Customer Reviews

Showcase Presents: Warlord Vol. 1

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Writer/artist Mike Grell has a well-established career in comics, as well as the fans to back it up. He's known for his work on DC's Green Arrow and the Legion of Super-Heroes, as well as his own creations John Sable: Freelance and Starslayer. But for many, Grell's claim to fame is Warlord, which is best categorized as "his own creation for DC" - meaning DC owns it, but if anyone other than Grell handles it, it just doesn't work (I'm looking at you, Bruce Jones). DC recently brought Grell back for a new Warlord series, and we now have a Showcase volume to help us catch up on the early stories.

Warlord was introduced in 1975 in DC First Issue Special #8, in which Air Force pilot Travis Morgan is shot down over the Arctic Circle and ejects over what he thinks is the Yukon Territory. He instead parachutes into the hidden world of Skartaris, where he embarks on fantastic adventures. If you think you've read this story before, you probably have in one form or another. Grell pulled every trick he could from the Edgar Rice Burroughs handbook - a hollow Earth; a savage, time-lost land; humans coexisting with dinosaurs; dangerous yet sexy women wearing next to nothing; a modern man dropped in the middle of it all - and then improved upon them. At times, it reads as a standard fantasy pastiche, using some familiar (and annoying) tropes, but then it goes beyond the genre with interesting angles and plot elements. Also, Grell makes it a point to end almost every issue with a tantalizing epilogue that either foreshadows events or contributes to the mystery of Skartaris' origin, making the overall story surprisingly cohesive. It's no question that Conan the Barbarian ruled the sword & sorcery roost of comics' Bronze Age, but Warlord was a worthy competitor.

The art is something to behold. While Grell's inexperience occasionally shows in the very earliest issues, he quickly settles into his trademark meticulous style. Imagine Neal Adams penciling over Gil Kane's layouts, and you'll have it. His panel arrangement is excellent, at times drifting into the experimental, and his characters are graceful and athletic - not chemically-induced bodybuilders. The art suffers somewhat in the second half of the collection due to the inking of Vince Colletta. Yep, the guy who took short cuts on Jack Kirby's Silver Age pencils inked a good portion of these stories. He still cuts corners on Warlord, but he appears to have paid more attention to Grell's lines - amazing since Grell's work is much more detailed than Kirby's.

I'm hoping I won't have long to wait for a second volume of Warlord, and I'd like to see more characters in this vein receive the same treatment. Having Arak: Son of Thunder in this format would make me very happy, and there were plenty of other short-lived characters in DC's sword & sorcery wave of the `70s, such as Beowulf, Claw, Nightmaster, and Stalker, that would make an excellent compilation.

I've collected many DC Showcase and Marvel Essential titles only to disover that their charm is lost on an older, more jaded reader. I've also noticed that many series involve a painful slog through the first couple-dozen issues where the writer had yet to find his legs. Neither are the case here.

Mike Grell's Warlord starts off strong and then only gets better. Travis Morgan rarely feels like a cardboard cutout hero with a big lantern jaw. He's a canny adventurer, articulate and pragmatic. It's evident that this is a writer who actually knows about weapons and tactics, unlike so many writers who base their ideas on the contrivances they've seen in movies and other comics.

Unlike many wandering heroes of sword-and-sorcery tales, the Warlord boasts a supporting cast of fleshed-out characters. Grell created formidable females--Tara and Mariah--that were deadly warriors rather than helpess objects long before it became an obligatory cliche of politcial correctness. His fellow warrior Machiste serves as a foil with his more down-to-earth, self-interested point of view. And what's a great hero without a worthy nemesis? The arch-wizard Deimos menaces Morgan throughout the series, seemingly always ready to summon some gargantuan demon for Morgan to outmaneuver.

All of this and Grell's magnificant art. His penchant for double-page panoramas had a great deal to do with the comic's appeal in its day, as it delivered a lavish spectacle you simply couldn't get anywhere else. The absence of color is a pity.

