MYTHCOMICS: ["THE SONG OF RED SONJA"], CONAN THE BARBARIAN #23-24 (1973)

 Not only must I preface my remarks by saying that I'm using the title of one of two stories as an umbrella for both, but also that the two stories involved are part of a larger mosaic of CONAN stories by the celebrated team of Roy Thomas and Barry Smith. I don't know if anyone has coined a formal name for these interrelated stories, but since they're related to Conan's participation in a city under siege, one might call it "The Siege of Makkalet." It was an ambitious multi-part story, and yet another of Marvel Comics' experiments with longer continuities like the Lee-Kirby "Inhumans Saga" and Steranko's Yellow Claw continuity.

The most mythic stories within the greater mosaic are the two related to Thomas and Smith's introduction of the sword-maiden Red Sonja to Conan's Hyborian era. At some point in the Mythcomics Project, I stated that I wouldn't consider simple adaptations of stories from other media as "mythcomics." However, even though one of the two stories considered here derives from Robert E. Howard's prose tale  "The Shadow of the Vulture," Thomas and Smith ring in enough changes to the original tale that it's no longer a straight retelling. I've already included at least one derivative-yet-original mythcomic before this, when I analyzed George Perez's take on Hesiod's myth of Pandora.

Three previous stories established Conan's enlistment with the forces of Makkalet as a mercenary, defending the city against the invader Turan. Thus Conan becomes a loose parallel to Howard's Germanic hero Von Kalmbach, while Turan stands in for the real-world Ottoman Empire. The ruler of Turan has a slightly different reason for his enmity toward the Cimmerian, but his arc is the same as that of Suleiman I, sending the (fictional) assassin Mikhal Oglu, "The Vulture," to collect Conan's head. Original to the above exchange between Mikhal and his liege is Mikhal's remark that "no night is dark enough to hide [Conan] from me."

Conan is forced to flee the Vulture's forces to beseiged Makkalet, and it's there that the barbarian meets fellow mercenary Red Sonja, who is pretty close visually to Howard's description but lacks any backstory, least of all that of her having become a warrior because her sister became the harem-favorite of an Eastern ruler. The burly Cimmerian doesn't immediately show gratitude for his rescue by Sonja's forces, passing a sexist remark about "a wench who should be tending a hearth somewhere." Sonja doesn't hear the jibe, but he does belatedly attempt to render thanks, only to have the martial maiden reject his overtures. In the short story Howard writes a line meant to establish that his "Sonya" was purely a warrior who had no dalliances with other soldiers. Thomas rewrites this line, making Sonja more ambivalent: "She's all men's delight, and no man's love"-- which fits with some of Red Sonja's greater use of feminine wiles, if not actual selling of her services.

In the short story, Sonya shows some belated appreciation for Von Kalmbach's prowess, and that's the reason she's watching him when the hero's abducted by some of the Vulture's pawns. Thomas doesn't explain exactly how Sonja came to be watching Conan when he gets kidnapped, but her rescue makes it possible, as in the Howard story, to lure the Vulture into a trap where Conan uses his Cimmerian super-sight to gain a fighting-advantage. 

The second story, the one literally entitled "The Song of Red Sonja," is entirely original, and puts a new complexion on the heroine's attitude toward the barbarian. But first, Sonja is seen doing something that the all-business Red Sonya would never have done: dancing on a table for the applause of her fellow soldiers, including Conan. 

Sonja's dance foments a brawl at the tavern, but she remains in Conan's company as they depart to avoid being arrested by the city's guards. Surprisingly, given what we later learn about Sonja's motives, it's Conan who suggests that they should take a dip in some local pool. Sonja doffs her mail-shirt, and Conan takes that as a go-ahead signal. Then Sonja suddenly remembers that she has a task to perform that very night, and she uses her sexiness to lure the barbarian into helping her. 

To his credit, Conan soon figures out that the she-devil wants him for his Cimmerian climbing-skills, so that both of them can rob a local treasure-tower in Makkalet. He goes along with her plan, though, hoping to lure her into a sense of indebtedness, and therefore, into sex. However, Sonja has a secret mission. She hasn't come to Makkalet simply as a random mercenary, but has been charged with recovering a magical item from the treasure-house by another ruler, the humorously named "King Ghannif." (In Yiddish, a "goniff" is a dishonest or disreputable person.") 

