Mike Luoma's Cosmic Crackle: Killraven!

Mike Luoma's Cosmic Crackle: Killraven!
(A look at the career of the Marvel Comics Character Killraven. All Characters, Concepts & Images are the property of Marvel Comics and are used here with their courtesy)

Killraven?

I'd never read his comics – knew next to nothing about “the man others call KILLRAVEN!” He appears in issue #18 of Guardians of the Galaxy's current run – Star-Lord and his companions bump into Killraven as they slip through parallel worlds. So why not? It took a few months of reading, research and writing, but now it's time to loose the Cosmic Crackle upon Jonathan Raven – better known as Killraven!

Killraven in Guardians of the Galaxy #18

Came across a reference to Killraven when researching a piece on the original Guardians of the Galaxy – he's mentioned by Steve Gerber in The Defenders when the Guardians of the Galaxy show up in issue #26 (1975). Vance Astro recounts his past, establishing that the Guardians and Killraven are in the same “reality” – he tells the Defenders about the War of the Worlds of 2001, adding: “There are no reliable histories of the period of (Martian) occupation. Legend has it that a band of 'Freemen' led by a charismatic figure known as Killraven began the revolt against the invaders.”

Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning might have read something else I'd found researching the original Guardians – a note about Killraven on Jim Valentino's IMAGE boards involving potential plot points. Valentino had planned to use Killraven in his original run on Guardians, had he continued past issue #29. Killraven's situation and appearance in GotG #18 echoes some of what might have been had Valentino's plans seen the light.

(Killraven in Guardians of the Galaxy #18)

Valentino wrote:
“#35-36—Amazing Adventures – On their way to the 31st Century, Dry-Dock hits a time rift and the Guardians find themselves back on Earth shortly after the War of the Worlds, where they meet Killraven. Now in his fifties, he is a warrior without a war. The Martians have been defeated, the Freemen disbanded and Killraven finds himself wandering aimlessly. These two issues would have given the full story of what happened to Earth’s super-heroes (the Martians infected them with a virus—a turnaround on the original H.G. Wells story) and finding himself attracted to Yellowjacket (and she to him), he would have joined the team, returning with the Guardians to the far future. NOTE: My plan here was to have it revealed that Jon Raven was actually the son of Franklin Richards, thus tying his legacy to Marvel’s first family. I’m not sure if they would have let me bend things that far, but I would have given it a shot.”
(http://www.imagecomics.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=144):

DnA's time-shifting Guardians encounter various line-ups of the “old” Guardians, including one with Killraven in his fifties, fighting Martians. DnA pay deep homage to the source material – the opening lines of issue #18 of GotG paraphrase the opening lines of Killraven's very first appearance in Amazing Adventures “War of the Worlds” #18:

“Steel Upon Steel: The Sound of Human Suffering in these battle-scarred streets,” write DnA.
“Steel Upon Steel: A Sound Relatively new beneath these battle-scarred streets” wrote Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway to begin the first Killraven tale.

From DnA: “Steel Upon Steel: The War-Cry of the Guardians of the Galaxy and their leader, the crimson-haired demon named KILLRAVEN!”
From Amazing Adventures #18: “Steel Upon Steel: The War-Cry of One SPECIAL man, a crimson-haired demon named KILLRAVEN...!”

In fact, the setting of Manhattan, including the image of the sunken Statue of Liberty, and characters... and tripods! ...referred to in GotG's #18 echo the settings and characters in the original Killraven story, although in GotG #18 it's supposed to be 3009 and in AA #18 it's 2018 AD. Time is all messed up.

(Comparison of scenes from GotG #18 and Amazing Adventures #19
Art by H. Chaykin (top) and W. Craig (bottom))

Roy Thomas wrote about Killraven's origins for the “letters page” of Amazing Adventures #18. Thomas had pitched the idea of doing a sequel to H.G. Wells War of the Worlds to Stan Lee in 1971. It took two years for the opportunity to develop the book to appear. Thomas then tagged Neal Adams to draw it. “I presented the general concept to Neal one day over the phone and suggested he stop by in a few days so we could talk it over at greater length,” Thomas wrote. “The very next day, he showed up – with a whole plotline and lead character, yet. I accepted most of what he wanted to do, with a few changes here and there to bring things in line with my original idea – which included keeping the Martians and their technology almost exactly as Wells had envisioned them ( they are, after all, a dying race).”

Killraven's “War of the Worlds” begins in 2018 in the same “reality” as Wells' novel – the comic presumes the events in the book actually occurred but were fictionalized to spare humankind the horror. Later Marvel handbooks would label this “Earth-691” in the Marvel Universe. In Amazing Adventures #18, the Martians come back in 2001 to finish what they started 100 years earlier. The aliens enslave what little of the human race they leave alive, turning scientists into “Keepers” and men into gladiators, cyborgs and mutants. His story begins as Killraven exacts vengeance upon the Keeper who killed his mother and brother and turned him into a gladiator.

Finally free of the alien's hold over him, the Keeper thanks Killraven. Before he dies, he tells Killraven the story of the Martian invasions. The Martians caused all of mankind's atomic stockpiles to simultaneously meltdown. Mankind tried to fight back with biological plagues that ended up not effecting the Martians, but instead poisoning and altering the dwindling human race. The Keeper tells Jonathan Raven how his mother died at the Keeper's hands, and how the Keeper told a man named Saunders to take care of Raven's brother.

(Cover of Amazing Adventures #18 First Killraven Issue)

Killraven relates how he was given to a Martian Master, and trained for the games – how he was named “Killraven” after fighting in the Martian's arena – and how he used his skills to finally escape from the Martians. Killraven isn't sure just how he managed to escape.

Once out, he learned about the past from old books. He ran into some other humans, but didn't get along with them – he didn't like how they were treating their women. So he went to Staten Island, which he made his first base of operations as he began to fight back against the Martian oppressors and their human collaborators. After six years he became the leader of the Freemen of the island. He brought them back to Manhattan to fight – the fight that's led to this final showdown with the Keeper.

The Keeper tells Killraven he is “special” he has “the power,” but he dies before he explains what that means. The cliffhanger ending to issue #18 leaves Killraven facing more human tools of the Martians, women engineered to ensnare men – Sirens!

The next issue begins mid-battle – but the Sirens have no effect on Killraven, who realizes, “...the power which hides me from the robot scanners keeps me safe from your wiles, too!” We meet two of Killraven's followers as they “rescue” him, Hawk and M'Shulla. As they escape, Killraven tells the men not to fear the Tripods – they're just machines, Martian weapons, not demons. At the docks, Killraven finds a ferry unloading human slaves. Killraven and his men free the slaves and take out the human “Keepers” on board so they can steal the ferry. A tripod comes after them – they destroy it.

The scientists collaborators – the “Keepers” – tell their Masters about the rebel. “Skarlet, Queen of the Sirens” is sent to bring in Killraven, and she manages to do so. Killraven is thrown back into the arena to face “Slasher” – a cyborg with a deadly mechanical arm. Killraven wins, frees his men and sends the Martian Master overseeing the arena running. Killraven again tells his Freemen that the “Masters” have stolen their heritage. Inspired, he swears, “One day we'll bring the fight home to those tentacled monsters – But until that day – we'll battle them here, on the planet they've despoiled! ...They began – but man will end – THE WAR OF THE WORLDS!”

Neil Adams and Howard Chaykin provided pencils for those first two Killraven issues. Roy Thomas' wrote in Amazing Adventures #18 that Adams had too many obligations and couldn't meet the deadline, so “Chaykin wound up making virtually his Marvel debut by finishing up the last half of the book nearly overnight. By this time I too had become too immersed with editorial duties,” so Thomas turned the scripting over to then 20 year-old Gerry Conway. Thomas would plot and Conway would script issue #19 as well.

Marv Wolfman took over the writing duties from Thomas and Conway for a single issue before Don McGregor came on for Amazing Adventures #21. McGregor became the primary scribe for Killraven for most of the stories that would follow. Herb Trimpe provided pencils for Amazing Adventures #20 through #24. Rich Buckler and Klaus Janson provided art for #25. The legendary Gene Colan penciled #26, just prior to P. Craig Russell's legendary run on the title. McGregor's partner-in-crime for most of the run, Russell began artistic duties with issue #27.

