Howardian Heroes

 The following are a list of Howard's heroes taken from my Comics blog post, Barbarian Heroes.

Conan

No need to introduce this guy, the original barbarian hero created by the same man who created the genre. 

I've decided to use the iconic image created by Frank Frazetta here. The covers of the original pulps contain REH's Conan stories generally made Conan appear more like Roman legionare with short-cropped hair, or even depicted him as looking rather sissified. It was Frazetta who at last established Conan as the Howard described him, with a mane of black hair, and smoldering blue eyes, and the depiction has endured ever since. 

It was Roy Thomas who first adapted Conan for the comics, after first optioning Carter's Thongor. Conan's Marvel run lasted well over 100 issues, both in their color comic, and the companion black and white mag, Savage Sword of Conan. There was also the King Conan comic (later slightly altered to Conan the King), which detailed Conan's adventures as monarch of Aquilonia, which lasted a fairly respectable run, but not nearly as long as other two. King Conan adapted some of DeCamp and Carter's tales, and included Conan's wife Zenobia, and Prince Conn, who was a Carter creation, and hated by some fans. Roy Thoma adapted many of Howard's tales for both Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword. More unusually, he adapted quite a few of Howard's non-Conan tales into Conan stories. One story arc even adapted Norval Page's novel Sons of the Bear God, the difference being it was now set in the Hyborian kingdom of Shem rather than central Asia, and staring Howard's hero instead of Prestor John (a legendary Christian king). 

A number of artists worked on the Conan comics, including Barry Windsor-Smith on the early issues, John Buscema (perhaps the most famous of the Conan artists) Ernie Chan, Gary Kwapiz, Rudy Nebres Pablo Marcus, Alfredo Alcala, to name some of the Greats. 

While Thomas penned nearly all of the issues during the seventies, soon other writers took the reins, notably Michael Fleisher, whose wildly imaginative stories introduced Conan to re-occuring antagonists such as Wraal, the Devouver of Souls and Bor 'Ac Sharaq, a Baracan pirate who was obssessed with vengeange on Conan to the point of madness. Other writers included Bruce Jones, around the same time that he was a regular writer for Ka-Zar, and generally wrote twist endings for his Conan tales, the same as for his horror stories. Thomas returned to Savage Sword during the nineties, and penned mostly original tales that took Conan even to Australia, and adapted deCamp's novel Conan and the Spider-God. He also transformed another non-Conan (horror) tale of Howard's, "The Black Hound of Death" into a Conan yarn. 

Sometimes in the ninties, though, readers seemed to lose interest in Conan. Marvel tried to alter it, and officially cancelled Savage Sword, only to resurect it as as Conan the Savage. These efforts didn't work, and soon Conan's Marvel run ended. But it wasn't long until Dark Horse picked up Conan, and tried to keep him near to Howard's original vision. And for the most part they were successful; perhaps tastes had swung back, but whatever the reason, Conan enjoyed a successful comeback at Dark Horse. A younger generation of artists now drew him, including Cary Nord, who'd been inspired by the Old Masters at Savage Sword. Another new artist, Tomas Giorello, may even have surpassed some of those Masters, and did the art on the several issue adaptation of Hour of the Dragon , Howard's one full length Conan novel, also known as Conan the Conqueror. 

Currently, Conan has been passed back to Marvel, where it is doing fairly well, with good, though not great, stories and art. Marvel is also doing some strange things with Conan these days, like sending him to the modern (Marvel) era, and teaming him with the Avengers. Conan's future seems uncertain at this point. 

Kull

Kull is another barbarian hero created by Howard, perhaps the next most famous one to Conan, also adapted by Marvel, and later by Dark Horse. Neither ran for a very long time. He was a predasessor, and perhaps a prototype to Howard's Cimmerian hero. Kull lived earlier, in the Time of Atlantis, which was a actually a land of Barbarians; the higher civilizations existed on the Thurian continent, where Kull deposed a tyrant named Borna and took the crown of Valusia for himself. Kull was an orphan raised by tigers, and who took the tiger as his totem animal, as Conan did the lion (Amra). Though humans dominated Kull's era, there also existed a few survivors of the serpent-men, who possessed the insidious ability to shape-shift into humans, and a winged race of bird-headed men, as introduced in an Alan Zelenetz story, "The Amulet of Ka." Kull might well have been an actual ancestor of Conan, as the blacked-maned Atlantean barbarians were established as ancestral to Cimmerians, as told (I think) in Howard's history of the Hyborian age. Though separated by millenia, Conan and Kull did manage meet on occasion, by means of sorcerous time-portals. 

Kull's comic book run is a bit confusing. He first appeared in Marvels' Bizarre Adventures, illustrated by John Bolton, and there was very brief black and white Kull magazine, Kull and the Barbarians. I didn't really pay much attention to the small color Kull issues Marvel produced during the seventies.

