https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Kane_(comics)I was looking through the Wrightson topic, and saw this post of mine that went on a tangent regarding a Wrightson pin-up page of Solomon Kane:
There's two recent books from Dark Horse that collect the entire Solomon Kane run of stories previously published by Marvel.
One is titled THE SAGA OF SOLOMON KANE, that collects all the stories that appeared in black-and-white Marvel magazines, spanning a 20-year period. About 60% are Robert E. Howard story adaptations, with a few new/original stories. Plus dozens of beautiful pin-up pages, including this one by Wrightson. A tremendous collection of artistic talents drawing the character: Gene Day, Ralph Reese, Al Weiss, Neal Adams, Pablo Marcos, Mike Zeck, Howard Chaykin, Sonny Trinidad, Rudy Nebres, David Wenzel, Dan Bulanadi, Steve Carr, Al Williamson, Colin MacNeil, Jim Fletcher, Bob Gould, John Buscema, John Byrne. And Wrightson. Ranging from pin-ups to full stories, but nicely interpreted, either way.
A second thinner volume, CHRONICLES OF SOLOMON KANE, collects all the color Solomon Kane stories done for Marvel, a 1976 two-issue Thomas/Chaykin story done in MARVEL PREMIERE 33 and 34 (adapting Howard's "Red Shadows"), and a six-issue 1985 miniseries, 4 of which are Howard adaptations.
Between the two volumes, they adapt 13 of the 16 Howard stories, some of them adapted twice, by different hands. 4 of the 16 are incomplete story fragments by Howard, one loosely adapted and expanded on freely, the others not adapted. Two of the four Howard fragments were expanded and adapted in separate new books by Dark Horse, CASTLE OF THE DEVIL, and DEATH'S BLACK RIDERS about 10 years ago, that I found not overly satisfying reading. The first at least had very ornate art.
I liked the Howard fragment stories better in a Robert E. Howard text paperback edited by Ramsey Campbell, where Campbell I thought did a far superior job of expanding them into full stories that were good reading.
And while I thought it was relevant, listing another place where Wrightson's page could be found in a collected edition, I recall at the time regretting not creating a separate topic for Solomon Kane material, and in the back of my mind intending to at some point.
Solomon Kane is I think my favorite of Robert E. Howard's characters, in some ways even over Conan. I always liked the historical aspect of Kane. That Solomon Kane travelled on ships at the beginning of British colonialism to the four corners of the earth (or at least had the potential to). I saw him as the most connected to the modern era and the least mythological of Howard's characters. And I also enjoyed that he is a devout Christian, but with a conflicting wanderlust for adventure and violence.
And with a list of artists drawing him that's a who's-who of the industry's best talent (Neal Adams, Al Weiss, Barry Windsor-Smith, Gene Day, Howard Chaykin...) how could you possibly go wrong?
It was mind-blowing for me when this stuff was released in collected form how sporadically these stories were published, across an assortment of magazines and comics over a roughly 20-year period, and despite that I already had about 95% of them, to see them collected together what an enormous amount of talent had contributed to this brief obscure run, how cohesive they were, and how true they were to the original Robert E. Howard stories.
For me, only the two later Dark Horse adaptations (CASTLE OF THE DEVIL, and DEATH'S BLACK RIDERS) published around 2010 were somewhat disappointing. But still filled the void of some previously un-adapted Robert E. Howard Kane fragments, and still presented some nice art.
Much as I'd like to see new versions of Solomon Kane, I'm concerned in the modern era they'd just re-invent the character into something other than the character Howard created. The two collected editions of the Marvel material present an interesting package, offering both a consistent story, and remarkable variety in so short a series.