Issue #20 introduces the Warlord, a cybernetically-enhanced servant of the Martian Masters bent on the destruction of Killraven. Killraven is raiding a museum for cooler weapons and duds when the Warlord shows up, beats him down, and takes him back in to the Martians. Back among the Martians in the next issue, we meet a new villain (?) Carmilla Frost, “one of the Martian's foremost Molecular Biologists.” A molecular biologist who happens to wear bikini bottoms and a fishnet top... We meet another of the Freeman – Old Skull. And we discover that Frost is playing both sides – with the help of her pet mutant “Grok” (shades of Robert Heinlein?) she frees Killraven's men. The Warlord tortures Killraven. Frost and the Freemen then liberate Killraven in turn, and all escape – to the ruins of Yankee Stadium!

Killraven and the Freemen are attacked by an acid-spewing crab-thing. Hawk gets burned by the acid – the Freemen are forced to face more monsters. Killraven finally defeats the crab-thing with the help of Grok. Warlord hits Killraven with a sucker-punch to the back, but Killraven beats him back, holding his mechanical arm in a pool of the crab-thing's acid until it dissolves!

Frost won't explain her motives for freeing them, but she and Grok join them all the same. Frost tells Killraven the Martians are using the White House as a headquarters. and the group heads off to Washington D.C.

The Freemen enter Washington D.C. under attack – Killraven and M'Shulla defeat a giant mutant squid that rises out of the Potomac! During the fight, Hawk and Old Skull are captured by Cavaliers, led by Sabre, who's working for a creature named Abraxas. Killraven meets Mint Julep, a green skinned girl leading a group of Freewomen. Her people have been captured as well. They team up to free their people. They're all being held at the Lincoln Memorial by the mutant Abraxas – who, it turns out, auctions human slaves to the Martians.

As Killraven tries to free the captives, Abraxas grabs him, throwing him to the Martians! Old Skull goes berserk but can't stop the tripods from taking Killraven away. Grok and Carmilla Frost save M'Shulla's life. They're able to escape, and leave with Mint Julep to make plans at her base, which turns out to be in the ruins of the Pentagon.

At the White House, Killraven faces The High Overlord, a Martian wearing shiny, bipedal battle armor. The High Overlord tells Killraven he'll be staked out in the catacombs below, where the half-rodent Rattack and his Rat-Men will gnaw him to death! Above and beyond that, The High Overlord will use the advanced “Mural Phonics System” to broadcast Killraven's feelings and impressions, the experience of Killraven's death, across the planet, so the human race will know in their souls that their hoped-for liberator is dead – especially “Saunders” in Yellowstone, a reference back to the Keeper who took away Killraven's brother.

B

ut Killraven escapes as the rats attack! He grabs his sword and slices a path of death through the rats as he makes his way toward freedom. Mint Julep has led the Freemen through an underground tunnel from the Pentagon to the White House on flying “Dyna-Gliders”. They meet up with Killraven –he's now using the Mural Phonic System to taunt the High Overlord, to give the human race hope, and he announces to the world, once again, “This War of the Worlds the Martians began – the Earth will finish!”

As issue #24 begins, the Freemen are still somewhere underneath the White House. Killraven and company escaped into an old archive. Carmilla tells them it's New Year's Eve – they should celebrate. They find old tapes (Nixon's Watergate tapes?) and use them as party streamers. They don't realize they've been detected, that the Martians have already called on Abraxas to go after Killraven. Rattack is also out for Killraven's blood. Abraxas sends Sabre in to busts up their party. He manages to subdue them, and rounds them up.

Sabre leads his captives back to Abraxas and The High Overlord at the Lincoln Memorial. Rattack and his rats then attack on the steps of the Memorial – Abraxas wraps Rattack in his suction cupped tentacles. Killraven busts free – the High Overlord moves too slowly to strike him. There's a great moment towards the end of issue #24 where Trimpe draws Killraven, sword in hand over his head, directly in front of the silhouetted statue of Abraham Lincoln, making his stand. Sabre respects Killraven – he's made that clear since he first encountered him. When Sabre sees the High Overlord is about to blast Killraven in the back, Sabre shoots the High Overlord!

(Killraven and Lincoln from Amazing Adventures #24
– art by Herb Trimpe, story by Don McGregor)

Sabre's blasts bring the columns of the Lincoln Memorial crashing down on top of the High Overlord and Abraxas, who laments the loss of the memorial as his auction stage. Abraxas lets Rattack go flying in a gruesome moment, as the rat-man's skin is ripped off in shreds by the suction cups of Abraxas' tentacles. The bleeding Rattack lands amid his rats. In their blood lust they devour him before he can scream. Abraxas is then crushed when the Memorial collapses... brought down by the spirit of Lincoln?

Issue #25 introduces the ruthless “Skar,” the cycloptic pilot of a tripod he uses to hunt human being that he calls the “Devil's Marauder.” We're also introduced to another dimension of Killraven's “power” – a form of clairvoyance called “Clairsentience.” He can “see” where the tripod goes, in his mind's eye.

The Freemen are traveling to Yellowstone in a Dyna-Glider Mint Julep gave them. They've made it as far as what used to be Indiana. The place Killraven “saw” in his mind turns out to be the Indianapolis Motor Speedway – former home of the Indianapolis 500, but now home to a Martian tripod test facility. Killraven steals a tripod and battles with Skar, crashing a tripod with both of them in it. Killraven escapes, but so does Skar. The only casualty is a slave who befriended Killraven, making his vengeful victory a little hollow.

The band's next stop, in Amazing Adventures #26, is old Battle Creek, Michigan. McGregor uses the locale as an opportunity to contrast our world and Tony the Tiger with Killraven's devastated landscape. Killraven breaks a half-serpent, half-horse as a mount, and explains that he's going to this place of Yellow Stones because The High Overlord mentioned a Saunders was out there – and Saunders was the name of the man the old Keeper told Killraven he'd left his brother with, when they killed his mother.

The issue features some beautiful work from Gene Colan, inked by Dan Adkins. Colan makes the Serpent Horse look believable, and Carmilla Frost never looked better! She even spends a brief part of the story topless (tastefully depicted by Colan) as she's ambushed by men from Battle Creek. Others from the city try to ambush Killraven and his men. Killraven here first addresses M'Shulla as “old mudbrother” - a term McGregor grew fond of using as the series ran on. Speaking of names, McGregor has some fun with the men of Battle Creek. Their names are anagrams for breakfast cereals... Foropulist = Fruit Loops and Pstun-rage = Grape-Nuts, for example.

Killraven and his company successfully repel the attack, but he laments the fact they killed all their opponents – no prisoners to question. But Carmilla appears, Grok holding one of her attackers, still alive. Frost enjoys giving Killraven a hard time, even as she and M'Shulla get cozier. The whiny prisoner Foropulist is good for some comic relief, asking Grok not to hold him up so high – “I get these nosebleeds, see...” Killraven and M'Shulla play bad cop/good cop respectively to question the prisoner and discover “Pstun-Rage the Vigilant” rules Battle Creek and guards some sort of “treasure” Foropulist babbles on about.

M'Shulla and Killraven decide to scout ahead, riding the Serpent Horse into Battle Creek. Along the way they pass another sign upon which someone's scrawled “Killraven Was Here.”

Pstun-Rage confronts the two as they enter the town. He's threatened by them, thinks they're after his treasure. Pstun-Rage won't buy Killraven's “enemy of my enemy is my friend” argument, that they're both against the Martians. Instead, Pstun-Rage attacks Killraven, who fends him off. Though Killraven is trying not to use lethal force, his opponent falls on his own weapon, a scythe, and is mortally wounded. As Killraven and M'Shulla are chased out of town by his men, Pstun-Rage crawls away to die among the treasures of Battle Creek – which turns out to be a horde of old cereal boxes and all their toy prizes.

The next three issues mark a new chapter for Killraven. They tell a three part story based in and around Death-Birth, the former city of Chicago, transformed by the Martians into a dark maze of human breeding pens under the domination of a huge tower built up over the entire old Loop. It's a new era for the book's creative team, too, as Craig Russell begins his run on the art – the team of McGregor and Russell would go on to do 12 out of the next 15 Killraven stories together. If there's a “classic” Killraven creative team, it's McGregor and Russell.

