#kull of atlantis

[cimmerian-war-shrine]

[barbarianhorde]

Alex Horley

[tomoleary]

Ned Dameron “The Behemoth and Kull” Kull of Atlantis (1985) Source

[kingbryancroidragon]

Head Canon

Fred and Daphne are Robert E. Howard fans and one thing they always argue about is which of his barbarian heroes is better: Kull of Atlantis or Conan of Cimmeria, with Fred being in the Kull camp and Daphne in the Conan camp. Whenever this happens, Shaggy, Velma and Scooby all leave the room rolling their eyes.

[curtvilescomic]

King Kull by Cary Nord

[siryl]

"Kull the Conqueror" by Rei Zernan.

[siryl]

What’s up with the Rorschach patterns on the stairs?

KULL OF ATLANTIS

Art by JUSTIN SWEET

[wanderingmind867]

DC and Marvel both love Atlantis. And their interpretations of Atlantis are usually pretty similar, but I see some differences. I still want to compare it to the Greek and Roman stuff Rick Riordan writes about. DC's Atlantis feels more Grecian, I guess. Aquaman's Orange Chainmail or whatever reminds me of Camp Half-Blood. And Namor is Roman backwards, and he just screams the regal and imperious attitude of characters like Octavian at Camp Jupiter.

But there's so much more than that. DC and Marvel both delve into the prehistoric culture of Atlantis. Paul Kupperberg created Arion, the ancient sorcerer from DC's Atlantis. But Marvel's Atlantis has Kull the Conqueror and figures like the sorceress Zhered-Na (who died for predicting atlantis's fall, and then led a cult onto the mainland). Roy Thomas and Steve Gerber really fleshed out Marvel's Atlantis. So we have different writers, and different backstories, but it all goes back to sword and sorcery style mythos.

So this is why I really think we just need to have a reveal that DC and Marvel's two seperate versions Atlantis were seperated by the gods ages ago, perhaps during the time of Kull and Arion. The gods knew there would be fighting between their children, should they ever meet, and so they hid them from each other. I mean, come on! It makes so much sense! Rick Riordan's ideas and concepts just work perfectly in this setting! Why do I feel like I'm the only one who's noticed this!?

[cryptocollectibles]

Kull the Conqueror #1 (May 1983) by Marvel Comics

Written by Bruce Jones and April Campbell, drawn by John Buscema, Bob Wiacek and Dan Green, cover by Joe Jusko.

[kyliafanfiction]

Kull needs to be a lot more easily tricked than Conan.

[thetygre]

Michael Moorcock characters when they crossover with each other:

Robert E. Howard characters when they crossover with each other:

They are so similar in nature that they can't actually agree on anything Conan the Barbarian 68

[cimmerian-war-shrine]

[tomoleary]

2nd part of Kull of Atlantis by Barry Windsor-Smith, original art.

[vaults-of-zin]

Kull of Atlantis miscellaneous thoughts

Being an earlier prototype of Conan the Barbarian most of the sotories are just straight up worse versions of later Conan stories.

There's about a dozen or so stories yet they all end up repeating themselves a lot. Probably a result of how they were/weren't published.

Like a full 50% are about scheming nobles sneaking into the palace to kill Kull and Kull beating the shit out of them.

Conan gets a lot of pre-kingship adventuring stories but every Kull story involves him being king so when he decides unseal ancient evils and plunder their cursed treasure he has a full royal court coming along with him telling him this is a bad idea.

Conan also gets to have a sexuality whereas Kull is wrtten to show how resiliant he is to the manipulating charms of womankind.

This comes off as very gay.

The only type of women in the Empire of Valusia are whiny teenage noblewomen.

The only type of political issue Kull everdeals with involve said whiny teenage noblewomen running off and having affairs.

For all Robert E. Howard loves to prattle about the degeneracy of civilisation, the only example of this he can throw out is scheming noblemen plotting to assassinate Kull. Which doesn't really contrast well with Kull since he also assassinated the last king.

The best story is The Cat and the Skull. Kull gets tricked into diving into a cursed lake full of seamonsters on the advice of a talking cat.

I think the best way to read Kull stories is to imagine them as a strongman dictator's propaganda puff-pieces. That's why the writer is so concerned with describing Kull as strong and virile. That's why every second story is about a consiracy to murder Kull. That's why they never discuss any of Kull's actual policy decisions.

[mask131]

Cold winter: Red Sonja

RED SONJA

Category: Marvel comics

We cannot talk of Conan the Barbarian without talking of his female counterpart and “rival”, the famous Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, who became THE iconic picture of the fantasy archetype of the “barbarian woman”.

Red Sonja was created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith in 1973, first appearing in the Marvel’s comic of “Conan the Barbarian” before getting her own comic in 1975 – though she still appeared in other affiliated comic book series, from various Conan series to the Kull ones. Marvel stopped publishing Red Sonja stories in 1995 – but she was promptly picked up by the Dynamite Comics in 2005, leading to several new series, at first keeping Marvel’s continuity before rebooting the character several times and going into various spin-off. And, of course, we have to mention other medias – such as the Red Sonja novel series written in the 80s, her apparition in the “Conan the Barbarian” television series, and a few movies done about her from the 80s to the 2000s (and with more supposedly in production).

