The Extended Hobbit!

Below are three review I wrote over the years for the three installments of The Hobbit as directed by Peter Jackson. I've tweaked them a bit for the sake of some consistency, but for the most part I've left them as they were originally presented. When my opinion has changed, I've indicated. 

December 2012 - An Unexpected Journey

I went to see The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey yesterday morning. Usually Sunday morn is a dandy time to catch flicks as it offers quiet reasonably empty theaters. Not yesterday. Despite a 10 AM start, there and the fact I went to the mundane 2-D presentation, there were still over a one hundred folks enjoying the latest trip to Hobbiton and beyond with me.

I have to confess going this time was more a chore than a joy. I was giddy to see the first of the Peter Jackson adaptations over a decade ago, going opening night and braving giant crowds. This time, I mostly wanted to see it before reviews spoiled it. I've not been happy since I learned there are going to be three of these things. I fear we're going to see a trio of bloated narratives, dragging in all manner of off the rack material. A scrupulous adaptation of the Tolkien classic would make for two reasonably sized flicks and would add nicely to what the New Zealanders have already accomplished.

Hobbiton is beautifully rendered, and it was scrumptious to visit this exceedingly cool mythical hamlet again. The scenes of the group tramping across the countryside astride their ponies were beautifully done, really communicating the essence of Tolkien for me. The balance between the unusual and the beautifully mundane is perfectly balanced in these scenes. Riddles in the Dark is outstanding, precisely true to Tolkien as I remember it at least. I'm not a huge Gollum fan in these movies, finding him at times very tedious, but he works here as well as he ever has. The technology supports the performance here wonderfully. Likewise with the Wargs which look really menacing.

It's not the filmmakers' fault, but thirteen dwarves are a challenge for anyone. It is a downright "avalanche" of dwarves. There's no doubt in my mind that if Tolkien's book was not so beloved, a typical adaptation would lower the number of dwarves to six or seven at best. But stuck with the original mob, Jackson and company try to make them distinctive, though we fail to get proper introductions to many. At least they are visually distinctive. It's almost impossible though to keep track.

Unfortunately for this movie and I fear for the franchise, the development of "performance-capture" has "captured" this movie. For me the triumph of the earlier movies was that it made the world of Tolkien's Middle Earth real. It grounded the fantasy into a place and time, adding some blood and thunder to the proceedings. But that alas is lost in this tale which all too quickly reduces itself to a video game as animated figures cavort and crawl across the screen. The action is sweeping and dashes along spritely, almost too quickly to process. The damage the heroes suffer is epic and alas cartoonish. The realism of the early epics is lost, much to detriment of the heart of the project. The scene with Gandalf, Saruman, Elrond, and Galadriel in the middle of the movie seems downright quaint as we have four normal sized people in a regular real-world room talking. This scene actually jars a bit since so much of the movie before and even more so after is overwrought with special effects. They're exquisitely done I'm sure, but they undermine the reality of the experience for me.

All in all, I'd give first Hobbit movie a middling to low grade. It's got some very strong stuff. A good Bilbo, a great Gandalf, some few interesting dwarves, and some beautiful countryside. But the movie is its own worst enemy ironically since it is technology that is sundering the essence of Middle Earth, the very thing Tolkien moaned about so vehemently in his lifetime. 

December 2013 - The Desolation of Smaug

I was a bit underwhelmed by the first installment of Peter Jackson's epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, a yarn about the eponymous wandering Hobbit and thirteen dwarves seeking ancient treasure.  Not because it wasn't impressive, but because to my weary eye it came across as more of an animated event than a real- life movie. So, I didn't rush out to see the second installment this past holiday season. I thought I'd wait for the inevitable DVD and just watch it then. That's a far cry from the burning enthusiasm I had for the original Jackson film trilogy which I anticipated with a ripe eagerness.

But with time on my hands and nice warming temperatures and a dry day, I thought I'd take it in at the local discount cinema. With soda and popcorn (each costing more than my ticket) in hand I settled into the well-used theater alongside a few others and watched what surprisingly turned out to be a rousing movie event. The computer-generated elements were surely in evidence, but somehow seemed less apparent to my eye and so failed to draw me out of the adventure which picked up where last year's first installment left off.

