Skull the Slayer

[GreatLakesAvengers]

With all these 70s revivals ... perhaps Skull is poised for a comeback?

I just read through the 8 issue series and enjoyed most of it.

Skull is the tale of 4 strangers who survive a plane crash after being teleported 222 million years back in time by the Bermuda Triangle. Dinosaurs. Cave Men. the Black Knight. Merlin. Will they ever get back to their own time? Or will they become warriors and make the time their own?

Apparently it took Marv Wolfman 4 years to get the series up and running and then strangely enough, he left it after issue 3. Steve Englehart took over with issue 4 and in one issue killed off three characters and took the book in a completely different direction. Then the writing chores were handed over to Bill Mantlo with issues 5-8.

Mantlo took another issue to undo the changes Englehart brought about and brought the book back closer to the original intent. Things really started heating up and got pretty interesting until the series ended with issue 8 on a cliffhanger.

Supposedly the characters are featured in Marvel Two-In-One 35-36 but, unfortunately I'm missing those two issues. I doubt it provides a great ending to the saga, anyway.

Anyone else remember this series fondly?

[oenglish]

The character has reappeared in recent days, though not as a dinosaur-battler. I'm not sure I'd rate any of his recent appearances as up to the snuff of his originals, however.

As Jim Scully, he was integral to the full run of the 6 issue Hawkeye series of a couple years back.
He also had some brief 1980s appearances in Gruenwald's Captain America and Quasar runs as the Blazing Skull (Quasar 45-46, Captain America 420).

An Essential Marvel Two-in-One (vol 2) just came out in June which includes both the Skull issues, by the by.

My first comics issue was MTIO #36, so I partially have to blame Skull the Slayer for my still reading comics, what, 30 years later...

[GreatLakesAvengers]

Yeah, I've got those Hawkeye issues but, the character's gone through quite some changes in those 30 years.

The original series had an awesome feeling of adventure and unknown.