First introduced in DC's 1st Issue Special #8 in 1975, and getting his own title in 1976, Mike Grell's Warlord was strongly influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar series, borrowing the concept of a hollow Earth. Lt. Travis Morgan is an Air Force Pilot flying a reconnaissance mission over Russia. An encounter with Russian fighters damages his plane and he flees over the North Pole. When Morgan finally ejects he finds himself in a strange new jungle world. Morgan has entered a chasm some 800 miles below the Earth's surface to find a hidden, savage world where Dinosaurs still exist and ruthless tyrants dominate this world known as Skartaris. This hollow, inner world surrounds a miniature sun, making it daylight all the time and its inhabitants are unaware of the surface world.

Morgan and a native girl named Tara are captured and taken to the city of Thera. It is here where Morgan first encounters the High Priest Deimos who will become his archenemy. When Deimos attempts to assassinate Morgan and Tara, Morgan kills the assassins and he and Tara flee into the world of Skartaris for a life of battle and adventure, with Morgan earning the title Warlord from the free people of the land. Grell's series combines magic, science, and Atlantean lore. The Warlord's adventures range from typical swords & sorcery to strong science elements.

Grell is one of the most underrated comic talents of all-time. He is a magnificent storyteller and a very fine artist as well. In fact the black and white format of these Showcase editions perfectly "showcases" Grell's fine line detail. I've always thought the Grell's style was a blend of Silver Age greats Gil Kane and John Buscema. The 528 page book collects 1st Issue Special #8 and issues #1 - 28 of the on-going series. If you've never read Warlord this is a great chance to immerse yourself into a fantastic adventure epic about time DC gave The Warlord the Showcase treatment!

When writer/artist Mike Grell set out to do a swords & sorcery epic he threw in everything including the kitchen sink. Air Force pilot Travis Morgan crash lands over the North Pole and he finds himself in a hollow world populated by monsters, wizards, barbarians, aliens, mutants, sexy ladies and lost civilizations.

Promptly dressing himself in a loincloth, skull shoulder pad and furry boots he and a variety of scantly clad women start killing anything that gets in their way. As Grell starts each issue "In the savage world of Skartaris, life is a constant struggle for survival. here, beneath an unblinking orb of eternal sunlight, one simple law prevails: if you let your guard down for an instant you will soon be very dead."

Grell's art is fantastic throughout and the black and white reprinting is very clear.

But one warning, there's no real plot to this series. After a while it feels like a bad D&D campaign made up entirely of random encounters. Each one is interesting but they don't add up to much. Still it's fun, it's got strong men, sexy women, evil monsters and true love. What more do you want?

It's in B&W, but to have the first 28 issues of WARLORD on hand is great. Starts of with the extremely hard to find FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL story where Travis Morgan made his debut. Seeing the glory days of Skartaris again with Morgan, Tara, Mariah, and Machiste was awesome. The death of the Joshua clone is still a powerful and moving story. Grell's art is always good, but gets better towards the end of the book (circa issue 20).

WARLORD AND MIKE GRELL WHAT A COMBINATION ! I'VE ALWAYS BEEN A FAN OF MIKE GRELL AND HAVE FOLLOWED THE WARLORD SERIES BACK IN THE 70'S AND WAS THRILLED TO SEE D.C.BRING THE SERIES BACK IN SHOWCASE. HOPE TO SEE MORE WARLORD IN SHOWCASE AS WELL AS JONAH HEX, THE SGT. ROCK SERIES HAS SOLD WELL AND IS ALWAYS A GOOD READ !

When I learned about this Showcase presentation of Warlord, I was excited. The Warlord was always one of my favorite titles, and when I sold books to eat, they went. At one time, I had all issues up to 80 or so. this is agreat way to revisit a thrilling book.

While the art of Mike Grell has changed, it still maintains an excitement and passion. Vinnie Colletta inks do not take anything away from the great layouts Mike did then.

Lt Col Travis Morgan, and his airplane lost over the North pole, discover Skataris and a new life. This is John Carter of Mars, aka Travis Morgan on Earth. Good for us, just like John Carter captured generations. As I think about this, John carter was being published by Marvel at the same time as Warlord was by DC.

Enjoy. I did.