Retrospective: The Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe

I've no doubt mentioned on numerous occasions that, as a kid, I was never a big reader of comic books – at least not superhero comic books. Even so, many of my friends were avid comic readers and, more than that, it would have been quite difficult growing up in the 1970s and '80s to not know at least a little bit about comic book superheroes, particularly those published by Marvel Comics, merchandise for which was seemingly everywhere at the time. So, while I never a devoted fan of the genre, I was familiar with its characters and storylines.

Consequently, once I got into roleplaying games, I inevitably picked up Champions and had a good time with it, though it was never going to rise as high in my affections as, say, Dungeons & Dragons or Traveller. Champions was too ponderous and math-heavy for my tastes and seemed, to my way of thinking at any rate, to be a poor fit with the fast and frenetic action of superhero slugfests. Champions was good enough, because I didn't have any other ready alternatives, but I never connected to it the way I did with other RPGs.

TSR's Marvel Super Heroes, on the other hand, was pretty close to perfect for my purposes. That it was published by TSR certainly helped, I am sure, but, unlike many of TSR's other non-D&D offerings, Marvel Super Heroes was one that I played regularly, because it hit a sweet spot in its design and presentation. This was a game that was meant to be played and my friends and I had a blast with it. Sure, one can quibble about its lack of a robust character creation system, but that mostly didn't matter, because the whole point of this game was taking on the roles of one of Marvel's immense pantheon of heroes. 

That's what made the Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe, released in four 256-page volumes over the course of 1988, so appealing. Modeled on the 15-volume Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series from Marvel Comics, TSR's Handbook provided game statistics for nearly every Marvel character ever to appear in its comics, as well as information on their history and even roleplaying notes. If you were playing Marvel Super Heroes, this was pretty much a must-have product, especially if, like me, your favorite heroes and villains had never appeared in other MSH products or in the pages of Jeff Grubb's excellent "The Marvel-Phile" series.

Much like the Monstrous Compendium for AD&D Second Edition, the Handbook's pages were five-hole punched so that they could be organized into a binder. Unlike the MC, I don't believe TSR ever produced officially-branded binders for this purpose, but my memory is hazy. Interestingly, Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe, released between 1985 and 1987 in obvious imitation of Marvel's earlier effort, was released in a similar loose-leaf format. I have no idea whether TSR was, in turn, borrowing a page from DC or if it was simply something the company had, for whatever reason, hit upon as a useful format for releasing its products at the time.

I loved these books and regret that I no longer own my original copies of them. Unfortunately, they came out during my college years and a lot of things I acquired during that time went missing as I regularly moved between my parents' home and various dormitories. TSR released four more, slimmer follow-up volumes to the originals – annual updates that included new or overlooked characters, in addition to literal updates previously presented characters. I never saw any of these and so cannot speak to their specific contents, but I get the impression that, like the initial volumes, they were well-regarded and useful.

Thinking back on this series of products, I find myself remembering just how good Marvel Super Heroes was and how much I enjoyed playing it. Though I've played (or attempted to play) several other superhero RPGs in the years since, none has ever really grabbed me the way MSH did. That might just be because I'm not, as I said, a diehard superhero fan and thus have never really committed to the genre for roleplaying purposes. However, I prefer to think it's more likely that Marvel Super Heroes was just a solid, intuitive design that fit its subject matter in a way few others have. I miss it.

Chamber of Chills

I mentioned in my earlier post today that there was a Marvel comics adaptation of "The Thing on the Roof" in issue #3 of Chamber of Chills (March 1973), scripted by Roy Thomas (of Conan the Barbarian and The Savage Sword of Conan fame, among many others) and drawn by Frank Brunner. Here's the cover – and, no, nothing like this happens in either the story or the adaptation.

The adaptation is broadly faithful to Howard's story, though it eliminates the first part of it, where Tussmann comes to the narrator (here given the name of Mr Erwin rather than being unnamed) and asks his help in procuring a copy of the 1839 edition of Nameless Cults, instead launching straight into the narrator's visit to Tussmann's Sussex manor. It's also a bit more melodramatic, adding little flourishes here and there that I assume were intended to heighten the tension and horror of the tale.

Likewise, the comic ends with an actual revelation of the creature that is responsible for Tussmann's demise, something Howard intentionally leaves vague:

I can certainly see why Thomas and Brunner decided to depict the unseen Thing on the Roof, but, as is so often the case, I'm not sure it could ever have done justice to anyone's imagination of what the creature looked like. In any case, I'm nonetheless pleased to draw your attention to another comic book adaptation of a pulp writer. I think the role comics, especially Marvel comics, played in introducing a new generation to the works writers from decades before. Come to think of it, that'd a worthy topic for a post all its own ...

