Robert E. Howard’s James Allison in Comics

Roy Thomas sat in a unique position in the early 1970s. None of the Howard material had been adapted unless you count one very obscure version of “Gods of the North” in Star-Studded Comics #14 (December 1968). Roy had all the plots to choose from, and he was geared towards making every story a Conan story. That is why “The Garden of Fear” became a tale of Conan of Cimmeria instead of Hunwulf .

Robert E. Howard was no stickler either. He wrote and re-wrote stories to suit editors. Unlike Tolkien –who insisted that his villains be named Sauron and Sarumon (as any good editor will tell you, don’t make them sound too similar) as well as the two female leads Eowyn and Arwen– Howard would take Kull out and put Conan in there without a shrug. So Roy certainly didn’t do anything wrong.

One of Howard’s horde of characters was the crippled Texan, James Allison, who re-lived the lives of heroes in his dreams. The men whose lives he witnesses are barbarians roaming the earth in search of a new home. Of the series only three stories were used by Marvel Comics: “The Garden of Fear” (Marvel Tales #2, July-August 1934), “The Valley of the Worm” (Weird Tales, February 1934) and “The Marchers of Valhalla” (1975).

Conan the Barbarian #9 (September 1971) was scripted by Roy Thomas, penciled by Barry Windsor-Smith and inked by Sal Buscema. Conan is powerless to stop the kidnapping of Jenna (much sexier than Gudrun) by a winged man. Conan follows them to a tower with no door or stairs. At the bottom is the Garden of Fear of the title, blood-sucking plants.

Fortunately a herd of mammoths live near by and Conan stampedes them over the plants. Man and winged ancient face off for the girl.

Supernatural Thrillers #3 (April 1973) was scripted Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway (two writers who would provide the story for the movie script of Conan the Destroyer). The art was by Gil Kane and Ernie Chan. I personally consider this Gil Kane’s finest masterpiece and perhaps the height of Marvel Howard comics. Why it appeared in a crappy horror reprint comic is a little mystifying. Gil Kane would do a second version called “Birthright” for Monsters Unleashed #3 (November 1973) with a stupid Science Fiction ending. Richard Corben would do yet another version called Bloodstar (September 1979) with John Jakes and John Pocsik. Oddly, the story is moved to the future.

The original story, which Thomas was quite faithful about adapting, has Niord and his people encounter Gorm and his Picts. They become allies, setting Niord on the quest of killing the terror in the valley. This Lovecraftian beastie is a gigantic worm from the ages before humans. To destroy the titan, Niord traps and kills Satha (the giant snake that will appear in the Conan tale, “The Scarlet Citadel”). Using the venom of the snake, he takes on the worm and its weird piping companion. The ending is not happy but the tales of St. George and the Dragon and his ilk are set for all time.

Conan the Barbarian #70 and 71 (January-February 1977) freely adapts “The Marchers of Valhalla”, a Howard story that saw its first publication in 1975 in a paperback of that name with an introduction by Fritz Leiber. (Fritz admits they changed the lead character’s name from Niord to Hialmar because REH had already used that name.) Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Ernie Chan doing their magic. Conan, Belit and their pirates end up at a lost city where a struggle between the king and the priestess of Astoreth is taking place. You guessed it, the newcomers are the catalyst that breaks the detente and there is lots of fighting. The plot is quite familiar to anyone who has read Howard’s “The Gods of Bal-Sagoth”. Perhaps “Marchers” was an earlier draft?

I guess it is pretty obvious that some of these are among my favorite Marvel/Howard comics. Nothing sends me back faster to the 1970s than re-reading these issues, which I poured over as a teen and afterwards as a fan of REH. I can still remember when I created a timeline that ran from Kull to the James Allison stories to Conan to Bran Mak Morn to Turlough O’Brien. I was doomed to be a blogger of such… These comics were a big part of what shaped me as a writer.