Issue #27 opens with Killraven and company gliding across the icy surface of the Great Lakes near Milwaukee. They're attacked by giant mutated sea lampreys – Carmilla's Grok is mortally wounded by one of the bloodsuckers before they can fight them off. Meanwhile inside of Death-Birth Citadel in what was once Chicago, humans are named and numbered Adam and Eve and forced to breed to provide infants for the Martian's banquet tables! We see Adam and Eve 3,031 penned up, in chains, awaiting the birth of their child. Two villains reappear – The High Overlord of the Martians commands tripod pilot Skar to hunt down and eliminate Killraven.

(Cover - Amazing Adventures #27 –
First McGregor/Russell collaboration)

In Milwaukee, a new woman enters Killraven's life. He might have fiery red hair – but Volcana Ash is made of fire. She hates the Death-Breeders of Death-Birth – but she has a thing for Killraven immediately, though his crew are wary of her.

Killraven has another flash of “Clairsentience” and sees the “Fear Master” Atalon of Death-Birth persecuting Adam and Eve 3,031 in his mind's eye. As Killraven comes back to himself a tripod attacks. Volcana tries to help them but the tripod blasts them out of hiding. Death Breeders – humans dressed in skeleton uniforms who do the Martian's bidding – lower down from the tripod, attacking Killraven. He drowns them in vats of old beer, which burst and take out the tripod!

After “erupting” like molten lava to help save M'Shulla, Volcana reveals her origin in Issue #28. She was bathed in some sort of rays by the Death Breeders of Death-Birth, but they didn't expect the reaction – “creation spawned anew” within her! Volcana engendered the entire macrocosm in that moment, blowing away her captors with her new heat powers.

We see Adam and Eve 3,031 again – Adam 3,031 tries to attack the Fear Master Atalon, who then has him taken away. The Fear Master then takes Eve 3,031 off to the Sacrificer to give up her baby to the Martians. The twisted, sadistic, former human brings her by the Martian banquet hall on the way, just to show her where her baby will be served up as a Martian delicacy!

On the trail of Killraven, Skar kills poor Foropulist of Battle Creek. Killraven and his band head into Death-Birth, led by Volcana. They save Adam 3,031 from the Death-Breeders as they go – Killraven recognizes him from his earlier vision! The synchronicity makes Killraven experience more “Clairsentience” – he gets a flash of Eve 3,031 and Atalon inside of Death-Birth's Sacrificer. Killraven's group reaches the Banquet Hall and kills both Death Breeders and Martians.

As Killraven kills Martians he realizes his “clairsentience” is coming from THEM! It is Martian mental emanations he is picking up. He momentarily feels as if he is killing himself. As he comes back to awareness, Volcana brings her lava-like destruction down upon the Martians and the rest of the banquet hall.

Running on through Death-Birth, Killraven and crew find the Sacrificer about to cut into Eve 3,031! They raid the amphitheater just in time to stop him. They free the woman – reuniting Adam and his Eve.

Issue #29 of Amazing Adventures brings a title change to the cover, as the book is now billed as “Killraven: Warrior of The Worlds” instead of “War of the Worlds.” It's still called “War of the Worlds” inside. Little strange that they'd change the title going into the third of a three-part story...

With Adam and Eve 3031 reunited, Killraven leads the group out of the Sacrificer's Amphitheater and away from Atalon and the Sacrificer. As these two servants of the Martians discover the death and destruction of their masters in the banquet hall, Killraven operates a “holographic megaphone” and tells the many Adams and Eves in the Martian pens of Death-Birth that they are FREE! Using the Martians' own Molecule Disruptor, Killraven dissolves the walls of their cages.

(Cover: Amazing Adventures #29
- “Killraven” now on the cover.)

Volcana takes off to find her sister. Killraven and his men discover the pregnant Eve 3,031 is going into contractions! Vowing to save her, and giving Hawk a tongue lashing about compassion and why they fight in the process, Killraven leads Eve, Adam and the rest out of Death-Birth. They find Volcana as they get out. She found her sister Melonie, but sadly discovered her sister's mind was gone. She'd been turned by the Martians into just another Eve.

Prisoners free and leaving Death-Birth, Killraven, Adam, Old Skull, Hawk and Volcana head back into the Crucible Center to bring the “Temple for Hell” down! The Guardians attack as Killraven studies the Crucible, trying to figure out how to destroy it. He tells the others to take over some snow skimmers and get them ready to go. Then Killraven plunges an “Ionic Blade” into the plasma reactor of the Crucible, shattering its containment. They speed off on the skimmers. As Atalon and the Sacrificer look on, Death-Birth explodes and collapses!

Carmilla Frost and M'Shulla have been hanging back in Milwaukee nursing the injured Grok. Carmilla is about to tell M'shulla whom Grok is a clone of, but Killraven bursts in on their intimate moment before she finishes. Killraven tells his Mud Brother they've got to get moving, as the Death Breeders are on their trail, lead by Atalon and the Sacrificer. They escape in the snow skimmers, their pursuit right behind them. Killraven rides his serpent stallion, trying to draw pursuit away from the others. They manage to temporarily evade the pursuit of Atalon and the Sacrificer as the issue ends, and we're promised: “Next: The Day The Monuments Shattered!”

Instead, issue #30 is a reprint issue, with six new framing pages, including pinup/profile pages on Killraven, M'Shulla and Mint Julep, whose early tale from Amazing Adventures #23 & #24 is reprinted here. In a 1983 interview, Russell told Comics Interview Magazine both he and McGregor had trouble staying on deadline:

“Oh, (#30)'s the one where I did the six pin-up pages. Yeah, that was a book that was designed to give us a jump on the next one, because we were so late – then it took me almost as long to do the six pin-up pages!” “Q: Were you generally able to keep up with your deadlines?” “No. Back then I was absolutely terrible with deadlines. I missed them right and left. I think the only reason I didn't get into trouble was because Don McGregor was always later than I was. No matter how late I was, he was later. The deadline could be two days away and I would have three pages done, but Don would only have two pages written, so I would say, '.Well, hey, Don hasn't written up this far yet...' ...But we missed a number of deadlines that way, because there were several fill-in issues and then I did layouts for others...”

The book is now titled “Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds” both inside and out. It continues that way as we do get “The Day The Monuments Shattered”next - in issue #31. Killraven and company reach Gary, Indiana in April of 2019. In Don McGregor's introduction he writes (in the 1970's) about the technological advances and the decadence of the 1990's, prior to the Martian invasion of 2001. Our actual technological advancements did not keep pace with his outlook. There's also an undercurrent of anti-consumerism and anti-commercialism in the issue, as it begins and ends under the (unnamed) McDonalds' Golden Arches, now a place of worship for humans who do not know what they used to stand for. As the issue opens the worshipers chant six words: “To the Devourer, Grant Us Deliverance.”

Eve 3,031 is about to have her baby. The group is forced to halt to help her, and must take a stand against their immediate pursuers. Flying “Death Trackers” are on top of them in no time. Killraven, M'Shulla and Old Skull destroy this bunch, but they know there are more enemies behind them. Atalon and Sacrificer have their own problems, but remain in hot pursuit, and Skar and his tripod also continue to follow Killraven's trail.

(Interior Page 3 of Amazing Adventures #31
art by P. Craig Russell)

The interpersonal relationships among the Freemen are growing more complex. Hawk is becoming a problem for Killraven. Hawk carries festering bitterness over his injuries from the battle at Yankee Stadium. He also questions Killraven's authority. Meanwhile, Eve 3,031 is about to give birth, Grok is dying, and Carmilla and M'Shulla finally allow themselves to love each other and embrace – Issue #31 contained color comics' first interracial kiss, a big deal for 1975, as M'Shulla and Carmilla finally act on the longing they've been feeling.

(M'Shulla and Carmilla enjoy color comic's first interracial kiss,
written by D. McGregor with art by P. Craig Russell)

Their peace is short lived as The Devourer rises!

“Disengorging itself from the placid lake, an upheaval from the Stygian Depths...” This old-god-esque monstrosity is mutated whale and slug and who-knows-what. As Killraven and his men try to deal with the Devourer, Eve has her baby – and Atalon and the Sacrificer attack! The Devourer cares little for either side, knocking around Atalon as well as nearly crushing Hawk and Old Skull.

Killraven finally shoots a stalactite that falls, piercing and killing the Devourer, but then the Sacrificer tackles Killraven! He and the Sacrificer tumble down a mountainside and crash into one of the golden arches, bringing it down – shattering the worshipers' “monument,” crushing the Sacrificer under the arch as it falls.

