Not Quite Super
Most Heroes in the comic world also find themselves prefixed with the word ‘Super’. What if you aren’t super? What if you just do what you can because you should?
Comic books are filled with Superheroes, because we don’t have them in our regular lives. But there are some books where the heroes are just heroes. They don’t have any mutant, alien, or otherwise otherworldly supplied power. How do these guys still manage to deal with things?
The first book that comes to my mind when you think of non-super heroes, is Mike Grell‘s Warlord Anyone remember this? I wish DC would, because it would make a fantastic movie. A pilot is transported thru a magical portal, but this time, instead of discovering Wonder Woman the pilot himself is thrust into the heroic role, fighting dinosaurs and magic is a ‘world time forgot’.
The original series drew its audience from the mystery and awe of an unknown world, populated, as all comics are, by ideal people with a slightly unideal circumstance. Princesses needed rescuing, things in the monster defendant kingdom were not good. Some how only this stranger from the outside world had the ability to save them. Ah myth and legend. How you make for such great stories.
Travis Morgan a pilot during the Viet Nam war, finds himself after losing control, in a strange new world. Monsters and magic surround him, but he finds a way to preserver. He has no powers, basically just his wits and for a while his gun. Edgar Rice Burroughs would be proud. Monsters, beautiful shape changing women, princesses that don’t know which way their alignment lies.
If you’ve ever read Warlord, I think you’d agree, he is not a ‘Super-Hero’ by any sense of the word. But he does what is right, and what is necessary. So perhaps ‘hero’ might still apply.
Strange circumstances? Check.
Displaced from your known reality? Check.
Brilliant women that can shape change? Check.
Princess who is oddly in love with the ‘new’ guy? Check.
Again it reads like an old novel list, but what Mr. Grell did with this series is one of the most underrated comic accomplishments of all time. While he only held the reins thru issue 59, the series itself went, in its first run, to 113. This with a lead character that was neither super, and most times, not even a hero.
So how in the world did a comic, about a non-super powered character last from 1976 thru 1988? [editors question: how many of you were born after this amazing series ended?] Well written characters, sub plots and teases, is all I can answer. Sadly too many comics today rely on shock and awe, or killing of characters, or sensationalism.
Warlord was a comic of a differnt era. Pre internet. Pre celphone. Pre youTube. Pre Facebook. When you could tell a strong, good, and long story over sequential time, without worry of todays myriad of distractions.
I find that now I cannot even remember what happened in my favorite comic last month.
So many other things are vying for my attention.
Warlord, and many comics from this same time, were the outlet that we found for our imagination. Poorly printed pages all yelled for our attention then, and the artisans that created these adventures had much less to deal with, so they could make a subplot last for 100 issues, and those of us who read their stories, and devoured their art, eagerly awaited the next issue.
Now, if a ‘series in a series’ lasts more than 3 issues, people are bored and complain about non-resolution on message boards. We are so used to an instant gratification, the ability to complain, the day of release, to, sometimes, the creators themselves, that both you and I, and the people making these imaginary tales for us, get caught up in the immediacy of response.
Maybe. Just maybe. We should sit back in silence, and let those that have chosen sequential story telling as their medium, to tell their tales. To weave what they plan, to put our trust in their monthly words and pictures. And hope they have the best interest in not just stories, but those characters that we have internalized as our own.
The saddest thing about comics sometimes, is that the long history of them is forgotten if it’s not immediately in our face like Batman or Wonder Woman. (who’s history has been apparently not only forgotten but destroyed, but I digress). Don’t miss out on some great older stories. I’m (sadly) pretty sure you can pick up most Warlord books in the quarter bin.
Explore. Read. Not just what is being published now. But take advantage of the medium of Comics and Paper. Read old books. Pay a quarter for a few minutes of distraction from your iPad, iPhone, computer, facebook, twitter and just enjoy a good story. You might just find a new comic passion.