Eerie Presents El Cid!

Here's a strange and weirdly wonderful tome featuring a strange sword and sorcery character from Warren Magazines named El Cid. He springs from the imagination of Gonzalo Mayo and Budd Lewis. He was concocted when Warren ran out of handy-dandy Esteban Maroto stories about a guy named Dax. He was Warren's real last stab at putting out some serial sword and sorcery. 

This Sanjulian painting which originally appeared on Eerie #66 doesn't really capture the tone of Mayo's rendition which is quite a bit more civilized, at least in the beginning. It's a fantastic painting nonetheless. 

The collection begins with "El Cid and The Troll", which it turns out has something of a twist ending. We are treated in this one to terrible images of giant and repellant trolls. Written by Budd Lewis. 

"El Cid and the Seven Curses" is a lush tale not unlike the Odyssey in which our hero slays a wizard to puts these curses on which play out in extremely violent ways. But our hero finds love even in the middle of all the slaughter. This is the longest of the tales and is told in two parts. Story by Bill DuBay and Budd Lewis. 

"El Cid and the Vision" pits the hero against a doughty Black Knight. But it turns out that Knight was merely a hallucination. Later Cid learns why he had the vision when a real Knight shows up. Story by Gerry Boudreau and Budd Lewis. 

"The Lady and the Lie" pits the Cid against two demons named Az and Ahriman -- the Lust and the Lie. These two plot to bring down the noble Cid with all manner of nubile temptations. The Boudreau and Lewis team returns. 

"The Emir of Aragon" shows the Cid entranced by a woman named Arias who in actuality serves the Emir of Aragon. Many times she schemes against the Cid all the while entrancing him with her body. Jeff Rovin and Budd Lewis team to write this one. 

"Crooked Mouth" shows up the Cid as he demonstrates both mercy and wisdom by welcoming Moors into his home. An old man is angered by this and goes to an old enemy of the Cid's named "Crooked Mouth" who uses magic to stop his rival. Written by Budd Lewis. 

"Demon's Treasure" is the tale about a man who wakes a wizard when he seeks treasure. That wizard corrupts the kingdom and it's up to the Cid to bring end his misrule. Budd Lewis finishes his run on the hero. 

(Berni Wrightson)

The adventures of El Cid feature some outstanding Gonzalo Mayo artwork. The work is lush and entrancing, if at times a tad difficult to decode. All of Mayo's women are full-bodied and quite bodacious. 

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Star Trek - The Key Collection Volume Three!

With the third volume in the Checker Star Trek - The Key Collection  run, the characters and the ship and such have largely been made consistent with the now defunct TV show. It will begin its surge to prominence as the reruns will bring it to more and more of its audience, an audience which will grow to love the adventures and will crave more. The Alberto Giolitti studio is still handling the artwork and the likenesses of the characters are remarkably accurate by this point.

The first issue in this volume gives us the conundrum of how Mr. Spock's face has become an idol for a near prehistoric race. For the first time the Prime Directive is evoked, though I don't think the phrase for the Federation policy of non-interference is actually called that. Taking over from Len Wein, the veteran Arnold Drake wrote this and the next three issues of the series.

Then we confront a true villain who seeks to ransom an entire planet of living people who have been transformed into electronic versions of themselves and stored for transportation to as safe region of space. And Mr. Spock becomes infatuated.

The haunted asteroid in the title of the next story is actually an outer space tomb built for the memory of a long-dead queen many centuries before. That doesn't explain what seem to be ghosts and zombies on its surface though.

The Enterprise is ordered to transport a haughty young ruler to his planet which itself seems to be falling into the hands of an unscrupulous military leader. This one reminded me mightily of The Prisoner of Zenda.

The crew of the Enterprise have to do battle with some pretty implacable mummies. Now of course there's more to these mummies than meets the eye as is often the case in Star Trek stories, the details of horror are borrowed and given a fresh spin. John David Warner wrote this issue.

Kirk leads the landing team onto a world which is overcome with intelligent plant creatures, a strange scheme gone amuck. This is a rarity to this point in that Uhura plays a pretty important role. Gerry Boudreau of Warren Magazine fame handled the scripting of this and the next issue.

A world of kid's only is the next landing site. The team is drawn into a conflict waged among kids who can never get older than thirteen years of age due to an ancient plague.

Kirk brought to Federation headquarters and must suffer a court-martial when he is accused of accepting bribes from a faction in dispute on a mining operation. It proves difficult to clear his name and requires some pretty exotic technology. Arnold Drake was back for this last issue in this volume. As always George Wilson handled the covers for all of these comics, his steady reliable artwork a boon to many a Gold Key offering.

It should also be noted that while there was no direct connection save for the subject matter, the animated Star Trek series from Filmation arrived while some of these issues were on the stands. Clearly the Star Trek phenomenon was beginning to catch momentum.  Next week we'll wrap it up with the final two Key Collections.

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