Adam fights Atalon, until Volcana takes Atalon out from behind, exacting some vengeance for her sister. Killraven cautions Volcana that Atalon may have dehumanized her more than she knows, as she's become a killer. With Atalon and the Sacrificer dead and their pursuit cooled off for the time being, Volcana tells Killraven she is going to leave with Adam and Eve and their baby, to maybe find her sister or at least a new life. She and Killraven finally kiss before she heads off into the sunset.

Carmilla gives Killraven grudging props for how he handled the situation, for his sobriety, as Killraven somberly responds to the destruction instead of “preening” over it. We see Killraven and his Freemen head off, their retreating figures framed underneath the remaining Golden Arch: “Once this SYMBOL must have attracted people from far and near... an awesome sign for some religious sect, perhaps, who knew they had found a HAVEN upon reaching its Golden Archway...”

Carmilla admitted she was lost at the end of issue #31. As #32 opens, Killraven and the group reach Nashville, Tennessee. In McGregor's 1990's humankind had developed a sort of virtual reality system, the “Mural Phonics System,” the means the Martians tried to use to broadcast the death of Killraven. Now Killraven and the gang seek shelter in a strange building made of mirrors that turns out to be an even trippier virtual reality machine – the Octo-Tympanum Viewscope, an invention of 1998 “that makes music REAL.”

McGregor goes off on a stream of consciousness exploration of Killraven and his past and racial memories and other things as the “Psychic Concert” takes hold of Killraven. He sees Old Skull in a sort of Disney-esque cute animal scape, complete with singing woodland creatures. Carmilla is in a darker place, a tomb where Grok is dead. M'Shulla is killing countless Martians. Hawk contemplates his reckoning. Killraven and M'Shulla connect and see Old Skull talking to the cute little squirrels. Killraven draws the Free Men together and leads them out of the musical arena.

In an “Intermezzo” moment we see Skar and his tripod reach the bodies of Atalon and the Sacrificer at the arches. He reports back to the Martian High Overlord on their deaths and the collapse of Death-Birth, and the High Overlord commands Skar track them down.

M'Shulla and Killraven finally confront Hawk over his attitude – what's going on? Hawk tells them his life story, how his father sold out their land and Native culture and fell under the spell of the Mural Phonics System, playing out the adventures of a Sherlock Holmes type. Hawk tried to join him in the adventure but the unreality of it drove him to anger. He and his father never spoke again.

As Hawk spoke Old Skull drifted back into the musical arena to play with his animal friends. Now for some reason he's under virtual dragon attack – and this time the dragon's fiery breath is actually burning him! Killraven hears his friend's cries and leaps through the trippy reality of the Octo-Tympanum Viewscope to try to slay the dragon Old Skull has made real. Killraven can't kill the beast, but M'Shulla stops it... by turning the machine off.

“Sorta wish't it coulda lasted longer,” Old Skull says. “as long as it's just for a while, old friend... and it doesn't take over your whole life!” Killraven comments, in a sort of anti-drug message – or is it a cry for help from a burned out creative crew? The issue ends with a narrative comment: “...and that's the reality of it - -FIN-” And a promise: “Next: Showdown In the 25th Century!” Which doesn't make much sense, as the story takes place in 2019...

Issue #33 is a fill-in written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Herb Trimpe, “A Far-Out Fill-In to give a much overworked Dauntless Don and Cavortin' Craig a Breather...” Based on Russell's earlier cited comments, he and McGregor were probably running late again.

The bizarre action takes place in West Virginia. A wiped-out Killraven finds the Freemen a cave to rest in, and they start a fire. Killraven experiences some strange visions of tribesmen and human sacrifice. The visions pass as M'Shulla returns with some venison for a real meal. After the meal Killraven wanders off.

Then it get a bit painful to read, as writer Mantlo makes the unfortunate choice to write in JIVE. Killraven discovers a lost underground colony of African-Americans who call him “Honky” and “Whitey” and educate him about the Civil Rights struggle... and they speak in jive while wearing African tribal costumes, carrying spears and living in huts. There are many unfortunate creative choices made for this issue. It's... bad.

Killraven discovers the lost tribe are sacrificing to a Martian who lives in the underground lake which they've built their village next to. Killraven's vision was of these people sacrificing an infant, seen through the Martian's eyes. He sees within the mind of his foe as he kills the Martian, feels it die from the inside. The shock of it stuns him. He comes to and finds he has convinced the people to head back above ground, abandoning their caves. Though it feels like he's been gone a while, when Killraven makes it back to the Freemen and the fire he discovers almost no time has passed.

The grim cover of issue #34 promises “A Death In The Family” with Skar brandishing a smoking gun over the bodies of Killraven and the Freemen. Don McGregor and Craig Russell return to the story as Skar returns to the scene – Chattanooga, Tennessee in July of 2019. We watch Skar silently approach and seem to kill beloved Old Skull, who's been harmlessly playing his flute by a waterfall. Skar even kicks the man in the head when he's down.

The sight of destroyed cars and trucks recalls a memory of a DJ on the radio for Killraven, one he'd experienced in the reality music room – but is it his memory? Does Killraven somehow possess other memories, not his own? Talk of memories leads Carmilla to reveal that Grok was a clone of her father!

Hawk finds Old Skull on the ground near Skar and runs.

(Cover Amazing Adventures #34)

M'Shulla, Carmilla and Killraven discover Skar's temporarily abandoned Tripod. Realizing Skar is heading for their camp, Carmilla runs to protect Grok. Killraven tasks M'Shulla with destroying the Tripod, and then heads back to camp himself, following her. As he approaches camp he finds the injured Old Skull – not as dead as we thought – and Killraven grabs the fallen man's gun to hunt Skar.

Killraven doesn't get a shot off before Skar gets back to his Tripod. Carmilla tries to shoot the cyclops but Skar uses telekinesis to rip the weapon from her hand, catch it in his own and crush it. M'Shulla fires a crossbow bolt through the hunter's neck and Carmilla sends a flying kick at Skar's face at the same time – both apparently without effect: “Skar Feels Neither.” The cybernetic enhancements that give him his power make him more machine than man.

M'Shulla leaps from the Tripod attempting to jump Skar, but Skar uses telekinesis to knock him aside easily. Skar charges up for the kill – as he does, energy coalesces around the deep gouge in the center of his forehead where his eyes should be: “The dark center pulses. Swirling color forms at the center of Skar's head. Beautiful colors that can consume rocks!”

Before he can kill, Killraven jumps Skar! He plunges his broadsword into the hunter's eye-hole... and Skar laughs and pulls it out. Fending off their attacks, Skar fires an energy burst from his forehead, bringing a cascade of crushing rock down upon Hawk and Grok! Skar laughs at their apparent deaths, and keeps laughing as Killraven shoots him, beats him, and finally rips the machine man apart. “Feel pain, damn you!” Killraven shouts as he pounds Skar. But Skar feels no pain and just keeps laughing his unnatural laugh to the end.

Killraven next appears in an out-of-continuity romp in Marvel Team Up written by Bill Mantlo with art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito. It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to team up the two, but Mantlo makes it work better than he did his previous Killraven story, mostly because he writes a good Spider-Man. Spidey is using Doctor Doom's time machine (I think) to escape from Cotton Mather in the past. He gets bumped into Killraven's New York City as Killraven rides the Serpent Steed away from attacking Tripods. Spidey helps Killraven take down the Tripods and they become friends.

Attacked by human mutates serving the Martians, they're dosed with flashback gas – well, it makes both Spidey and Killraven see people from their pasts. Killraven sees Volcana Ash, who turns on him! Spidey faces the Green Goblin, who can't be there because “Norman Osborn is DEAD! His son Harry is CURED!” Goblin turns out to be... Mary Jane? Killraven knows it isn't Volcana, so he launches his sword at her! Spidey isn't fooled either. Realizing he's facing an inner demon of doubt, he punches her!
(Cover Marvel Team Up #45
– Spidey and Killraven?)

The two snap out of it and discover that even under the influence of the gas they've managed to subdue their attackers – they're that good! Killraven discovers “The sword that was meant for Volcana lies here in the corpse of my TRUE enemy!” Battle won, Killraven asks Spidey to join his Freemen in the fight against the Martians. Spider-Man declines and takes off on his time machine, leaving Killraven pondering parallel worlds.

