204 FANTASY
for 50 issues, from 1981 to 1983. An unpublished Red Sonja story was retooled as
the Adventures of Marada in the Roman Empire. Th e sensual Marada began fi ghting
wizards and demons in Epic Illustrated #10 (1982) and the full tale was collected in a
Marada the She-Wolf graphic novel in 1985.
Th e protagonist of planetary romance, sometimes referred to as “sword and planet,”
fantasy, is usually an earthman transported to another world, where he often uses
primitive weapons, especially swords, to battle evil forces wielding super science or
supernatural powers. Th e essence of these tales is an exotic setting and high adventure.
Arguably, Flash Gordon is primarily a science fi ction character, but there has always
been a strong fantasy component to his adventures on the planet Mongo. Planetary
romance was introduced to comic books in 1941 with a long Flash Gordon run in King
Comics. Flash Gordon made a number of appearances in Dell’s Four Color Comics from
1945 to 1953. Harvey, King, Charlton , and Gold Key all took turns producing Flash
Gordon comic books from 1950 to 1980. Al Williamson , who had been a fan favor-
ite artist on Flash Gordon in the 1960s, returned to the character for two issues with
Marvel in 1995.
Planetary romance is most strongly associated with the Edgar Rice Burroughs’s
characters John Carter and Carson Napier. Th e eternally 30-ish Carter, who magically
travels between Earth and Barsoom (Mars) by “dying,” debuted in a pulp magazine in
1912, but did not appear in comic books until 1952 with the fi rst of three appear-
ances in Dell’s Four Color Comics. Carter’s Barsoom adventures were adapted in backup
features that ran in DC’s Ta r z a n and We i r d Wo r l d s titles from 1972 to 1974. In 1977,
Marvel began a 28-issue run of John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Carter teamed with
Burroughs’s most famous creation, Tarzan, in Dark Horse’s 1996 miniseries Tarzan/
John Carter: Warlords of Mars. In 1972, Carson of Venus began running as a backup
feature in Korak, Son of Tarzan.
Burroughs’s creations spawned a number of imitators. When Gullivar Jones, Warrior
of Mars, began his short run as the lead feature of Creatures on the Loose in 1972, most
readers assumed he was a John Carter pastiche, but he was actually adapted from a 1905
novel, years before Burroughs created John Carter. Christopher Hanther’s Ta n d r a is an
inventive Burroughs-style tale of an earthman transported to a primitive planet. Th e 15
issues of the Tandra saga were spread out from 1976 to 1993 and covered 20 years in
the lives of the characters. Roy Th omas and Tim Conrad adapted Robert E. Howard’s
1930s planetary romance novel Almuric in Marvel’s Epic Illustrated magazine in 1980,
and Th omas wrote a four-issue sequel for Dark Horse in 1991. In DC’s 1986 Lords of
the Ultra-Realm , Earthman Michael Savage is transported to another world where seven
Princes of Light and seven Princes of Darkness vie for control of the realm. In 1987,
Eclipse off ered two planetary romances, Hotspur and Lost Planet.
Th e majority of fantasy comic books fall into the category of heroic fantasy, also
known as “sword and sorcery.” Heroic fantasies are generally simple tales of adventure
in which the protagonist, often a roguish anti-hero, encounters a menace and kills said
menace.
