Gardner F. Fox’s Crom the Barbarian is special. I have avoided it for a while because I really wanted to do it properly. I want to look at what was new for comics, what was borrowed from Robert E. Howard, and what was paving the way for future Sword & Sorcery comics.
So here we go…
The first story, “Crom the Barbarian” appeared in Out of This World Adventures #1 (July 1950). This was an odd hybrid Pulp/comic developed by Donald A. Wollheim. Since DAW worked for Avon at this time, he had access to both their Pulps and a comic book line. The experiment was to see if the people who bought Pulps also liked comics. He wasn’t the first to try it. Mort Weisinger had back in 1936 with the first issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories (August 1936). That Pulp had featured “Zarnak” by Max Plastid (Jack Binder). The readers were not impressed and the comic was dropped. DAW thought to try it again. This wasn’t John W. Campbell’s Astounding, but a more juvenile adventure-oriented Pulp. Why wouldn’t their readers like comics too?
Well, the results must have been poor again, because the magazine was dropped after #2. For us today, the contents page is fascinating: comics by John B. Michel, Henry Kuttner, Gardner F. Fox, Donald Wollheim doing the two-page text story, art by Joe Kubert and John Giunta along with stories by Ray Cummings, William Tenn, A, E. Van Vogt, Lester Del Rey, A. Bertram Chandler, Mack Reynolds and Kris Neville. What was not to like? No matter what the readers thought, Crom had arrived.
The Aesir, a race of blond warriors, is attacked by the Cymri, enemy monkey-men. During the fight, Crom and his sister, Lalla, end up on a boat. This vessel magically takes them to an island, where Crom sees many beautiful women. Unfortunately, they all belong to the wizard, Dwelf. The magician sends Crom on a mission.
Crom goes to the city of Ophir. There he finds a water girl at a tavern and drinks. He picks a fight so he will be arrested and taken to the jail tower. This building is across from the queen’s tower, his goal. Using a cord and a file, he has secreted on his person, he crosses the gap from the jail to the treasure tower.
Having killed the guardian cats, he takes out the human guards then finds the fountain of youth is not unguarded.
Having conquered the giant snake, he is attacked by the queen herself, but Crom disarms her and fills his flask with magical water. Taking her as hostage, he easily leaves Ophir, but not before Queen Tanit tells him to come back and rule by her side. The pair return to the island and the wizard.
There are many small details in this story that came from Robert E. Howard. For example, Ophir is one of Howard’s Hyborian kingdoms. The Aesir are a race who live near the Cimmerians. Gardner uses old gods from antiquity, as did Howard, so Set can be found in both. The tower is familiar from “The Tower of the Elephant” as are its feline guards. More so the giant snake (from other stories) that would later appear in the film Conan the Barbarian in 1982.
More importantly than these small items (Henry Kuttner’s Elak does the same kind of small-time looting), is the character and adventure of Crom. Here is a barbarian (blond, not raven-haired) who has a trusty sword, cunning and powerful body, who must put up with evil wizards and bed as many beautiful ladies as possible.
The over-arching plot of this story is quite familiar to comics fans. The very first Conan the Barbarian issue (October 1970), written by Roy Thomas was called “The Coming of Conan”. It features Volff of Vanaheim, Olav of Aesgaard, and an evil wizard named Sharkosh the Shaman. Many of the elements are similar to this Crom tale.
Later Doug Moench would write “The Lord of Tyndall’s Quest” (Marvel Premiere #38, October 1977) and Tyndall would be sent on Grithstane’s quest or lose his girl, Velanna. Almost identical when you smooth over the details. The barbarian on a quest for a wizard is a popular comics plot. Should Gardner F. Fox get credit for that or Robert E. Howard? (See my piece on “Rogues in the House”.)
Just a quick word here about John Giunta (1920-1970) who illustrated these stories. John was a Pulp illustrator and later comic book artist. Let’s remember that John did not have the benefit of many artists before him. Unlike Barry Smith who could look to Frank Frazetta, to all those who had John Buscema and Ernie Chan’s Conan to begin with, Giunta was in largely in virgin territory here. He could look to Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant but little else. I think we should acknowledge Giunta’s innovations here too.
