"RIDERS ON THE SKY!"
Writer: Bill Mantlo | Artists: Sal Buscema & Sonny Trinidad
Letters: Denise Wohl | Colors: George Roussos | Editor: Archie Goodwin
Writer: Bill Mantlo | Artists: Sal Buscema & Sonny Trinidad
Letters: Denise Wohl | Colors: George Roussos | Editor: Archie Goodwin
The Plot: In the golden city, the Incas celebrate Skull and friends surviving their test in the dinosaur pits. Captain Cochran, known to his people as Viracocha, the Feathered Serpent, explains to Skull and the group that he was stationed at a Miami navy base in 1945 when his plane was sucked into the Bermuda Triangle warp and he crashed on the prehistoric island.
Meanwhile, the traitorous Jaguar Priest escapes confinement in the city's dungeons with the aid of his secret followers. He arrives in Cochran's throne room in time to watch as Skull, Ann, Jeff, Doctor Corey, and Cochran are attacked by pterodactyl-riding knights from various time periods. Despite Skull's power belt, the heroes are overcome. Skull is knocked out and the Jaguar Priest orders his prisoners sent to the dungeons.
Continuity Notes: This is the final issue of SKULL THE SLAYER, with the "next issue" blurb (see below) advising fans to write to Marvel if they want to see the series revived.
Cochran was a topographer by trade, and has spent his time among the Incas mapping the world, noting that in this era, the continents have not begun to drift apart yet. (And not to beat a dead horse, but I still really don't think this is what Marv Wolfman had planned for the series. I'm pretty sure he intended the island to exist firmly in the present day, with the Tower of Time creating the illusion of a time warp for those who were sucked into it.)
Cochran explains how he wound up in the Bermuda Triangle when he took off from the naval base to fly to the aid of a lost aircraft: Though greeted by the Incas as a god, he was severely burned in the crash, and now wears a half-hood to cover the scarred side of his face. As noted above, the character referred to in the prior issue as the High Priest is now called the Jaguar Priest. He seems to be a cult leader, with a group of robed figures who can apparently transmutate into jaguars at his command, and with an army of random historical knights on pterodactyls carrying out his siege. He also possesses a degree of telekinesis, gesturing to lift a large urn and send it flying into Skull's back. My Thoughts: "Hey, it's our last issue! Let's get Jack Kirby to draw the cover!" is a bold strategy. I mean, I don't know if someone on the SKULL team had been trying to secure Kirby for a cover, or if Kirby himself somehow found the series interesting and wanted to contribute, but whatever the case, it seems really wierd that after a bunch of covers done by guys like Ron Wilson and Rich Buckler (after Gil Kane handled the first two), SKULL gets its sendoff with a cover by the King himself. But I suppose that's neither here nor there, other than to note that this is easily the most exciting of all the series' eight covers.
Clearly cancellation came unexpectedly to SKULL. The final issue ends on a heck of a cliffhanger, with our hero unconscious and about to be dragged, with his friends, into the dungeons of the city of gold. I assume something different was going to go in the "next issue" spot until word came down that the series was canned, and we wound up with the hurried memo about this being the final issue.
All I really have to say about this one is that, to follow up on my criticisms of the prior installment, much of it could've been combined with issue 7. If 7's dino-fight had been cut severely short as I suggested, we could've seen Cochran's origin last issue and then ended on a cliffhanger where he and the others are attacked by the dino-riding knights. I know, I really like to second-guess the writers of stories from forty-plus years past, but I can't help myself. When I see bad pacing and glaring examoples of water-treading, all I want to do is figure out how to fix them.
Anyway, I guess Skull and the others spent the rest of their lives in that dungeon, The End.
Eh? They didn't? They had their story resolved a year later in a 2-part MARVEL-TWO-IN-ONE team-up with the Thing, written by none other than Skull's creator, Marv Wolfman? Well then, we'd better examine that story next week! See you then.
And, apparently, no one cared enough to make their voices heard.
ReplyDeleteI could see Jack Kirby enjoying this series. It fits with ideas he had shown interest in the past, like the Bermuda Triangle.
I have no idea if he wanted to contribute to Skull or if Marvel just gave him an assignment. Maybe they were trying to increase readership, but word came that it was already too late.
ReplyDeleteI’m definitely curious to see how Two-in-One continues and resolves things, no pun intended.
Captions on the splash page, in addition to the log line up top, refer to Skull, Ann, Dr. Corey, and Jeff as “four losers”. Yeesh! This series really didn’t respect its feature characters much.
I understand why Marvel had Gaspar Saladino lettering splash pages across the company during this period, by the way; the lettering on the rest of the issue’s rather poorly done.
I'm just going to say that the universe saw the script to the issue and insisted that there was no better choice to do the cover of an issue with pterodactyl riders in the Bermuda Triangle than Jack Kirby and made it happen by sheer force of will. In fact, I could see, when he got the assignment, Kirby going "why didn't I think of that?!"
ReplyDeleteThe cover, however, means I would definitely have given that issue a pass: as a kid, I thought of Jack Kirby as "the guy who draws people with big foreheads" and didn't get him at all. I didn't get Kirby until I was much older, so now I see this cover, which is kind of workman like for Kirby, and go "oh wow." He was so damned good.
Marv Wolfman books had a habit of being resolved in other titles after they got canceled. Nova was canceled mid story as well, and its dangling threads were resolved in Fantastic Four. Just a thing that happened back then, but it happened to Marv a lot!
DeleteI was largely averse to Kirby’s contemporary stuff as a kid, but I’d have passed this up more because there was no familiar superhero involved, and I did enjoy some covers of Kirby’s on Avengers, Invaders, and Marvel Treasury Editions in this period, often with the inker or John Romita in-house softening the faces.
Quite honestly, I'm still not a big fan of Kirby's artwork to this day. Nor of Steve Ditko's, for that matter. I have nothing but the utmost respect and appreciation for their creativity, costume design sense, and massive contributions to the foundation of the Marvel Universe -- but I just can't really get into either of them on an aesthetic level.
DeleteI've always said that I'll take John Romita Sr. over both of them any day of the week, even when he's drawing the characters they created! Romita's interpretations of the Kirby and Ditko characters, frequently seen in Marvel's house ads and licensing work in the 70s, are the definitive visual interpretations of the characters in my head. Besides the obvious Spider-Man characters, if you ask me to visualize Captain America or the F.F., it's Romita's versions I see in my head.