Warlord Wednesday: DC Invades Skartaris

I've mentioned before how Crisis on Infinite Earths brought the Warlord (originally conceived as existing in his on universe) into the DC Multiverse.  Not only has Morgan made some trips to the outer earth of the DC heroes, those guys have visited Skartaris.  And sometimes, it ain't pretty.  Case in point:

Justice League Task Force #35-36 (1996) couldn't be more nineties if Martian Manhunter was listening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Shakira moved into Melrose Place.  The visit of this proactive (i.e. extreme) version of the Justice League to Skataris is just so...extreme.

Maybe this extreme-ness was why it ended the very next issue.

A couple of years earlier, Warlord had an appearance in a better book, albeit only a cameo.  1991's Books of Magic #4 saw him rubbing shoulders with Vertigo charcters to be, and beautifully illustrated by Charles Vess:

The Teen Titans visit I've chronicled before.  The next superhero to vacation beneath the eternal orb of Skartaris' sun was Wonder Woman.  Writer/artist Phil Jimenez sent her there after a cabal of super-villainesses for a five part arc in 2002 beginning in #179.  Jimenez's rendering of Skartaris and its people is different, but interesting, and several of the Warlord cast make appearances.  The hitch is those appearances are pretty limited.  Morgan and Jennifer are off the stage early so Wonder Woman and her supporting cast can be the stars:

The DCU isn't done with the Warlord.  The internet tells me the new Flashpoint: Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager limited features an alternate history version of Travis Morgan, a pirate (clever given that Grell named him after a pirate). 

Who know's where he'll turn up next or who will be making a visit to the inner world?

Spaceman's Bar Encounter Table

“It was a motley crowd, Earthmen and Martians, and Venusian swampmen and strange, nameless denizens of unnamed planets...”

- CL Moore, “Shambleau”

This could be used with my pulp Spelljammer idea or any other pulpy space game:

01 A shifty human trader with a large, glowing jar containing squirming forms he says are solar salamanders--for sale.

02 Two spacers in aged flight suits.  They're of human stock but congenitally scarred from in utero exposure to poorly shielded eldritch drives and strange radiations.

03 Four pygmy-like “mushroom men"--fungoid sophonts from the Venusian caverns. They are deep in their reproductive cycle and close proximity gives a 10% chance per minute of exposure inhaling their spores.

04 A reptoid outlaw with bloodshot eyes from chronic hssoska abuse and an itchy trigger-claw.

05 A balding man with thick glasses and a nervous look sitting at a table in the shadows. If observed for at least a minute he will be seen to flicker like a bad transmission on a viewscreen.

07 A human child with pigtails and sad eyes surrounded by faint, swirling colorful lights.

08 A cyborg gladiator (his parts occasionally leaking oil) on the run from one of the L4 arenas regales two groupies with his exploits.

09 A scruffy prophet and his 1d4 wide-eyed and oddly-dressed teen acolytes, dealing in spiritual enhancers.

10 Blonde and statuesque Venusian women, neuro-goads on their belts, looking for a suitable male.

Lovecraft Birthday Gift Ideas

I'm a day late for HPL's birthday, but for next year, here are some Lovecraftiana for yourself or your favorite cultist:

In The Annotated Lovecraft and More Annotated Lovecraft, preeminent Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi provides corrected text and interesting footnotes on selected Lovecraft stories.  The first volume includes "At the Mountains of Madness," and "The Dunwich Horror," among others.  The second takes a look at some lesser (but no less interesting) tales like "Herbert West: Re-Animator."

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown is a documentary about HPL's life and work.  It's of a cable TV quality, but it features the likes of Joshi, Guillermo del Toro, Neil Gaiman, and John Carpenter.  It turns out its available to watch online through Amazon Video.

Cthulhu Fthagn!

500 Posts Ain't a Day at the Beach

But this illustration is.  Heironymus Gaunt and his moll taking the Hotel Elephantine on a beach excursion, rendered for Weird Adventures by the very talented Adam Moore.  Check out his gallery here.

In other news, Jim over at the Flashback Universe Blog has posted part 2 of my indepth article on the Fantastic Four from within the Marvel Universe.

Thanks to every one for reading, following, and commenting over these 500 posts.

The Henchman Life

“Don't feel like you're successful enough to marry your sweetheart?” or “Tired of being a wimp?” These are the questions asked in a hundred ads in tabloid newspapers and pulp magazines in the City. Then they provide the solution: Train to be a professional adventurer! Which is to say: a henchman, a hireling.

Fleischschild’s Institute provides minimal training in outfitting and provisioning of an expedition into the subterranean depths, a couple of lectures from burnout delvers with nervous conditions on typical hazards, and an exploitative short film masquerading as a cautionary docudrama; and the gullible and desperate are turned loose find work. They mill about the entrances of outfitting shops and loiter in adventurers’ saloons waiting for their big chance.