Red Sonja lived in the Hyborian Age, a mythical long-distant past of our Earth, before the beginning of recorded history but after the fall of Atlantis. She once lived peacefully with her family in a small house on the steppes of Hyrkania  – until one day a group of mercenaries came. Her entire family was killed by the vile men – her parents and brothers –, her house was burned down and she only survived because the men wanted to take her virginity. After being raped and left in front of the corpses and burning ashes of her ancient life, she cried for revenge, and her scream of rage was heard… Scathach, the Red Goddess, appeared to Sonja and gave her unmatched fighting skills, making her a fearsome and dreaded warrior… But upon one condition: that she will never have sex with a man, unless said man manages to defeat her into a fair combat.

Thus begins the adventures of Red Sonja, the She-Devil deadly with a sword (she carries a double-edged sword, but also has a small dagger if she needs it) and whose immense strength makes her able to outmatch men in wrestling or hand-to-hand combat. She travels through the lands of the Hyborian Age, slashing, beating, stabbing any kind of monster, beast or antagonist trying to prevent her adventures ; herself seemingly never carrying any scar from her various wounds. The only other thing she loves more than fighting is drinking (even though when drunk she gets even more unstable and violent than she already is), and one of her weaknesses is her near incapacity at learning how to write or read. She spends her time fighting corrupted men, defending innocents, making those that offend her pay dearly or being hired as a mercenary; she also has a recurring villainous antagonist, in the form of the evil sorcerer Kulan Gath. She even became Queen of Hyrkania at some point (to match Conan’s ascension to royalty).

Red Sonja can be recognized by various iconic elements. Her mane of red hair. Her double-edged sword (which the novels turned into her father’s old weapon, and that ended up gaining magical properties after killing so many men, sorcerers and demons). And… by her chainmail bikini. We need to talk about the chainmail bikini.

Red Sonja’s most iconic look is a bikini made of chainmail. Everybody heard about the “chainmail bikini”, and she made this look very popular in fantasy. It actually existed before – it was typical of female fantasy heroines to wear them in the 70s, but Red Sonja definitively took it to another level. She actually wore a more reasonable outfit in her first appearances, with a long-sleeved chainmail shirt, and short red pants – but the chainmail bikini look stuck to her. And… this is both what made Red Sonja iconic, and one of the culmination of Red Sonja’s criticism. Red Sonja, we cannot miss it, is a sexualized character, the very embodiment of the “sexy warrior” trope done… weirdly. Her “bikini-armor” is ridiculous, dangerous, unpractical, and is barely excused by her inhuman abilities. In fact, for a fierce and strong warrior she lacks any kind of “battling body”, being tall and slender with barely any trace of muscle. Because a female warrior has to be a sexy and beautiful warrior, that’s the rule of the 70s and 80s. And let’s not even talk about how her entire life and character is influenced by sexuality, from her “rape as backstory” to her specific weakness tied to sexual relationships… There is clearly a “woman-object” aspect here. BUT, and this is where things get important, Red Sonja is also, surprisingly, a feminist icon. Because she is precisely a fierce, strong and terrifying female warrior who equals or outmatches other men (and even defeated Conan a few times). She is as brutal, and drunk, and crass as other barbarians can be (despite her always looking like a super-model). She is a free, independent and wild figure of revenge and justice managing to get to the top in an ancient patriarchal world… Which results in a very strange, double-edged, ambiguous status of the character, both praised and dislike for how she was created. This notably led to several writers trying to come up with justifications, explanations or reflections about the “chainmail bikini”, and trying to apply some logic behind simple sex-appeal. For example in one version, Red Sonja deliberately wears this outfit to “distract” men with her beauty while she cuts their head off, using their own lust and misogynistic vision of women to make herself look less threatening and fearful – they probably can’t imagine that a sexy woman wearing nearly nothing can stab them in the heart or kick their head off. Another version rather insisted on Sonja wearing barely anything so that her immense agility couldn’t be hindered by a heavier armor. A third version even decided to have Red Sonja herself complain about the unpracticality of the bikini outfit – but despite recognizing its flaws and problems, refusing to let go of it, because with time she grew attached to it and cannot imagine herself going to battle dressed differently.

- - - - -

The actual origins of Red Sonja are quite interesting… Yes, she was invented by Robert E. Howard, the same man who created Conan. But, the original character of Howard had very little to do with the character as formed by Marvel. Most notably, Howard’s Sonja, named “Red Sonya of Rogatino”, was a female swashbuckler of the 16th century Europe. Her appearance story, “The Shadow of the Vulture”, was about the siege of Vienna by the Ottoman armies in 1529. It was Marvel’s own decision to turn her into a barbarian warrior, and to move her to the fabled “Hyborian Age” of Conan, not just to surf on Conan’s big popularity at the time but also to allow various team-ups between the two characters.

That being said, the character as established by Marvel itself has been prone to various changes throughout her various incarnations and reincarnations (because yes, the topic of reincarnation is often used to explain how one version of Red Sonja dies before another pops up). For example, some writers decided that she was never raped by the mercenaries, and never received a ban on sexuality from her goddess, and in turn became a true pansexual – and I insist. She isn’t just bisexual – she is also willing to get into bed with gods, spirits and supernatural entities. Other writers also decided to get rid of her superhuman abilities and supernatural status by removing the whole “Blessed by the goddess” aspect, and rather depicting her as a woman that trained hard all of her life and became the strongest woman of her land and age. Some series add to her immense strength, swordmastery and agility the divine power to wield any weapons – which means she can turn any object into a deadly battle artefact.

[trve-grimdark]

Honestly as much as I love the Solomon Kane movie...

We seriously need a Bran Mak Morn movie.

Preferably based off the one story he time nabs Kull of Atlantis to lead Nordic mercs alongside his Picts to defeat a Roman legion.