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The Warlord
Showcase Presents: Warlord, Vol. 1
Inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne, WARLORD is the story of Air Force Pilot Travis Morgan, who crash-lands in the primitive, hidden land of Skartaris. Morgan becomes a leader of Skartaris, fighting to protect his newly adopted home from invaders wielding magical powers and hand-held weapons.
528 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2009
8 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Mike Grell
711 books82 followersMike Grell (born 1947) is a comic book writer and artist.
Grell studied at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Chicago Academy of Fine Art, and took the Famous Artists School correspondence course in cartooning. His entry into the comics industry was in 1972, as an assistant to Dale Messick on the Brenda Starr comic strip.
In 1973 Grell moved to New York, and began his long relationship with DC Comics. His first assignment at DC was on Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, a high-profile assignment for an artist with no prior experience illustrating a monthly comic book. Grell says he got that job because he was walking in the editor's door to ask for work, literally, as the previous artist was walking out the door, having just quit. These stories were written by Cary Bates and Jim Shooter. The Bates/Grell/Shooter run on the title is very well-regarded today by Superboy/Legion fans, who consider it one of the high-water marks in the character/team's history. Grell's work on SATLOSH is widely thought to be some of the best beefcake/cheesecake ever committed to comic book pages, and is affectionately referred to as the 'disco Legion' in retrospect by fans of the title.
A writer as well as artist, Grell cemented his status as a fan-favorite with his best-known creation, The Warlord, one of the first sword and sorcery comics, and reportedly the best-selling title published by DC Comics in the late-1970s.
The character first appeared in 1st Issue Special #8 (Nov 1975) and was soon given his own ongoing title (The Warlord #1, Jan/Feb 1976). In this book, Air Force pilot Travis Morgan crash-lands in the prehistoric "hidden world" of Skartaris (a setting highly influenced by Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar). For years thereafter, Morgan engages in adventures dressed only in a winged helmet, wristbands, boots, and breechclout, and armed with a sword and (years before Dirty Harry handled one) a .44 Auto Mag.
At DC, Grell also worked on titles such as Aquaman, Batman, and the Phantom Stranger, and with writer Dennis O'Neil on the re-launch of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series in 1976.
[edit] Tarzan
Grell wrote and drew the Tarzan comic strip from July 19, 1981 to February 27, 1983 (except for one strip, February 13, 1983, by Thomas Yeates). These strips were rerun in newspapers in 2004 - 2005.
[edit] First Comics: Jon Sable Freelance and Starslayer
Cover to Jon Sable Freelance #7. Art by Mike Grell.Through the 1980s Grell developed creator-owned titles such Jon Sable Freelance and Starslayer. Jon Sable Freelance was published by the now-defunct First Comics. Starslayer, a space-born science fiction series, started at Pacific Comics, but shifted to First.
The titular character of Jon Sable Freelance was a former Olympic athlete, later a African big-game hunter, who became a mercenary. First appearing with a cover date of June 1983, Jon Sable Freelance was a successful non-super-hero comic book in an era when successful non-super-hero comic books were almost unheard of, and a graphically violent comic sold in mainstream comic book stores in an era when such was as rare. Jon Sable was a precursor to what would eventually be called, by some, "the Dark Age of Comics," when even long-established super-heroes would become increasingly grim and violent.
The character was heavily influenced by Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as well as drawing on pulp fiction crime stories. Also, many of the stories of Sable's hunting exploits in Africa were influenced by Peter Hathaway Capstick's novels. At a convention in the late 1980s, Grell stated that his idea for Sable was "something like a cross between James Bond and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer."
Sable was adapted into a short-lived television series and the character's origin tale, "A Storm Over Eden," from the comic book, was expanded and novelized by Grell under the title Sable, which was publ
Grell studied at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Chicago Academy of Fine Art, and took the Famous Artists School correspondence course in cartooning. His entry into the comics industry was in 1972, as an assistant to Dale Messick on the Brenda Starr comic strip.
In 1973 Grell moved to New York, and began his long relationship with DC Comics. His first assignment at DC was on Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, a high-profile assignment for an artist with no prior experience illustrating a monthly comic book. Grell says he got that job because he was walking in the editor's door to ask for work, literally, as the previous artist was walking out the door, having just quit. These stories were written by Cary Bates and Jim Shooter. The Bates/Grell/Shooter run on the title is very well-regarded today by Superboy/Legion fans, who consider it one of the high-water marks in the character/team's history. Grell's work on SATLOSH is widely thought to be some of the best beefcake/cheesecake ever committed to comic book pages, and is affectionately referred to as the 'disco Legion' in retrospect by fans of the title.
