Joe Kubert’s Son of Sinbad is a Sword & Sandal comic that will appeal to Sword & Sorcery fans. Joe got his start as a producer of comics at St. John Comics, where he did such characters as Tor the caveman. He also produced some of the first 3-D comics. “Son of Sinbad” appeared in only one issue with a leftover showing up in Abbott & Costello Comics #10. Here Joe got to work on his historical themes that he would later use in DC’s “The Viking Prince”.
Sinbad is, of course, a public domain character taken from The Arabian Nights. By making the lead his son, St. John may have been trying to hang onto some copyright that otherwise would not be possible. (I am not sure why, but he is never given an actual name. He even refers to himself in the third person.) The Douglas Fairbanks Jr. film, Sinbad the Sailor appeared in 1947. The film Son of Sinbad would appear in 1955. Joe’s comic falls in between these two, with a fairly obvious Fairbanks look to his character. The classic Ray Harryhausen films would not start until 1958. For more on the later Sinbad Comics, go here.
“Ransom of Shipwreck Shoals!” (Son of Sinbad #1, February 1950) begins when Elene the slave girl sneaks into the Caliph’s palace. Sinbad finds her and takes her to the tower. Elene recounts that Mytar the Pirate, her current owner, has the Son of Sinbad’s father’s map to a lost ivory treasure. She has made a copy. The son goes in search of his father’s wrecked ship, one bearing a unicorn as figurehead. He meets with Kemal, a lost sailor, who tries to kill him. Kemal dies in their struggle but tells of the treasure hidden in the unicorn’s head. The Son of Sinbad returns with the ivory, which he pays Mytar for Elene. Too bad, it turns out to be fake. The son of Sinbad also keeps the pile of jewels he found inside the unicorn’s head.
“The Curse of the Caliph’s Dancer” (Son of Sinbad #1, February 1950) has Sinbad falling ill of the Caliph’s spoiled nephew, Haroun. The Caliph decides the best way to settle their differences is a challenge. The man who brings back the largest pearl from the ocean wins. On board his ship, the Son of Sinbad finds a sorceress and her daughter being held captive. He frees them. The seeress tells him that a dancer named Kina has procured a magic charm for Haroun. Sinbad gets on with trying to find a giant pearl. He has a close call in the water when Haroun’s ship appears. Haroun dives for the pearl, thinking his charm will protect him, but is attacked by a giant octopus. Sinbad saves him from the monster as well as the tiger sharks. He also finds a pearl the size of a goose’s egg. Haroun is humbled. For this reward, Sinbad asks the Caliph to take on Rachil, the witch’s daughter, as a ward.
“The Merchant of Menace” (Son of Sinbad #1, February 1950) starts with the Son of Sinbad rescuing a woman, Sara, on a panicking camel. Our hero arranges to accompany a caravan through the desert, and agrees to take Sara back to her distant country. On the trip, agents against the woman make false claims. The Son of Sinbad saves her from getting lost in the desert. He also discovers that her rampaging camel had been a trap set to kill her. When he finally gets her home, the reception is not good. The Son of Sinbad escapes slavery by boasting he is the greatest camel rider. He wins the race and throws down the merchant who has betrayed the Sultan’s trust. This one is interesting because Carmine Infantino did the pencils. Later Joe and Carmine would revamp DC superheroes with The Flash in the Silver Age.
“The Princess of Pirate Cove” (Abbott & Costello Comics #10, August 1950) has the Son of Sinbad rescue a woman from Lahru’s pirates. The two cover themselves with sea weed and escape. They are driven into the cave where a band of fierce women dwell. Evading the cave women, the pair explore a complex filled with treasure. The woman the Son of Sinbad saved is Princess Xenia of the Spice Islands. They encounter a sleeping guard in a treasure room. The Son of Sinbad fights him and defeats him. Questioning the guard, they learn that Lahru is a mad woman. She does not allow anyone to possess large amounts of cloth for fear they will make a sail and escape. The Son of Sinbad finds her, knocks her out and places her in a covering from her bed. The hero, and the two women, escape in a boat. The bed covering is used as a sail.
Conclusion
Putting this comic into the timeline, other S&S near misses included “Malu the Slave Girl” in 1949 and “Alpha the Slave Pirate” also in 1950. Son of Sinbad appeared six months before Garner F. Fox would give the world “Crom the Barbarian”, a true S&S comic. Joe Kubert and other comic artists were thinking along the lines of a heroic fantasy comic but it was Crom who finally nailed it.
We can be sad that there were only four adventures but I prefer to think this was Joe Kubert getting his feet wet in the heroic fantasy genre. Joe Kubert’s “Son of Sinbad” has only a smattering of magic and it is not used to any real degree. This is a comic about sword fights and daring-do, first and foremost, like the movie that inspired it. “The Viking Prince” will start with the same lack of monsters and magic but would eventually morph into a true S&S strip. Warren and DC would actually experiment with Sword & Sorcery before Marvel Comics took the plunge with Conan the Barbarian in 1970.