There and Back Again

I am now safely back in my northern lair after spending the last five days at Gamehole Con in lovely Madison, Wisconsin. I have a lot to say about it and other topics, but that will have to wait until after I have dug myself out from under all the emails, comments, and other correspondence that has piled up in my absence. In the meantime, enjoy another amusing Tolkien-related comic:

https://reparrishcomics.com/post/186528205633/facebook-twitter-instagram-redbubble-buy

It's Clobberin' Time!

If you were reading Dragon magazine in the mid-1980s, advertisements for TSR's Marvel Super Heroes like this one were ubiquitous. The company worked very hard to get the word out about their new RPG and rightfully so. Though I was never (and still am not) much of a superhero guy, Jeff Grubb's design is so clever that I always had a blast playing MSH. That's no surprise: aside from (obviously) Dungeons & Dragons, Marvel Super Heroes is the only truly influential game TSR ever published and its impact on the hobby outlasted the game itself. 

The Articles of Dragon: "The Marvel-Phile"

The very first installment of Jeff Grubb’s "The Marvel-Phile" appeared in issue #88 of Dragon (August 1984). The column’s purpose was straightforward: to provide game statistics for Marvel Comics characters – famous, obscure, and in-between – for use with TSR’s newly released Marvel Super Heroes roleplaying game. Ultimately, the column would appear in 78 issues of the magazine, its last one appearing in issue #198 (October 1993), long after I'd stopped reading Dragon regularly. 

The debut entry of the column focused on Thor, Loki, and Ulik the Troll. It was an interesting choice to kick things off. Thor was, by 1984, one of Marvel’s most recognizable superheroes, a long-time member of the Avengers, and one of the publisher’s flagship solo characters. Loki, of course, was his long-standing nemesis and his inclusion made perfect sense. Ulik, however, was another matter. Though he’d been appearing in Thor comics since the 1960s, he was by no means a household name. His presence here, I think, highlighted the column’s larger mission, namely, showing that the Marvel Super Heroes RPG wasn’t just about Spider-Man, Captain America, or the Hulk. It was also about the sprawling, interconnected Marvel Universe, filled with strange and colorful characters who might otherwise never make it to the tabletop.

That was part of what made "The Marvel-Phile" special. Each column offered not just game stats but also background, history, and context, which were enough to orient players who might not be die-hard readers of Marvel comics. That certainly described me. I was never a huge fan of superheroes as a kid. I dabbled, to be sure, and I knew some of the heavy hitters thanks to Saturday morning cartoons and endless merchandising. But beyond that shallow familiarity, I often drew a blank when confronted with Marvel’s deeper roster. For me, Grubb’s column was a kind of primer. I might never have read the issues of Thor where the Thunder God encountered Ulik, but I knew who he was because Dragon explained it.

Looking back, it’s easy to see "The Marvel-Phile" as part of TSR’s broader strategy in the mid-1980s. With Marvel Super Heroes, the company had acquired the license to one of the biggest names in comics. Of course, translating that license into a lasting RPG line wasn’t simple. The game’s beloved FASERIP rules were quite innovative at the time, but its longevity depended on holding players' attention over the longer haul. The column in Dragon did just that, ensuring a steady stream of new material while simultaneously advertising the game to magazine’s already sizable readership.

Jeff Grubb was the perfect choice to write it. He was not only the designer of Marvel Super Heroes but also someone with an evident affection for its source material. His enthusiasm came through in every installment, making the column accessible to casual readers while still satisfying those with more extensive comic book knowledge. In many ways, "The Marvel-Phile" functioned like a bridge. It connected the gaming world and the comics world, inviting players to explore the latter while providing them with the mechanical tools to do so in the former.

As I noted at the beginning of this post, the column proved popular enough to become a semi-regular feature in the Ares Section of Dragon for almost a decade. For some readers, it was their first exposure to characters who would only much later become mainstream through movies and television. Decades before the Marvel Cinematic Universe made Loki and Thor household names, Grubb’s column was doing the work of introducing them and countless others to gamers around the world. That, I think, is the enduring significance of "The Marvel-Phile." Like many of the best features of Dragon, it simultaneously served practical gaming needs and provided a window onto a larger hobby culture. For me and, I suspect, for many others, it was as much an education in Marvel Comics as it was an aid to running a superhero RPG.