 In the eighties, they brought Kull back, starting with direct-to -comic -book-store issues at the same time that they marketing Ka-Zar, Mirconauts and Moon Knight in direct sales market. I still do  not know why they did this, but it was sort of cool; there were two or three "first issues" of Kull, one being a werewolf tale with a wrap-around cover, and printed on slick paper. It featured the art of little-known Great John Bolton. The other two direct premiere issues also featured wrap-arounds. One featured Bolton art with Kull on the front and his tiger totem on the back, with interior art by another Great, Nestor Redondo. The third premiere issue of Kull sported a Joe Jusko wrap around by Joe Jusko (not a painting) of Kull battling tigers. 

This issue was interesting in particular, because it was written by Bruce Jones, who introduced Kull's sister Iraina, also an orphan reared by Thurian tigers, who humiliates Brule the Spearslayer, Kull's Pictish friend, then beheads her own ruler, and goes on to conquer most of the known world with her army of female were-tigers. Of course she is ultimately undone by her brother. After that Alan Zelentz took over the scripting, penning the aforementioned "Amulet of Ka" story, in which Kull sets out to recover the aforementioned amulet to save the life of Tu, his councelor. 

After that, the Kull series went mainstream, with no more wrap around covers and zero- ad format Though the scripts maintained the general quality, it didn't last long, because, well, Kull didn't have the staying power that Conan did. Kull went on to appear in a back series in Savage Sword for a time in the late eighties, written by then-Conan writer Chuck Dixon, whose take on Kull often had gruesome twist endings. More recently Kull appeared at Dark Horse, though little as been seen of him since. 

Solomon Kane

Solomon Kane was a Puritan hero created by REH. He appeared in a number of short-lived comics and limited series. Kane was intelligent brooding and introspective, and a bit philosophical, even more so than Kull. Kane traveled the world, combating evil. Inevitably, the Kane stories tended toward horror. While this was almost true of Howard's original Conan tales, it was even more true here. 

I'm out of time, and I'll write more later on the rest of the heroes.

Okay, time to post more. 

Cormac Mac Art

Cormac Mac Art was a lesser known creation of Howard, that had an even lesser known comics run. His stories were set in historical times, and he might have been a Viking hero. There was little fantastic or supernatural elements in most of them, but one story fragment contained in the Cormac volume of the Howard Library series of paperbacks during the late ninties, contains references to King Arthur, as well as a horde of half-human monsters and satyr like beings. Some of the other stories in that volume are pastiches by science fiction writer David Drake, in addition to  original Howard tales. 

Bran Mac Morn

Bran Mac Morn was Howard's Pictish hero. Howard had an interest and admiration for the Picts, a race/culture from Breton's ancient past. Bran lived at the time of the ancient Roman Empire, and to defend his people against the Romans, he enlists the aide of a race of subterrean beings who had once been men, a staple of REH's fiction, in the horrific "Worms of the Earth."

In the Howardian universe, Picts were also around during Kull's time (in the Pictish Isles) and during the Hyborian age, where they were confined to a stretch of wildland known as the Pictish wilderness. Howard describes them as "a white race, though swarthy," though never spoken as such by the Aquilonian settlers of the region. The Picts are adversarial in the Conan tales like "Beyond the Black River," where Conan fights on the side of Aquilonia, the indigenous Picts basically filling the same role as American Indians to white settlers. Savage Sword writers often penned their own tales set in the Pictish Wilderness, notably Chuck Dixon, who often depicted them as far less noble than Howard did. Though Picts, "like American Indians" according to the letters column once, varied in nature from tribe to tribe, and were occasionally de-picted sometimes as heroes, as in "The White Vulture," Dixon often portrayed Picts as a degenerate culture. Generally, the more savage and ruthless the Pictish tribe was, the more degenerate, with one especially savage tribe literally wallowing in filth. 

During the transition between the Hyborian Age and out modern era, Howard establishes that the Picts were defeated by the Celts. 

Later on author Karl Edward Wagner, creator of his own Barbarian, Kane, wrote a few Bran Mac Morn pastiches. Bran has seldom been de-Picted in comics, but Dark Horse did do an adaptation of "Kings of the Night." "Worms of the Earth" was adapted long ago in an issue of Savage Sword as a backup feature, then reprinted as a single graphic novel years afterward. 

Red Sonja

Red Sonja was a character quasi-created by Howard. His original creation was of a swordwoman named Red Sonya (slightly different spelling), set in historical times in "Shadow of the Vulture." Roy Thomas re-planted her as a Hyrkanian in the Hyborian age, and tweaked her a bit. 