Bilbo Baggins and his dwarf companions encounter Beorn the shape-changer, enter the horrible Mirkwood forest and confront the rather grim elves within, and make their way to Laketown, the domain of men at the foot of the Misty Mountain where Smaug came to drive the dwarves out generations before. They raid the dark halls and wake the dragon, a dangerous thing to do.

For a movie which lasts nearly three hours I found time flying by remarkably swiftly and was actually startled when the story ended, leaving me hanging for many months before I can discover the end. Of course, we all know how it will end, but how we'll get there is the challenge Jackson has before him. He's created a rousing thrill-ride with this installment, less dependent on its Tolkien source material, but which does a goodly job of linking this tale to the earlier trilogy.

Good show indeed. I'm eager to see the end now, very eager indeed.

December 2014 - The Battle of the Five Armies

Well, that took long enough. Last week I went to see The Hobbit - The Battle of The Five Armies. It was a long and visually rich film experience, but alas not one that succeeds as it ought. For the first time, I saw one of these new-fangled 3-D movies and frankly while it's a neat curiosity the texture of the movie seemed more like the flatness often translated on video tape; the luster of film was lost and along with it some of the essence of movie magic.

Anyone curious enough to read this review will be familiar with the story and likely the film series which began a few years ago with The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey which re-introduced us to the realms of Middle Earth as first designed by J.R.R. Tolkien so many decades ago. We meet a youthful Bilbo Baggins who is drawn into a wild and weird adventure by the wizard Gandalf as he joins a company of dwarves who want to reclaim their lost kingdom from the deadly dragon Smaug. In the second film The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug we finally get to the Misty Mountain and Bilbo meets the charming but deadly Smaug and the dwarves, led by the quixotic royal heir Thorin Oakenshield fight hard to reclaim their kingdom deep inside the mountain, but in the end, they unleash the dragon who flies to destroy the nearby human settlement of Lake Town.

The Hobbit - The Battle of the Five Armies begins with the struggle to bring down Smaug. I'm not ruining too much by saying this happens before the credits have properly finished rolling and that of course points glaringly to the greatest deficiency in this film series...it's just plain too long.

In a somewhat disdainful attempt to extract as much money from Tolkien fans as possible the decision was made rather late in the production to make the movie into three parts deviating from the original scheme to do only two movies. Given the source material, two seems ample and sadly if the original plan had been followed, I don't doubt we'd have had two very tight films which resonated strongly in the imagination. Alas what we have now are three movies with a host of virtues, but which tumble along with overlong and somewhat vapid action sequences which only serve to weary the viewer and drain the characters of their verisimilitude. No dwarf and no human could survive the falls these characters take over the course of the three movies, and that's a pity in the sense we lose interest in their physical fates.

In my earlier reviews of the first two movies, I decried the tendency for the action sequences to have a video game feel and regrettably this third one has even more of that sense. One fatal flaw in this concoction is the utter failure in creating a villain with which the audience can have any connection. Azog is a cartoon from the get-go a creature right out of a superhero comic who feels out of place in Middle Earth and is rendered so heavily that we can hardly ever detect any real human behind the portrayal.

The core of this final film is the fate of Thorin Oakenshield, who has been set up as the Aragorn equivalent in this story. The fact his fate is far less rosy than that which falls to the former Strider is thoroughly expected, but the road there is less emotionally involving than I anticipated. The sequence where he throws off the maddening avarice which threatens his soul doesn't work at all for me and seems a bit too weird. Allowing the actor to showcase the changes on his face without the hindrance of fancy digital visions would've served the story much better.

It's all so tiring in the final analysis. 

And Now for General Comments

And that seems to me to be the nut. For all the blather, most of it I'm sure exceedingly earnest, the director and his team do not trust the source material. In an effort to mostly recreate the highly successful Lord of the Rings trilogy nearly beat for beat they constantly overheat the story elements of The Hobbit to accommodate that understandable but ultimately self-defeating goal.

We are saddled with a forbidden romance between races which never reaches a boil, we are given a journey through the shadows of a dark goblin-infested realm which becomes a frenetic footrace against the enemy but almost never achieves any sense of true peril, we are given a finale which as promised in the title features five armies, but alas armies so vast and clearly digitized that they lack the ability to draw out our compassion. The sub-plot involving Gol Guldur and the Necromancer and his minions searching for the rings makes perfect sense when the flick is seen as a precursor to the later LoTR, but within the immediate story needs of The Hobbit they become distractions, as spectacular as they are. 