Smoke Rings and Sorcery: An Ode to Wormy

Among the many delights of flipping through issues of Dragon magazine from my youth is getting the chance to see Dave Trampier's Wormy comic strip once again. Long before I was conscious of the names of any of the artists who appeared in my favorite RPG products, I knew Wormy. Even among the clutter of rules variants, advertisements, fiction, and the occasionally bombastic editorials that defined Dragon during the years when I most avidly read it, Wormy stood out, in large part because it was so strange. It was a peculiar, beautiful little world unto itself, filled with pool-playing dragons, cigar-chomping ogres, and an imp who spoke with the laid-back confidence of a veteran hustler. It was, in short, utterly unlike anything else in the pages of Dragon and it fascinated me – in large part because I didn't fully understand it or its continuing storyline, having picked it up many issues after it first began.

Wormy's debut (in issue #9, September 1977) occurred when Dragon was still very much in its formative years. Indeed, the hobby of roleplaying itself was barely out of its own infancy and TSR’s flagship magazine was still trying to figure out what kind of publication it wanted to be. Early issues mixed game material with essays, fiction, and humor. Comics became a regular feature before long, with J.D. Webster's Finieous Fingers being one of the more well-known of the bunch, even though it ended its run about a year before I started reading Dragon. But Wormy stood out as something different. It was never simply an in-joke for gamers nor a gag strip loosely inspired by fantasy tropes. Instead, it presented a fully realized fantasy world rendered in lush color and with a distinct artistic sensibility.

What immediately set Wormy apart was, of course, Trampier’s art. Nowadays, we all celebrate Trampier from his iconic work on the AD&D Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Screen. His style is clean, expressive and rich in texture and character. Wormy carried those same qualities into serialized comic form, but with an added flourish of visual wit and playfulness. The strip was never slapdash or haphazard. Trampier’s panels were packed with detail, his character designs expressive, his linework confident. Each page was a feast for the eyes and even when the plot meandered a bit (as it regularly did), the visuals carried the reader along to such an extent that he didn't care. I know I didn't, even though, as I said, it wasn't always clear to my younger self just what was happening in many installments.

The tone of the strip is one of its greatest charms. Wormy is unquestionably fantasy, but it’s fantasy as seen through a haze of cigar smoke and the low hum of a barroom pool table. Its characters speak in a colloquial American idiom that lends the strip a grounded, personable quality. One never gets the sense that Wormy or Ace or the ogres and trolls with whom he shares his world are interested in epic quests or noble deeds. They’re more likely to be plotting a scam, hustling a demon, or arguing about who’s buying the next round. This sense of the fantastical-as-everyday-life gives Wormy much of its charm and humor, not to mention its distinctiveness from the other comics that appeared alongside it in Dragon. 

In this, Wormy mirrors the culture of early roleplaying itself. The early hobby, as reflected in the pages of Dragon, was a strange admixture of wargamers, fantasy and science fiction fans, history buffs, and countercultural weirdos. This was a time before fantasy had hardened into genre orthodoxy, when anything could happen and often did. The world Trampier presented in Wormy feels like a campaign gone delightfully off the rails: a sandbox setting where the players long ago stopped caring about the dungeon and are now embroiled in a decades-long tavern brawl. For me, that was a big part of what I found so compelling about Wormy. It was so unlike my then-narrow conception of "fantasy" that I couldn't help but keep reading.

Over time, Trampier introduced a larger story into the strip. There were plots and schemes in motion and strange characters lurking just out of frame. Readers were teased with glimpses of the larger world beyond Wormy’s abode and the smoky dens of the trolls. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, Wormy vanished. Trampier’s final installment appeared in Dragon #132 (April 1988), ending mid-story. He never offered a public explanation. Other than the following, which appeared in issue #136 (August 1988), TSR never provided an explanation for what had happened:

Wormy, along with its creator, David Trampier, vanished without a trace.

This abrupt disappearance only deepened the comic strip’s allure. In the years that followed, fans spun wild theories: Was Trampier dead? Had he severed all ties with the gaming world? Or was it something darker? For decades, the mystery endured, unanswered. Then, in 2002, word emerged that Trampier was alive, living a quiet life in southern Illinois as a taxi driver. He had steadfastly declined all invitations to return to art or gaming until 2014, when he agreed to showcase some of his original artwork at a local Illinois game convention. Tragically, just three weeks before the event, he died suddenly at age 59.

