The Thongor Comics: Creatures on the Loose #24

If you missed the last one…

Creatures on the Loose #24 (Juy 1973) began the adaptation of Lin Carter’s first Thongor novel. This was originally written in 1965 as The Wizard of Lemuria but got a face-lift in 1969. It was re-released as Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria, then followed by five sequels. I read those beginning in 1976 with the Vincent DiFate cover editions. Of course, I already knew the story because I had read it in Creatures on the Loose first.

The world of Thongor is a real mix of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. Lemuria is covered in jungle and filled with dinosaurs (taking place in the ancient past of Earth). It feels a little like Kull’s Valusia too. The character of Thongor is the strongest Howard element. The flying boat that is key to the plot looks a lot like something from John Carter of Mars’ Barsoom (and it is) but Carter later explained in Thongor at the End of Time (1968) where the general overview of the Thongor books came from:

…The vahan vidya, or Flying Car (or Sky Chariot of the god Indra) occurs both in the Ramayana and the Rigveda. It also appears in the Persian Shah Namah as the Flying Throne of the Shah Kaikooz, and perhaps in the Arabian Nights, in Rabbincal and also in Moslem tradition as the flying carpet or King Solomon’s flying chair…

In fact, between Indian texts and Madame Blavatsky’s books on Lemuria, there is very little that Carter made up himself.

The comic adaptation is familiar: Effinger, Mayerik, Colletta, Roy Thomas as editor. If there is anyone who knows how to adapt S&S novels and stories it is Roy Thomas. He would eventually play midwife to most of Howard’s works in comics form. In 1973, he had had plenty of practice already.

The story opens with Thongor living up to his barbarian code of “does not play well with others”. He has joined the city guard but his officer taunts him in an inn and the two begin fighting. First with fists and wine cups.

Later with swords. Thongor beats the man over and over but someone slips up behind him and knocks him out.

He wakes to the familiar stink and darkness of the dungeon.

Someone comes. It is Ald Thurmis to rescue him.

Out in the street Thongor is attacked by city guards but defeats them with his sword. It is after this he notices that the sark, or king, has a flying boat parked on top of a building. Thongor climbs the wall to reach the boat.

Thongor learns how to maneuver the boat then flees. He falls asleep after hours and hours of flying.

He wakes to a loud jarring. Looking up he sees he is being attacked by a Grakk, the pterodon of Lemuria.

The boat has a bow for just such emergencies and Thongor uses it.

The Grakk fights back. Thongor is knocked unconscious. Fortunately he tied himself to the boat. Not so good, a Tyrannosaurus (or the rather poorly named Dwark) comes out of the jungle in what might be the best cliffhanger ever written.

Wow! Talk about pace. A fight, a chase, an escape, another fight and a cliffhanger. Who wouldn’t want to buy the next issue? The inspiration for some of the elements are pretty easy to spot. Thongor’s time in prison comes from Robert E. Howard’s “The Scarlet Citadel” (Weird Tales, January 1933) though Ald Thurmis showing up makes his escape much easier. The fight with the pterodon is right out of The People That Time Forgot (Blue Book, September-November 1918), where Billings takes on a pterodon in his biplane. Also there is “John Carter and the Giant of Mars” (Amazing Stories, January 1941) which introduced the Malagor, the pterodon of Mars. Despite this, Carter has used the elements in a way that doesn’t feel too derivative. They serve his plot well.

I wanted to mention the cover for this issue. John Romita and Ernie Chan are superb for starters. (Only Gil Kane’s cover for the last issue is better, I think.) Art aside, there is a beautiful damsel in the air boat with Thongor. Which, when you read it, there is not. This got me looking over all nine covers. Eight of the nine covers have the damsel in distress except last issue’s Romita cover with Thongor fighting the bird-demon.

This was probably done out of good marketing, as Sword & Sorcery (especially descended from Frank Frazetta’s painting) has been called “Tits & Daggers”. The “girl” would not have appealed to me as a ten year old but that certainly changed as I got closer to fourteen. The novel does offer a female character in Sumia Chond, but she, like most Carter women, is more of a prop than a character. More about her in the later issues.

Next time…the Wizard of Lemuria…