The magic item, as it happens, conjures a magic serpent, allowing Conan and Sonja something to fight for the next five pages. Thomas throws in a reference to Howard's concept of a race of serpent-men, but the serpent has no independent mythic value, and once the heroes force the creature to retreat back into the bauble, the beast and its talisman are never referenced again in the Marvel CONAN series.

Once Sonja has what she wants, she decides to "burn her bridges," so to speak, with the somewhat gullible barbarian. It's at this point that Thomas has the sword-maiden utter her famous line--

"No man's lips shall ever touch mine, Cimmerian, save those of him who has defeated me on the field of battle!"

Nothing in "Song" sets up this unusual declaration, and the five Sonja stories that followed show no sign of following up on the statement. Not until Sonja got her own origin in the 1975 story in KULL AND THE BARBARIANS #3 did Thomas return to the subject, so it's difficult to say what he, or possibly Barry Smith, might have been thinking of when the line was coined. Thomas had dumped Original Sonya's motive of fighting the Ottomans because of her personal sense of affront (though strangely, not on behalf of her abducted sister). My best guess is that, although Thomas could not have known that comics fans would want to see more of the red-haired vixen, the writer knew that if he brought her back, he would eventually have to come up with a new backstory to explain why Red Sonja had rejected the traditional role of women in a barbaric world. Thomas could easily have borrowed the "no sex without physical conquest" from the Classic Greek tale of Atalanta, who would not marry any man except one who could best her in a foot-race. (The swain who does outrace her, BTW, does so by means of a trick.) The subsequent origin-story, however, would take the concept in an entirely new direction.

OUTSTANDING EPIC FANTASY COMICS

 I've been thinking about the appeal of epic fantasy-- which usually includes the subgenre of sword and sorcery, and includes at least mystical marvels even if some version of science fiction may also be present-- and then wondering about the best examples of this super-genre in comic books and comic strips (not that there are a lot in the latter medium). 

My main criterion is an epic sweep showing either a made-up world or some version of Earth's archaic past, but magic does need to be present to make it fantasy, so "sword and planet" stories like the John Carter series are out, unless magic is evoked alongside science. Mike Grell's WARLORD, which is an "inner Earth" SF-world in which magicians and demons run around, would qualify if I thought any of its arcs were outstanding in some way. For my purposes I'm also thinking only of long comics runs or arcs; no one-off short stories set in fantasy-worlds. I tend to rule out serials in which characters are too jokey or too homey, which would probably let out CEREBUS in addition to its being a domain where magic is only occasionally important to the story. Ditto ASTERIX. If someone had done original-to-comics versions of Peter Pan or the Oz books I might tend to exclude those too. I'd like to have included ELFQUEST but I'm pretty sure all of its miracles fall under the rubric of science fiction, even with all the archaisms.

So far I've come up with:

PRINCE VALIANT-- I've only read a smattering of these reprints, but I would say Hal Foster may be the only guy in newspaper comics to master the form, though I've read that the only usages of magic occur early in the strip's history

THE WIZARD KING-- technically only the first part of Wally Wood's opus is really good; he was pretty ill when he rushed out a quickie second part

CONAN-- maybe the first fifty Marvel issues. Barry Smith was the best exemplar of Conan art though John Buscema did a lot of impressive work up to that point.