The next issue of Amazing Adventures returns to calling it “War of the Worlds” on the cover, although inside it's still “Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds” as it would the next issue. It's now October of 2019, and Killraven, M'Shulla, Carmilla and Old Skull have stumbled onto Atlanta, Georgia and the threat of the “24-Hour Man.”

Don McGregor writes and Craig Russell is credited with layouts, Keith Giffen and Jack Abel with the art. The combination works well – it's a beautifully drawn issue! The monster G'rath is well rendered throughout. The giant, sort of brontosaurus looking G'rath and Emmanuel share a symbiotic energy relationship, with G'rath a sort of guardian to the repository of his people's consciousnesses, Emmanuel.

It's seven in the morning and the Freemen find a woman driven mad by giving birth to G'rath's child Emmanuel at midnight. They discover first the monstrous G'rath and then the human-appearing Emmanuel – the 24-Hour Man – shows up. He kidnaps Carmilla so G'rath can impregnate her to carry on Emmanuel's race!

Emmanuel calmly explains that if he doesn't make this happen before midnight, his race will die out – when he does. He only has a 24-Hour lifespan. As you might imagine, Carmilla's not keen on the whole go mad/give birth thing, and the Freemen free her, fight back and kill G'rath. Emmanuel dies, evaporating, dissipating after G'rath goes. The book ends as it began, with the mad woman screaming at Killraven and his crew - “They do not chase her this time.”

Issue #36 opens with Killraven apparently on Mars! It's December of 2019 and Killraven kneels on red Martian dust – when he was moments earlier on Earth, on grass. McGregor writes with Russell again on layouts, finished art is by Sonny Trinidad, another effective collaboration. In the course of his run on “Killraven” McGregor's writing at times verges on the poetic: “The Stars Speak Undecipherable Truths,” he writes here, as Killraven tries to wrap his head around the familiarity he feels in strolling across the “Vermillion Vastness” of the Martian desert.

Killraven is again experiencing his strange psychic connection to the “Martians”. Once he's back inside his own skin, we find Killraven and his Freemen are actually still in Georgia. There is a Martian breeding facility nearby, complete with an artificial Martian landscape under a giant dome. Killraven has been seeing into the mind of a young Martian inside of the facility.

There is a brief interlude here where we flash to Yellowstone, to the domed up Old Faithful: “The High Overlord bathes in the scalding spray of the geyser. It glistens down the length of his bio-chemech armor.” This is the site of the “Yellowstone Sector Mercenary Training Grounds” overseen by the long-lost brother of Killraven – Deathraven! Deathraven is training an army for the Martians, and is told of his brother's quest for him by the High Overlord. However, the High Overlord knows, as do we, that Killraven and his band are actually kind of lost!

Back in Georgia, Killraven and his Freemen bust into the facility and destroy the incubating young Martians within. They run into the Martian whose mind Killraven had experienced. The Martian is under the dome that replicates Mars, and Killraven burns off one of its tentacles in battle as the band fights their way out of the dome successfully. But Killraven can feel a change in the Martian he's been sharing thoughts with. This once dispassionate younger Martian has learned how to hate. Killraven senses defeat in the midst of their victory.

Issue #37 brings another New Years Eve to Killraven and his friends, finding them in the Okefenokee swamp, in the Wildlife refuge. “Brother Axe” leads a group of free humans who live in the refuge. After an initial confrontation with Brother Axe and his men Huey And Louie, the Freemen are accepted by Brother Axe and shown the hospitality of a fine feast! Old Skull then tells the story of his life.

As a slow kid he was called “Numbskull” and beaten by his last-of-the-cowboys father. Old Skull's father was killed in the invasion day Martian Attack. Killraven tries to hurry Old Skull into talking about their days together in the arena, but Old Skull won't have it, and he tells his tale in his own time, and first insists on telling how he and Killraven met. Old Skull was being ridiculed as “Numbskull” by the other prisoners as they waited to enter the arena. Killraven came to his defense, and christened him “Old Skull” - not “numbskull.”

Finally, they do tell the story of Old Skull and Killraven's first battle together in the arena in front of the silent Martian crowds. They fight “Warr” and his pet giant spider and “Mr. Killraven” and “Old Skull” bond as war brothers in the battle. They kill the spider and defeat but don't kill Warr, and the two leave the arena as friends. End of the story.

Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen would be the storytellers for the next issue of Amazing Adventures, issue #38 with Al Milgrom on the inks. Killraven is now in Miami, scouting ahead of the Freemen. He finds a strange dome, generating a humming sound that reminds Killraven of the machines of the scientists who raised him. As he investigates, he's nearly killed by automatic laser fire. He escapes, but then finds himself being swallowed by the void of deep space! He runs from it, through a door and into the dome. All the while, a shadowy, dreaming figure rejoices at Killraven's presence. When Killraven survives the security measures and makes it inside the dome, the helmeted figure thinks “I'm not alone, anymore!”

Turns out the dome is the old “Miami Museum of Cultural Development,” with displays featuring both the past and the future. A taped voice guide speaks to Killraven, welcoming him once he's safely under the dome. Killraven sees displays on the 1950's and '60's... but then suddenly feels his mind being ripped apart!

The shadowy, dreaming figure has miscalculated and “jolted” Killraven too hard! Killraven's memories flow over both of them, and then Killraven finds himself in the 1970's “pavilion” in New York City, “The World of Today.” An audio-visual psychic projection of Iron Man greets him, and the shadowy figure tells us Killraven is now facing HIS dreams. Iron Man blasts him and Killraven is bounced across the dreamer's subconscious into a swamp - “dreams of a training mission undertaken in the Florida Everglades... in preparation for the forthcoming flight.”

Killraven finds himself facing the Man-Thing! The dreamer evidently did as well, once, but now Killraven is altering the dream - the dream itself is changing because of his involvement. The Man-Thing grabs Killraven and the swamp creature's touch burns. The Man-Thing and the dreamer laugh as Killraven burns, turning into a hole ripped in the fabric of the dream itself.

This is where it gets silly. Killraven re-forms in a world where the slightly-altered heroes of the Marvel Universe, lead by a Doctor Strange, worship at an altar before a great stone image of their Leader, the mighty HOWARD COSELL! Killraven finds himself fighting strange analogues of Marvel heroes, battling off a quasi-Daredevil, The Thing, Iron Fist and more.

Thankfully, Giffen's art in some ways redeems his and Mantlo's storytelling. The layouts and full page illustrations in “Cosell-World” are actually beautiful! The unseen dreamer in the shadows is disturbed by how the dream is now attacking Killraven – but the dreamer can not control the dream. Iron Man saves Killraven from the crushing grip of Giant Man, and then introduces him to Captain America – Ford. Yup, President Ford crossed with Captain America, who tries to convince Killraven to become a myth and join them. Told you it got silly...

Killraven finally breaks out of the dream and faces the dreamer, an astronaut who survived the Mars mission of 1999 damaged, in a permanent dream state. The Cosmic Rays had given him the ability to project his dreams, however, and so he'd pulled Killraven into them, to help him wake up. He apologizes, but Killraven's not accepting his apology, and he punches the dreamer back into unconsciousness.

Sadly, the next issue of Amazing Adventures, #39, would be Killraven's last. Thankfully, Don McGregor writes and P. Craig Russell is on for full art duties for a beautiful finale, aptly titled “The Final Glory” on the cover, though titled “Mourning Prey” within. The “Dream Dome” interlude seems forgotten, as the story picks up right after the events in issue #37, in January of 2020, in the Okefenokee Swamp.

McGregor has a special dedication on the issue's first page: “Dedicated to P. Craig Russell, for caring enough to add your own vision and challenge mine, and to the Mud-Brother following, who cared enough to fight by our sides.” Nice.

Killraven slogs through the swamp in the predawn gray, thinking thoughts of the adversary just faced, Mourning Prey. He finds M'Shulla lying on the ground, checks for a pulse and cheers when he's not dead! The others are missing, and the marsh is strangely silent. Huey and Louie, the guides Brother Axe sent them off with, are either dead or prisoners, along with Carmilla Frost and Old Skull.

(Cover of the final issue of
Amazing Adventures - #39)

We discover they really don't know anything about “Mourning Prey” - the name was given to a stalker by Carmilla. When the stalker attacked, she freaked out Killraven: “(Her Eyes) Bled hate and sorrow. I lost the concrete boundaries of our war... it was a battle our ancestors fought, an individual battle... with something vaguely defined but important to lose if the fight is not waged. Yesterday I saw all the nonsense stripped away.”