A writer as well as artist, Grell cemented his status as a fan-favorite with his best-known creation, The Warlord, one of the first sword and sorcery comics, and reportedly the best-selling title published by DC Comics in the late-1970s.
The character first appeared in 1st Issue Special #8 (Nov 1975) and was soon given his own ongoing title (The Warlord #1, Jan/Feb 1976). In this book, Air Force pilot Travis Morgan crash-lands in the prehistoric "hidden world" of Skartaris (a setting highly influenced by Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar). For years thereafter, Morgan engages in adventures dressed only in a winged helmet, wristbands, boots, and breechclout, and armed with a sword and (years before Dirty Harry handled one) a .44 Auto Mag.
At DC, Grell also worked on titles such as Aquaman, Batman, and the Phantom Stranger, and with writer Dennis O'Neil on the re-launch of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series in 1976.
[edit] Tarzan
Grell wrote and drew the Tarzan comic strip from July 19, 1981 to February 27, 1983 (except for one strip, February 13, 1983, by Thomas Yeates). These strips were rerun in newspapers in 2004 - 2005.
[edit] First Comics: Jon Sable Freelance and Starslayer
Cover to Jon Sable Freelance #7. Art by Mike Grell.Through the 1980s Grell developed creator-owned titles such Jon Sable Freelance and Starslayer. Jon Sable Freelance was published by the now-defunct First Comics. Starslayer, a space-born science fiction series, started at Pacific Comics, but shifted to First.
The titular character of Jon Sable Freelance was a former Olympic athlete, later a African big-game hunter, who became a mercenary. First appearing with a cover date of June 1983, Jon Sable Freelance was a successful non-super-hero comic book in an era when successful non-super-hero comic books were almost unheard of, and a graphically violent comic sold in mainstream comic book stores in an era when such was as rare. Jon Sable was a precursor to what would eventually be called, by some, "the Dark Age of Comics," when even long-established super-heroes would become increasingly grim and violent.
The character was heavily influenced by Ian Fleming's James Bond novels as well as drawing on pulp fiction crime stories. Also, many of the stories of Sable's hunting exploits in Africa were influenced by Peter Hathaway Capstick's novels. At a convention in the late 1980s, Grell stated that his idea for Sable was "something like a cross between James Bond and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer."
Sable was adapted into a short-lived television series and the character's origin tale, "A Storm Over Eden," from the comic book, was expanded and novelized by Grell under the title Sable, which was publ
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 17, 2009
This great collection of writer/artist Mike Grell's 1970s sword-and-sorcery epic was a lot of fun. Each storyarc had an actual quest at its center, good for fans of this genre, and each issue reprint included a gorgeous two-page spread of the Warlord, Travis Morgan, or his friends and loved ones either swinging a weapon or admiring fantastic scenery. Sure, it does seem odd that the first few people Morgan befriends turn out to be kings and such, but hey, it happens.
December 21, 2020
I’ll be honest the series starts strong but then it goes too far off left field for me. The art is very nice.
February 7, 2010
1969: on a mission to photograph a Russian installation, Travis Morgan of the US Air Force falls through a hole in the North Pole and ends up in a strange world of adventure: Skartaris! He rescues a beautiful girl from a dinosaur, falls asleep a day - or is it twenty years? - and wakes up with the iconic white beard. He leads a great revolt against the evil Deimos, but that's only the beginning of his adventures...
The stories are very derivative of Conan, but one important element of that series is missing here: Grell's women aren't half as attractive as Buscema's. It has some interesting elements of its own, though, in particular the unruly operation of time in Skartaris, with days and years flashing by in the blink of an eye, and the remains of Atlantean technology Morgan slowly uncovers. One other difference is Morgan's pistol, giving him a tactical advantage over the locals - as long as the bullets last.
Morgan himself is an interesting character, presented as a hero, but also on occasion a cold-blooded murderer (p. 189 and p. 230). Though a more-or-less modern man, he is also given to fits of frenzy - he isn't a calm, trained fighter, but rather one who "erupts with the blind fury of a berserker". Nowadays our action heroes are Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, Daniel Craig's Bond, people who fight with precision, intelligence and control. Different heroes for different times, perhaps.
This series takes an unusual approach to gravity - the idea is that the entire Earth is hollow, and gravity emanates from the Earth's crust, so that the people of Skartaris walk around on the inside of the Earth's surface, just as we walk around on the outside. The effect is that Skartaris is huge, a surface area almost equal to that of Earth, as opposed to just a big area inside a cave. It's not clear from these stories why the other side of Skartaris isn't visible across the sky, though I expect it came up in the letter-columns.
