Monsters Unleashed, the black-and-white magazine from Marvel was a trove of hidden Sword & Sorcery. The original goal of the 1973 publications Dracula Lives, Monster Madness, Vampire Tales and Tales of the Zombie was to compete with the Warren Publications line that included Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Marvel even tried a Sword & Sorcery themed magazine called Savage Tales but it turned into a jungle magazine eventually. Only in August 1974 did this happen for real with the success of The Savage Sword of Conan.
Monsters Unleashed is a mixed bag. The covers are dominated by the monsters of Universal Studios of the 1930s: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, etc. Inside was a different story. There were stories that might have been mistaken for any issue of Creepy, but there were the nuggets of heroic fantasy too. And this should surprise no one. Warren had been using Sword &Sorcery tales since “The Ogre’s Castle” (Creepy #2, April 1965), written by Archie Goodwin. If Warren had, why not Marvel? (Or Skywald for that matter?) Heroic fantasy with a dark twist was just part-and-parcel of a Horror mag in the 1970s.
Monsters Unleashed #1 (June 1973) featured “The Skulls in the Stars”, a first Solomon Kane adaptation by Roy Thomas and Ralph Reese. Kane takes the road less traveled and unravels a family tragedy. Solomon Kane would resurface in Dracula Lives #3 and “Castle of the Undead” before taking up residence at Savage Sword. For more on this comic, go here.
“World of the Warlocks” written by Gardner F. Fox and Roy Thomas with art by Gene Colan. Fox wrote Sword & Sorcery for Warren around the same time. He, is of course, famous for writing the very first S&S hero in Crom the Barbarian in 1950. Gene Colan’s work is so good. I wonder why he didn’t do more S&S. He would pencil “The Curse of the Monolith” in Savage Sword of Conan #33 (September 1978). For more on this comic, go here.
Monsters Unleashed #2 (September 1973) reprinted “Sword of Dragons” from Phase #1 (1971) written by Frank Brunner and Nick Cuti and drawn by Brunner. Dragonus offers up some dark and sour fantasy in the Warren style. For more on this comic and its sequel, go here.
Monsters Unleashed #3 (November 1973) features “Birthright” by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane and The Crusty Bunkers. This comic is interesting when compared with Gil Kane’s masterwork “The Valley of the Worm” from Supernatural Thrillers #3. For more on “Birthright”, go here.
Monsters Unleashed #4 (February 1974) gave us “Web of Hate”, based on the novel Lt. Gulliver of Mars by Edwin Lester Arnold (1905) It was written by Tony Isabella. Art by Dave Cockrum (with plenty of Gil Kane swipes). This series originally appeared in color in Creatures on the Loose #21 (1971). For the full color collection, go here. This comic is followed by a text piece discussing possibly reviving the strip. (This was intended as a one-shot, but it would turn out to be a Two-For.) The piece mentions the possible influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars but doesn’t dwell on it. (DC had the rights to Carter at the time.) Not technically Sword & Sorcery but Interplanetary Romance (or Sword & Planet), the feel is not lost on S&S fans. Gulliver saves Heru from the spider bats then feels bad about it after.
Monsters Unleashed #5 (April 1974) has a text article by Gerry Conway called “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad or What To Do Until the Genie Comes”. The review is positive with a fun digression about how Gerry got the assignment to adapt the movie for comics (over Len Wein, who was another Fantasy fanatic). The title sounds snarky but isn’t really. Conway might want to be generous, for he and Roy Thomas would create the story for Conan the Destroyer in 1984. Talk about needing kind reviews!
Monsters Unleashed #6 and 7 had no heroic fantasy material just plenty of ads for Conan and Haunt of Horror which did.
Monster Unleashed #8 (October 1974) saw the return of Gulliver of Mars. “A Martian Genesis” was plotted by Tony Isabella with a script by Doug Moench. Art by George Pérez, Rich Buckler, Duffy Vohland, John Byrne and Bob Layton. This time we get winged serpents, mad scientists and weird mutants. No crying though.
Monsters Unleashed #9 (December 1974) has “The Jewel That Snarled at Slight Greed” by Doug Moench and Don Perlin. This comic is an introductory piece that will eventually become Moench’s Klarn universe. For more on this comic, go here.
Monsters Unleashed #10 (February 1975) featured “Beauty’s Vengeance” written by Doug Moench and drawn by Sanho Kim. Kim had done Sword & Sorcery with an Asian influence for Skywald. A warrior saves a mermaid who is trapped by a log. A humble woman comes to live with him but the warrior can’t fall in love with her because he is haunted by the vision of the mermaid. The two take a boat out to find the mermaid, and she gives the man what he deserves.
Monsters Unleashed #11 (April 1975) did not feature any Sword & Sorcery. The unpublished #12 was to have had “An Ugly Mirror on Weirdworld” by Doug Moench and Mike Ploog. The story eventually showed up in Marvel Super Action #1 (January 1976). Again, the first steps in Moench’s Klarn universe.
Monsters Unleashed Annual (1975) reprinted “World of Warlocks” and “Birthright”, making the collective reprint have some Sword & Sorcery in it.
Conclusion
Monsters Unleashed gave us some hidden Sword & Sorcery gems along with tales of werewolves and vampires from the pages of Weird Tales. (Some reprinted from the old days of Marvel.) The mix of Horror and S&S is pretty typical of the 1970s black-and-whites. The late 1960s explosion of Sword & Sorcery (after The Lord of the Rings appeared in paperback) would find its eventual home with Savage Sword of Conan, a magazine that went on to publish 235 issues. It is fun to look in other Marvel magazines for the odd bit here and there. Monsters Unleashed is no exception. Some of these, like the Solomon Kane story, would be reprinted in SSOC. Roy Thomas edited Monsters Unleashed, and his influence can never be underestimated.
Fascinating! Stuff like this reminds me that the Marvel I know is just the tip of the iceberg.