Lost Cities of the Bronze Age

If you missed the last one…

The Bronze Age of lost cities is really a time of specialists. Tarzan at DC or Marvel finds one every other week. Ka-Zar and The Warlord, Travis Morgan live in lost worlds, while Conan had his share too. The comic presented here are not these but random pop-ups mostly in comics for younger readers though there is the odd Horror title and other adventure comics. The idea of the lost city is getting pretty familiar by this time so don’t expect much in the way of grand cities and lost ruins.

The Bronze Age

“Trumpet Perilous” (The Witching Hour #9, June-July 1970) has explorers in Central Asia discover a fabulous lost city. The men find vessels that can magically fill with water. They also find a giant horn, which they end up blowing. The sound causes the end of all existence.

“The Lost City of Pheenix” (The Phantom comic strip, November 8, 1971 – January 8, 1972) was written by Lee Falk. The Phantom is a strange superhero who lives in the jungle, though he doesn’t wear Tarzan-style leopard skins. Of course, starting on February 17, 1936, he was bound to find one sooner or later.

“Harvest of Fear” (Brothers of the Spear #1, June 1972) was written by Jerry O’Hara and Russ Manning. This comic began as a back-up feature for Tarzan in 1951 but eventually got its own comic. This was the first issue. The comic is set in a lost city that is captured by the witch-men and the Tuaregs. Dan-el and Natongo were away so they sneak in and recapture their home.

“The Lost Legion” (The Phantom #50, June 1972) The Phantom again but this time not in the comic strips. The Phantom discovers a lost Roman city and must face the horrors of the arena to save his captive friends. Tarzan did this many years earlier but the Roman always make interesting opponents.

“The Golden Elefink” (Baby Snoots #9, August 1972) has Baby Snoots join an expedition to find a lost city and its golden statues. The explorers face pirates and the jungle before success. The lost elephants create a statue in Snoots honor.

“Ghost of the Lost City of Cibola” (Hanna-Barbera’s The Funky Phantom #8, December 1973) has April and Augie using a glider to find a lost city. The rest of the gang, along with funky phantom, must rescue them when they fall through the earth. Phantom has to take on a ghost of long dead First Nations warrior. The ghosts help fly the glider home.

“The Lost City of the Mayanacas” (Secret Agent Corrigan comic strip, October 28- November 2, 1974) was written by Archie Goodwin. I have to admit I’ve never heard of this one. And that’s saying something because I am a huge Goodwin and Williamson fan. Archie wrote and edited the first (and best) Warren magazines as well as much Sword & Sorcery. Along with Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson elevated comic art to the highest standards.

“Island at the Top of the World” (Walt Disney Showcase #27, February 1975) Mary Carey adapted the screenplay based on Ian Cameron’s The Lost Ones. This movie was the Bronze Age’s masterwork. The idea of a lost world or city filled with Vikings was not a new idea but no one had done it well for so long that Ian Cameron surprised everyone. The film version was a hit too, with Disney swiping Edgar Rice Burroughs’ zeppelin from Tarzan at the Earth’s Core for this adaptation. The Island at the Top of the World (1974) was certainly important to me when I was a preteen discovering this classic trope. It’s probably why you find so many frozen Vikings here.

“Prisoners of the Sun” (The Adventures of TinTin, September 30, 1975) was written and drawn by Herge. Another blast from my past, and I think for so many others, was discovering Tin-Tin comics. These comics are translated into dozens of languages and are read all over the world. This one surprised me because it was from 1975. I thought they were all from 1940 but Herge was still at it in 1975. This one has Tin Tin, Captain Haddock and Snowy off to South America and a lost city of ancients. The condor bit reminds me of Jules Verne.

“The Lost City” (Underdog #19, June 1978) was based on a popular cartoon when I was kid. (I am surprised to see the comic still going in 1978.) Underdog goes on a long three-part adventure following Simon Bar Sinister and Cad Lackey through the Earth. Simon wants to break into vaults in Australia so he drill through the entire planet. (He is a mad genius, after all.) They find a lost city, of course, inhabited by termite people.

“Secret Enemy!” (Weird War Tales #104, October 1981) was written by George Kashdan. A Central American dictator discovers Quaxicalcl, the lost city of gold. When he and another fight over the gold, the dictator ends up in quicksand. He refuses to let go of the golden cup he holds and drowns. The message about greed is pretty obvious.

“The Lost City” (Life With Archie #247, March 1985) was written by Dick Malmgren. Archie and the gang go with Mr. Lodge to the jungle and get to do Indiana Jones style adventure. Of course, there are boulders!

Conclusion

By the end of the Bronze Age, 1985, the lost city novel is a hundred years old. H. Rider Haggard made the concept popular in 1885 with King Solomon’s Mines. Since that book, written in a challenge to write something better than Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, novels and short stories and later comics were filled with Haggardian ruins found in the jungle or at the top of the world, where people still live as if lost in time.

The Bronze Age did not see the last of these, of course. Comics still use the lost city, the lost valley, the lost world whenever they need to ramp up the exotic factor. There is something simply more exciting when Indiana Jones takes the golden head from the lost ruins than if he had done it elsewhere.  Spike traps, poison blow darts, rolling boulders, it is all part of the charm of the ancient lost city where wealth and danger dwell side-by-side.