Sonja had a relatively short-lived series in the seventies, followed by a limited series during eighties. She also showed accasionally in the Conan comics, as a backup feature, or to cross swords or team up with the Cimmerian. Since thn, however, she's become much more popular, notably in the Dynamite series. 

During the eighties, there were a series of Red Sonja paperbacks porduced, sporting covers by Boris.

One Savage Sword issue told the very disturbing backstory of Sonja. She grows up happily with her parents and siblings, when one day an army officer from her retired father's  millitary days shows up with his men. Her father seems to realize that the man is dangerous, for he herds his wife and family inside their cabin. He greets him in a friendly manner however, calling the man "old friend," though the man replies that he is now "first in command," indicating a possible rivelry, more than a friendship. After a brief exchange, the man simply utters the words "Kill him." His men kill Sonja's father, and go on to slaughter Sonja's innocent family while the captain bursts into laughter. When the (now teenage) Sonja threatens him with a sword, he spares his men from killing only to rape her himself. Then, on a sadistic whim, he leaves her alive. Years later, after Sonja can best near anyone alive with a sword, she comes upon a band a brigands torturing some poor wretch. After driving them off, she discovers their victim is none other than the captain who murdered her family and raped her! The unknown man has finally recieved his due, though Sonja feels robbed of her personal revenge. 

Niord

Niord was Nordic barbarian native to some primordial, possibly pre-Hyborian era. Howard's tale of Niord and the Worm was both stand-alone, and one of his James Allison stories. Allison is a modern disabled man who experiences dreams of earlier incarnations, this one being the tale that supposedly spawned all the legends of monster-slayer heroes down though that ages, including Siegfried, Beowulf, St. George and others. Niord is a warrior of a blond-haired barbarian tribe, who journeys into the jungled southlands. There they come in contact with the Picts, here de-picted as a dark-skinned, brutish people. During a battle, Niord spares the life of the Pictish warrior Gorm, and the two become friends. Later, when Niord's tribe makes the fatal error of camping among the ruins of a cursed ruin, in spite of the warnings of the Picts, Niord finds them slain. He and Gorm seek out Satha, a gigantic serpent with venhom-bearing fangs (another Howardian staple), whom he slays and coats his arrows with the poison (the story also features Nirod's battle with a saber-tooth tiger.

He then used the envenhomed arrows to slay the slayer of his people. This turns out to be a somewhat catapillar-like, Lovercraftian monstrosity, that slithers forth from a well in the ancient city, summoned by the piping a bizarre, vaguely ape-like entity. It is "not a beast, as humanity knows beasts" according to Howard. "Valley of the Worm" was printed in Supernatural Thrillers with art by Gil Kane. It has been reprinted since in Savage Sword, though always as a stand-alone. Thomas, surprisingly never transformed the tale of Niord into a Conan story.

  In another James Allison tale, "Garden of Fear"another northern warrior presses southward into verdant lands, only to have his love Gudrrn, a woman whom the most ravishing beauties of today are mere shadows, captured by a bizarre flying man. He saves her or course, by drivng a herd of mammoths to trample the garden of blood-drinking plants that circle the winged man's tower. Howard establishes that winged man is some relic of some earlier time, a theme repeated in "Queen of the Black Coast."

"Garden of Fear" WAS turned into a Conan tale by Thomas, and illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith.

Esau Cairn

This is a strange one. Esau Cairn was the hero of Amalric, Robert E. Howard's one sword and planet novel, his one attempt to imitate Burrough's Mars stories. "Amalric" was also the name of a blond-haired warrior who was a friend of Conan's in "The Scarlet Citadel". Amalric, however, is the title of the both the novel, and short comic series from Dark Horse (I thinkThat makes a bit hard to remember that Amalric is the name of the,  planet, where the story takes place, and Esau Cairn is the name of the hero. The hero is disabled, rather like James Allison, and a professor friend of his propels him, via a new invention of his, to the suface of Amalric, where he is reincarnated in a new body. Thus Cairn's advetures begin. Amalric is frought by mostrous animals, including tusked bears, giant felines, and hyena-like beasts, what seems to be a huge serpent, and some sort of carnivorous moose-like monstrosity. Sentient races also inhabit Amalric, including dog-headed manlike things, a race of beast-men, who capture Cairn and take him to their city. During a war between the beast-men and a black-skinned winged race known as yagas, Cairn and his newfound love escape. But the woman is later made prisoner of the Yagas, and Cairn must rescue her. During the climax, a giant tentacled monster appears, and it's been speculated that this final scene of the protagonists' escape, may actually have been penned by Otic Adelbert Kline, a vetern of the sword and planet genre. The publication above depicts Cairn's battle with the yagas. 

Amalric was adapted by Marvel comics in their Heavy Metal-like magazine Epic, and later a sequal to Howard's original was published by Dark Horse.