ASTONISHING TALES #3-5 DEC 1970 - APRIL 1971 THE PETRIFIED MAN
And so it came to pass in the latter part of 1970 that the most famous and influential Marvel artist of all time, Jack Kirby moved to DC. As well as leaving vacancies for new artists on THOR and FANTASTIC FOUR, his departure threatened the newly launched ASTONISHING TALES. Alongside AMAZING TALES, starring the re-vamped Black Widow and Kirby's INHUMANS, the ambitious anthology title had opened in the Summer of 1970 with a pairing of stories showcasing two very different characters, neither of whom had previously had their own series. Unusually for the time, one story centred on a well-established villain, the ubiquitous Doctor Doom, while the other promoted the Tarzan-inspired bit-part player Ka-Zar to his own series. The first two issues had been bolstered by the artwork of veteran Wally Wood as well as Kirby, and now with the absence of the latter you'd be forgiven for expecting the title to be dead in the water before it had even had a chance to establish itself. KA-ZAR had been plotted by Stan Lee in issue one and Roy Thomas in issue two and with Kirby gone it seems neither had any appetite for developing the series any further.
Maybe, therefore, when the December 1970 issue 3 of KA-ZAR was handed to a pair of relative newcomers, teenage writer Gerry Conway and 21-year old British artist Barry Smith (yet to add the regal-sounding 'Windsor' and already working on Marvel's sword-and-sorcery title CONAN THE BARBARIAN), there was little expectation of the strip other than that it would continue to keep the fledgling ASTONISHING TALES in flight for a few more issues.
We now know that by the end of 1971, Gerry Conway had established himself as one of Marvel's key writers, having secured writing duties on SUB-MARINER, IRON MAN, THOR and DAREDEVIL. Only a year earlier he'd mostly been professionally employed scripting framing sequences and the odd story for DC's Horror Anthologies. But with pieces like HOLD SOFTLY, HAND OF DEATH in THE WITCHING HOUR #10 (cover-dated June 1970), Conway had demonstrated both an assuredly lyrical writing style and an understanding beyond his years of certain elements of the human condition which did more than hint at his adeptness at handling story-form in the years to come. You can read my detailed appreciation of this story and its magnificent Alex Toth artwork here--
The first couple of instalments of KA-ZAR are pretty straightforward adventure fare, the jungle-character being displaced by Kirby and Lee to New York in a 'Hunter-becomes-the-hunted' yarn.
With Roy Thomas handling the scripting on issue 2, his and Kirby's contribution had closed with the mysterious appearance of a sinister grey-skinned character introducing himself as "The Petrified Man".
"I am one who-- like yourself-- once dwelled deep within the Savage Land," he explains to Ka-Zar, "I must return there soon-- or die!" He then adds ominously, "And if I perish... then your homeland shall perish with me!"
What then follows across 30 pages and issues 3-5 of ASTONISHING TALES is a breath-taking statement of intent from its creative team, Smith demonstrating the flair and grandiosity which defined CONAN, and Conway layering in such a rich array of ideas and linguistic flourishes that it seems like each 10-page instalment is at least double the length.
The story-arc kicks off with a beautifully composed splash-page whose geometric construction reveals Smith's design training, his artwork at this stage still firmly in the Marvel-ordained Kirby mould. Having revealed that this new character's flesh is "indeed turned to living stone", Conway demonstrates a bold command of expression, coupled with a confident control of both rhythm and dramatic effect as the the Petrified Man continues alliteratively-- "Death's touch is denied me-- And the price of that privilege is the form which stands before you... And an anguish beyond your comprehension!" Ka-zar responds with, "The work of demons!!" but is instantly corrected-- "Nay, my savage friend-- of gods!"
Over the page, Ka-zar accuses the stranger of speaking in "riddles", recognising that he wears the "symbol of the Sun God". The character's eyes too are shown more clearly to resemble the golden star-shaped symbol as he reveals he is more than five hundred years old.