Where the movies most often succeed is in those elements of the story which are demanded by the source material and cannot by and large be tampered with. The encounter by Bilbo with Gollum is tense and properly paced, and his later verbal joust with Smaug is the highlight of all three movies. Sadly, the Hobbit himself gets lost in this last movie, despite several attempts to glue him into the proceedings. But in that respect at least it remains true to the novel in which as I recall Bilbo likewise disappears from the narrative as the battles rage, though for a far shorter time.

So ultimately The Hobbit trilogy stands as a remarkable fantasy adventure, with some really fabulous sequences which properly invigorate the creation of Tolkien, but which sadly trade on those creations to do more than they are capable of and remain valid to the spirit of Tolkien. I find I like these movies better on DVD than in the theater where the visual spectacle bewilders as I try to maintain focus on the story. 

It's a shame the movies weren't better, but they are fine and entertaining, nonetheless. Maybe in a few years Jackson will re-cut the movies and make them into a super-tight two-parter which will allow the story to shine even brighter.

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The Animated Hobbit!

The Greatest Adventure or The Ballad of The Hobbit

Music by Maury Laws

Lyrics by Jules Bass

Sung by Glenn Yarbrough

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.

Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.

The chances, the changes are all your s to make.

The mold of your life is in your hands to breaks. 

The greatest adventure is there if you're bold.

Let go of the moment that life makes you hold.

To measure the meaning can make you delay;

It's time to stop thinkin' and wasting the day.

The man who's a dreamer and never takes leave

Who thinks of the world that is just make-believe

Will never know passion, will never know pain.

Who sits by the window will one day see rain. 

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.

Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.

The chances, the changes are all yours to make. 

The mold of life is in your hands to break.

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.

I have to confess I have a soft spot in my heart for this gentle tune which wafts its way through the Rankin-Bass production of The Hobbit. This animated version of The Hobbit gets a lot of grief, but I have always rather liked it. The key to appreciating it, is to understand the limitations animation for television (or really anywhere) faced in the 1970's. The costs had forced producers to make all sorts of concessions and there are many in this presentation, but understanding and forgiving that, I have always been entertained by this delightful cartoon. For one thing, the shift to Asia was well underway in animation and Rankin-Bass used seasoned Japanese talent to animate this special. The animation is somewhat better than the Saturday morning TV of the time, but the real strength of this show is the distinctive and memorable character design. 

These are some of my favorite versions of Tolkien's characters. Gandalf is ideal, Smaug is cleverly presented as different kind of dragon with something of a feline head, and Gollum is as animalistic as in any rendition I'm aware of. These are all extreme versions and yet they work. The design of Bilbo and the Dwarves is less quixotic, but they work as well. Bilbo has large child-like eyes, but they are fitted on a bizarre squat frame. The Elves are presented not as ideals of human form but as strange bent creatures of Mirkwood. The Goblins (or Orcs in other places) are outlandish monsters as they should be. The art intentionally evokes the feel of Arthur Rackham, a classic illustrator of fairy tales and fantasy. 

(Arthur Rackham)

The low point of the presentation is the "Battle of the Five Armies" which is presented with some few elements of montage and a very unsatisfying image of dots and dust wiggling around on the screen. I can see the budget for the show drying up before my eyes as I watch this "climatic" scene. It does bring the whole effort down a notch, I have to admit. 

 

But what elevates it up a notch are the fantastic voice performances by Orson Bean as Bilbo, John Huston as Gandalf, Otto Preminger as the Elf King, Richard Boone as Smaug, Hans Conried as Thorin Oakenshield, and Brother Theodore as Gollum. Animation veterans Don Messick, John Stephenson, and Paul Frees are on hand to fill out a cast which sounds great. The key to the success of limited animation shows was the voice acting and The Hobbit hits it out of the park. Richard Boone of Paladin fame is a tremendous Smaug, at once imperious and menacing. Hans Conried stood out to me too this time, his voice was perfect for Thorin who has carry most of the water for the Dwarves, who don't have time to get much distinction. 

