Sword & Sorcery comes to DC: Always a step behind Marvel

The table was probably set by Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" comics in 1971. The New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People established that DC was ready to do comics outside of the superhero genre. Marvel had recently had success with Conan the Barbarian, The Savage Sword of Conan, and the other characters in Savage Tales like Man-Thing and Ka-Zar the Savage through a loosening of the Comics Code Authority. DC was about to play catch-up.

The 1970s, making up the first two-thirds of the Bronze Age of Comics, was a time of great change for the entire comic book industry, but in retrospect, Marvel Comics certainly was weathering those changes better than DC. In fact, Marvel was surging while DC laggged.

Key talent moved between companies in unexpected ways like Kirby jumping ship from Marvel to DC. Marvel's higher page rates were enticing writers and artists to try their hand there even with Jim Shooter's management style that some staffers considered suffocating.

Royalties agreements and labor disputes changed the entirety of how the backstage world of comic creation worked.

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Throughout the decade, prices for each individual comic continued to rise. In 1971, DC raised their prices from 15 cents to 25 cents per comic, but with an increase in the page count so that the price increase was easier to swallow. The following year, they dropped the page increase and the price came down to 20 cents. In 1976, the cost went up to 30 cents, this time without an increase in pages. By the end of the decade, comics cost 50 cents, more than three times their price in 1970. Can you imagine going to the comic shop in 2029 and paying $15 an issue?

Jim Shooter describes the mid-70s as feeling like the "impending death" of the comics industry. It was not a good time to be behind the scenes.

So in an effort to boost sales, DC exploded.

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The "DC Explosion" was the name given to the publishing initiative that arrived in the mid-1970s (some people say it really began as early as 1975, but the more agreed-upon date is in 1978). DC began publishing way, way more comics. Between '75 and '78, a whopping thirty new titles would hit shelves, many of which would be published after just a handful of issues, some of which would be cancelled after just a single issue, and even more would be cancelled before they ever even went to print. Many of those were printed in DC's two-issue ashcan book, Cancelled Comic Cavalcade, to maintain the rights. Quickly, as most titles were cancelled (even fucking Detective Comics of all books was on the chopping block), DC laid off almost half of its staff. It went down in history as the "DC Implosion." They kind of walked into that one.

And out of this time, we got a couple of pretty-good sword & sorcery comics that always seemed to be a step or five behind Marvel's.

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One of DC's first attempts at an answer to Conan was a series entitled Sword of Sorcery, adapting Fritz Leiber heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It had an absolute murderer's row of talent behind it: Denny O'Neil, Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson, and Jim Starlin, but only lasted for five issues before it was canned. Around that time, editor Carmine Infantino demanded, "I need two more sword & sorcery books. One's coming out in Jauary, you're two months late on it and one's out in February. You're only one month late on it." Paul Levitz and Spidey co-creator Steve Ditko ended up with the assignment, turning it into Stalker, a Michael Moorcock pastiche which lasted only four issues.

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DC's first moderate success came in 1973 when Mike Grell marched into DC's office with the plan to pitch a sword & sorcery adventure strip called Savage Empire. He'd been working on it for years, and he envisioned it as his answer to Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. DC editorial told him he was about 15 years too late, but had him pitch it to Carmine Infantino anyway. As he was about to open his mouth to make his presentation, he couldn't help but think that DC would own every aspect of Savage Empire if they decided to buy it, so he pivoted.

He, on the spot, completely made up a new series. It had echoes of Savage Empire in it, along with Burroughs's Pellucidar series and even M*A*S*H, and importantly, wasn't signing his long-gestating Savage Empire away. He called it The Warlord.

In The Warlord, Air Force pilot Travis Morgan accidentally discovers the Hollow Earth when returning home from a spying mission, dropping him in Skartaris: the land of eternal sunlight. It distinguishes itself from other sword & sorcery by making heavy use of science fiction themes as wells as S&S; there are ancient Atlantean computers and Morgan wields not only a sword but a pistol usually as well. The Warlord is pretty fucking awesome, and does quite a bit to make sure that it's not mistaken for a Conan clone. DC could now directly compete with Marvel's fantasy books.

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Two issues in, Warlord was cancelled and Mike Grell was pissed. "[Infantino] can't do that!" he protested, "He promised me a one-year run!" But shortly thereafter, Jenette Kahn took the role of publisher and asked where Warlord was, for it was one of the books she had liked. When she was told Infantino had cancelled it, she said, "Well, Carmine's not here anymore. Put it back," and The Warlord returned to publication with an eight-month gap between issues #2 and #3. Warlord is mostly fantastic, and it's unique in the world of American comics as being largely a product of just one author and artist, more along the lines of how mangaka draw in Japan.

As an insert in Warlord #48, DC tried their hand at another new sword & sorcery character, this time using Mr. Conan the Barbarian himself, Roy Thomas. Roy had left Marvel in 1980 and now in 1981 was working for DC, so they set him to work trying to recreate some of the magic he made for the competition. The creation was Arak, Son of Thunder, featuring a Native American hero who ends up discovering Europe before European colonists arrive in the Americas.

Arak starts out as painfully similar to Conan, but distinguished himself over time. Roy Thomas claims today that it was hard not to base the adventures in the framework created by Robert E. Howard since he was the godfather of the genre. But ultimately Arak started to sport a mohawk rather than long hair and became less of a rip. It's fun to see Arak meet historical figures like Charlemagne, and people often bring up that he was noticeably well-depicted, at least in comparison to other Native American heroes of his day. His self-titled book ran for fifty issues before getting the axe.

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In the same Warlord issue insert that spawned Arak, DC tried their hand at another sword & sorcery hero, this time in a self-titled book called Claw the Unconquered. Claw can be fun, but was certainly less successful than Arak.

Created by eventual Marvel great David Michelinie (have you read his whole Amazing Spider-Man run, not just the Venom stuff? It's fantastic!) and frequent Conan artist/inker Ernie Chan, Claw is almost indistinguishable from the Cimmerian. Yes, he has a demon hand ("The Hand of Nergal," anyone?) that's covered up by a metal gauntlet, but that's about it. Clad in a white loincloth instead of a brown one, Claw spends a few issues wondering about his true origins while having some barbarian adventures in a land nearly identical to the Hyborian Age. Had someone recolored his loincloth and changed a few proper nouns, you wouldn't realize you weren't reading a Marvel book. That's not to say it's a terrible time, on the contrary, it's halfway-decent, but it does almost nothing to allow Claw to make a distinct impression.

At least he doesn't overstay his welcome; DC axed Claw the Unconquered after issue #12.

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DC had a few other S&S randos over the years: Starfire (no, not that Starfire) spun off of Claw for eight issues. The adapted the English myth Beowulf for six issues.

Some of these characters have popped up here and there in other versions over the years, but most of them have remained as forgotten as they were short. DC ended up weathering the bronze age and then ushering in the Copper Age of Comics in 1986 where they dominated. Their fantasy characters today don't really have any sword & sorcery traces in them, but they're no longer trying to compete with Conan.