A few get it and rise up the ranks to lead their own delves and make headlines. Most die without anybody knowing more than their first name.

Here are some of the common types encountered:

1. Cornfed farmboy: He’s got enthusiasm and muscles, but not a lot of smarts, and a misplaced chivalry that will get him killed by any monster with a feminine form.
2. Specks: Not necessarily smart in the way you need underground, but guaranteed to have a head full of pulp magazine and comic book nonsense...Which can be useful at times, true.
3. Rosie: It doesn’t matter what her name is, if she could beat you at arm-wrestling she’s Rosie. Good to have around, but always out to prove she can do as well as man does--which can cause problems.
4. Choirboy: He keeps his rosary in hand and prays a lot--mostly to no noticeable effect. Divine intervention is great to have, but hard to come by.
5. Crazy Jane: She might be plain or a real looker, but either way she’s got a crazy look in her eye and a matching berserker streak. Comes in two varieties: gun crazy and blade crazy. Good to have around until she inevitably decides to make for the gates of warrior heaven and take you with her in her blaze of glory.
6. The Twitch: Twitches are always trouble. They’ve got some experience, but it only gave them bad case of shellshock. In the moment you need ‘em most they either start crying for mama or get the thousand yard stare.

Warlord Wednesday: Elsewhen

Let's 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...

"Elsewhen"

Warlord (vol. 1) #64 (December 1982)

Written by Mike Grell (Sharon Grell); Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Wayne Howard

Synopsis: When last we looked in on Skartaris, Rostov had vanished through a portal opened by the Kaash’Ban while Morgan and Shakira looked on. Morgan recognizes the architecture of the structures he sees in the still-open portal. Before Shakira can protest, he’s got them swinging through it like Tarzan and reluctant Jane.

Once in the weird energy realm inside, Shakira and Morgan lose hold of each other—and Morgan is spit out.

Shakira lands (appropriately) on her feet and finds Rostov. He reveals he did go with the Kaash’Ban willingly. They told him he might be important to their kind, so he agreed to a test. He didn’t expect this to happen! Shakira tells him they're in the past: The Age of the Wizard Kings.

Suddenly, a dragon (of the firebreathing variety) attacks them. After a bit of a chase, the dragon snatches them up in its talons and flies away. Just before he drops them , Rostov is able to get his sword free and stabs the dragon in its underbelly.

They fall on to a cliff. The dragon seems ready to attack, but unexpectedly falls over dead. Then, they hear a voice behind them:

Shakira ask what he means by “loyalties.” The centaur’s surprised, but that response convinces him they’re probably harmless enough. He’s got the very D&D name of Eran Shadowstorm, and he’s been tracking creatures of the Evil One like this dragon. He offers them a ride off the mountain in exchange for their story.

Back in the present, Morgan’s found by the Kaash’Ban. They tell him they didn’t know what would happen with Rostov, only what had to be done. They show him a medallion:

Morgan intends to find his friends. He rides for Castle Deimos..

Things to Notice:

• We get another hint at Shakira's past.
• The pink dragon's membranous wings are so riddled with holes, he most definitely flies by magic.

Where It Comes From:

The title of this issue may have been inspired by a 1941 Robert Heinlein novella of the same name about travel to parallel universes, or perhaps it's just coincidence.

An Alternate Spelljammer Setting

In 1898, the people of Earth discovered they weren’t alone when a brutal invasion was launched from Mars. Luckily, the mauve, squid-headed Invaders were unprepared for the perils of Earth’s biosphere.  No one believed the human race would be so luck should they try again. Scientist went to work studying the Martian technology left behind. Their conclusions were that some sort of psychic power was needed to operate many of the devices. Men from the Society for Psychical Research were co-opted by the British government and were put to the task. Soon, seeking to broaden their knowledge base, they would actively recruit members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well.

The conclusion the research group had come to was that Martian technology had at its base a science previously known to humanity as magic. Soon, the researchers were beginning their first cautious experimentation with operating the devices themselves.

As a new century dawned, the discoveries of Carter from Egypt suggested this science wasn't new, but had only been lost. The occult secrets supposedly uncovered by Blavatsky and others were looked at in a different light. By the second decade of the twentieth century, a space age was underway, brought into being by alien technology and the wisdom of the ancients.

Soon humankind discovered there were other species in the solar system besides the beings they thought of as Martians--a race they realized was actually from a trans-Neptunian world. Nearly every world in the solar system held intelligent life of some sort, a disparate group of species with varying degrees of mastery of the psychic sciences. What’s more, most worlds contained ruins of an even more advanced ancient race. The ruins often contained material riches as well as ancient knowledge.

The nations of earth now had a solar system to fight over. World Wars would become Multi-World Wars with powerful new sciences changing the way they would be fought.