In hindsight, Wormy feels like a microcosm of an entire era in fantasy gaming, a time that was raw, personal, and unapologetically chaotic. The strip was a labor of love, brimming with anarchic energy, improvisational flair, and unfiltered creativity. Like the Dragon magazine of its heyday, Wormy was gloriously messy, fiercely idiosyncratic, and utterly brilliant in its refusal to conform or explain itself.

As the hobby grows ever more polished and commercialized, Wormy stands as a vibrant reminder of its roots, a time when oddballs and iconoclasts like Trampier defined its spirit. More than a relic, Wormy embodies the untamed passion and fearless imagination of those who dared to be unapologetically strange. It captures a moment when the heart of gaming pulsed with individuality, free from the gloss of corporate agendas.

Whenever I leaf through old issues of Dragon, I find myself missing Wormy – not just the comic, but what it stood for: the spirit of unfiltered creativity, the joy of irreverence, and the beautiful imperfections of a world made by and for dreamers. In remembering Wormy, we remember that the true magic of roleplaying lies not in polished production values or grand designs, but in the bold, eccentric, and often messy adventures we undertake with one another .

In Case of Fire, Break Glass

Nearly everyone who's read the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide remembers Will McLean's delightful comics that poked gentle fun at many of the conventions of fantasy roleplaying. Traveller had a few examples of its own, my favorite being this one which appeared in The Traveller Book by Loren Wiseman and John M. Morrison. 

Escape from C'thulhu

Speaking of minigames, Phil Foglio's What's New with Phil & Dixie humorously treated this topic in issue #60 of Dragon (April 1982). The last game tested by the titular characters is Escape from C'thulhu [sic]. According to Phil, it's very easy to play: Just open the box, read aloud the enclosed incantation ...

The Cost of Power

One of the many ways that fantasy roleplaying games differ from their pulp fantasy inspirations concerns the use of magic. With comparatively few exceptions, pulp fantasy depicts magic as, at best, wild and unpredictable and, at worst, as outright diabolical. RPGs, meanwhile, treat magic almost as a form of technology, an instrument that is neither inherently good nor bad and that, if used with appropriate training, rarely if ever presents any danger to its user. 

The most obvious exceptions that come to my mind are Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer, both of which explicitly caution against the use of magic by characters, precisely because of its inherent danger. A more recent exception is Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game. Of course, two of the aforementioned RPGs are based directly on foundational works of pulp fantasy, while the other self-avowedly looks to pulp literature for its inspiration. There may be a few other contrary examples here and there, but, for the most part, fantasy roleplaying games have followed the lead of Dungeons & Dragons in treating magic purely instrumentally – differing from safe, reliable technology only in esthetics.

Back in Dragon #65 (September 1982), Phil Foglio lampooned this to good effect in his What's New with Phil & Dixie. In this particular strip, Phil claims that the differences between medieval and science fiction RPGs can be summed up in one word: none. When Dixie objects, he then provides her with a series of examples to prove his point that, while tendentious, nevertheless contain a ring of truth. The comic even invokes Clarke's Third Law for additional support.

If you look at the history of the hobby over the last half-century, the paradigm of magic-as-technology has clearly been the most common. Whether that's because D&D set the pattern by adopting it or because it's just a simpler and perhaps even more fun way to handle magic, I can't say. Still, as a fan of dangerous magic, it's hard not to be a little saddened by how rarely it's been employed in RPGs over the decades. Perhaps it's time for a change ...

Landfall!

Never having been a huge reader of comics, I keep forgetting that, during the late '80s and early 1990s, DC Comics published a number of titles based (mostly) on Dungeons & Dragons settings. One of them was set in Krynn, the world of Dragonlance. From what I understand, the Dragonlance comics were prequels that took place before the events of the first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and consequently introduced a number of original characters to serve as its protagonists alongside more familiar names.

Since I haven't had the chance to read these comics, I don't have much more to say about them specifically. However, I am fascinated to discover that, starting with issue #22 (August 1990), the series had a fair number of issues whose stories took place on the continent of Taladas, the setting of the Time of the Dragon boxed set for which I retain a fondness. I suppose this makes sense. If the comic writers had to keep away from the more familiar War of the Lance storyline, looking to a new and mostly undeveloped part of the larger Dragonlance world is a good choice. 

Did anyone read these or any of the other TSR comics published by DC? Were any of them any good?