It's not a patch on Conan, but it's a decent men's adventure story. If a little clumsy at times, the artwork is ambitious and bursting with violent energy. The serial nature of the story, and the creative consistency (Grell writes and pencils every issue), makes the book very readable, and there's no messing about - it's all action, all the time. Nothing earth-shattering, but a pleasure to read.
The stories are very derivative of Conan, but one important element of that series is missing here: Grell's women aren't half as attractive as Buscema's. It has some interesting elements of its own, though, in particular the unruly operation of time in Skartaris, with days and years flashing by in the blink of an eye, and the remains of Atlantean technology Morgan slowly uncovers. One other difference is Morgan's pistol, giving him a tactical advantage over the locals - as long as the bullets last.
Morgan himself is an interesting character, presented as a hero, but also on occasion a cold-blooded murderer (p. 189 and p. 230). Though a more-or-less modern man, he is also given to fits of frenzy - he isn't a calm, trained fighter, but rather one who "erupts with the blind fury of a berserker". Nowadays our action heroes are Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, Daniel Craig's Bond, people who fight with precision, intelligence and control. Different heroes for different times, perhaps.
This series takes an unusual approach to gravity - the idea is that the entire Earth is hollow, and gravity emanates from the Earth's crust, so that the people of Skartaris walk around on the inside of the Earth's surface, just as we walk around on the outside. The effect is that Skartaris is huge, a surface area almost equal to that of Earth, as opposed to just a big area inside a cave. It's not clear from these stories why the other side of Skartaris isn't visible across the sky, though I expect it came up in the letter-columns.
It's not a patch on Conan, but it's a decent men's adventure story. If a little clumsy at times, the artwork is ambitious and bursting with violent energy. The serial nature of the story, and the creative consistency (Grell writes and pencils every issue), makes the book very readable, and there's no messing about - it's all action, all the time. Nothing earth-shattering, but a pleasure to read.
January 27, 2024
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I only discovered Mike Grell over the last couple of years in those DC Bronze Age phone books like House of Secrets, etc. I was so blown away by Grell's artwork that I did a search online to see what else he had done. Warlord was at the top of the list, and for good reason.
The gist- Travis Morgan is a pilot whose plane passes through a hole in the Earth's crust, ending up in Skartaris, a “world” beneath the Earth's crust where the sun always shines. Skartaris is actually Atlantis, which sank into the ocean ages ago. It's a mix of high-tech and primitive civilizations, with a healthy assortment of dinosaurs and monsters as well. Magic and science exist side by side, and as Travis goes along he becomes known as The Warlord. This is sword and sorcery, science fiction high adventure at its finest.
Mike Grell's writing and artwork are great. I am impressed at the amount of violence that he was able to get by the Comics Code Authority back then, implied or otherwise. This was both timely and way ahead of it's time compared to what was on the stands in the late '70s. He makes great use of double page spreads, and uses what could be the first vertical page layouts, definitely the earliest ones that I've seen. Perhaps someone could point out if there were earlier ones. I am not a comics historian, merely a student of the artform.
I like how Grell has a push and pull approach to his writing. He'll have dense, text packed captions for pages, and then launch into dialogue and caption free splash pages and double page spreads during action sequences. This is highly effective and was fairly innovative during the Bronze Age. It's definitely a precursor to the approach used in modern day comic books.
I guess that there's a color collection of some of the early issues out there, but it's long out of print and not cheap. I'd love to see DC do Archives or another full color, preferably hardcover, collection of this material. For the time being, this 528 page black and white phone book will have to suffice. I wish that there were more volumes in this line. There are plenty more issues for DC to collect.
These phone books are great for what they are: Inexpensive, in depth primers on characters. They are printed on cheap pulp paper, which is fine at the price point.
The gist- Travis Morgan is a pilot whose plane passes through a hole in the Earth's crust, ending up in Skartaris, a “world” beneath the Earth's crust where the sun always shines. Skartaris is actually Atlantis, which sank into the ocean ages ago. It's a mix of high-tech and primitive civilizations, with a healthy assortment of dinosaurs and monsters as well. Magic and science exist side by side, and as Travis goes along he becomes known as The Warlord. This is sword and sorcery, science fiction high adventure at its finest.
Mike Grell's writing and artwork are great. I am impressed at the amount of violence that he was able to get by the Comics Code Authority back then, implied or otherwise. This was both timely and way ahead of it's time compared to what was on the stands in the late '70s. He makes great use of double page spreads, and uses what could be the first vertical page layouts, definitely the earliest ones that I've seen. Perhaps someone could point out if there were earlier ones. I am not a comics historian, merely a student of the artform.