We flash back to yesterday. The band runs into webbing and a cocoon in the swamp. To get past it, they blast it, and giant caterpillars rain down on them from inside of the now exploding mass. The caterpillars cling to them, and they blast and slice them to get them off. Killraven becomes aware they're being watched, and looks up to see the black eyes of a sort of moth-woman looking down on him. She flies off suddenly, then just as quickly reappears above them.

She and Killraven lock eyes. Though his finger rests on his trigger, Killraven doesn't shoot. She merely watches, judges him, and then flies off. Carmilla says she thought Killraven was going to kill the flying woman. “One cannot kill everything one does not understand, can one, Miss Frost,” Killraven asks. She's impressed, but can't tell Killraven what the creature was.

We're treated to the first full page interim, “Interim I: Creation.” There's some beautiful work by Russell on this page, with a trippy close-up of Mourning Prey's face, a slender panel with her weaving webs, and another with webwork intricately connected. The text for the interim is a poem pertaining to something in the night-dark marsh...

We flash back to the campfire of the night before, with Carmilla explaining that the woman must be some new sort of life form. Killraven muses that it's clear – the “Earth will never be the same as it was before the Martian Invasion.” Then, the band is attacked by a horde of acid spitting-butterflies, and Mourning Prey hangs in the air, directing their winged attack!

We flash forward and Killraven and M'Shulla find one of the guides battered but alive, then flash back again as Mourning Prey descends to confront Killraven directly. We're treated to another interim with beautiful work from Russell and more of the poem, and then it's back to the battle, as Mourning Prey carries Killraven up into the sky, his pistol trained on her all the while. He does not shoot, and she drops him. Again, we're back in the present, and Killraven and M'Shulla follow a sound through the marsh.

They

're surprised to find Carmilla and Old Skull chilling with Mourning Prey! Old Skull's been playing his flute, surrounded by hovering butterflies. They dance to his music! Old Skull explains that Killraven killed Mourning Prey's “children” when he blasted her cocoon, but she now forgives him, because he didn't know what he was doing. She speaks with “pictures inside the head,” Old Skull tells him. Killraven and Mourning Prey “...embrace by sight. A communion of hands...”

And so we come to “Interim III: Migration” as Mourning Prey asks Killraven, “What do you fear?” He fears to ask where her children go as they fly off. “They do not know, save that it is meant for them. They do not need a reason. They are individual fliers hearing the same call.”

“And you let them go?” Killraven asks her.
“There Is No Other Choice,” she tells him.

The poem returns to bring us to the conclusion: “Look at it out there in the sunsets and dawns... the truth unaltered. And one day, you will have to face it.” As a nice, light, final touch, Old Skull appears, Porky-Pig like, in a small circle in the lower right hand corner of the page proclaiming, “Th... Tha... That's All, Folks.”

(Final page of the last issue of
Amazing Adventures - Writer: D. McGregor/Artist: P.C. Russell)

Everything has a beginning and an end. That's what I took to be the “truth” McGregor writes about in this final issue. It's almost Biblical - “To everything there is a season...” But this would not be the end for long, as McGregor and Russell return about seven years later in 1983, to tell a new story of Killraven in one of the original Marvel Graphic Novels (No. 7).

Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds: Last Dreams Broken opens with a prologue describing the Martian Invasion, the “One Night War.” Profile pages reintroduce us to Killraven, M'Shulla, Old Skull and Carmilla Frost, as well as the Martian High Overlord, though the texts of Killraven and M'Shulla's profiles are pretty much lifted directly from the profiles in Amazing Adventures #30.

It great seeing what McGregor and Russell can do given the freedom of the graphic novel form. Russell's art is more mature and even ranges into collage towards the end recalling Kirby's efforts in the New Gods and Jimmy Olsen back in the 70's. McGregor's prose flows florid and lyrical – he waxes eloquent as his saga reaches a more satisfying conclusion than offered in Amazing Adventures #39.

The earlier series' overarching plot involving Killraven's long lost brother, now known as Deathraven, and Killraven's quest to find him at Yellowstone, had been left unfinished at the end of the run in Amazing Adventures. McGregor had to come up with new plot elements, however, as he explained to Comics Interview back in 1983: “Some of the elements that I had been leading up to in Killraven – especially the material dealing with Yellowstone National Park – I had just written about six months previously for Sabre. So Yellowstone was no longer a viable place to have them go.”

(Cover – Marvel Graphic Novel: Killraven –
Warrior of the Worlds art by P. Craig Russell)

In the graphic novel, McGregor and Russell resume the story a mere month after the events of issue #39. It's February of 2020 as the action opens at Cape Canaveral. A somewhat younger looking Killraven watches a Martian rocket take off and vows once again to take the fight back to the fourth planet. The storytellers take advantage of the format right off the bat with a subtle sex scene between M'Shulla and Carmilla, resolving another dangling thread from the earlier run. Carmilla apologizes for being “bitchy” – it is a little more “adult” take on the characters.

Killraven says he's been able to control his “clairsentience” more in the last month, and plans to use it to try to see inside of a Martian at the former Cape Canaveral, so he can reconnoiter for a later raid with M'Shulla. He discovers “Project Regenesis” underway, using an ancient rocket. The High Overlord is within, on an inspection tour.

The Freemen meet up with old astronaut Jenette Miller, who leads them through a rundown ruin that was once Cocoa Beach, Florida. She says she can lead them into Cape Kennedy – she wants to see the place that once represented her dreams destroyed, now that her dreams have been broken. Killraven has a strange flash of a memory not his own – a vision of the Kennedy assassination!

On their way upriver to the cape, a man and a wolf suddenly appear – it looks like the man is being attacked! They help the man – Killraven wrestles with and defeats the wolf, breaking its back – and the man turns out to be Killraven's older brother, Joshua! Though the group is suspicious, the man confirms details of the death of their mother and Killraven accepts him as his brother. They agree to wait on their attack so that Joshua can regain his strength and join in the raid.

Joshua says he's been following since they were in the Okefenokee Swamp and has just caught up with them. Killraven is overjoyed to have his brother back. Another surprise has been revealed – Carmilla tells M'Shulla she is pregnant with his child. She is not happy about bringing a child into such a messed up world. It gets even more messed up when Joshua turns on them! He beats down Jenette and then transforms into a werewolf – he IS Deathraven!

The High Overlord and the Martian Commander look on from a distance as their wolfman Joshua calls in more wolves. Joshua/Deathraven tells Killraven he regrets the loss of his brother wolf earlier, but it was necessary to gain their trust. At least it wasn't one of his soldiers, he says. The High Overlord and the Martian Commander, accompanied by Saunders (the original Keeper who took Joshua away and turned him into Deathraven) then appear on scene proclaiming their triumph in creating Deathraven.

Killraven asks Joshua to deny the High Overlord, the monster in the machine armor, but Deathraven will not! Joshua mocks Killraven and his sentimental memory of their mother and him, his brother, from before the Martians came. It wasn't the golden time Killraven remembers – their mother was a bitch and Joshua used to beat up his little brother, he tells him. And now, he's going to do it again!

Killraven doesn't want to hurt his brother, so the fight is lopsided. M'Shulla is injured. Killraven takes a beating. Old Skull gets fed up and attacks Deathraven directly, tossing wolves aside to grab at the werewolf. Deathraven gets the upper hand in the battle. But then Killraven finds his clairvoyance not only placing his mind inside of the Martian Commander at the side of The High Overlord, he finds he can make the Martian's body obey his commands! He throws the Martian's tentacled form at the werewolf, attacking, suction-cupped tentacles sucking the blood from his brother's body!

The two fall together and Killraven feels everything through the Martian as his brother dies. Then he feels something else: “It starts like a pulse in his flesh and mind...”

It's here we get the trippy collage work as Killraven has his mind blown, as Russell includes scores of images out of mankind's history piled on top of each other. McGregor approximates the data overload Killraven is experiencing textually with a stream of consciousness prose poem depicting an implanted memory of mankind's history exploding into Killraven's conscious mind. With it comes the realization Whitman implanted this into his mind ages ago. When Killraven proved able to send his mind into the Martian's mind – and dominate it – it also proved his mind was strong enough to absorb the information that had lain dormant within, and so it triggered the mental implant which provides him with the history of mankind.

