak”. Perhaps it was too similar to Gold Key’s Turok? This tale is a version of King Midas. A wizard named Lo-Jas has a method for creating gold. Durak comes, hoping to learn from the alchemist. Lo-Jas tells his story. He worked hard as a young man, ignoring the beautiful Kanda while he slaved away on the formula. When he succeeded, she took the secret mixture and turned herself into a golden statue. Lo-Jas has spent the rest of his life trying to create an antidote. He still hadn’t found one when Durak leaves. Durak’s presence in the story is mostly irrelevant.
Conclusion
Tragg and Durak would be back after these appearance. Tragg got his own comic in 1975 when aliens (The Sky Gods) were added to the scenario. That comic was trying to jump on the Von Daniken bandwagon. Durak had a number of appearances with Dagar the Invincible, Dr. Spektor and even a text story. Donald F. Glut tried to weave all of his creations (some even from outside Gold Key comics) into his storytelling so Dracula-like vampires and Conan-ish barbarians can occupy the same comic book. The worlds of Don F. Glut are always fun and intriguing.
Next time…The Solomon Kane adventures….
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