I like how Grell has a push and pull approach to his writing. He'll have dense, text packed captions for pages, and then launch into dialogue and caption free splash pages and double page spreads during action sequences. This is highly effective and was fairly innovative during the Bronze Age. It's definitely a precursor to the approach used in modern day comic books.
I guess that there's a color collection of some of the early issues out there, but it's long out of print and not cheap. I'd love to see DC do Archives or another full color, preferably hardcover, collection of this material. For the time being, this 528 page black and white phone book will have to suffice. I wish that there were more volumes in this line. There are plenty more issues for DC to collect.
These phone books are great for what they are: Inexpensive, in depth primers on characters. They are printed on cheap pulp paper, which is fine at the price point.
December 28, 2009
Writer/artist Mike Grell’s late-70s/early-80s fantasy series still seems doomed to never be anything more than the second best comic book barbarian adventure series, but it does have its advantages over Marvel’s (and now Dark Horse’s) Conan. There’s the modern day setting (Well, now it’s a few decades in the past, but you know what I mean) and the Hollow Earth element, which makes Skartaris more of an unpredictable, anything-can-happen sort of environment. Rogue CIA agents, robots and alien invaders fit in just as naturally as the dinosaurs and Dungeons & Dragons stuff, and after these first 28 issues (plus the DC First Issue Special), I’m hard-pressed to imagine something that would actually seem out of place in The Warlord’s weird milieu.
Grell’s work is especially well-suited to the Showcase Presents format, as the black and white re-presentation eliminates the period coloring and the ravages of time on the original back issues so that there’s nothing to come between a reader’s eyes and Grell’s impressive designs and line-work. Additionally, the paper stock and low price-point seem more appropriate for this than more high-end, color collection—Grell’s was pure pulp adventure, so the pulpier the presentation, the better.
I’m sure the storyline grows more epic, complicated and sprawling as it goes on—the first volume lasted 133 issues, after all—but these early adventures are a nice introduction to a pretty fun premise, if a readers need more than 500 pages of nice drawings of scantily clad beautiful people and rampaging monsters and dinosaurs to get them to pick up a book.
Grell’s work is especially well-suited to the Showcase Presents format, as the black and white re-presentation eliminates the period coloring and the ravages of time on the original back issues so that there’s nothing to come between a reader’s eyes and Grell’s impressive designs and line-work. Additionally, the paper stock and low price-point seem more appropriate for this than more high-end, color collection—Grell’s was pure pulp adventure, so the pulpier the presentation, the better.
I’m sure the storyline grows more epic, complicated and sprawling as it goes on—the first volume lasted 133 issues, after all—but these early adventures are a nice introduction to a pretty fun premise, if a readers need more than 500 pages of nice drawings of scantily clad beautiful people and rampaging monsters and dinosaurs to get them to pick up a book.
March 13, 2010
An Air Force pilot accidentally flies his plane into a gigantic hole near the North Pole (that has never been noticed before) and lands in the center of the earth. Here the core of the earth bathes the inner hollow ring in eternal "sunlight". This land is filled with both savage beasts and men. Morgan (the pilot) quickly adapts and becomes a bloodthirsty machine of slaughter and sometimes justice.
Although the name of the comic is Warlord, Morgan rarely leads men in battle. He mostly wanders the inner core from place to place with friends or alone facing and brutally slaying fearsome foes.
Each issue has a large splash page that is often impressive. And overall the art is pretty but gruesome.
I liked how early in this collection the "magic" performed was ancient technology left over colonies of Atlantis. Technology Morgan could recognize coming from a more modern world. But further in, this is left by the wayside and the magic is more magical and the villain gets progressively more demonic and cartoony. Oh well.
Although the name of the comic is Warlord, Morgan rarely leads men in battle. He mostly wanders the inner core from place to place with friends or alone facing and brutally slaying fearsome foes.
Each issue has a large splash page that is often impressive. And overall the art is pretty but gruesome.
I liked how early in this collection the "magic" performed was ancient technology left over colonies of Atlantis. Technology Morgan could recognize coming from a more modern world. But further in, this is left by the wayside and the magic is more magical and the villain gets progressively more demonic and cartoony. Oh well.