Retrospective: Prince Valiant: The Story Telling Game

When I was kid, I always looked forward to the Sunday edition of the local newspaper, because it had this enormous color comics section. Truly, there were dozens upon dozens of these strips – everything from Peanuts to Garfield to Hagar the Horrible and more. Also present were a number of "old" comics, like Mark Trail, Apartment 3-G, and Mary Worth, whose continued presence baffled me. Who read these comics? Certainly not I, nor any of my childhood friends. 

However, there was one "old" comic that I often did read: Prince Valiant. I did so partly because of the comic's subject matter, Prince Valiant was set, as its subtitle proclaimed, "in the days of King Arthur" and I had long been a devoted fan of Arthurian legendry. Furthermore, Prince Valiant was beautifully drawn and had a very – to me – strange presentation. There were no speech balloons or visual onomatopoeia, just lots of text arranged like storybook. 

I was never a consistent reader of Prince Valiant, but, when I did take the time to do so, I almost always enjoyed it. There was a sincerity to the comic that I appreciated as a youngster, as well as an infectious love of heroism and romance (in all senses of the term). I wouldn't say that Prince Valiant played a huge role in my subsequent fondness for tales of fantastic adventure, but there's no doubt that it played some role, hence why I took an interest in Greg Stafford's 1989 roleplaying game adaptation when it was released.

Stafford is probably best known as the man behind Glorantha, the setting of RuneQuest. For me, though, Pendragon will always be his magnum opus – and one of the few RPGs I consider "perfect." Consequently, when I eventually learned of the existence of this game, I was intensely interested. How would it differ from Pendragon? What specifically did it bring to the table that justified its existence as a separate game rather than, say, a supplement to Pendragon? These are questions whose answers I wouldn't learn for quite some time. 1989 was something of a tumultuous year for me; I was busy with other things, and it'd only be sometime in the mid-1990s that I would finally lay eyes upon Prince Valiant.

The most obvious way that Prince Valiant differs from Pendragon is revealed in its subtitle: "The Story-Telling Game." Now, some might immediately think that, in this instance, "storytelling" is simply a synonym for "roleplaying" and you'd be (mostly) right – sorta. The important thing to bear in mind is that Prince Valiant is intended as an introductory game for newcomers to this hobby of ours. Consequently, Stafford tries to use common sense words and concepts that aren't rooted in pre-1974 miniatures wargaming culture. Hence, he talks about "storytelling" rather than "roleplaying" and "episodes" rather than "adventures" or "scenarios" and so forth. The result is a game that's written in a simpler, less jargon-laden way than was typical of RPGs at the time (or even today).

At the same time, Stafford's use of the term "storytelling" isn't simply a matter of avoiding cant. Prince Valiant is, compared to most other similar games, intentionally very simple in its rules structure, so that players can focus on the cooperative building of a compelling narrative set in Hal Foster's Arthurian world. Additionally, the game provides the option of allowing even players to take over the story-telling role within an episode, setting a new scene or introducing a new character or challenge. The chief storyteller, which is to say, the referee in traditional RPGs, is encouraged not to ignore these player-inserted story elements but instead to run with them, using them as a way to introduce unexpected twists and turns within the larger unfolding narrative. 

The other clear way that Prince Valiant differs from Pendragon is its rules, which can fit on a single page. This makes them easy to learn and remember, as well as to use. Unlike more traditional RPGs with their assortment of funny-shaped dice, Stafford opted in Prince Valiant to use only coins. For any action where the result is not foregone, a number of coins are flipped, with heads representing successes. The more heads flipped, the better the success. In cases where a character competes against another character, such as combat, successes are compared, with the character achieving the most successes emerging victorious – simplicity itself! 

Last but certainly not least, Prince Valiant differs from Pendragon because of the pages upon pages of beautiful artwork derived from the comic. Not only does this give the game its own distinctive look, it also highlights its adventuresome, Saturday matinee serial tone in contrast to the heavier, occasionally darker tone of Pendragon and the myth cycles on which it drew. That's not to say Prince Valiant is unserious or "for kids," only that it's a fair bit "lighter" than its "big brother" and thus probably more suitable for younger and/or less experienced players. In that respect, it makes an excellent first RPG.

It's worth noting, too, that the bulk of Prince Valiant's 128-page rulebook is made up not of game mechanics but of advice and tools for players and storytellers alike. Stafford quite obviously distilled the lessons he learned from his many years of playing and refereeing roleplaying games, presenting them in a conversational, easy-to-understand way. Indeed, I've met many people over the years who've claimed that Prince Valiant's true value is not so much as a game in its own right, despite their affection for it, but as an introduction to roleplaying. True though this is, it's also undeniably an excellent game that I'd love to play some day.

