Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "What Price Victory?"

The First Earthman on Mars battles on to rescue his lost love...

Art by Gil Kane

...as menace after menace assaults him!

Has Gullivar been reunited with Heru only to die on the red Martian sands?

(Remember, there was only one Gullivar Jones novel!

No sequel!)

When next we meet up with Gullivar...it's the fearsome finale of this story!

Note: Gray Morrow assumes the art chores (pencils and inks) for the final two issues of Gullivar's never-reprinted run.
But the writer of Gullivar's penultimate adventure from Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #20 (1972) is still George Alec Effinger.

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "Long Road to Nowhere"

Continuing the never-reprinted (and all-too-brief) adventures of the First Earthman on Mars...

Art by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia

...we'll let the protagonist of this interplanetary saga fill us in...

To be continued...Tomorrow!

The artist round-robin continues as long-time Superman artist Wayne Boring steps in for Creatures on the Loose #19 (1972), the fourth chapter of the short-lived, never-reprinted, comic adaptation, inked by long-time Supergirl artist Jim Mooney!
(Oddly, Wayne and Jim never worked together at DC!)
At this time, Boring also did the first three issues (#22-24) of the 1972 revival of Captain Marvel.
BTW, you'll note the splash page is partially-penciled by Gil Kane.
George Alec Effinger goes solo on the scripting and continues to the end of the series in Creatures on the Loose #21.

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "Wasteland on a Weirdling World"

Things are looking desperate for the first (and possibly last) Earthman on Mars...

Art by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott

...but who could fill you in better than our currently-helpless hero himself?

To be continued...Tomorrow!

Ross Andru, right before beginning his stint on Doc Savage, came on for Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #18 (1972), the third chapter of the short-lived, never-reprinted, comic adaptation, replacing Gil Kane, who continued to do covers.Gerry Conway and science fiction writer George Alec Effinger take over the scripting from Roy Thomas, who plotted the story arc and remained as editor.

One of the major problems this series faced was only having 10 pages every two months to tell the story.
And, because it was a bi-monthly, the writers felt compelled to recap not only the previous issue, but the entire story, which ate into the page count for a given issue's tale!

Had Marvel given the series a 15-page or full-book page count to work with (or 10 pages in a monthly title), the series might have gained more of an audience.
But only ten pages of story every two months was, apparently, too little to hold the audience's interest.
As it is, we're already midway thru the too-brief color comics run.

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "River of the Dead"

When Last We Left the First Earthman on Mars...

Art by Gil Kane and unknown inker

Meanwhile, we're continuing the adventures of his swashbuckling predecessor on Mars, Gullivar Jones, as we present the second, never-reprinted chapter of the short-lived comic adaptation from Creatures on the Loose #17 (1972)...

To be continued...Tomorrow!

You'll note that Sam Grainger has replaced Bill Everett as the inker on this never-reprinted story from Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #17 (1972).

Unfortunately, Everett's health was declining and he had to cut back on the volume of work he was doing, preferring to devote what time he had to working on his greatest creation, Prince Namor: the Sub-Mariner.

He passed away a little over a year later.
Written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Gil Kane.

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "Warrior of Mars"

The Dreaded Deadline Doom caught up with us this week...

Art by Gil Kane and Bill Everett

...so we're re-presenting the never-reprinted adventures of the first Earthman on Mars, whose adventures predated Edgar Rice Burroughs' tales of John Carter of Mars by half a decade back at the beginning of the 20th Century.

 A bit of background: with the surprise success of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian, comics went pulp-mad, looking for other properties that were doing well in paperback reprints to adapt into the four-color format.

DC latched onto The Shadow, The Avenger, and Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser well as the entire Edgar Rice Burroughs library including Tarzan, Carson of Venus, and John Carter.

Marvel grabbed Doc Savage, added Kull (also a Robert E Howard character), and looked for another barbarian/swashbuckling hero.

They ended up adding two, Gullivar Jones and Lin Carter's Thongor, neither of whom ran more than eight issues.
Gullivar Jones had the advantage of only one novel to adapt, then the door was open to totally-new adventures.

Art by Frank Frazetta

This tale from Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #16 (1972) was Part 1, written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Gil Kane and inked by Bill Everett.
We'll be presenting the remaining chapters through this week, so be here tomorrow.