By Bob Layton and various (Marvel)
ISBN-13: 978-0-78510-555-8
There are too few lighthearted adventure comics around for my liking. Have readers become so sullen and depressed that it takes nothing but angst and cosmic trauma to rouse them? I hope not because I love a little laughter with my mayhem, and let’s be honest, there’s lots of comedic potential to men-in-tights hitting each other with cars and buildings. Here’s a perfect example collected a decade ago, but still widely available online and in selected retail outlets.
In the 1982 Marvel tested the potential of miniseries as a viable product-stream with an out-of-continuity four-parter starring the mythological Avenger Hercules. Set a few hundred years in the future, the boisterous demi-god ticked off Father Zeus once too often and was banished to roam outer space until he grew up.
Travelling via Apollo’s chariot, complete with faster-than-light carnivorous horses, he had many adventures, met a few beautiful ladies and picked up a Rigellian Recorder (an AI mechanoid programmed to acquire all knowledge) which he promptly corrupted with his good-natured bluster, carousing and hero-ing. Light-hearted and very amusing the series famously culminated with a drinking match against planet-devouring Galactus.
Spectacularly popular, there was a sequel as soon as writer/artist Bob Layton could manage it. Released in 1984 the second miniseries carried on in much the same manner. Herc or “old Steroid Breath†as he became known, gained a timid, but unscrupulous Skrull named Skyppi, fought a Skrull-hunting future version of the sometimes Avenger Red Wolf and defeated the last disciple of mad god Thanos.
A darker sub-plot underpinned the shenanigans as the son of Zeus had seemingly lost his immortality, and whilst he was making his way back to Earth his divine father was insanely slaughtering all the denizens of Olympus, and waiting with gory anticipation for his last son to return…
Without blowing the ending, suffice it to say that there was genuine advancement of the character, and plenty of triumph and tragedy. Although considered non-canonical by most fans this book collecting both series is a great example of self-contained Marvel Magic, funny, outrageous, charming and full of good-natured punch-ups.
This is a great taste of the company without all the excess baggage that daunts so many new readers of old comics material. An earlier trade paperback reprinting containing just the first miniseries (ISBN: 0-87135-365-2) was published in 1988 to coincide with the release of a further sequel Hercules: Full Circle.
© 1982, 1984, 1997 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.