After Thongor in Creatures on the Loose #22-29, I started to think about Sword & Sorcery comics I liked that didn’t last even nine issues. My all time fav is Michael Urslan’s Beowulf Dragonslayer (and we’ll get to him) but another that rated pretty high was Paul Levitz’s Stalker. I can remember at the time thinking it looked too cartoony compared to Conan the Barbarian. In hindsight I love the artwork. I had no idea just how good Steve Ditko and Wally Wood were together. Both are masters with a real love of S&S.
Levitz was Joe Orlando’s assistant, as he details in “The Sword & the Soul” at the back of the issue. After his bio: “Oh, yes, about Stalker. Started one afternoon when Orlando told me we needed another magazine–go create one! So I did, and two drafts later it turned into what you just read.” Only nineteen, he got two of the best Fantasy creators in the business to draw his comic. What an opportunity! (He later would be a president and publisher in comics.)
Steve Ditko will always be remembered as the first artist on Spider-man. Steve would go on to draw some great superhero and horror stories but I remember him for the early Sword & Sorcery comics he did with Archie Goodwin at Warren.
Wally Wood was a superstar. He worked at EC Comics in the early days before drawing for Marvel and DC as well as experimenting with S&S in the independent comics. He wrote “Clawfang the Barbarian” for Al Williamson to draw back in 1966. He spoofed The Lord of the Rings in “The King of the Ring”. His The King of the World was a massive heroic fantasy series published largely underground because of sexual content. Wally is one of Sword & Sorcery’s biggest heroes, and he doesn’t disappoint in Stalker.
Stalker would only run for four issues. The reason as always was poor sales. I always thought it was the DC Implosion but that actually wouldn’t happen for another three years. Like my beloved Beowulf Dragonslayer, Stalker didn’t sell and got cancelled. It wasn’t my fault because I bought them. And treasured them. (So that one was on you….)
The first issue opens at Castle Loranth.
Stalker sneaks in to deliver a message on the point of a thrown dagger.
The recipient is the Baroness of the castle. The message warns that Stalker will return and take his revenge.
We flash back to the unnamed youth’s terrible early years. He is thrown out of his home by his father, turns thief to survive, endures a journey to Geranth in the cold wastes of the North. But even a street urchin can dream of being a hero…
When he meets the Baroness, he is promised great things, but the noblewoman only wants a slave. He spends all his time scrubbing floors and other hard labor, only to be whipped for his insolence.
But he doesn’t stand down. Instead, he fights back, making an enemy of the slave master. His only option is a risky escape out the window.
The boy wanders for a week and ends up back in Geranth. Here he spies many temples but chooses that which belongs to Dgrth, demon-god of warriors.
He calls forth Dgrth who promises him might and fierce battle skills. The price is his soul. The boy gladly gives it.
The only problem is Dgrth wants it now not after he is dead. He takes it.
Now named Stalker, he rises a new warrior with blood-red eyes. He returns to Castle Loranth to get his revenge and is discovered by the slave master.
Stalker bests the slave master in a duel that drops his dead body at the Countess’s feet. He leaves feeling hollow, no sense of power or justice. He is now a warrior but one who has no soul, no humanity.
Looking back at this set-up, what could have been more appealing to my twelve year-old soul? Unlike Conan, who is a superman, Stalker is a young man now saddled with a curse. What kid doesn’t see the tyranny of the Countess in home life? (Grow up a bit, kid, and you’ll see your parents weren’t ogres.) Stalker gains super powers but at the cost of his very soul. When you read Conan it is more like “Wow, Conan can do anything! I wish I was Conan.” Stalker is probably closer to what that would be like. If you could do anything, the cost would be very high, indeed.
Re-reading the comic now I noticed a few things that I didn’t long ago. The Countess looks like a version of Disney’s evil queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Stalker’s outfit looks like something that Link would wear in The Legend of Zelda, but of course, that game wouldn’t exist for another eleven years. What all this means I think is that Steve Ditko wasn’t trying to create a pseudo-Conan world but one based more on fairy tales. The first page declares the comics “A Saga of Sword & Sorcery”, which it certainly is, but the visual flavor is closer to Sleeping Beauty than The Hour of the Dragon. This could be considered a marketing error? Was DC trying to sell this comic to younger readers? I suspect not. Their most successful S&S comic was Claw the Unconquered, which looked very Conan the Barbarian. (And was actually killed by the DC Implosion.) Looking at it now, I love the fact that it doesn’t look like John Buscema and Ernie Chan. (After all those issues of Savage Sword of Conan, my visual sense seeks what looks different, not the same.)
“The Sword & the Soul” also gave us a map of Stalker’s world, probably drawn by Levitz. It was quite small and not very well displayed for some reason. Fantasy readers always love maps. We’ll see how many of these places we get to before the comic gets cancelled.
Next time…the World’s End Sea…
