“It’s time to take a more in-depth look at DC 1st Issue Special #8, which featured the first appearance of Travis Morgan as the Warlord. This issue reprints the first appearance of the titular hero. The good? There’s new material in this issue. The bad? It cost 5 cents more the second time around (and is a less valuable comic today for collectors!)

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Into Skartaris! is a weekly feature tackling the chronology of Travis Morgan in DC Comics. This is a review of The Warlord Vol. 1, #11.)

By DEAN PLAKAS – PM Library Copy Editor

Travis Morgan and his companions escape a triceratops attack by ditching their horses in favor of a cave high above ground. As his friends make camp and sleep in the cave, Morgan keeps watch and recounts how he arrived in the savage land of Skartaris…again.

This is something that we have already been told in The Warlord #1 and The Warlord #3, yet here we are once more reading the tale of how he found himself in Skartaris. Unlike the abbreviated versions told in the aforementioned issues, we are treated to the whole story of how he ended up in this lost land and met Tara….well, actually 98% of the story. This issue of Warlord is actually a reprint of DC’s 1st Issue Special #8 which was printed years earlier in November 1975 and sold for a quarter of a US dollar. Technically, you’re getting a review of two Warlord issues in this critique of this story.  Let’s get to it.

Synopsis: The Warlord #11 (Spoiler Alert!)

It’s June 16, 1969, and USAF Pilot Travis Morgan is risking war with the USSR.  He is committing espionage by flying into Russian air space to photograph a new Russian installation as per his Pentagon ordered mission. He is spotted by Russian radar and land-based Russian missiles are fired at Morgan’s plane.

The missiles explode without making contact with his plane but the blasts tear the seams of his plane’s fuel tanks, causing the jet fuel to pour out at an alarming rate. Realizing he will never make his rendezvous with a fuel tanker in time, he decides to take a quick detour over the North Pole to a base in Alaska.

He soon finds himself gliding in a plane that is not only out of fuel, but is also without a functioning radio system, and its guidance systems have been compromised by the magnetic pull of the North Pole. Morgan jettisons out of his crashing plane, parachuting himself down to safety.

Much to his surprise, he finds himself in a jungle. He is further intrigued by the position of what he assumes to be “the sun” in “the sky”. He gathers his survival kit and starts walking through the jungle, eventually coming across a river where he hears a ruckus. He follows the sound and finds a lovely young woman whose name we eventually learn is named Tara. She is defending herself against another inhabitant of this strange land, a dinosaur! (Hey, it was the 1970s. This was cool. Don’t judge.)

Morgan aids her in the battle. After she slays the beast (some help HE was) the duo are set upon by a group of armed warriors. They attack, and Morgan shoots two of the assailants. The villains regroup and the warriors execute another surge, with the same results. Morgan shoots more of them until he is down to his final bullet.

Realizing that doing the same thing (regrouping and attacking) gets them the same results (shot dead) , the warriors stop the insanity by sending a lone messenger to speak to Tara and Morgan. Tara isn’t happy with the request, and Morgan doesn’t understand the request as he hasn’t fully learned the language of the natives, but to keep themselves alive he reluctantly agrees to the warriors’ demands. They all take a long journey to the city of Thera, a “fabulous, walled city towering high above the tropical jungle”.

In the city they are brought before the King and his sinister high priest Deimos. Deimos raises a crystal globe which emits a beam of light directed at Morgan. The beam causes Morgan much pain and with the final bullet In the chamber of his gun, he shoots and shatters the globe in Deimos’s hand to smithereens.

Having impressed the royal court, Tara and a Morgan are taken to “a luxurious chamber” where Morgan is bathed by a bevy of lovelies, he gets dressed in fresh new garments, and later, with Tara, he is treated to a feast with live entertainment. When the festivities are over, Tara and Morgan get some sleep, in separate beds. He awakens and finds himself inexplicably with a full beard, at least two months old. Morgan realizes this new land has no concept of “time” as he knows it, so he gifts his watch to Tara who tutors Morgan in the languages and customs of Skartaris.

She tells Morgan that she is from a land called Shamballah and that the soldiers of Thera had attacked her hunting party but only she managed to escape them. She informs him that her people are used as human sacrifices to the gods by the people of Thera. Morgan scoffs when she tells him that the people of Thera think he to be a god. He assures her that he is not a god but a man from the upper world. He shares his theory that the Earth has an opening at each of its poles and that the perpetual sunlight in the lands of Skartaris comes from a ball of hot gas kept in place by gravity. She replies to his theory with one of her own : he is nuts.

They go to their beds to sleep some more in their guest chambers. A group of mercenaries sent by Deimos sneak into their room via a secret passageway to kill them. Morgan and Tara fight off their would be assassins and leave the city of Thera.

In the final panel of the issue, Morgan swears he will find Tara even if it takes the rest of his life.

CAPSULE REVIEW: As I pointed out earlier, The Warlord #11 is mostly a reprint of 1st Issue Special #8 . The difference being that 7 panels of the original story in 1st Issue Special #8 were cut out and replaced by the first two beautifully rendered pages of The Warlord #11. The work removed initially didn’t seem important but in retrospect, it was essential to the plot.

The missing panels take place during Tara’s conversation with Morgan where she learns he is not a god but a mere man from afar. This is overheard by a servant girl who thinks she will win favor with Deimos should she bring him this news. He is happy that she does, as now he doesn’t have to fear Morgan as a being a god; but Deimos also doesn’t want anyone else knowing this news so he offers the young maiden a drink. She accepts his offer and the drink turns her into a snake. Deimos then has his mercenaries enter the sleeping chambers of Tara and Morgan to assassinate them.

Mike Grell, being a USAF veteran himself, literally and figuratively draws upon his pilot days to add great realism to Travis Morgan’s fated flight over Russia and the North Pole. It’s a shame such great realism is pushed aside by some really hard to accept fantasy. As a geology minor at NYU, I had and took the opportunity to travel several miles deep under the Earth to see the excavation work of the third water tunnel being built for New York City.

Yes, it was like another world. Gigantic caverns where huge construction machines looked like little Tonka toys and the only lights we had were flashlights, lights strung up along the walls, and lights from generators. No burning ball of gas like Skartaris. Even if it were to exist, there would be gigantic stalagmites and rock and water dripping everywhere. There wouldn’t be blue skies and a city like Thera that would be a “walled city towering high above the tropical jungle” in a hollowed out Earth. Come on, a couple of massive quakes and the Earth would crumple in on itself.

I would love to own the first page to this issue. I really like it a lot….but (you know a “but” was coming) …but why is Morgan shooting the gun with his left hand when he is clearly wearing a right handed holster on the right side of his body? I checked the cover and sure enough, There it was again, a right handed holster with the gun in his left hand. It’s not a reverse left handed holster on his right hip. That’s a pure right handed holster. Also on the cover are different battle scenes where the poor choice of yellow highlights was used to help depict these scenes. I’m surprised Larry Hama and Vince Colletta didn’t reject the yellow for a darker color to have made the scenes more clear.

Since it’s a reprint I give it a 5. You paid a dime more this time around for an edited story that cost two-bits.