Much of this cast (Bean, Huston, and Theodore) will return when Rankin-Bass takes another crack at Tolkien. More on that later. In defense of this show, which is much frowned upon now, it won a Peabody for its screenplay and a Christopher for its message, which was uplifting and hopeful, and competed with Star Wars that year for the Hugo. People who crap on this show today don't know or remember what a dearth of material was available for fans of the fantastic in the 70's. Animation was the only viable way to bring a story like The Hobbit to life on the screen at the time and animation was not yet the province of studios brimming with computers but was made up of individual talents drawing and painting each and every image. 

The show is limited and has to cut out lots of stuff, but frankly with a few exceptions I thought it trimmed effectively and maintained a good momentum. This Hobbit was too short for sure, but that's better than being too long. At least the audience craves more and is not exhausted. More on that tomorrow. 

But before we go, I want to bring up another animated adaptation of The Hobbit. This one is from 1967 and it's only eleven minutes long. Take a look. 

This quaint but bizarre adaptation was developed at the last moment because the producer's option on The Hobbit movie rights were about to lapse, and he needed to generate and show a version of the story to retain them. He made the quickie, showed it for one day in NYC and so was able to hang on for another few years before ultimately relinquishing the rights. This one is far from a diligent adaptation of Tolkien's work, but I must confess it has offbeat charms. The next time we feel that maybe Rankin-Bass could've done better, we need to remember what might have been. 

To listen to little bits and bobs of the soundtrack of The Hobbit by Rankin-Bass check out this Internet Archive link. 

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The Eclipse Hobbit!

As far as I can remember the Eclipse Comics adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit came out of left field. I don't remember much buzz about it at the time, but it was a period when I was less connected to comics overall. After the burst of interest in fantasy in the 70's, largely as a result of the success of Tolkien's epic works, the story had gotten an animated treatment in both television and in the cinema. There had been a radio play or two, but things seemed relatively quiet in Middle-Earth. 

The adaptation by writers Chuck Dixon and Sean Deming was illustrated with consummate skill by artist David Wenzel. I had run across Wenzel on some Marvel comics and his name didn't evoke great confidence, but his work in this version of the story is at once distinctive and delicate. His vision of Middle-Earth is not derivative to my eye. Eclipse issued the story in three installments and then in collaboration with Unwin, the longtime publishers of the story produced a graphic novel. 

Wenzel's version of Gandalf is a potent one, as he seems far from fragile and is presented with strong features. He's less the wizened old man of other adaptations. Bilbo Baggins is a surprise as well, shown as quite chubby and with a haircut that frankly reminds me of Moe from the Three Stooges. The Dwarves look great, and distinctive as far as that's necessary in this tome. Unlike the bloated trilogy of recent years, it was less important to distinguish them in all sorts of peculiar ways. 

Gollum is quite different as well. Wearing pants makes him immediately more civilized than his counterparts in other media. He's less a creature and more a crazy and withered person. People love the Riddle Game in Bilbo's encounter with Gollum and it plays well in the novel, but I found it seemed to drag Jist a bit in this presentation. I was happy that this adaptation kept Beorn and his wonderful lodge, something abandoned in other renditions not unlike Tom Bombadil in adaptation of the grander The Lord of the Rings.

 

Smaug is outstanding! That said, the reading becomes quite dense as the band of dwarves enter the final stages of the story. The creators are clearly feeling the pinch of trying to keep all of the story from the novel and the panels get smaller as the captions get larger. This clearly needed to be at least one issue longer. The Battle of the Five Armies barely has enough pages to showcase it, though Wenzel does produce some stellar images. One complaint I have is that the elves don't look much different than the humans, and in some respects even more drab. But overall, the art has a lovely calm to it, that fits the atmosphere of the story being told. 

The adaptation has proven quite durable and is available sundry languages across the globe. I found a modern version on the stands of my local bookstore just a few weeks ago. If you're a fan of the Tolkien tales, this is a charming way to interact with these classic characters. 

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The Hobbit!

It's been a few years since I've dabbled in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, those lush and beautiful fantasies which not only elevated that genre but continue to influence society after many successful film adaptations. For this trip I returned to the source, the original story -- The Hobbit. 

I own the book in more than few versions, but easily the one I cherish most is the hardback first edition facsimile edition gifted to me by my beloved Lizzie, my wife for forty years. She's gone now. But reading the book and seeing her inscription makes me warm inside with the love we shard for four decades. You'll pardon me if my take on this reading is a bit sentimental. 