The second Crom story appeared in Strange Worlds #1 (November 1950).
Crom, Tanit and Lalla sail away from Dwelf’s island. (We never learn who takes care of the baby wizard…) They land on an island and are attacked by apemen. Crom fights valiantly but is left for dead.
The girls are taken to the king of the apemen, Rou. Crom revives and goes in search, finding the apemen’s city.
Fighting again, Crom is captured and taken to the king.
Rou sends a messenger to Ophir, which is being ruled by Bokris in Tanit’s absence. He refuses to pay the ransom, killing one of the messengers. Rou is angered by this. He sentences all three of them to be given to the spider-god, Spraa.
Crom kills the Spraa, then sneaks the girls out the back door of the cave. They return to Ophir, where the people are happy to see Tanit alive. Bokris is much less happy. He offers his armed men a fortune if they kill the queen. Crom bravely defends her, then faces off with Bokris…
This episode feels less Howardian, though the giant spider is reminiscent of the one in the Elephant Tower. (Let’s remember that Shelob has yet to appear in print, though J. R. R. Tolkien did have spider monsters in The Hobbit in 1937.) The royal intrigue with Bokris feels more like Henry Kuttner and his Prince Raynor stories, and later in 1956, Lin Carter’s Thongor novels. The apemen are pretty standard fantasy villains, perhaps closer to Edgar Rice Burroughs than REH. They scream “Hu! Hu!” when they attack. (A small hint of H. Rider Haggard’s Heu Heu? Maybe not.)
The last and longest Crom tale appeared in Strange Worlds #2 (April 1951).
In a land south of Ophir, a giant named Balthar discovers a clan of regular-sized people. The simple-minded giant grabs a girl named Calla. The people want Balthar to be their king but Calla does one better, insisting she is the priestess of a god. She sends Balthar to raid the caravans headed for Ophir.
When word gets back to Crom and Queen Tanit, the barbarian is ready for an adventure. (He is finding court life very dull.) Crom gathers men in ships and sails south. Unfortunately, they meet a large dinosaur-like critter…
Crom manages to kill the monster using his signature move, the sword to the eye.
Saving one boat full of men, Crom leads them through the jungle to find the city of Balthar’s people. Scouting ahead, Crom sees the giant. He knows his men will panic so he has them attack the city before seeing their foe. The cavemen can’t stand against Ophir’s archers. Calla sees the danger and sends up a signal fire for Balthar. He comes and Crom’s army flees. Crom challenges the giant to a duel.
Crom finds the giant powerful but slow. He dodges the giant’s club then his hands. Finally he ends Balthar…
This time around the inspiration feels more like Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ “John Carter and the Giant of Mars” (Amazing Stories, January 1941) with Joog, another simple-minded brute controlled by others. (That dinosaur also feels a little ERB.) And so Crom is the real hero of “Jack and the Giant-Killer” his fame lasting to this day in fairy tales.
This is the final story so we don’t know how life goes for him in the city. It is not hard to imagine him facing more terrors that attack the city. Fox never wrote those tales. Instead he moved on to the anthology comics at DC like Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures.
The Crom the Barbarian comics were not the last Sword & Sorcery comics Fox would write. For Warren he produced a number as well as Skywald but decades later. In fiction, he would write three series: Kothar, Barbarian Swordsman and Kyrik in paperback and in the 1980s, the Niall of the Long Journeys stories for The Dragon.
True Sword & Sorcery comics after 1950 were few and far between. The next one to bear the name “barbarian” was Wally Wood and Al Williamson’s “Clawfang the Barbarian”(Thrill-O-Rama #2, September 1966). Appearing just as The Lord of the Rings and the Lancer Conans were exploding in paperback, the comic failed to inspire. Four years later, Marvel would unleash Conan the Barbarian and the Sword & Sorcery comics boom would begin. Gardner F. Fox had done much of what Thomas and Barry Smith would do but twenty years earlier. Fox was truly an innovator ahead of his time.