We already feel we are in completely different territory from what we witnessed in issues 1 and 2. Despite the previous issue's claim that this month we were heading 'Back to the Stone Age', looking back on it now at a distance of fifty years this is very much Bronze Age ground zero. The narrative then shifts to the Savage Land where we are introduced to Zaladane, "Queen Priestess of Garokk, the Sun-God" and attentive readers will notice the features of the huge face carved into the rock behind her. While the notion of a Solar Deity is commonplace not only in mythology but also in some contemporary religions, Conway and Smith are careful to ensure their version does not closely resemble any of these, thereby avoiding possible distraction or even offence--
The cruel Zaladane is revealed to be quite the war-monger, urging her supine followers to prepare for the coming of the Sun-God through aggressive conquest of their neighbours. "Too long," she contends, "our Empire has mouldered under the banner of peace!" As a character Zaladane fits quite neatly into the dominant evil Queen archetype-- several examples of which in other comics I looked at in this post, if you're interested in such things.
Conway then takes three pages to allow the Petrified Man's tale to unfold, all the time using figurative touches to add texture to the storytelling. Rather than simply state, "I know this sounds crazy," his character says poetically, "Though your reason cry out against my words". And there is a lyrical richness to be enjoyed in lines such as "Time is but a veil to me-- to be brushed aside..."--
We learn how he was ship-wrecked, eventually washing ashore in the Savage Land where he stumbles upon that gigantic stone head we glimpsed previously--
The writer also inserts, for good measure, a handful of ironic references to the man's Christian faith-- his uttered exclamation of "Great Lord in Heaven!" is countered by his assertion that once inside the pagan deity's monumental head he drank from "the cup of Satan", regretting his action with the vain oath, "Saints save me".
To the Sun-God's own followers this "intruder" has himself committed "sacrilege" and, hearing the name of the pagan deity, Garokk, he confesses that-- "Forever, that name will burn bitter embers in my soul", rather fitting since he has already described the drink as coating his throat "like fire"--
Interestingly Conway also describes the drink as being strangely "cool", and this is just one of a series of juxtaposed opposites within his text to conjure up the strangeness of the Savage Land. The "fire" in the man's soul, for instance, contrasts neatly with the "tedious plains of white", the ice which had caused the ship-wreck--
Then when he'd been afloat in the freezing sea for some days he was suddenly swept under by its opposite-- "a current of warm water"--
Despite his Christian faith he alludes to the pagan notion of "the deathgod" and believes himself to be "forsaken by my creator" and washed up in a land "apart from Heaven and Hell". The man's simplistic faith results in his incapacity to comprehend of an afterlife outside of the binary choices between "Heaven or Hell". As a result, when he is confronted with what believes to be neither one of these, he can only conclude that "this place is mad"--
And while being chased by the Sun-God's followers he characterises his pursuers as "the very hounds of hell"--
Then as a further test to his Christian faith he finds he has seemingly been awarded immortality, but that his physical form changes to resemble that of the monument, suggesting that he himself is "to become the Sun King"--
But the five hundred years of loneliness and scorn have not yet embittered him enough to relish the suffering and death of others. Instead he asserts that he must return to the Savage Land to avert the war in his name which we have already seen Zaladane embarking upon--
So, this fundamentally benign figure, whose actual name we are never given, is forced to actually take on the role of a pagan deity he himself quite possibly still does not believe in. But rather than fulfilling the prophecy in the violent way Garrok's High Priestess wishes, he intends to bring peace. Conway is clearly teasing us with the notion that religious leaders might have a very different agenda to the will of the gods they claim to worship. Once they reach the Savage Land, Ka-zar learns that Zaladane's conquests have begun, meeting an old friend, Tongah whose own wife and children have been killed along with the rest of his village--
Issue 4 opens with Zaladane's forces flying above another target on pterodactyls, again spouting the rhetoric of war, claiming that they are witnessing the end of "an era of spineless peace now followed by the blessed joys of conquest!" The fore-grounding of Zaladane and one of her followers helps create a sense, not only of her destructive authority, but also of the scale of the buildings below and their vulnerability to attack from these flying assailants--
Zaladane exhibits a harsh intolerance of other people's faith, scorning her pacifist victims' trembling as their hands are "raised in useless supplication", to her a gesture of "the weak" as they "face their doom"--
As Zaladane's Sun Tribe rain fire down from above, the people below realise not even their temple will afford them sanctuary against an enemy whose own faith in a destructive Sun-God inspires only hatred and a desire for killing. And readers at the time would surely have been prompted to see parallels with the use of napalm in Vietnam--
A little later there is the shocking image of acrid smoke pouring out of a turreted tower and Zaladane herself declares that "none shall escape alive", that the population below are "a sacrifice! In the name of the ever-sacred Garokk... Sun God!" And today's readers cannot help but be reminded of other examples of religious fanaticism which results in the hatred and mindless destruction of those who might believe something different--
Cutting to Ka-zar, we find him splitting from his companions, having harnessed a unicorn to transport him quickly across the terrain "to bring an end to Zaladane's Holy War"--
Then, as Tongah also charges away on foot to join the battle, "the one who calls himself Sun-God" is left alone. For such a young writer, Conway demonstrates a surprising empathy for the elderly when his character bemoans the fact that young people lack respect for the old. More surprising still is the bitterly eloquent, aphoristic way he describes the polar opposites of youth and old age as being part of the same inevitable process-- "Youth casts old age aside, 'til in its turn,-- age buries youth's soul in a mockery of flesh!"