I think of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in much the same way as I think of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The first work for each writer is tremendous, bristling entertainment and not unserious in any way, but are much less significant than the robust works which followed. That said, the early works are still integral for fully understanding the greater works. Huckleberry Finn builds on the relationships already established in Tom Sawyer but with greater focus on important themes. Likewise, the light-hearted The Hobbit sets the stage for The Lord of the Rings, introducing key characters and some few plot points, and most importantly establishing the world. 

Bilbo Baggins is a likeable hero, a creature of comfort who is rooted out of his warm hole and tossed into a dangerous wild territory where life and limb are on the line almost every minute of every day. His allies the Dwarves are singularly focused on their own mythic mission, and it is only slowly that he is able to assert himself in their company and then somewhat begrudgingly. As a guy who likes his privacy and his comfort, I readily identify with Bilbo when he's suddenly introduced to a dangerous world and then goaded into traipsing off into it. Gandalf, the wizard who we all know is not telling us everything is the linchpin who links Thorin Oakenshield and his companions with their "burglar", a Hobbit of uncommon worth and more than a few talents. Without Gandalf this story doesn't happen. In the later The Lord of the Rings saga the mission is one of necessity. Because of events in The Hobbit, Frodo's life is on the line and so he has little choice but to leave the false security of Hobbiton. 

The Hobbit takes place over a year's time and in addition to spaces we encounter many weathers as the story unfolds. Middle Earth is a territory rich in different environments, most familiar to a modern reader. Less familiar are the creatures who inhabit the world. Men of course, but also Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Goblins (Orcs), and of course Hobbits. So too, do abound sundry animal species of animal such as Wolves, Ravens, Eagles among many others. Intelligence is not limited to the human species, far from it. This is a fairy land in which man can talk to animals and in which creatures of all sorts share the landscape. Telling the story from the perspective of a tiny Hobbit, a creature so small that often he escapes detection, keeps the saga from falling into a classic trap of a brawny hero saving the day. Brains are at least as important as brawn in this story. Swords, mallets, and axes might the weapons of choice, but strategy is the key to victory. 

And then there's Smaug. The dragon Smaug is among my favorite of Tolkien's creations, a dragon in keeping with the Nordic traditions which fueled the story, but singular in character. The theme of The Hobbit is demonstrated through Smaug's insatiable greed and his arrogance. His greed makes him make poor decisions at times and his arrogance gets him killed if belatedly from the perspective of the people living in his shadow. My favorite dragon is Marvel's Fin Fang Foom, but he comes from the same tradition which gives us Smaug. They are alike in so many ways, and they both meet defeat because they cannot imagine losing. Their overconfidence is their weakness. 

Reading The Hobbit again after so many years was great fun and kindled lovely memories. Tolkien was a smash in the 1960's and kicked off a fantasy boom in the early 1970's. When the movies were made around the turn of his century the saga recaptured the imaginations of folks around the world. Interest in fantasy waxes and wanes but Tolkien's works seem to have become standard and always available in some way. This delightful tale has been adapted many times in many mediums and the Dojo will be focusing on those in the coming days. 

The road goes every on. 

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The Marvellous Land of Snergs!

The Marvellous Land of Snergs was first published in the late 1920's and is purportedly an inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. He read it to his kids and the story which has echoes of Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, as well as The Hobbit, is strange little yarn. 

The story begins with the S.R.S.C. or Society for the Removal of Superfluous Children which is run in part by a woman named Miss Watkyns. She rumbles around and when she discovers a kid who is being mistreated or neglected will step quite vigorously and take charge of the kid and take them to the Land of the Snergs. The Snergs are an industrious society of small people, and offshoot of pixies according to the text, who live apart but who work for the S.R.S.C. from time to time. Also, in this strange territory is Flying Dutchman and his nautical pals. There are 478 superfluous children when the story opens but we are concerned with only two -- Sylvia and Joe. 

