Mike Grell’s Warlord holds a special place in my heart. Actually, all of Mike Grell’s work holds a special place in my heart. Starslayer is a stone-cold classic as far as I’m concerned, and it’s probably my favorite of his books (but that may be because it’s the first Grell book I encountered; Celtic warrior becomes a rollicking space pirate complete with robot parrot is the sort of comic a young me could really get behind), but this current edition of Warlord has really come into its own in the past six months. Of course, I’m grading on a curve — it’s Mike Grell, people. I cut him some slack. I’m bummed that this month’s issue is the final one, but what are you gonna do? Warlord just wasn’t made for these times.

When DC relaunched the title last year, it started a little slowly. The book was hurt by the fact that Grell was only writing it, not drawing it; this is his world and these are his characters, and his storytelling style is inimitable. Grell is the pulpiest of pulp pastichers, and I mean that as glowing praise. The obvious pulp parallels are in subject matter: Modern man (’70s vintage modern, that is) Travis Morgan ends up in Skartaris, the primitive world hidden at the center of our world, and not only survives the predations of dinosaurs, marauding tribesmen, evil wizards, ancient Atlantean science and a bevy of beautiful women in scanty outfits, he conquers all by dint of his strength and his sword. That’s pretty much from the Edgar Rice Burroughs/Talbot Mundy playbook, which means good comic books as far as I’m concerned.

But when Grell draws the book, the pacing ratchets up to a pulp-approved whiplash. Grell is an artist from the old school — he approaches his story in terms of individual issues, not as stops along the way to a collected softcover. Aside from the traditional recap of what happened previously, there are no wasted panels, no lengthy exposition, no padding of any kind; things happen, and they happen rapidly. It takes some getting used to if you’re accustomed to reading calorie-free issues that exist only to set up something that’s not going to be resolved for another six months. In four issues Grell has revivified classic arch-villain Deimos, destroyed Warlord’s home base city of Shamballah, revealed longtime supporting character Tinder as Travis’ son (whom Travis has believed dead for years), had Tinder kill Travis in a duel and set the stage for an imminent alien invasion of Earth and Skartaris — and that’s leaving out some stuff.

Somehow, Grell is going to wrap up all this up to his satisfaction in one more issue, and then Warlord goes away again. I’m not holding out hope for a second Warlord volume of Showcase Presents, either. It’s too bad. I’ll quickly bounce back if Grell can convince IDW to publish Starslayer again, though. What I wouldn’t give for a space faring Celtic barbarian pirate monthly series…

-Paul

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