Similarly the youthful writer proves adept at presenting the full horror of war-- as Ka-zar charges to the city determined to ensure Zaladane pays for her actions, Smith's illustration of bodies hurtling through the air in an explosive blast is given added poignancy by the inclusion of a woman crying out desperately for her husband. Conway's use of captions here to directly respond, first to Ka-zar's vow to make Zaladane pay and secondly to the woman's cries for her husband, is both masterful and extraordinary--
And the writer also introduces a note of ambiguity as regards his feelings on pacifism-- Having mused that Ka-zar's response comes at 'that instant when thinking fails and emotion rules' he appears to be suggesting that it is hard to maintain one's principles when confronted with the excessive force of an aggressor. Zaladane's previous claims about the Savage Land are confirmed by Ka-zar's description of it as "a peaceful land... without the strife of war", but on the next page he questions one of the city's inhabitants who claims they are "a peaceful race" who cannot retaliate, saying, "Is this peace or sheer folly!" before stressing that they must find weapons to fight back.
Dismounting one of the attackers and rendering him unconscious with a smack to the jaw, Ka-zar asserts that the inevitable end for "the fighter" will always be "defeat" and muses that no victory lasts forever. These are bold statements in which any lack of subtlety is counteracted by the passion with which they are presented.
Then as he confronts Zaladane herself, Ka-zar immediately rejects her offer of "amnesty" if he agrees to subjugate himself to her. His response is unsurprising, and Conway seems to be setting us up for a battle almighty as any regular readers of Marvel publications would now justifiably expect--
In addition the arrival of the enraged Tongah who knocks the flaming weapon from the evil Queen's hand before declaring his own intention of ending her reign of terror also helps build tension to the carnage which must inevitably follow--
But then Conway confounds these expectations entirely as he brings in another Deus ex Machina, appearing first as a flash of light from which comes a voice declaring "an end to killing"--
Although Ka-zar himself and Zaladane have no idea what this light might be, the readers have just witnessed a transformation in the five-hundred year old Petrified Man-- having journeyed to the huge monument to the Sun-God he finds himself imbued with a terrifying power, as bolts of raw energy erupt from his eyes and obliterate a predatory dinosaur--
And so, as a golden ethereal face manifests before them they learn that he truly has become the Sun-God, "transformed from flesh to a higher reality". And in defiance of Zaladane's thirst for war he declares that he is dissatisfied and only wants peace. It would surely be a boon for humankind if all religious fanatics of every persuasion heard their deity command them as he does-- "Ye shall fight in my name no longer!"