Joe is a mischievous little chap raised in the circus, and Sylvia is his closest friend. The two love to ramble around and cause trouble. Miss Watkyns punishes Joe after he throws a brick into a pot of soup to get a laugh. He gets bored during his punishment and talks Sylvia into running away into the woods where they spend the cold night cuddled up with a honey bear. Then they run across a Snerg named Gorbo, a particularly troublesome Snerg. Once the duo join up with Gorbo their adventures really kick off. After a feast in the village of the Snergs, the trio gets lost after they walk through a mysterious doorway., cross a deep river and find a strange and dangerous land beyond. The trio encounter a supposedly reformed child-eating ogre, a timid knight, an itinerant court jester, a stately if not overly wise king, and a duplicitous and scheming witch among others.  There is lots of eating in the story with meals being discussed at most every turn. Likewise, we see Gorbo become less of a self-centered troublemaker as he takes responsibility for the kids. 

It's pretty easy to see the inspirations Tolkien might have gotten reading these light-hearted misadventures to his kids. "Gorbo" is pretty dang close to "Bilbo" and the difference between Snergs and Hobbits is a matter of detail and care. Tolkien called Gorbo "the gem of dunderheads, jewel of a companion in an excapade". Wyke-Smith presents his Snergs to about the same degree of detail as Baum does his Munchkins, colorful but as much a plot device as anything. Tolkien's Hobbits are written with greater depth and much more realism and sympathy. There is a light snarky tone to The Marvellous Land of Snergs perhaps best exemplified by this sentence toward the end. "So perhaps the only definite moral that can be deduced is, if you by any chance encounter an ogre who claims to be reformed, pretend to believe him until you have got a gun and then blow his head off at the first opportunity."

Here is a link to a more thorough review at The Tolkien Collector. 

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Weirdworld - An All-New Adventure Into Epic Fantasy!

The way the Weirdworld stories tumbled out bit by bit from Marvel during the late 70's and into the 80's shows at once the durability of the concepts and the abiding patience of creators who know they have something special to share. Weirdworld was lucky to have some excellent artists in its time such as Mike Ploog, Alex Nino, Pat Broderick, John Buscema, Rudy Nebres, and Marie Severin among others. It seemed that each time a Weirdworld story managed to surface it offered a somewhat different take on the totally peculiar environment which at once evokes the arch danger of Middle Earth by Tolkien and the sardonic whimsy of Wonderland by Carroll. The Weirdworld stories hold up exceedingly well, better than many such works that evoke the Tolkien feel. Moench says he wasn't influenced by The Lord of the Rings and certainly this is not a copy, but details in both do make you scratch your head. Great stuff!

Weirdworld is one of those very special comic book projects that likely should not exist. Its origins are so odd and its development so dependent upon happen chance that I'm surprised it was ever produced. Doug Moench, the creator of Weirdworld and the only writer for the stories, came up with the concepts when he was just beginning as a writer and proofreader at Marvel. He needed some extra cash to help with his moving expenses to New York City and so he was offered the chance to pen a few back up horror tales for Marvel's black and white mags. One of the stories which came to him didn't fit that premise at all, but rather was an offbeat fantasy yarn, a story with remarkable charm but no apparent market.

"An Ugly Mirror on Weirdworld" was recognized by the editors at Marvel as being something special and Mike Ploog was assigned to draw it, an inspired choice. The story is about a misfit elf named Tyndall who is assigned by the local dwarf leadership to seek out evil and extinguish it. He journeys into mysterious lands and faces weird and dangerous threats only to eventually find an egg inside the bones of an ancient creature. The egg hatches and revealed is a lovely maiden, an elf like himself named Velanna. They realize that they belong together, and the story ends on a happy note. The story Tyndall and Velanna then languished for a couple of years waiting its chance for publication and a larger audience than the halls of the Marvel offices. Read the story here. 

That chance came in a one-shot mag called Marvel Super Action. The mag featured Marvel's breakout crime-buster Punisher and no mention is made on the cover of the sweet little story tucked away inside those pages. Weirdworld was unleashed. And it made a palpable hit on the audience.

A second story "The Lord of Tyndall's Quest" was written, this one once again illustrated by the remarkably talented Mike Ploog and perfectly inked by Alex Nino. Moench's yarn tells the further story of the elf Tyndall and his new-found companion Velanna, the elf from an egg. They fall into the clutches of a wizard named Grithstane who sends Tyndall on another quest, this time into the sky itself to the floating weird ring-island named Klarn (Tyndall's home supposedly) which casts a shadow on Weirdworld. This shadow is a breeding ground for evil. Tyndall finds a maiden about to be sacrificed but who is in fact a monster and he escapes with his life. He defeats Grithstane and saves Velanna and the pair once again appear to live happily ever after. Read it here. 