KULL-- more scattershot in its first Marvel incarnation, but the second one, titled KULL THE DESTROYER at times, included some imaginative Doug Moench scenarios

CLAW THE UNCONQUERED-- a Conan ripoff, but with more emphasis on magical fantasy, with some cool Keith GIffen artwork

BEOWULF-- DC only did six issues of this character, who was a little jokey at times but still had some epic sequences

RED SONJA-- most if not all of Frank Thorne's work with the character

GHITA OF ALIZARR-- Thorne again, and the first of two albums is very good while the second is still pretty good

INU-YASHA-- medieval Japanese fantasy with an epic sweep

VIKING PRINCE-- gorgeous Kubert art in the feature's more fantastic incarnation

MYTHCOMICS: “PUBLIC ENEMY/LIFEDEATH” (X-MEN #185-186, 1984)

 

Though the X-Men character Storm was not the first Black superheroine, she became, within the subculture of comic book readers, the first one to gain fame both within the medium and in both live-action and animated adaptations. As one of X-MEN’s faithful readers, I wasn’t always happy with the directions long-time writer Chris Claremont took with either Storm or most of the other protagonists. Nevertheless, whatever status any of the seventies X-Men might have as literary myths comes principally from Claremont, even though said heroes had been created by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum.

At least one of Claremont’s virtues as a writer of superhero melodrama might be seen as a vice from the vantage of formulating mythic discourse. In my essay STRIP NO-SHOW I advanced the notion that comic strips, even though they started off with a better reputation for quality work than did the rival medium comic books, labored under restrictions of format presentation that inhibited their mythic potential. Most comic strips remained satisfied with a simple lateral plot-progression, wherein the only “subplots” were usually introductions of future new plotlines. In the sixties comic books revealed a far greater capacity for what I’ve termed “vertical meanings,” some of which arose out of the ability of comic book authors to explore their concepts of character and society more than had their comic strip forebears.

Stan Lee was a pivotal figure in taping this potential, making him the Father of the Soap Opera Comic Book, and even if he didn’t hit one out of the park every time, he and his collaborators comprehended how to give the readers enough satisfaction that they kept coming back for more. Claremont didn’t deliver on satisfying wrap-ups quite as often, but he exceeded Lee in quantity, as an average issue of an eighties X-MEN might be juggling at least four plotlines at a time. True, sometimes the plots were editorially imposed. This fact is evident in the two X-issues I’m examining here, which coordinated one X-plot with developments in the “Rom Spaceknight” continuity. But Claremont also kept his readers coming back for more, and it’s in these stories that he took one of his most daring steps: to divest Storm, one of the group’s most popular members, of the very powers that made her unique.

“Public Enemy” places its focus on two of the group’s X-Women, Storm and Rogue. Unlike Storm, a charter member of the seventies team, Rogue had been introduced as a villain. After bouncing around various features, always being misunderstood like Marvel’s other outlaw-heroes, she switched teams and joined the X-Men roughly a year prior to “Public Enemy.” The cover teases the reader with the idea that Rogue may have returned to villainy, showing the image of Rogue grinning as she clutches the jacket of an apparently defeated Storm. In truth, the perception of Rogue as a public enemy is a false one fostered by two government officials, both hostile to mutantkind: familiar support-cast faces Henry Gyrich and Valerie Cooper. Rogue has been accused of killing a SHIELD agent, and that’s enough reason for Gyrich to lead a task force in order to hunt her down. Because Rogue is especially powerful—having assimilated the powers of the more celebrated heroine Ms. Marvel—Gyrich takes along with a special power-neutralizing ray-gun, invented by government-employed inventor Forge (introduced the previous issue).

By coincidence, Rogue, though unaware of the charges against her, suddenly gets antsy about her association with the X-heroes and flees their company without explanation. Storm, despite having been less than taken with Rogue when the latter joined the team, has conceived a respect for the newbie’s “sense of honor and decency,” and so she tracks down the fugitive heroine, concerned that she may suffer a “relapse.” Rogue, a Mississippi girl, has sought surcease of sorrow at a familiar old haunt: a section of the state’s most famous river, where Rogue first learned of her mutant powers. (One can tell that the issue was written pre-PC: Claremont writes elegaically of the Fall of the South without once mentioning the Evils of Slavery.)