February 21, 2010
With DC restarting creator Mike Grell's warlord series the company decided it was time to put out a relatively inexpensive 500+ page collection of the early series. If you're wedded to color comics then pass this by as to reduce the cost it's all in black & white. If you are looking for mix of sci-fi and old style "planetary romance" than the story of Travis Morgan, Tara, and their friends is for you. Morgan is not the perfect hero (i.e. John Carter of Mars) and if they reprint the later issues in the series you'll get a even better idea how Morgan is flawed. Also, as-in Flash Gordon arch-villain Deimos is possibly used a little too much, but not all the time ala Ming or Magneto. Good fun to had in Skartaris the land in the center of the Earth where the sun never sets, dinosaurs live next to the remants of super science civilzations and wizards.
July 6, 2015
If you like Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and other fish-out-water-type pulp heroes you will probably like Mike Grell's Warlord. Most of the issues are one adventure after another, without a lot of consideration for cohesive world building or deep, ongoing character development. The stories are fun - combining elements of Jules Verne, science fiction, dinosaurs, magic, Atlantis, lizard people and ... you probably get the picture, with a more modern protaganist. There are some over-arching plots that pop up from time to time and they are resolved at the end. A fun read, and Grell's art starts off good, but inconsistent. It gets better, and then dips when the publishing frequency increased from bimonthly to monthly, and it continues to get better. His figures are lithe and athletic, especially compared to the exaggerated proportions of most men and women in comics.
May 1, 2013
I loved these comics, set in Skartaris a combination of Ka-zar's Savage Land and Conan's Hyboria, former pilot Travis Morgan battles and loves his way around the earth's core. This is a land where men are homicidal maniacs and the women do not wear much clothing. How Travis ever passed the Airforce Phych tests is beyond me.
Travis believes in travelling light just a furry loincloth and helmet, supplies are obviously for wimps. Armed with sword and shield and magnum which miraculously never runs out of bullets, Travis is willing and able to fight any man or beast that it is unfortunate to cross his path. Great stuff!!
Travis believes in travelling light just a furry loincloth and helmet, supplies are obviously for wimps. Armed with sword and shield and magnum which miraculously never runs out of bullets, Travis is willing and able to fight any man or beast that it is unfortunate to cross his path. Great stuff!!
December 4, 2012
Very underwhelmed by this. I wanted to like it, and I might have liked it more if I was invested in the DC Universe the way I'm invested in the Marvel Universe. The art is great, and the ideas are even better, and the plots veer around as if Grell is thinking of them on the spot. I love the motley mix of technology in the Warlord universe, but the ideas and the tech all service pretty cookie cutter plots and despite the great art and intriguing background, each story feels the same, fight the big monster, save the day.
November 17, 2009
While a lot of the stories are clichéd sci-fi/fantasy plots, the whole idea for the series (a man falls through a hole in the North Pole and finds an entire world inside of the Earth) is pretty novel. I think I almost prefer this Showcase black & white edition to the original run, because you can really appreciate Mike Grell's astounding artwork.
If you're not looking for anything particularly deep and enjoy pretty pictures, this is a fun read that I thoroughly enjoyed.
If you're not looking for anything particularly deep and enjoy pretty pictures, this is a fun read that I thoroughly enjoyed.
March 2, 2016
I remembered this comic series fondly from my childhood in the 80's and couldn't wait to read it from the beginning, however it proved to be one of those things that the nostalgia is better than the actual comic was. Though it isn't bad, maybe I have just matured, I found it was kind of silly and over the top when I reread it. Suppose this just proves you can't go back to your childhood without shattering those memories.
January 9, 2010
Reprints 1st Issue Special #8 and Warlord #1-28. Colonel Travis Morgan crashes into the hidden world of Skartaris and battles to save the people from evil. Warlord is derivative, but still entertaining. It seems like a mish-mash of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Marvel's Ka-Zar, but it reads suprisingly fast and does have some surprising moments.
January 26, 2012
Mike Grell weaves his magic in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Travis Morgan takes his place alone side the heroes of Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Leigh Brackett and Fritz Leiber. Wonderful stuff, I'm looking forward to Volume 2.
January 5, 2010
The adventures of the manly Warlord in Skartaris (which lies deep within the bowels of the earth, which apparently is hollow), the land of barbarians and dinosaurs and princesses who shave their legs even though Skartaris doesn't have any razors.
Urgh! Punch! Gurgle!
Urgh! Punch! Gurgle!
July 9, 2016
Επηρεασμένο από τον Πολέμαρχο του Άρη, τον Κόναν το Βάρβαρο και τον Αιώνιο πρόμαχο αποτελεί ευχάριστο αν κι αφελές ανάγνωσμα. Ότι πρέπει για να περάσει ευχάριστα η ώρα.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews