In the late 1970s, the publishing world clamored for more Tolkein-esque fantasy...
...to satiate the demand caused by the release of the animated Lord of the Rings movie!
So Marvel took a one-shot story that received a suprisingly-strong audience response and had co-creators Doug Moench and Mike Ploog expand the storyline...
You'll note that Alex Nino is inking this never-reprinted tale from Marvel Premiere #38 (1977), instead of Ploog inking his own pencils.
Ploog had done the pencils for this story shortly after the first tale over a year earlier and when the go-ahead was finally given, he had left Marvel for other projects, so Nino stepped in with one of his few inking assignments over another artist, and did a spectacular job!