Warlord Wednesday: A Monster Memorial

In keeping with the season, I'd like to honor the various creatures, subhumans, demons and god-things, that have met their final reward through the efforts of Travis Morgan and his friends.  Who could forget these favorites:

The lizard-men Morgan found worshipping his plane in #3:

The tragic werewolf in the tower from #22:

The punk snow giant Morgan ran across in the mountains in issue #25:

The fish-men who bedeviled his submarine paramour in #24:

And post-Grell, the vampire queen of a frozen valley from #108:

Famous Monsters: The Mummy

In 1932, The mummy was the third of the classic Universal monsters to appear, following Dracula and Frankenstein who had debuted the previous year. It was probably Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 that raised the public profile of mummies--particularly Egyptian mummies--enough to get a film made based on the concept. Universal’s run of mummy movies was followed by a Hammer franchise in the fifties, and a post-Indiana Jones re-imagining in 1999 kicked off another series at Universal.

Like Frankenstein, mummies don’t usually get to be sexy...Well, except Valerie Leon as Princess Tera in Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb:

But the above photo illustrates one of the interesting things about movie mummies. At some point in the story, they tend to regain a less dessicated form and don’t really look like a mummy anymore. The other take frequently seen is to have the mummy be some mute automaton doing the evil bidding of some wicked priest--in other words a classic (pre-brain-eating) zombie.

Maybe this is the big problem with mummies. They're either essentially what gaming would call liches, or they’re zombies. It’s really only a roll of bandages and Egyptian bling that make them stand out.  Shamble, moan, strangle.  Repeat.

I suppose some difference can be discerned in their origins. Liches are boot-strapping undead; they’re generally self-created, and so have to be evil individuals of esoteric knowledge. Classic zombies are either living people (and so not undead at all), or they have something unfortunate (and undeserved) done to them after death by an evil individual of esoteric knowledge. Mummies are either being punished (in most of the mummy films), or honored or accidentally created (like real life).

And of course, they need not be Egyptian. Mummies come from all over, and some of these other mummies have made it into fiction. The Aztec mummy got its on film series, which includes a fight with a robot.

Not psychotronic enough for you? Well South of the Border, they don’t stop at just Aztec mummies. They've got a whole museum full of natural occurring mummies in Guanajuato. In film, these guys wind up fighting superhero luchadores on more than one occasion. Again, the differentiation between them and zombies is largely semantic. Still, Guanajuato’s peculiar mummies can be good game fodder, even without the masked wrestlers.

No reason mummies should have be from historic eras. Howard’s titular mummy from the modern adventure yarn Skull-Face, is Kathulos, an undead sorcerer from Atlantis.  Now he's a mummy who doesn't just shamble and moan.

Famous Monsters: Frankenstein

With Halloween drawing nigh, I thought I’d take a look at the iconic Universal monsters and what inspiration can be found to freshen up their traditional protrayals in gaming. Since vampires (particularly Dracula) have gotten a lot of virtual ink in the blogosphere of late, I figured I’d with start with the vice-president of the monster club, Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstein, to his friends.

I suppose you could call his type “a construct” or a “golem.” It’s not really an archetype that seems to fire people's imaginations to the degree the vampire does. No series of sexed up urban fantasies for the ladies about a hunky dude made from stitched together corpse pieces (at least not that I’m aware of).

Comics still seem to love Frankie, though. Mark Wheatley gave us Frankenstein’s Mobster, where a slain cop in a city overrun by crime becomes a “made man”--literally. Grant Morrison offered up a more over-the-top, pulpy adventurer Frankenstein as part of his Seven Soldiers line. Somewhat similar (though less over-the-top) was the Wachowski Brothers’ alt-history, Doc Frankenstein. 

I should point out combining Frankenstein with pulpy elements didn't start with these recent comics.  The Utley and Waldrop novellette "Black as Pit, From Pole to Pole" (1977) has Frankenstein wandering into the Pellucidar-esque Hollow Earth.  Dell comics made him a superhero back in the sixties.

Perhaps the best way to reimagine Frankenstein is in terms of what he's come to represent. Critics of genetic engineering and the like are always invoking his name. Splice is just the most recent riff on this sort of (post-)modern Prometheus.

How can this all be related to gaming? Well, the flesh golem of AD&D’s Monster Manual is the classic movie Frankenstein, and most sci-fi/conspiracy games do a riff on the more modern science-fear inspired Frankensteins. It would be cool, though, to see a more intelligent, villainous Frankie. Something along the lines of his original portrayal.  Something less "stand-in for fears of man overstepping his place," and more singular menace.