That's right: I have never played Prince Valiant and am not sure I ever will. The copy I read years ago was owned by someone else and I've never found a used copy at a reasonable price. I recall that there was an updated or revised version published a few years ago. It doesn't appear to be available through the Chaosium website, alas. Mind you, I certainly don't lack for good RPGs to play; it'd just be great to give this classic one a whirl one day.

Stuck in the Past

As I've no doubt explained previously, I was never much of a comics reader as a kid – or, more precisely, I was never much of a superhero comics reader as a kid. With the exception of Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, which I picked up intermittently, the two comics I followed with any devotion were both science fiction titles, Star Wars (about which I've written many times before) and Micronauts (about which I don't believe I have). 

Nevertheless, like all American boys growing up in the 1970s, I was still very much aware of superheroes, thanks in no small part to their TV and movie adaptations, including cartoons. Perhaps because he was Marvel's most popular – and merchandised – character at the time, I had a special fondness for Spider-Man. I loved the terrible 1960s cartoon, which I saw in reruns, as well as the equally awful 1977 live action series, starring Nicholas Hammond of The Sound of Music Fame. I also remember watching the Adam West Batman series, various incarnations of Super Friends, the 1978 Superman movie, and probably others I've long forgotten.

As I got older, I retained a vague affection for the idea of superheroes, especially after I started playing RPGs. I can still vividly recall some of the adventures my friends and I had playing, first, Champions, and, later, Marvel Super Heroes. I remember, too, when we started to see big budget Hollywood movies featuring various costumed characters, starting with Tim Burton's Batman. The release of that movie in 1989 was a major cultural event and its success not only spawned three sequels but also paved the way for yet more superhero movies, a trend that has continued to the present day.

Despite not calling myself a fan of superheroes, I've seen more than my fair share of the superhero movies released in the last three decades, enjoying some more than others. One of the things that's always bugged me about these movies (and other adaptations) is how many of them continue to tread the same ground that their original source material did decades ago. There may indeed be nothing new under the sun, but did we really need to see another version of "The Dark Phoenix Saga?" For that matter, have there been any new superheroes or superhero stories produced in the last couple of decades with any staying power? Why are the biggest pop cultural characters all products of the 1980s or earlier?

I think about this often, most recently during a recent trip with my family. While perusing some weird snacks and candies in a store, I spied a tall, thin, red can featuring what looked to me like Larry Elmore's iconic cover painting for the Frank Mentzer-edited Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1984). Drawing closer, it turned that, yes, it was Elmore's artwork on a D&D-branded energy drink calling itself a "Hero's Potion of Power." Intrigued, I bought the thing, but I didn't have the courage to try it. That job fell to my daughter, who declared it "alright, but nothing special." 

On the same trip, we went to a bookstore not far from where I grew up. I hadn't found anything to purchase, so I stood out near the lobby of the store while my daughter paid for a book. When I looked over at the checkout counter, I saw a display filled with little boxes sporting an immediately recognizable color scheme. I did an almost comical double take, because I was sure that my aging eyes must have erred in some way, because I couldn't conceive that I was seeing what I, in fact, was seeing – the familiar blue and brown palette of the AD&D Monster Manual.

Sure enough, that's exactly what it was. Apparently, the boxes contain one of a series of randomized plastic monster figurines based on the illustrations of the original Monster Manual. This, frankly, befuddled me almost as much as the Hero's Potion of Power, but then I've never really understood the appeal of these expensive, randomized "loot boxes." Beyond that, why were the figurines based on the artwork of Dave Trampier and Dave Sutherland rather than more contemporary designs? Did it have something to do with D&D's 50th anniversary? I'm honestly not sure of the answer. For all I know, there may be similar loot boxes available for the monsters of later D&D editions, but my gut tells me that's unlikely to be the case. (If I'm mistaken about this, feel free to correct me in the comments).

Of course, this past Christmas, my wife bought me a Dungeons & Dragons T-shirt that she unexpectedly came across while shopping. She knows I'm normally not a wearer of such things – I abhor the brandification of the game – but the fact that the shirt featured the Erol Otus cover painting of Tom Moldvay's Basic Set was sufficiently unusual that she decided to take a chance. She was right to do so, because I was positively tickled by the gift and often wear it as a sleep shirt (I'd never wear it while out and about – I'm too old for that sort of thing).

