Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! We've got another new department here in Groove City:
Greetings from Skartaris, in which we'll rap about Mike Grell's wondrous
Warlord! That's right, the adventures of
Travis Morgan, aka
The Warlord, will be laid upon ya on a semi-regular basis--as long as you demand it, that is! Before we get started, be it known that you can read
The Warlord's origin story from
First Issue Special #8 right
here, and the fabulous first ish of
Warlord can be found
here! Now, let's continue Mike Grell's epic saga, and meet
Machiste, who'll become a very important part of
Travis Morgan's entourage, in "Arena of Death" from
Warlord #2 (December 1975). Can you dig it?
And that was the end of The Warlord until sales returns showed that Iron Mike and Travis were a hit! Issue #3 would arrive in July 1976, and Warlord would continue uninterrupted for another dozen years! Yeah, we've got a lot of cool stuff to come in future editions of Greetings from Skartaris! Don't miss it!!
Nicely done Groove! This was definitely Mike Grell's tribute to Roman gladiator films.
ReplyDelete- Mike from Trinidad & Tobago.
Great story and art on this series - the only downside is when Vinny Colettaccomes aboard to provide the inks.
ReplyDeleteDid Iron Mike ever say why Travis' look was swiped from Ollie?
More Warlord
ReplyDeleteA delayed-reaction thanks for posting the conclusion of Grell's opening WARLORD story (begun in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL 8, continued in WARLORD 1, and concluded here in WARLORD 2). I'm glad to have all 3 available here now to read. The series was cancelled temporarily for about 7 months, before DC looked at the favorable sales figures and revived it. And Grell's art, already nice, had improved by light years by the time issue 3 was done.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to issue 3 here. That double-page spread in the next issue is to die for. It's no wonder that WARLORD at one point became DC's bestselling title. You've now presented us with these 3 early issues, and issues 13 and 14. Looking forward to you presenting the issues in between.
I was a huge fan of Kirby's 40-issue KAMANDI run (which was also DC's bestselling title during its run), and when Kirby left DC I was hugely disappointed. About the time Kirby's KAMANDI was ending, Grell's WARLORD began, and at least partly partly satisfied the "art fix" I was missing with Kirby's departure. (Although Kirby's ETERNALS series over at Marvel more than filled the void just a few months later!)
To try and make the Grell WARLORD issues Groov has posted here easier to navigate, here's a link to Groove's post of the next issue, WARLORD 3, Nov 1976: http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2014/12/greetings-from-skartaris-war-gods-of.html
ReplyDeleteGroove already has links in his text above to FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL 8(cover-dated Nov 1975), and WARLORD 1 (Feb 1976) and issue 2 here above. ( I figured out the dates Groove lists are the on-sale dates, rather than the cover-dates.)
Great job of collecting all those random links, Dave! Thou art a Superior Groove-ophile through and through! And yeah, I prefer using on-sale dates because I remember the events (songs, movies, activities) I experienced along with buying each issue.
DeleteThank you, Groove. Regrettably they didn't appear as links in my posts. But anyone can just click-and-drag the link to the browser field to go right to the nect issue. This makes it easy to go ffom here and read 3-10, (11 is a reprint), and 12-14. Just doin' my part for the Cause.
ReplyDelete