This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero item from Balladeer’s Blog will look at Marvel’s unusual character Skull the Slayer.
SKULL THE SLAYER Vol 1 #1 (August 1975)
Title: The Coming of Skull the Slayer
Villain: A Tyrannosaurus Rex
Synopsis: Jim Scully, Army nickname “Skull”, is a Vietnam Vet and former POW trying to adjust to life back in the United States. Unfortunately, while he was MIA his wife divorced him and has found a new man. His parents passed away before even finding out that Jim was still alive.
Worst of all, when Scully is reunited with his younger brother, it turns out he is a junkie who tries to kill him. Jim kills his brother in self-defense, and then, overwhelmed by all the horrors of his homecoming after years in a POW camp, he goes on the run, fearful that he’ll be sent to prison for his brother’s death.
Scully is at last tracked down in Bermuda and is being extradited on a flight back to the United States when that aircraft disappears in the Bermuda Triangle. It crash-lands in a primitive rainforest that is apparently where all those who disappear into the Bermuda Triangle end up.
It is not truly the Earth of millions of years ago, because it is anachronistically populated by dinosaurs and primates that were never alive during the same time periods. The only survivors of the plane crash are Scully, a young Native American man named Jeff Turner, an African American physician named Raymond Corey, and Corey’s young research assistant Ann Reynolds. Continue reading
SWORD WOMAN – This was the first story about Robert E. Howard’s fiery woman warrior Agnes the Dark aka Agnes de Chastillon, a sword fighting, butt kicking woman in 1500s France. Previously, Balladeer’s Blog reviewed 
BLONDE PHANTOM
ALL SELECT COMICS Vol 1 #11 (September 1946) 
THE END OF AN EPOCH (1901) – Written by A. Lincoln Green, this novel about a world-threatening disease presented the tale of brilliant young Adam Godwin, a recent Oxford graduate who pursues his interest in microbiology. During the course of his research into antitoxins, Adam becomes aware of the controversial Dr. Azrael Falk. 
Ultimately, Adam starts neglecting Evelyn to the point that she lays down an ultimatum: Godwin must choose between her and his research. Adam chooses his research, so the engagement is ended, and the willful Evelyn joins her father’s expedition to the North Pole. 
LOVE OF RAIN (2022) – This excellent – and lightning-quick – collection of stories about life, love, and passion was written by Pritilata Nandi. She is from India, and has made these tales very accessible by avoiding complicated idiomatic expressions and by omitting from the stories all but the necessary elements of Indian history and culture. 
PART FOUR
Synopsis: Adam Warlock has come to after his lapse into unconsciousness caused by the trauma of his Soul Gem’s theft of Kray-Tor’s soul at the end of last issue. He has awakened into a bizarre alternate reality with walkways and small islands of matter floating in an endless sky. Bizarre symbols and designs ornament the skyscape like imagery from an acid trip. 
THE SEA HAWK (1915) – In the late 16th Century, English gentleman Sir Oliver Tressilian is betrayed into galley slavery by his jealous half-brother Lionel. After a time, the galley on which Oliver has been condemned to serve as an oarsman is raided by Barbary Corsairs in the Mediterranean Sea. 
This weekend’s escapist, lighthearted superhero blog post from Balladeer’s Blog will present the 1970s clash between Marvel’s Adam Warlock, who is coming up in the next Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and the Magus, evil head of a thousand-planet empire. 
PART ONE 
FANTASTIC FOUR #66-67 (Sept & Oct 1967) – Featuring Warlock’s first appearance, albeit under the name “Him.” The Fantastic 4’s mad scientist foes in the Beehive, later called the Enclave, created Him, an immensely powerful life-form, to serve them in their mad schemes. Him, emerging from his cocoon for the first of what will be many times, refuses to be their pawn. The FF survive the encounter with Him, who slaughters some of the scientists and disappears. 
THOR #165-166 (June & July 1969) – Him had been floating in space in his cocoon since leaving the Earth. The cocoon was found by an Earth space probe which brought the cocoon back to a research center on Earth. Him emerged from the cocoon, met and fell in “love” with Thor’s romantic partner Sif and abducted her. Thor furiously fought Him to rescue Sif and defeated Him, who again retreated into his cocoon and floated off into space. 
MARVEL PREMIERE #1-2 (Apr & May 1972), WARLOCK #1-8 (Aug 1972 – October 1973), HULK #176-178 (Jun 1974 – Aug 1974) – This time Him’s cocoon was discovered floating in space by the godlike being called the High Evolutionary. This sometimes hero and sometimes villain added to our hero’s already massive powers by endowing him with a Soul Gem, later ret-conned as one of the Infinity Stones. This was its very FIRST appearance. 
THE KE WHONKUS PEOPLE aka A Tale of the North Pole Country (1890) – The author John O. Greene was American, but the main character in this story is a Canadian named Sampson De Lilly. Sampson survives a shipwreck and is picked up by a steamship headed for the North Pole. 
PREZ Vol 1 #1 (September 1973) 
This caught the attention of corrupt political handler Boss Smiley, whose head was one of those syrupy and kitschy smiley faces that had become widespread by 1973. Boss Smiley and slimy advertising mogul Misery Marko recruited Prez to run for the Senate as their pawn, using the slogan “He made the clocks run on time.” (a Mussolini joke, of course) 
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