I can't help but wonder why it is that, in the pop cultural sphere, so much of what is being presented and sold to us are the products of earlier generations of creative minds. Is this simply the result of a lack of imagination or is it because, on some level, we know that we'll never be able to come up with anything better than our predecessors? If I were to travel back in time to tell my younger self that, decades from now, there'd still be new Star Trek shows and Star Wars movies – or that I couldn't care less about any of them – I doubt he'd believe me and yet here we are. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but what does it mean when popular culture spends decades luxuriating in it? 

I'm as happy as anyone to see Erol Otus art on a T-shirt (even if he's unlikely to have profited from it in any way). At the same time, I think there's something not just decadent but even stagnant about endlessly recycling the pop culture of the 50s, 60, 70s, and 80s only even more vapid and rampantly consumerist than before. Have we simply run out of new ideas? Or do the new ideas simply lack the appeal of the older ones? What's really going on here and what does it mean?

More on Mimics

In response to my post last week, several readers suggested that the now-commonplace image of a mimic as a chest with teeth might have its origins outside of Dungeons & Dragons itself. According to this theory, it was the artwork of Akira Toriyama – best known in the West for his manga, Dragon Ball – for the Japanese video game, Dragon Quest III (1988), that first popularized this image.

Dragon Quest is an immensely successful and influential series of video games in Japan. Its gameplay is heavily inspired by earlier Western computer RPGs, such as Wizardry and Ultima, which were themselves heavily inspired by D&D. Given how many D&D players in the '70s and '80s were also into the growing world of video and computer games, it's not a stretch to suggest that Dragon Quest might well have some effect on their conception of the mimic. The only snag is timing: Dragon Quest III wasn't localized in North America until 1991 (under the title Dragon Warrior III, to avoid confusion with the other DragonQuest).

While we're on the subject of Japanese portrayals of the mimic, I thought it might be worth mentioning the unique version found in Ryoko Kui's manga, Delicious in Dungeon. At its heart a cooking manga – yes, that's a thing – Delicious in Dungeon chronicles an adventuring party as they not only explore a subterranean labyrinth filled with monsters and treasure, but also the meals they can make of monster carcasses. In the manga, a mimic is a kind of crustacean akin to a giant hermit crab:

This take on the mimic isn't a shapeshifter at all, Instead, it uses real chests (and other items) as a hermit crab might use its shell. However, unlike the hermit crab, the mimic's "shell" is intended not as protection but as a lure to entice adventurers to get within range of its large pincers. In my opinion, it's a very clever spin on the iconic monster, one of several to be found in the manga's pages. If you're interested in an imaginative conception of a plausible dungeon ecology, you might consider checking it out.

Monsoon Season

Tom Wham is underappreciated in my opinion. Here's his "Gamesmanship" comic from issue #81 (September/October 1977) of Campaign magazine.

By the Guts of the Green God

I've talked about the Sword of Sorcery comic before. It's a remarkable example of DC's multiple forays into the fantasy genre throughout the 1970s. Like most of the other fantasy comics DC published during that time – Arak, Son of Thunder; Beowulf, Dragon Slayer; Claw the Unconquered, Stalker, The Warlord, and more – Sword of Sorcery didn't last long. However, it has the distinction of having adapted several Fritz Leiber stories to the comics medium, including "Cloud of Hate," which appeared in its fourth issue from October 1973. 

As is often the case, the adaptation isn't a straight one, though most of its alterations concern the tale's order of events than their actual content. Likewise, the dialog is not directly taken from Leiber's text, though it's clearly inspired by it. For me, though, the main joy of the comic is its artwork by Howard Chaykin, which is excellent. (In a twist of fate, Chaykin would later return to comics based on Leiber's Lankhmar stories in 2007, only this time as a writer rather than artist.)

Arrgh!

From the perspective of the 2020s, it might seem as if the 1970s were another Golden Age of comic books. Certainly, there were a lot of great comic books produced during the decade of my childhood, but it's also the case that the '70s were a period of immense economic decline for comics publishers. Part of the reason that this period might appear, in retrospect, more robust than it actually was is that both DC and Marvel were desperately throwing ideas against the wall in hope that some of them might stick. While some of these attempts were financially successful – Marvel's Conan and Star Wars lines come immediately to mind – most were not.

That's why I'm rarely surprised when I discover the existence of a comic from the 1970s of which I've never heard. Consider, for example, Arrgh!, which ran for five issues between December 1974 and September 1975. Each issue of Arrgh! presented humorous horror stories, often parodies of well-known movies or TV shows. In the case of the penultimate issue of the series, the subject of the parody was none other than my beloved Kolchak: The Night Stalker, here dubbed Karl Coalshaft, "the Night Gawker."

