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Back when I first started collecting comics, around 1975-76, I
stumbled across an artist's work that really captured my imagination. There's a
little used book store in the town where I grew up, called Paperback's Plus and
I would stop by there, on my way home from school a few times a week. It
was there that I was first introduced to the work of Mike Grell, in the
pages of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, #217. I even have an
autographed copy of that issue, a lucky find. But while that book began my interest,
even devotion to the Legion, it was in the pages of Grell's own creation
The Warlord, that I gained the greatest respect for his work.
Beginning under the auspices of DC's short-lived test vehicle, FIRST
ISSUE SPECIAL, Grell began a saga that would take us from a brush with Cold War
intrigue to a unique sword and sorcery adventure, in a land few even imagine
exists, beneath our very feet. It was in FISRT ISSUE SPECIAL #8 that we
learned the Earth is a hollow sphere with a vast wilderness inside, lit
by a fiery inner sun. A land without night, almost without time. A land
of beast-men, lost civilizations and super-science; swords, monsters and
mages.
The story begins on June 16, 1969, with a reconnaissance mission
over Vladivostok, USSR, and USAF Lt.Col. Travis Morgan at the controls of one of the most
advanced aircraft ever built, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Detected by
Soviet defense forces, Morgan evaded surface-to-air missiles by a
hairsbreadth and escaped by the most direct route available to him, straight over the
North Pole. His plane leaking fuel, he made it into the Arctic Circle before
his engines failed, completely and he was left with no option but to eject.
Spying what appeared to be land through a break in the clouds, he thought
he'd made it to the Yukon territory and fired his ejection seat, leaving
the SR-71 to crash.
Imagine his surprise when he crashed through the foliage to find,
not Canadian pine forest, but lush jungle. He noticed almost immediately that something
was wrong, the sun stood directly overhead, though it was after 6pm when
he ditched the aircraft. There were tropical birds and plants, and tropical
heat, as well. Gathering his Air Force survival gear, he began looking for
some sign of civilization. Hours later, the sun hadn't moved and Morgan
took a moment to rest near a cool stream, when he heard the sounds of a
struggle, nearby. Climbing over some rocks, he came face to face with a
living nightmare. A beautiful young woman fought for her life against one
of the most dangerous predators ever to stalk the earth, deinonychus,
"terrible claw", better known to Michael Crichton fans as velociraptor. The girl
fought bravely, but the deinonychus was too strong and fast for her and only
Morgan's quick action, firing on the creature with the survival kit's .38 Special,
distracted it from the kill. Morgan leapt on the beast, striking at it with
his survival knife, holding it off long enough for the girl to retrieve
her sword and drive it deep into the predator's breast, killing it.
Morgan had made his first friend in this new world.
Immediately, the girl began to tug at Morgan's arm,
but he believed they were safe and hesitated, a bit too long. He soon
discovered what had driven the girl into the jungle, and danger, in the first place.
From the cover of the trees, a squad of soldiers burst forth, swords drawn.
Morgan again leapt to action, snatching up the revolver and quickly
reloading. He fired five shots, managing to frighten the soldiers enough that they
hesitated to make a final charge and chose to parlay, instead. The girl
resisted, but Morgan knew he had only one shot left and would not be able
to stop all of the soldiers, so they went with the soldiers to their city,
Thera.
 
In Thera, Morgan and the girl are brought before the king,
where the soldiers tell of the demon at Morgan's command, which speaks with
a voice of thunder. The king turns to his high priest, Deimos, and demands
he test the power of this "god". Deimos draws a crystal globe from the folds
of his sleeve and a strange beam lashes out at Morgan, battering his mind
and will. Before he can black out, Morgan fires his last shot, shattering
the globe and embarassing Deimos. The king, awed by Morgan's ability to
humble the high priest, decides to befriend the stranger, giving him servant
girls to bathe, clothe and care for him. He learned the language, and
finally, the girl's name, Tara. He was feasted and entertained as the king's guest,
all the while, Deimos's sullen presence lurked in the shadows.
Morgan had made his first enemy.
It was also in Thera that Morgan came to realize what had happened
to him.
The idea of a holllow earth is not a new one. In fact, some of the
oldest traditions in the world tell of civilizations which thrived deep in the
bowels of the earth. Aghartha, is the name for this fabled underworld, among
certain Tibetan legends. Grell called it Skartaris and populated it with
refugees of the destruction of Atlantis, among others. The Atlanteans had
achieved a high level of technology, before the end finally came and were
able to salvage much of their civilization when they fled. A large
contingent of the Atlanteans made their way into the inner world by way of a passage
at the North Pole. The Poles, you see, are not actual points on the globe,
but actually imaginary points in space, near the center of immense holes
in the earth's crust. These holes are approximately 1,400 miles across and
the North Polar entrance is navigable by sea, whereas the one at the South
Pole is landlocked. The sphere of the earth has "walls" some 800 miles
thick, riddled in places with caves and man-made tunnels connecting the outer and
inner worlds.
Grell drew much of the framework for his inner world from Dr.
Raymond Bernard's book, THE HOLLOW EARTH, which poses some interesting questions about strange
discoveries in the Polar regions, as well as touching on many of the legends
and myths of subterranean civilizations.
In his adventures, Morgan has faced demons and gods, monsters and
mythological creatures, he has made more friends and enemies, married Tara and fathered
a son with her, Joshua. In Morgan's second encounter with Deimos, they
fought and Deimos was killed, or so Morgan thought.