This story got a berth in Marvel Premiere, again after languishing for a few years. Two memorable stories, and many more moons and it appears that Weirdworld will be no more. But that's not true at all. 

Marvel Fanfare was a really odd comic book. An upscale production, it was positioned strangely in the direct sales marketplace because it used stories generally deemed not good enough (for whatever reason) for publication in a regular Marvel comic and gave them a high-end and glossy presentation. Lots of great stuff appeared in its pages, but all of it had a kind of orphan quality to it.

No less was this case with the three issues of the comic dedicated to Weirdworld. You have to understand that this was published in 1984, but the stories contained in these three issues were produced long before, back in the late 70's, and I assume an abandoned project since the saga of Weirdworld had exploded in other directions under other hands in high-profile ways, but more on that next time. I'm covering this story here because in terms of what passes for continuity it comes next, though readers weren't treated to it for many years after its sequels. (And this is how it's presented in the recent trade volume.)

Doug Moench is back writing his distinctive creation as is artist Mike Ploog, at least for the first chapter. The second two issues are both drawn by Pat Broderick, an artist of no small reputation. Broderick is ill-served here simply because for all his skill, he is a decided step down from Ploog on this kind of material. Superheroes it might've been a different story, but for high-fantasy Ploog had a special panache.

In this story we meet Mud-Butt, twice. What I mean is that the seminal character of Mud-butt underwent a profound physical change between the first and second chapters of the story. Mud-Butt is a dwarf malcontent and thief. Tyndall and Velanna throw in with him when they defend him in a bar fight. The trio then head off to confront the wizard Lord Raven who has send Goblins and other monsters to recapture a prize Mud-Butt had stolen from him. The true nature of the item is revealed in another tale. The trio run from and confront goblins and other weird creatures as they rush into and out of dimensional doors taking them all across Weirdworld. Ultimately, they save the day and defeat the villain, but we knew that already.

This seems like a good time to address one of the understandable but apparently untrue notions about Weirdworld. According to Doug Moench, the story was not inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga which had taken the world by storm. Moench claims he never read the stories, save perhaps for The Hobbit before he'd written Weirdworld. I choose to believe Moench when he says he was not riffing on Tolkien. But someone in editorial sure noticed the similarity. 

That Marvel quite wisely used the similarity to advertise and promote the Weirdworld stories is understandable and of course suggests to almost any audience that the work was inspired by same, even if that's not the case.

This is the blockbuster! These three very "super special" magazines collectively titled Warriors of the Shadow Realm, but part of the longer series Marvel Super Special are among the most beautiful comics ever produced in the genre. That the covers of all three are so riddled with copy and hype that they almost hide the beauty is regrettable, but back in the day a fan took what a fan could get. In this case what a fan got was a potent new way to publish beautiful artwork, giving it a painterly feel for Doug Moench's writing, but still maintaining the verve and energy of a classic comics page. The artists involved were Rudy Nebres (inks), Peter Ledger and Steve Oliff (paint and colors) and most importantly "Big" John Buscema (pencils).

If it were possible to worship an artist, my god would be John Buscema, He was simply the finest comic book artist of his generation and is in a league with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond. Famously disdainful of the superheroes he drew so many of, he took the Conan franchise made popular by the exquisite and increasingly baroque artwork of Barry Windsor-Smith and toughened it for the long haul. I consider Buscema's Conan the definitive version, even surpassing the transformative version by Frank Frazetta. Only Buscema was able to consistently present a Cimmerian who had all the characteristics described so vibrantly by Robert E. Howard, the charisma, the raw power, the nimble agility, and the raw drama. I'd imagine John Buscema was excited to have a chance to do more fantasy when he came to draw Weirdworld.