Then, in place of the anticipated carnage, we have a series of cool blue-tinted frames depicting the calm and tranquillity that results when such a god speaks and sees 'the weapons of war dissolved'--
But we have only reached the end of the second instalment of this three-part storyline, and as the "ghostly visage" fades, Zaladane jumps on a pterodactyl. "Whosoever lives by fire-- must find his hopes consumed" yells Ka-zar at the escaping Queen, who counters by mocking his pacifist words as "rhetoric" while the flying creature snatches him into its claws--
Which brings us to the third and final part of this storyline, and again a beautifully composed image, Barry Smith out-Kirbying Kirby with Zaladane urging Ka-zar to make peace with his own gods in anticipation of his death--
As Ka-zar's struggling causes the flying creature to crash into the branches of a tree, Conway again employs heat imagery, referring to 'the furnace of destiny' and 'the hottest hate' being 'cooled by the ice of fear'--
And as we return to the Petrified Man, he too talks of his eyes as "burning orbs" which he attempts vainly to cool with water--
Until now the character has been presented only in a sympathetic light, but at this point Conway introduces a new twist-- attempting to save some people from being devoured by a huge creature, the Petrified Man inadvertently kills them too.
But rather than regret his clumsy action, this newly omnipotent deity observes the tranquillity of death and concludes, with a twisted logic worthy of a psychopathic computer, that "if there's to be peace in this world, then all... man and beast alike... all must DIE!"
And when he meets Tongah again he reveals his "contempt", and now talks chillingly of the need for humanity to be "cleansed"--
Meanwhile Ka-zar finds Zaladane seemingly remorseful (spoiler alert-- she's not really!) as she informs him that the Petrified Man is doomed to madness, which the reader has already just witnessed, but which he can escape by bathing in the fire-pool (yes, fire again) which lies beneath the stone idol--
Zaladane lures her deity to the idol where he immediately attacks Ka-zar, now totally taken over by madness, which puts into ironic perspective his own claims about the Savage Land and its people when he first washed up there--
As Ka-zar tries to calm him Conway scripts a beautifully crafted speech in which the doomed deity not only voices his insane desire to destroy all life, but also lucidly voices the pain he has felt for half a millennium-- "To love, and watch your loved ones die..." he says, "...to yearn for peace, and to find only everlasting war... to beg time and time again for death... and to live, and to live, and to live!"--
That such a poignant speech accompanies his crazed violent action makes it all the more powerful, we are being made almost to feel sympathy for a malign destructive force as it prepares to wreak havoc on everyone and everything-- and on the next page, indeed, this manic deity swears to make "this very planet crumble"-- and Smith's illustration is dominated by the huge stone visage, staring impassively out like a god who has no compassion for his people, only a desire for their subservience and death--
But as Ka-zar plunges his assailant into the pool, the Petrified Man's powers wane as predicted, and once again he feels fire in his soul, "a great--- consuming... flame...", Conway describing the process as "a black baptism"--
As he dies, his body transformed once more, this time to a golden-skinned, almost human husk, he feels "so cold" and enveloped by darkness before glimpsing "a glimmer... but a silver shadow... but a golden light..." Once again Conway uses these binary opposites--hot and cold, darkness and light, and now silver and gold. His dying words evoke the writer's inspiration in poetry such as W. B. Yeats' THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS-- "The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun", the poet regularly using pairings of opposites in his writings to represent the perfection of harmony-- night and day, silver and gold, Christian and pagan--
Ka-zar demonstrates a knowledge of Christian mythology by suggesting the man who "climbed" from death "those many hundreds of years ago" will be forever known as "Lazarus"--
Conway also happily posits the question, "Where does the Priestess go when her God has died?" reflecting one of the great conundrums of the 20th Century, the Nietzschean concept of the Death of God--
But Zaladane does not tremble at this awful knowledge for more than a few seconds, as the grim stone face towers over her before collapsing and crushing both her and a guard-beast which Ka-zar had seemingly dispatched but which has just reappeared-- Her demise does not come from a vengeful human, nor from an unthinking beast, but from the dispassionate deity in whose name she has wreaked havoc. And as with so much of this story, there's a certain poetry in that.
It's also fitting that the final image is of the statue lying face-down in the dust, quite literally a fallen idol, its dread hold over its hate-filled worshippers ended.
My thoughts on the first 2 parts of the SUPERMAN story arc KRYPTONITE NEVERMORE and on Kirby's JIMMY OLSEN #136 and FOREVER PEOPLE #1 can be found by clicking the covers below--
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