Killraven comes out of the reverie and discovers Jenette has done her work – she and Carmilla come running to get the rest of them out of the facility – it's going to blow! Old Skull carries out M'Shulla as they run for safety. As the High Overlord threatens them, the entire facility explodes around him, erupting in smoke and flame: “The night lights up vividly. The sudden burst of heat reaches them as first one, then another, in a series of explosions, in trip-hammer fashion, devour and expel buildings and rockets and launching pads, and whatever is within them.”

Killraven of 7305?

The book ends with Jenette flirting with Killraven as she exults in destroying what the Martians had ruined. Old Skull's optimism makes M'Shulla groan as the big man carries him: “You never give it up, do you?” “Nope!” The final page of the graphic novel draws the whole thing to a close: “For those who remember, the saga ends... For those yet to experience it, a new world dawns.”

That was the end of the saga... for a while. There were some glimpses of Killraven, however, in and out of his Earth-691 continuity.

In May of 1992 in Excalibur #50, story and script by Alan Davis, an alternate reality Jonathan Killraven appeared as John Raven – Will of the People – a member of the Captain Britain Corps from Earth-7305. At least, that's who the later Marvel Handbook said is appearing in the alternate reality flash seen by the members of Excalibur (The issue is collected in Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis, Vol. 1 ).
(Killraven of Earth-7305?
From Excalibur #50)

Grant Morrison and Mark Millar did not include the character, but DID include Killraven's Earth in a Marvel 2099 pitch in1994 for a storyline titled “Apocalypse”. They would have made the 2099 continuity part of Killraven's universe. The storyline would see the heroes make a deal with Galactus where he spares Earth, eats Mars, and so solves the Martian “problem” – a new Avengers 2099 series would spin out of it. But it apparently didn't go beyond the pitch phase. Just worth noting that the world of Killraven remained on the minds of Marvel writers.

In early 1999 writer Kurt Busiek has Killraven appear in Avengers Forever as a member of Black Panther's future Avengers of Earth-9930. This is an Earth similar to Earth-691's – not quite the same – we later discover that is thanks to the meddling of Immortus. The “disillusioned” Captain America and mature Giant-Man (Hank Pym) from the time-lost Avengers team traveling in the Sphinx-Shaped Time Machine (long story...) travel to Earth's near-future and find themselves battling Martian Tripods and an army of Skar-looking androids alongside victimized humans! They're nearly defeated when Black Panther and his team appear and chase off the Martian forces for the time being. It's temporary – but Panther is readying his Avengers for a great, final battle against the Martian overlords.

(Black Panther introduces Killraven and his other “Avengers” in
Avengers Forever #4 written by Kurt Busiek with art by Carlos Pacheco)

Killraven tells Cap they're fighting “Martians, or at least that's where they staged their invasion from...” As Avengers Forever #5 opens, Giant-Man and Cap join in the battle alongside Black Panther, Killraven and their future Avengers – even if the “disillusioned” Cap is a little whiny as Killraven explains what they must do. The Martians wreck all but one of their ships – they use the last one to escape in when the Avengers have them nearly beaten. The future Avengers then travel to Wakanda in issue #6, where Panther plans to use the Vibranium there to build warships, so they can travel to Mars and attack the aliens at their source. There they run into the strange being last seen in Amazing Adventures #39 – Mourning Prey!
(Mourning Prey of Earth-9930 from
Avengers Forever #6 by Busiek/Pacheco)

Immortus has relocated her to Wakanda – and her once butterfly-like offspring now resemble the Vibranium-mutated half-brother of T'Challa Jakarra from Jack Kirby's Black Panther. Relocating Mourning Prey has made her offspring dependent upon the Vibranium. Future Panther is forced to abandon his plans to use what little Vibranium is left to go to Mars to give her children a chance at life. As Cap and Giant-Man return to the Sphinx the Avengers begin to determine that Immortus has engineered this future to limit the expansion of humankind into space (Avengers Forever Hardcover).

Seventeen years after the graphic novel the original Killraven appeared again in a self-titled one-shot under the Marvel Knights banner in 2001. Mere months have passed in Killraven's world, as artist and writer Joe Linsner sets the story in May of 2020. Killraven, M'Shulla, Carmilla and Old Skull are in New Brunswick, New Jersey. But this is mostly a solo run – M'Shulla gets a speaking role only so Killraven has someone to whom to tell his tale.

Killraven came across a couple of Martian tripods. The second one he takes down breaks open a secret lab whose machines are still humming. Killraven wanders in and finds one of twenty-five tubes holding bodies is still functioning. He opens it and revives its occupant, a girl named Alice. She is shocked to discover it's 2020. Turns out she and the 24 others had gone into suspended animation in 1976, planning to awaken in 2001. It was a peaceful protest. They were never woken up because the Martians arrived.

(Cover: Marvel Knights:
Killraven #1 by Joseph Linsner)

Killraven tells Alice his life story, until they're interrupted by a third tripod. Killraven takes it down and kills the Martian in front of Alice, who is appalled. Killraven sees her through the Martian's dying eye. She's been trying to talk to Killraven about her values of non-violence, and this disturbs her to her cores. She pleads with Killraven to put her back into her tube! She cries herself to sleep and Killraven spends the night staring into their campfire. We're treated to a two-page spread of Killraven's life as portrayed by Linsner, with a possible future where he is old and at peace with the Martians, where his third eye opens and he can fly.

In the morning he puts her back inside her unit, and we flash back to him telling M'Shulla about the girl's going back into the tube. He kissed her goodnight and left her in her lab. Scrawled on the wall is “Killraven Was Here,” an interesting flash back to the original run. Killraven checks with M'Shulla: “If we ever get to Mars, if we get to take the war back to their homeworld – I can count on you to be on my side, right?” M'Shulla says sure, but he's shocked – he's never heard Killraven say “If” about it before! Alice has had at least a temporary effect on him! “Well, I guess there's a first time for everything!”

The entire Amazing Adventures Killraven run is collected along with the graphic novel and the Linsner one-shot in the black-and-white Essential Killraven Volume 1: War Of The Worlds TPB.

In 2001 and 2002 Killraven appeared in the Paradise X books. The Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes (2005) entry on Earth X says this was the original Killraven, plucked from the Earth-691 time line to serve in the Earth-9997 universe. Alex Ross and Jim Krueger work Killraven into the story as a herald for X-51 (Aaron Stack/Machine Man), one of a group sent out to warn alternate universe worlds of the Celestials gestating within them (another long story...).

(Killraven speaks to an Old Man Logan in Paradise X: Heralds #1 – art by Steve Pugh)

Though featured in the Heralds three-issue prelude miniseries, Killraven is hardly glimpsed again until he appears on the cover of Paradise X #10 – he shows up a couple of times – even gets a short line or two in issue #6 – prior to that.He doesn't have much more to say in #10! X-51 initially promised each Herald the fulfillment of their greatest desire in exchange for their service, a sub-plot that plays out through the series. Killraven, traveling with the original Guardians of the Galaxy, returns to X-51, who asks, “And what about you, Killraven? Have you found what you wanted to know?” It seems he has.

Killraven replies

, “I think so... it doesn't matter whether the Guardians are from my future or not. As long as I know that there is ONE REALITY where humanity DID WIN.” With that, Killraven returns to his world – we see a prism of images from Amazing Adventures behind him as he goes (Paradise X Volume 1 TPB, Paradise X Volume 2 TPB).

(Killraven on the cover of
Paradise X #10 – art by Alex Ross)

As the Paradise X storyline unfolded, writer and artist Alan Davis' reconstruction/re-imagining of the original story of Killraven began appearing in a six-issue limited series – Killraven – in a world designated Earth-2120 in the previously mentioned OHTMU:AU. The 2002 version of Killraven was different, as Davis had his own unique take on the character.

(Killraven leaves Paradise X #10 – interior art
by Dougie Braithwaite, Bill Reingold & Pete Pantazis.)

In the introduction to the hardcover collected series (Killraven Premiere HC), Davis said he didn't like the way the story changed in the middle of the first story in Amazing Adventures #18 when the creative team shifted from Roy Thomas and Neal Adams to Gerry Conway and Howard Chaykin. “...Halfway through that first issue, the art suddenly changed and the story took on a completely different tone... I just felt cheated... I wanted more of the character who appeared in the first half of the book,” Davis wrote in April of 2007.