Jess Nevins argues in Fantastic Victoriana that Shelley’s protrayal of the monster has a tinge of Yellow Peril to it, and I think he’s right. Maybe Frankenstein with a Fu Manchu spin would be the way to go? Let’s let the guy with bolts in his head have some soliloquies instead of just grunts.

Addendum: Check out Jim Shelley's Flashback Universe blog for a couple of comics panels of Frankenstein fighting a dinosaur, and a pictorial overview of various comic versions of the monster.  Great minds think alike!

One Panel Adventure Seeds

Here are some vignettes clipped from Golden Age comics chosen for adventure inspiration.  I've contextualized in the world of the City, but they could take place almost anywhere...

An obsessed half-ogre strongman, a cold beauty...a recipe for more than big top drama?

As madmen go, at least he's polite.

The leader of the spider-folk talked a lot.  That was good.  It kept him from using his scalpel.

A ghoul on a spree, with a taste for beautiful dames.

When you're on the lamb, you take your chances with back-alley sawbones.

Geography That Wasn't

I've been doing a lot of reading lately on lost cities, phantom islands, and the like, and I've come across some "historical" maps that time has proven to be more like alternate history.  Maybe you'll find some inspirations from these examples of terra fabula, too:

First off, here's California back when it was an island.  It ddin't finally settle on the North American mainland for good until the 1770s.

Let's get rid off that pesky California (and all the Americas, for that matter), with Paolo Toscanelli's 1474 map which gets the the earth's circumference wrong and has Cathay and Cipangu (Japan) just a quick sail away.  Hey, this map was good enough for Columbus!  Helpfully, the real North America appears ghostly in the background of this reproduction.

And this is another projection.

Finally, here's an island of Taprobana, which may have become Ceylon, or Sumatra--or disappeared all together.  It was an important trading port between east and west.  Marco Polo thought Adam was buried there, on the top of Mount Serendib.

Green Hell

 

The jungles of Asciana’s Grand Cinnamon River basin are a popular setting for pulp adventure mags found on any newsstand in the City. The stories may be fiction, but the adventures are real. The continent of Asciana was once home to an advanced civilization, perhaps a culture related to either Mu or Meropis. Tales say that ancient cities--and ancient treasures--may have been swallowed by the jungle and await rediscovery. More than one would-be adventurer has been lost in this “green hell” searching for these legends.

It’s a place of exotic dangers. Natural dangers include giant snakes, river sharks, piranhas, and even carnivorous plants. Then there are the intelligent threats. The hostile (sometimes headhunting) Native tribes, and the reptilian caimen-- somewhat smaller and more nimble relatives of the northern gatormen--are well known.

There are also more mysterious, lesser understood threats. Forrester and Randon’s 5877 expedition reported the existence of xenophobic mushroom people, dubbed myconids, which zealously defend their territory against intruders. The mutated plants and animals they used in their defense were viewed by the expedition as examples of powerful thaumaturgy, but later scientists reviewing their accounts have suggested that the myconids may actually employ an advanced biological technology. The expedition was lucky to escape with their lives, and were unable to bring back any specimens for study.

Even more enigmatic are the creatures hinted at by the tragic Wilmarth expedition. The information is fragmented, gathered as it was by necromantic communication undertaken by Wilmarth’s widow--a process hindered by the manner of his death. In any case, if the murmurings of Wilmarth’s traumatized and shrunken head are to be believed, there are intelligent (and malevolent) stingrays found in remote tributaries of the Cinnamon which exert a supernatural influence over nearby human tribes.

Whatever the reality of these rumors, the ultimate truth is clear--the Ascianan jungle is a dangerous place, indeed.

Warlord Wednesday: Land of the Titans

It's Hump Day in Skartaris! Time to re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Land of the Titans"
Warlord (vol. 1) #32 (April 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: We find our hero just where we left him last issue: on a beach, awakening to find himself at the feet of two menacing-looking, ruddy-skinned, giants (roughly twice Morgan’s height) in hoplite-ish sort of garb. They grab an astonished Morgan by the arms to take him captive, but Morgan executes a remarkable gymnastic kick and gives his captor two boots to the eyes.

The first giant drops Morgan, giving him time to pull his sword. As the second moves in with a spear, Morgan throws his sword through the giant’s jugular, killing him. Morgan’s turned his back on the first though, who uses that opportunity to incapacitate our hero with a “crackling bolt of sinister energy” from a futuristic device.