The story of Warriors of the Shadow Realm goes roughly as follows. Be careful there are spoilers. Tyndall, Velanna, and Mud-Butt come across a Savage Elf who is running from some mysterious flying Nightfangers. Later they encounter him again and come into possession of mysterious gems which have the power to evoke monsters in the Moon's light. The Savage Elf dies when the Riders of the five Shadow Riders enter the City of Seven Delights. The trio take the gems to a wizard who tells them of the origin of Weirdworld and the near-godly figure of Darklens who created the place as a by-product of his war with other gods. The gems contain the essence of the evil Darklens and the Riders are desperate to gain possession so that he might right again. The trio take the gems and later meet a tribe of Savage Elves who have taken the mission long ago to protect the crypt of Darklens so that he might never rise. The wizard betrays them all and takes possession of the gems giving Darklens access to his body but the intervention of a White Wolf, which also seems to be a wizard or more, helps to forestall the threat. In the end Weirdworld is safe once again, for the time being.

That's the story, at once classic and evocative of many other stories told over the ages. It feels very familiar indeed that small seemingly weak characters prove pivotal in stopping the resurrection of a dangerous sorcerer who threatens the whole world and beyond. It's as advertised, "in the fantasy tradition of Tolkien".

I'm exceedingly glad that I have this story in its original format as the reprint, as grand as it is, falls short of presenting this artwork in its proper from. The story has a number of triptych fold-outs, and the standard comic book page is simply not capable of properly presenting that grand artwork. There is lushness to the work here which at the time was unlike anything else available on the stands. There was Heavy Metal, and soon there would be Epic Illustrated, but when this saga hit the stands, it was unique. The depth and quality of the artwork is simply beyond words.

Weirdworld had one final outing (in terms of continuity if not chronology) and that came in Marvel's high-end magazine Epic Illustrated. Alas the series never rated a cover appearance, but here are the four issues in which the final classic Weirdworld story was told.

"The Dragonmaster of Klarn" brings together many of the same talents who worked on Warriors of the Shadow Realm, but sadly minus the transformative work of painter Pete Ledger. Instead the artwork here, as delightful as it was by John Buscema, Rudy Nebres and Marie Severin falls short in many respects to the masterpiece which preceded it. I have nothing but massive respect for these three artists, but sadly the sum is less than the parts in these four chapters.

But that doesn't speak to Doug Moench's story which in many ways reveals many of the secrets which have dotted the saga to this point. If the earlier yarns had a Tolkienesque feel, this story reminds me of Michael Moorcock's work especially how it suggests that Weirdworld is for intents and purposes a massive game board upon which gods of light and gods of dark vie for advantage. Our heroes and their opponents are merely pawns in that great game.

The story begins with Tyndall, Velanna, and Mud-Butt a year removed from their defeat of Draklens. They are living in a Dwarf village but their typical disdain they encounter frustrates Velanna in particular. She as it turns out has come under the spell of yet another wizard Lord Majister, the brother of Draklens. He has formed a crystal vessel resembling Velanna and is slowly filling it up with darkness, a darkness which is also filling up her spirit. She becomes increasingly angry with Tyndall and Mud-Butt as the trio leave the Dwarf village and get drawn into yet another quest, this one to find the blade of the Glorywand, a magic sword which Mud-Butt had long ago stolen the hilt from. They encounter Goblins who surround a mountain in which lives a beautiful sorceress who sends them across vast distances of Weirdworld to find a hero named Wulfbuck. who has been changed to more resemble his namesake. This quartet work together against the wizard who has transformed his Goblins into a more powerful undead army and ultimately defeat him when Tyndall's ability to command powerful dragons proves decisive. Velanna eventually overcomes the curse, and the heroes end their adventures once again on a happy note.

This story was enchanting, as are all of the Weirdworld but somehow this one falls a bit flat. I think it's because of the sameness of the story in many respects. While we do discover more about Tyndall's heritage and we do encounter a Velanna who is different, the story is yet one more battle against yet another wizard. Grithstane, Raven, Zarthon, Darklens, and now Majister, all different but all somewhat the same. I'd have liked maybe something a bit different, but that likely is because this time I read all these stories back-to-back, and that's perhaps unfair to Moench's storytelling.

Whatever the case, these are the last classic Weirdworld stories, and while the world itself seems to have been revived and quasi-fantasy characters like Arkon and the Black Knight have been woven into a brand new and rather different reality. But without the considerable talents the likes of Moench, Ploog, and Buscema, there is little to attract this reader to them.

Weirdworld was a series of special comic book stories produced by special talents at a special time. It's charm never weakens for me. 

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