At one point, Morgan was returning from an inadvertant trip to the
outer world, he brought back a Russian archaeologist, Mariah Romanova. Fearing
her association with him might have caused her untold grief with the Soviet
government, had she returned home, Mariah jumped at the chance to study
the remains of an ancient civilization which was almost unknown in the outer
world.
Travelling to the city of Kiro, to look up his friend, Machiste.
Machiste, with whom Morgan had led a galley slave revolt and fought his
way out of a gladiator school and led a band of freedom fighters, had once
told Morgan that he was "somewhat 'notorious'" around Kiro. Morgan took
the opportunity to outfit Mariah for her new life, among the "well-dressed
barbarians", providing her with a new sword and trading her hiking clothes
for a Mike Grell original in basic black, with gold and fang accessories.
Grell is famous for his minimalist costuming, and he always had a penchant
for flat black sans highlights. Not only is Mariah a stunning redhead, but
it turns out she was also "the Russian national sabre champion for six years
straight", comic book characters are always full of surprises.
Almost immediately, they were set upon by a group of city guards,
who rendered Morgan unconscious. When he regained consciousness, a guard released them
from the dungeon at the king's command. It was then that Morgan learned his
"notorious" friend was actually the king of Kiro. A king with a problem, it turned out.
Since Morgan last saw him, Machiste had acquired a strange battle axe that
would not allow him to put it down. In a moment of rage, Machiste almost
killed a serving wench (don't you just love that word, "wench", a nice
old-fashioned word, that) and Morgan began to walk out on him. Machiste attacked him and
in the ensuing battle, Morgan cut off Machiste's right hand, freeing him
from the cursed axe.
Of course, in the best adventure story tradition, "a man's gotta do,
what a man's gotta do" is enough explanation and there are no hard feelings.
Of his many enemies, the most deadly and tenacious is Deimos. The
name originated in Greek (and, one assumes, Atlantean) mythology as an attendant
of the god of war, Ares (Mars). Deimos means terror or panic, and suits
a villain in Edgar Rice Burroughs style adventure fiction. Oily black hair,
carefully groomed goatee and moustachios, garbed in blood red with a costume
which looks like something out of a Rocky Horror version of Ming the
Merciless, Deimos was too good a villain to kill off, so early in the series.
Apparently, Deimos was only "mostly" dead, and a combination of vile sorcery and
perverted Atlantean super-science, revived him.
When it came to redesigning costumed for these people, one of the
first decisions I made was to do away with Deimos' "halter top" look. It
always seemed just a little "festive" for a villain. I thought something
like a robe would be a bit more preistly, anyway. Another change I decided
to make was to move away from the monochrome scheme. True, Grell's design
was actually red and black, but when it's a colored line drawing, black is
an element in any design. I decided to add some purple, since Deimos had
dreams of being a king, a god even. During Grell's tenure on the book,
Deimos' footgear changed from sandals to short boots or slippers, I prefer a
real boot, myself. In his case, because he's more of an "indoor" villain, a
soft boot, maybe glove leather, dyed purple and supported by criss-crossing
black straps. The robe in red, trimmed in black, with purple sash and high
collar.
Tara was even easier. Apart from the relative lack of protection her
fur bikini gives her, I have no problem with it. Edgar Rice Burroughs began
the tradition of the under-dressed sword-weilding warrior woman, way back in
A PRINCESS OF MARS, where Dejah Thoris was known to run around, like all
Barsoomians, all but naked, except for some ornaments and weapon harness. To
remain in that tradition, I made only one minor change in Tara's outfit,
turning her boot tops up, instead of down.
Now, we get to Morgan, himself. I always liked his original black
leather outfit with the flared shoulders and cuffed boots. Later on, Grell
put him in a minimalist snow leopard loin skin with a jeweled chain
diagonally across the chest and back, and a fanged metal skull on his right
shoulder. If anything, the skull should have been on the left arm, his
shield arm, not his sword arm. In any case, I don't see many sane men
running around the jungle, especially a dinosaur-filled jungle, with that
little clothing. Think about it, how big was a Jurassic tse-tse fly or
mosquito? I know there were dragonflies with 5-6 foot wingspans, so other
bugs, less friendly to homo sapiens sapiens could have been similarly
enlarged. But then again, there are the traditions of the genre. John Carter
of Mars wore no more than his lady love, Dejah Thoris, which brands him
utterly insane, in my book. Think about it, sharp blades slashing around,
favorite body parts swinging free....I don't think I have to paint you a
picture.
Cover artists have always had a problem with Burroughs' John Carter
series. To date, no one has really depicted teh characters accurately
attired. Some of my favorites, though, were done by Michael Whelan, in the
early 80s, and it was to these, that I looked for inspiration for my
redesign of Morgan's outfit. I liked the below-the-knee length loin cloth,
along with the criss-cross harness look. I kept Morgan's crossed belts, from
his second outfit, and used the top portion of his black leather tunic,
bringing it to a point at the waistline, instead of going for the super-hero
shorts. From there, a red loin cloth covers the naughty bits, also providing
a bit more freedom of movement, than the original.
I went back to the orignal black cuffed boots, just because I love
the things. On the crossed weapons belts, I switched the holster to a
position for a left-hand cross-draw, since he almost always fought with
sword in right hand, and pistol in left. Yeah, I think about these things.
No life. Old story, right?
And now, in color.
One of the nice things about Skartaris, the sun is always overhead,
so you never have to think about where shadows should go, when you're
drawing a scene.
Swords, magic, scantily-clad women, adventure, and dinosaurs. What
more could a growing boy ask for in a comic?
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