I love Allerd's art though I don't care for any of the writing on the books he's worked on.

His art looks a bit retro, like Bronze Age super hero comics. I think it's a good look.

Strange Tales #120  (1964)

"The Torch Meets Iceman!" -- 14pp -- Lee/Kirby.   Bobby Drake is tired of playing fourth fiddle for Jean Gray, so he goes on a swingin' teen cruise on the Hudson to meet chicks.   He is shot down by a young lady because she is there with Johnny Storm the Human Torch.   As a persecuted mutant, Bobby can't dislcose his secret identity, so he can't riposte and impress her with his ice powers.  Then pirates attack the boat.  Johnny starts fighting them while Bobby sneaks off to secretly turn into Iceman -- which still looks more like Snowman in this story.  Iceman & Torch team up and beat the pirates.  Lonely Bobby walks off alone making ice discs to walk across the river.   Johnny and his date chat about how often Iceman must get laid.

"The House of Shadows!" -- 9pp -- Lee/Ditko -- Reality tv is invented as a reporter camps out in a haunted house to see what happens.  This is very primitive reality TV.  They haven't invented the idea of bringing a camera inside a house yet.  The one reporter goes inside with a microphone while another reporter stands outside the house with the camera.  Spooky things happen to the reporter inside.  Dr. Strange sneaks in the back and determines that the house itself is a demon from another dimension and consigns it there.  The crowd outside watches the house disappear and attributes it all to "special effects."

SS has been very good so far.  It hasn't followed the usual dour, navel-gazing pattern of the past, but a fast paced take where the SS is paired with a feisty human woman.  I fear that pattern may get old after a while, but right now, it's firing on all cylinders.

IronJaw #1-2 and Barbarians featuring IronJaw #1

IronJaw is the unavoidable Conan clone from Atlas comics, the short-lived comics company founded by Martin Goodman in the 70s. Honestly, I didn't expect much from it; something like DC's Claw the unconquered, probably. (I read IronJaw #4 decades ago and remember it as pretty generic S&S).

The first two issues have covers by Neal Adams, which is admittedly a pretty strong start. They are scripted by Michael Fleisher with art by Sekowsky and Abel (#1) and Pablo Marcos (#2). Full disclosure: I pretty much hate the Fleisher Conan stories published by marvel in the 80s; not so much because they were bad stories, but rather because they weren't Conan. They were "generic loinclothed swordsman-type having humorous adventures in a generic fantasy land". I must admit that had they featured someone else than Conan and had they not been set in a very ill-understood Hyborian world, I would have enjoyed them a whole lot more. Which is essentially what happens here!

Fleisher has a sense of humour, that is clear, and here he gives it free rein. Even if the editorial page says that the writer envisions the Ironjaw character not as a typical S&S hero but as a real man, that assessment is simply wrong: not only is Ironjaw a typical S&S hero, he is pushed so far in that direction that he almost becomes a self-parody. But that's actually a lot of fun, if we enjoy a second degree reading. In these first two issues we are treated to pretty much all the clichés of the genre, but go through them with zest and unapologetic amusement and discard them all by the end.

To begin with, Ironjaw is a barbarian. Yes, sure, so is Conan... or rather, so is Conan supposed to be. But Conan is not acting like a barbarian, most of the time: he's actually the noble savage, the pristine man still close to nature and untainted by civilization's corrupting influence. As a human being, he is a breath of fresh air: quick to anger as he is to joy, dangerous to his enemies but very protective of his friends, and demonstrating a rough chivalry to women. Not so ironjaw. Ironjaw is a barbarian; the kind that burns a library because it's fun, who desecrates a church because it's fun, who rapes women because it's fun (fun for his dick, not for his victim), who kills people because it's fun. He also brags a lot about his prowess and insults people because they're smaller, older, weaker of more civilized than he is. He is NOT a nice guy.

The first time we see him, he interferes as some local soldiers kill an old man (who helpfully explains "I'm an old man") and mean to rape his daughter. He interferes, yes, but motivated by no more virtuous an impulse than that manifested by Alex in a clockwork orange: he just means to do to the girl what the soldiers meant to. And then he tops his machismo by insulting women in general, saying they talk too much! It would be unbearable if Ironjaw was in any way depicted as being somehow likeable despite his faults, but he's not... it's clear he's a complete asshole. So props to Fleisher here.

Physically, he's a Conan lookalike... except that his lower mandible is covered by a metal piece. It's not clear that as his name would imply, it's supposed to replace his lower jaw; the way it's drawn, it really looks as if it's set over his natural jaw. He's even got his natural teeth. (When Marcos takes over with issue #2, both upper and lower jaws are replaced by the metal appendage, complete with steel fangs... but they still look more like something set over Ironjaw's face than an integral part of it).

Ironjaw has a bird tattoo on his shoulder: that actually marks him as the long-lost son of the previous king of the land, and as the true heir to the throne. As an old nurse tells us, years ago, the queen gave birth to twins; a boy and a girl, both bearing the bird mark. But then the king was slain by a trusted friend who had the hots for the queen, and who, Polonius Claudius-like*, then married her and assumed the throne. The male heir was supposed to be killed by a trusted henchman, who like in all fairytales (that,s actually what they say in the story!) couldn't do it and just abandoned the child in a desolate place. There he was found by brigands who raised him as one of their own.

All of this is revealed to Ironjaw after he's taken prisoner by the king's men, after he escapes his jail, and after he tries to force himself (unwittingly) on his own sister who's just learned the story. A little later, Ironjaw is hired by local rebels to lead them against the king (who, naturally, is a bad ruler) and after disposing of his mother's new husband, he becomes king in his turn. Only being king is not to his liking: he can't go hunting, he can't go pick up girls at the local taverns, and he finds having a harem boring. So he escapes the palace again and abandons his crown.

Fleisher peppers his script with moments that are pretty amusing, as when Ironjaw describes freedom as "that's what people talk about when they want you to fight for them and don't have money to pay". His ceaseless sexist comments are also funny if we take them as parody, which is what I believe was the intent. The artwork by Sekowsky in issue #1 is O.K., evoking Ditko's Stalker from time to time; but really, it is Marcos who takes the cake art-wise. I think issue #2 features the best art I've ever seen from Marcos; his signature Frank Robbins-like body-twisting is nowhere to be seen.

Then comes Barbarians #1, and things don't go so well. The script is by Gary Friedrich, who drops the "Ironjaw as irredeemable jerk" angle. Oh, sure, after the hero gets captured by mountain mutants and is dropped in a jail with a beautiful blonde, the first thing he does is try to rape her (AGAIN?) but after she complains that he's no better than the mutants and that all men are beasts, he immediately makes amends and swears he will never do her harm. Then, after spurning the advances of the local mutant queen who's after his hot body, he must fight a giant in the arena. But while fighting and describing aloud and in detail what he is doing and why his opponent is going to fail for lack of concentration, a psychological epiphany seems to strike him off-panel: he waxes eloquent about man's inhumanity to man in very un-Ironjaw-ish manner, defeats his enemy fairly, spares his life, becomes friends with everyone, opines that resorting to violence over petty differences is remarkably uncouth, and reflects that perhaps his role in life should be to mend fences between hostile ethnic groups. At which point the reader goes "what the fuck just happened???" and wonders if Michael Fleisher will come back to the character.

Anyway, it was good, honest fun, and for the price I can't complain.


* Thanks to Cei-U for the correction.

Egad! I stand corrected. I think I mixed them up because Ironjaw kills him when he's with his mother.