I’m pleased to see that the latest Marvel Masterworks volume has just been published. It’s the ‘restored’ 1970s Killraven run from Don McGregor. This was one of the most interesting of Marvel’s original ‘sci-fi’ characters of the 1970s, along with the likes of Deathlok and Warlock. It was an update on H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, Wells being out of copyright in the USA by then. The Martian tripods return in 2001, having genetically engineered themselves to be immune to earth’s bacteria, and successfully take over the earth through mind-manipulation.
Killraven started off marvellously well for the first two issues (#18 and #19), with no less than Neal Adams and Howard Chaykin as artists, and solid sci-fi writing from Gerry Conway. But then it wobbled into rather humdrum ‘villain of the month’ territory, and Marvel didn’t help matters by swopping in different artists and some novice inkers for a few issues. Yet the writing remained solid, if rather uncertain of its direction, and after a few issues Killraven started to become ‘high-concept sci-fi with a fantasy edge’ that actually kind-of worked. It was also ahead of its time somewhat, in terms of the focus on genetic engineering as an underlying technology which enabled the straddling of the two genres and the production of some fine monsters.
After its strong opening issues the title remained unspectacular from #20 – #24. Then #25 popped with some very pleasing layouts and pencils from a one-off stint by the ‘Neal Adams-alike’ Rich Buckler (he created Deathlok). Then it slumped again into filler for the very next issue. The bimonthly title probably looked doomed at that point, to the remaining regular buyers.
But Killraven was then rescued by committing the outstanding artist P. Craig Russell to the title from #27, and also by giving #27 an excellent Jim Starlin cover.
From then on it spiralled up and out into something much more interesting and beautiful and philosophical, and continued for a fairly long run of issues by the standards of the time (Marvel was cancel-happy in the mid-late 1970s). Though, even once the title got rolling under McGregor/Russell, Marvel was still forced to issue two very skippable ‘filler’ issues (#30, #33) which must have put a big crimp in follow-on sales.
Incidentally, I never knew that Don McGregor “was born in Providence, Rhode Island”, and that he grew up there. So there you go, Providence worthies… you have another popular writer to your credit. And since he began his career with a lengthy stint at horror specialists Warren, and then moved to Marvel for many years to work mainly on their horror titles, he was also a horror writer. Many of the monsters and aliens in Killraven are also distinctly Lovecraftian and tentacular.
Anyway, the new Killraven Masterworks collection is now available as a download for the Kindle at a sensible price, and weighs in at 488 pages or about five hours of reading. They’ve all been reprinted in paper before, as the cheap Essential Marvel: Essential Killraven Volume 1 (2005), though in a much less high-grade format than the Masterworks series offers. I already have the issues, so don’t need the new Masterworks, but the free sample looks great.
The new book tells a complete story, and of course includes Don McGregor and P. Craig Russell’s outstanding Amazing Adventures issue #39 — which I was greatly enamoured of as a youth and which still holds up very well today. It’s such a beautiful thing that it’s well worth picking up in its sniff-able original paper form if you can find it, as are the other Russell issues. Sadly #39 was the last of the Killraven run, as Marvel then cancelled the title.
Thankfully, Marvel later relented to fan-pressure and in 1983 gave the same McGregor/Russell team a fine graphic novel. This firmly and satisfyingly concluded the story and is included in the new Marvel Masterworks volume. It changed the design of the characters a little, which may be annoying to some, and the colouring seemed a little garish when read straight after the muted newsprint of the comics. But, with so many changes of artist and inker, by that point in your reading you’ll be used to such changes.
All in all, it’s a coherent if meandering story, has some great ‘pulp sci-fi’ chops, interesting characters and concepts, and superbly evil villains and monsters. Most of all, it has heart.
Art from #39.
There was a later attempt to reboot the character, in a 2002 mini-series of print comics, but despite slick art it fell flat and added little to the original story.