The giant dumps Morgan onto a disc-shaped flying platform and takes him to a nearby city. He uses the futuristic device again at a different setting to “stimulate” Morgan to consciousness. He awakens to an audience with the beautiful (and giant), Queen Amarant of the Titans, who’s none too pleased that he’s killed one of their race:

Morgan starts to protest, but a blow to the back of his head stifles his rebuttal. The queen has him taken away until she decides how to kill him.

Morgan wakes up to a pretty face looking down at him. The face goes with a pretty (and non-giant) fur-clad female form. This is Shakira. She came to help Morgan because she heard he killed one of the titans, and she could use a warrior like him to help her escape. She thinks that they can get around the few traitorous slaves that act as guards and steal one of the titan’s flying discs.

Morgan’s wary, but Shakira seems to offering the only available option. After overpowering one guard, the two make their way stealthily to where the titans manufacture their weapons. As they steal across the room on a catwalk, they’re discovered by another slave who calls out in alarm. The titans begin firing their weapons at the two. One stands in their path at the end of the walk. Morgan delivers a flying kick to the titan’s chest, knocking him over the railing, and into the machinery on the manufacturing floor.

Slaves are coming at them from the other end of the catwalk. Morgan picks up the axe of the fallen titan, and kills them all, but the melee has given time for a titan to draw a bead on Morgan with his weapon. Lightning fast, Morgan pivots and throws the axe. The blade strikes home--but too late to keep the titan from pulling the trigger.

Bound and defeated, Morgan and Shakira are brought before Queen Amarant. She plans to execute Morgan for the murder of half her race. Morgan gives her a lecture on how her kind are unjustly subjugating the humans, but she backhands him and orders him to silence.

Shakira begs the queen to leave Morgan alone. The queen says Shakira was always her favorite, but since she’s chosen to side with Morgan she can share his fate. The two are sent to the arena.

Their weapons are returned, and they need them, because they find themselves facing an angry woolly rhinoceros. The two battle the beast, but Morgan is injured, and becomes an easy target for a charge. Shakira interposes herself, distracting the animal and leading it to charge the arena wall. She vaults over the beast on her spear, and its charge destroys the wall, just under where Amarant sits. Queen and beast are both dead.

Morgan and Shakira use the ensuing chaos to make their escape. The two remaining titans try to stop them, and their race is consigned to extinction. The now-freed slaves flee in terror. In the wake of the battle, Morgan and Shakira stop to consider the fallen Amarant.

Morgan points out the titans might have done great things, if they hadn’t tried to be gods. Shakira replies that people will make what gods they will. She will mourn the death of Amarant a bit. She was always well cared for, but the queen tried to bend Shakira to her will, and that she couldn’t tolerate. “It’s my nature to be independent,” she tells Morgan--and startles him by transforming into a cat.

The two newly minted travelling companions fly away on one of the discs.

Things to Notice:

• The titans are given a pinkish skin-tone sometimes used for Native Americans in old comics--and sometimes for Barsoomians, too.
• Morgan gets knocked unconscious.  Again.
• Shakira, as is her wont, wears furry ankle socks.

Where It Comes From:
This issue is very pulpy with its lost island with dying race of giants with advanced technology, but I'm unsure of any specific inspirations.

Amarant, queen of the Titans, derives her name from the herb amaranth, or amarant, meaning "unwithering" in Greek.  Mythology associates amarant with immortality--an ironic association for the queen given the events of this issue.

The real importance of this issue is in it being the first appearance of Shakira, who becomes Morgan's long time companion.  Shakira is an Arabic name meaning "thankful."  The character was inspired by Isis, the woman and cat, who is a companion to Gary Seven in the 1968 Star Trek original series episode (and backdoor pilot) "Assignment Earth."

In cat form, Isis was shown perched on Gary Seven's shoulders much in the same way Shakira will later ride Morgan's.

Note the collar motif, too, just like Shakira.

Isis was played by Victoria Vetri, who also starred in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970).  Despite the hair and costume color difference, one wonders if Vetri's appearance here combined with her roll as Isis were influential on the look of Shakira.  She's even got the spear Shakira also sports on the issue's cover.

Not quite from when dinosaurs ruled the earth, but still prehistoric, the creature Morgan and Shakira encounter in the titans' arena appears to be a Pleistocene native, Coelodonta antiquitatis, otherwise known as the woolly rhinocerous.