As I said, I had no idea this comic existed until recently, so I never read it. Fortunately, there's an excellent blog devoted to "a historical look at various incarnations of classic TV and movie science fiction/fantasy," Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, that has reproduced the entirety of the Kolchak parody here. The comic's not great literature by any definition, but it made me chuckle a couple of times. Take a look yourself!

Nothing New Under the Sun

This week's installment of Pulp Fantasy Library discussed Robert E. Howard's story of Kull, "The Cat and the Skull." To the extent that the story is known at all, it's because it features the first appearance of the undead sorcerer. The revelation of his involvement in the events of the tale is quite memorable.

The face of the man was a bare white skull, in whose eye sockets flamed livid fire!

"Thulsa Doom!"

"Aye, I guessed as much!" exclaimed Ka-nu.

"Aye, Thulsa Doom, fools!" the voice echoed cavernously and hollowly. "The greatest of all wizards and your eternal foe, Kull of Atlantis! You have won this tilt but, beware, there shall be others."

Years ago, when I first read this story, I was convinced that it had to have been the origin of D&D's lich. While I knew the lich from the AD&D Monster Manual, with its unforgettable illustration by Dave Trampier, the lich was introduced into the game through Supplement I to OD&D, Greyhawk. There, liches are described as "skeletal monsters of magical original, each Lich being a very powerful Magic-User or Magic-User/Cleric in life, and now alive only by means of great spells and will." The longer description in the Monster Manual adds that a lich possesses not just a skeletal form but "eyesockets mere black holes with glowing points of light." That sound a lot like REH's description of Thulsa Doom to me.

The early 1970s was a remarkable time for aficionados of Robert E. Howard's writing. Not only was Lancer releasing its paperback editions of Howard's sword-and-sorcery yarns, but Marvel Comics was producing comic adaptations of many of them as well. In addition to the much more well known and celebrated Conan the Barbarian (and, later, Savage Sword of Conan), Marvel adapted Howard's characters and stories in other

magazines, such as Monsters on the Prowl. Issue #16 of that magazine (April 1972) featured an original Kull story called "The Forbidden Swamp," in which Thulsa Doom is introduced to comics readers. As drawn by the brother and sister team of John and Marie Severin, Thulsa Doom shares a lot with D&D's lich, don't you think?

For years afterward, I held on to my theory that it was Thulsa Doom who had inspired Gary Gygax in his creation of the lich. Not only was there much similarity between their descriptions, but Thulsa Doom's earliest published appearance, whether in Lancer's King Kull anthology or Marvel's comics, occurred just before the publication of OD&D. There was thus a certain plausibility to the one having been inspired by the other.

As it turned out, my theory was wrong – or at least not the whole story. Many years later, in one of his many online question and answer threads, I recall that Gygax admitted he swiped the lich from "The Sword of the Sorcerer," a Kothar story by Gardner F. Fox. In that tale, Kothar encounters an undead sorcerer named Afgorkon, who is repeatedly referred to by the word "lich," something that cannot be said of Thulsa Doom so far as I can tell. That's not to say that Thulsa Doom might not have exercised some influence over the creation of D&D's lich, only that he wasn't, at least as far as Gygax claimed, the primary one. It's not as if the idea of a skeletal, undead sorcerer is a wholly unique idea anyway.

That's something I keep in mind whenever I look almost any element of Dungeons & Dragons. Very little of it is genuinely unique to the game. I'd wager that almost all of its monsters, spells, and magic items derive from a pre-existing story, comic, movie, or TV show. Indeed, it probably wouldn't take much work to demonstrate this, since Gygax and others were often quite open about the earlier creators and works that inspired them. I don't mean this to be a criticism – far from it! Rather, I bring this up simply as a reminder that what makes D&D special is not any of its individual elements, very few of which are original, but rather the strange alchemy of their admixture. 

Master of Light and Dark

Dave Trampier sometimes catches some flak in old school circles for the supposed "sameyness" of his art, particularly the faces of any people who appear in his work. While I don't agree with that criticism, I understand it. For me, though, Tramp's real strength lay in his use of light and dark, a talent of which I was reminded when I looked at this panel from the installment of Wormy that appeared in issue #100 of Dragon (August 1985). What an amazing piece of work!

Thrud to the Rescue

 From White Dwarf #56:

A Thief, A Reaver, A Slayer, A Corsair ...

From "Thrud the Barbarian" by Carl Critchlow (White Dwarf #47, November 1983):