Another day, another Secret Wars flavored tie-in series. Are you still with me? Good, because this is another one that is bound to raise some eyebrows. The fun starts with the series’ name: Weirdworld. The weirdness persists with the names attached to the project with the excellent Jason Aaron writing the comic with the one-and-only Mike Del Mundo of Elektra fame drawing the psychedelic covers the for the tale. Marvel took the story over to USA Today for the reveal. The comic is centered around Arkon, an Avengers creation from Roy Thomas and John Buscema in 1970. The series name comes from a concept developed by Mike Ploog and Doug Moench also from the 70’s. Arkon is a barbarian, and ruler of his people hailing from the land of Polemachus. Along the way he’ll meet up with some wizards, lizards, and dinosaurs – is Marvel attempting to one-up Where Monsters Dwell?
The author is set to utilize “a hodgepodge of the weirdest, strangest, more obscure bits and bobs of the Marvel Universe,” influenced by series like Lord of Atlantis, The Warlord, Skull the Slayer and others.
Aaron also extrapolated on why there have been so many odd titles coming from the event:
“I’ve always wanted to do my Conan story but there’s not a lot of opportunities to do those stories in comics.”
It seems that Secret Wars is opening the floodgates at Marvel, letting storytellers use some incredibly off-the-wall chess pieces. Weirdworld #1 ships on June 3. Marvel, please take my money now.
UPDATE 3:26 P.M.: After digging around this very site, we found something of great importance – Marvel stealth solicited a Weirdworld collection for April from the original 70’s stories. After patting the House of Ideas on the back, take a look at this odd solicit for the graphic novel;
Weirdworld
Mike Ploog, Pat Broderick, Doug Moench, John Busce…
FRONTLIST
On Sale Date: April 14, 2015
Ages 13 And Up, Grades 8 to 17
$34.99 USD
312 pages
Paperback
Comics & Graphic Novels / Superheroes
9780785162889, 0785162887Summary: Welcome to Weirdworld, a land of legend and lore! Meet Tyndall, a lost elf on a dangerous quest – a quest to the heart of evil and beyond! One that will unite him with the beautiful Velanna, and forge an alliance for the ages. Together with grumpy dwarf Mud-Butt , these warriors of the shadow realm will brave the City of Seven Dark Delights, face the fallen god Darklens, and meet the Dragonmaster of Klarn. But will they ever fi nd their way home?
COLLECTING: MARVEL PREMIERE 38; MATERIAL FROM MARVEL SUPER ACTION (1976) 1, MARVEL FANFARE (1982) 24-26, MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL 11-13, EPIC ILLUSTRATED 9, 11-13
Now THAT’S interesting.
I always figured that the biggest influence on and inspiration for Moench and Ploog’s WEIRDWORLD was Richard and Wendy Pini’s ELFQUEST. However, I see little of that in the new art.
A good historical perspective on the origins of Marvel’s “weird world” Sword n Sorcery fascination: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/08/conan-the-barbarian-first-time-in-comic-book-form
Thanks so much for sharing that story @Silly but True
The original Weirdworld comic was good but the 3 issue magazine trilogy written by Doug Moench was so obviously “inspired” by Lord of the Rings that Moench was criticized for writing such an unimaginative rip-off. He angrily claimed to never having read Lord of the Rings. The thing is the plot of the story was well known by then even if you hadn’t read it and imitations of it abounded in the 1970s, so many that Tolkien rip-offs became a genre unto themselves.
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