Storm finds Rogue, and they talk, with Rogue expressing her continued concerns, that she could endanger her teammates because her ability to absorb others’ powers could hurt them. Storm proposes an experiment, giving her consent to let Rogue assimilate Storm’s powers and memories. (Later, in “Lifedeath,” Storm mentions how she had to cultivate mental serenity to keep her emotions from affecting the local weather, so in effect Storm seeks to give the tormented Southern belle a taste of the equilibrium she so desires.) After the transfer has been made, Storm passes out, but Rogue does experience an oceanic sense of connectedness to the elements, without any concomitant danger to herself or others. (To be sure, Rogue does suffer the temptation to vampirize Storm for more serene memories, but the better side of her personality wins out.)

However, Gyrich’s team tracks down Rogue and attacks. Rogue’s attempt to wield Storm’s powers forestall the agents but also imperil some bystanders. While Rogue and a recovered Storm seek to help the innocents, Gyrich draws a bead on Rogue with his anti-power gun. Forge, by some contrivance, arrives on the scene to avert Gyrich’s fire, though the ray ends up hitting Storm (possibly because of Forge’s interference, though Claremont doesn’t say so). An explosion stuns Rogue, who gets washed away in the river’s current. Forge recovers the similarly stunned Storm and takes custody of the heroine victimized by the illicit use of Forge’s own technology.

Though “Public Enemy” concentrates most of its narrative on Rogue, arguably Storm plays the more mythic role: that of the elemental goddess who gives all things to her friends/acolytes (even if this is more the province of Earth-deities than sky-gods). Rogue surfaces in a subplot to “Lifedeath,” confronting Valerie Cooper and almost immediately getting entangled with the “Rom Spaceknight” subplot. But most of the issue is devoted to the interactions of Storm and Forge, between a man who could make miracle-weapons and a woman who “once upon a time” could fly.

Storm risked her life to let Rogue temporarily emulate her powers and identity, but it’s quite a different thing to lose the powers that she associated with her identity. At the start of “Lifedeath,” Storm has been languishing in the scientific citadel of Forge for at least a day, since the reader first sees Forge trying to make the disconsolate former superhero take some nourishment. Apparently, Storm is so disassociated that she hasn’t even appealed for help to her friends at Xavier’s school, and they can’t locate her because she no longer has mutant powers.

Nevertheless, though Storm has never met Forge before, and is unaware of his role in removing her powers, she rallies somewhat, needing to talk to someone about her crisis, even as Rogue needed her earlier. “I was one with all creation,” she protests. Forge responds with his version of tough love, replying, “The goddess has become just plain folks.” He later reveals that he understands her impulse toward suicide because the injuries he sustained in Vietnam made him desire self-termination as well. The bond of shared suffering sparks the possibility of romance, though both of them find it difficult to communicate their emotions accurately. Storm does confess how her extreme self-enforcement of serenity constituted a sort of “spiritual celibacy,” which is her reason for having put off her original “regal” appearance in favor of “punk Storm”—though Claremont also implies that there’s another “celibacy” that can’t be fixed via fashion. However, their tentative romance comes to an end when Storm serendipitously finds out who’s responsible for draining her powers. Though in the next issue the two of them will be forced to make common cause against a greater threat, Storm leaves him, telling Forge that he is “hollow, form without substance” and that sooner or later, “I shall fly again.”

Without even looking, I feel reasonably certain that Storm’s de-powering made the list on the nineties site “Women in Refrigerators,” with the implication that the heroine was nullified in the service of repressive patriarchy. Of course, losing her powers did not strike Storm off the list of the X-Men, even though she didn’t regain her abilities for some years. Clearly Claremont’s basic intent here parallels a dozen or so Superman stories in which that hero loses his powers and has to prove his heroism using only his courage and intelligence. But Claremont, drawing upon the spadework of Stan Lee, deepened the sense of trauma associated with a loss of power or prestige. Thus, in these two stories, both heroines—one who fears connection and one who has always felt connected-- are subjected to extended suffering. Claremont used this trauma-trope a lot, and not always to mythopoeic ends. Sometimes, the agonies only served to keep the plot-pots boiling. But in these stories Forge the isolated scientist becomes an overreaching version of Rogue, the isolated heroine. And in reaction against the scientist’s solipsism, Storm’s struggle to regain her own identity takes on mythic stature. And she achieves that stature not because the character is Black, but because she’s a well-written character who happens to be Black.