Strangely enough, Davis wasn't exactly a fan of Don McGrgeor's run on Killraven, he says in the introduction. He praises the work of P. Craig Russell – “(he) made the character his own with some unforgettably beautiful art...” – but Davis admits he really originally wanted to write Jon Carter of Mars! As the Burroughs' character was unavailable, Davis settled for using the character of Killraven – another Martian fighter – even though he felt the original story had wrapped up well in the Graphic Novel and “I had always regarded that VERSION of Killraven as a hapless pawn, a victim of circumstance who was a catalyst for a collection of Sci-Fi stories. He wasn't the character who appeared so fleetingly in the opening of the debut issue. The character I wanted to write and draw. The solution was obvious, a prequel!”
Davis goes on to explain that his prequel idea turned into a “reinvention” as he worked around dated aspects of the original tale, and he came to enjoy the story – he finishes the introduction by thanking “Marvel for allowing me to fulfill an ambition I didn't realize I had...”

He gives special thanks to Neal Adams. “This is the Killraven I saw in the first ten pages of Amazing Adventures #18,” Davis writes. He introduces a new point-of-view character, John, who loses his own mother to the Martians, much in the way Killraven lost his. Killraven befriends the boy, who then leads Killraven and his Freemen to the underground bunker where he and his mom live.

There's an amusing moment when the young Freemen first encounter Gramps, an old man – they are disturbed by his wrinkled skin, not having seen that “condition” before. Gramps tells them the story of the Martian invasion, similar to the original though no longer in the same time frame.

We see Martian Hunter Slaves who sort of resemble the High Overlord of the first series. There are tripods, naturally. And Killraven is accompanied by M'Shulla, Carmilla, (Old) Skull and Hawk. When the “Keeper's Men” attack, the War Lord is the High Overlord, or at least strikingly similar. The Martians overrun the bunker, and we see these Martians appear metallic, and are themselves tripodal, or at least their personal transport devices are.

The bunker is compromised. After getting Killraven to agree to raise the boy, Gramps sacrifices himself so the rest of them can get away. He triggers the bunker's self-destruct and dies in a massive explosion, destroying many Martians and their followers... and what's left of the city of New York!

There are more familiar elements. We meet Mint Julep – Killraven fights her attempt to take him prisoner and is knocked out. He flashes back to his “training” under Keeper Whitman. We see him grow up a gladiator slave. He meets Skull. Davis introduces “Skarlett the Siren” who hypnotizes him to “Kill Raven!” He takes to the arena. He doesn't want to kill, but he must. But he is rebellious and resists the sirens. When he casts off their remembered psychic probes, he awakens and find that Mint Julep's telepath Marvo has been rummaging through his memories!

Marvo sensed an unusual Mind Shield in Killraven, one that seems to give him a defense against telepathy and gives him and those near him an invisibility to Martian scanners – which let him escape the Sirens and the Citadel in the North. This and other things attract Mint Julep to Killraven. She tries to convince him to join her and her army, to rule at her side.

Even though she has a really cool, blimp-carrying, old, flying Amtrack Train Car and green skin James T. Kirk would find hard to resist, Killraven rebukes and refuses her - “You want to to defeat the Martians but only to replace their rule with yours,” he tells her. He tells her she's served the Martians too long, and now thinks and acts like her masters. She doesn't like that and tosses him in her brig.

Killraven beats up his would be captives and finds a beautiful, fiery-orange redheaded girl chained up in a barrel of oil in the brig. Volcana Ash ends up helping Killraven and his people escape, but the fire girl is knocked unconscious and taken away by Mint Julep. Raven vows to find her and set her free!

The boy John wants Raven to train him, but he refuses. Skull and the boy go fishing – until they're attacked by a giant mutated fish! Killraven kills it – they find it has human feet – evidence of alien experimentation. The Martian citadel Mint Julep took Volcana to must be near. Instead of finding a citadel, the Freemen find Lucifer and his minions ruling the ruins of Washington D.C. The people of the area think they are under the command of the devil incarnate!

Killraven has no patience for men who pretend to be demons...God help them! He fights the minions until their boss calls a halt to the battle and bids Killraven approach him. Turns out “Lucifer” is only a man with a scary helmet. Disgusted, Killraven exposes him. Killraven is even more dismayed when the crowd turns on their former leader and beats him to death. Realizing the way the world truly is, Killraven tells Skull to train the boy.

M'Shulla, Carmilla and Killraven's search for the citadel takes them underground, where they attack the grotesquely grafted creature called Cerebus. The human in the graft thanks them as they put it out of its misery and tells them where to find Volcana. Killraven kills the Martian alien, showing the others the weak spot in the alien's armor. They free Volcana, and she and Killraven get a little gaga for each other.

Killraven is struck down by a flash, a vision – this Killraven can see inside of the minds of Martians, too. He sees water under the ice, and feels a longing for home, feels like he's dying, feels he has no hope. They blast and burn their way out, setting Mint Julep and hundreds of genetically mutated creatures free in the process. Killraven is puzzled as to why the Martians are creating so many creatures they can barely control.

One of the freed creatures rescues Carmilla from a Martian and shows them the way out of the citadel. The three bring “Grok” back to camp with them, where Skull is training the boy by having him lift weights. Killraven and Volcana go off to have a romantic moment. Not knowing if she can control her pyrotechnic power, Volcana leads Raven to a cool lake so they can get more intimate. The others see the steam rising in the distance...

(Killraven experiences a Martian Mental Flash
– Art & Story: Alan Davis)

Keeper Whitman reappears, gets debriefed about Killraven and then exiled. Davis picks up another original story point as Carmilla announces she's pregnant with M'Shulla's child. Then Killraven finds himself in the midst of a full on Martian attack. Everyone – Skull and the boy, Volcana, Carmilla, M'Shulla – lays dead on the ground. Until Skarlett the Siren reveals herself, and Killraven breaks the hold she and the eight other sirens linked with her have over him. The battle dream ends and Killraven finds himself standing out in the woods next to nine unconscious sirens, surrounded by Martian forces.

Killraven fights his way back to the others, who are still alive! They've managed to take out a tripod and have found a com with the plans of the great citadel in the north, the one they originally busted out of. The new information will let them sneak in and set off a chain reaction that could destroy the biggest Martian stronghold on the Earth.

(Cover – Killraven #3 by Alan Davis)

Hawk joins the expedition to destroy the citadel, but actually has other plans in mind. He knocks out Volcana and disarms Killraven, challenging him and trying to kill him. Killraven fends him off, but they are betrayed – by the creature Grok! Grok knocks out Killraven and calls the Keepers to turn him over to the Martians. It turns out Grok is a powerful, manipulative telepath, a Martian transplanted into a bipedal body – the plan to attack the citadel, the mental flash Killraven experienced, even Hawk's betrayal, came about because of his mental manipulation.

Grok believes he is a superior being and demands the Martians speak directly to him. The Martians will not, they deny Grok his return to their “consensus” and empower Killraven to fight and kill the creature. Grok and Killraven bring the citadel down around them in their battle, the dying Grok demanding the Martians, who now appear outside of their armor, recognize that he is one of them. They will not. These Martians appear to be more factionalized, less unified in their invasion than those in Amazing Adventures.

Triumphant, with Martians helpless and exposed before him, Killraven spares them their lives. “Then it was like time stopped and the world blurred around us,” Killraven says, and we're treated to an approximation of Killraven and three Martians melding their minds. The Martians feared humanity's violent tendencies and felt they had to act to preserve the Earth, but “Grok proved our arrogant lie. We are not free of the primitive instinct... ...while humankind is capable of so much more. Honor. Compassion... Justice. Time to consider is required. Go!”

“That was their final thought. Then they left,” Killraven says. The Martians then free all the slaves from the citadel and leave this group of humans to pursue their own destiny. John asks Killraven if the war is over – are they safe? “No. One faction of Martians retired from the battle... but there are others,” Raven tells the boy. And then he echoes one of the themes of the series: “The world can never be as it was.” It ends with Skull, the boy, Carmilla and M'Shulla and Volcana and Killraven gathered around a campfire. Volcana asks, “What do we do next?” “...We live! We live for another day,” Killraven answers in closing, and the caption then reads, “The Beginning.”

Killraven was next mentioned when talk of making a Killraven movie surfaced in 2005, but there doesn't seem to have been much progress on that front – no “Killraven” page over at http://imdb.com, for example. Perhaps it will be one of those secondary properties Disney looks at for future development. The next time any sort of Killraven appeared came in the regular Marvel 616 Universe, in the character of Jonathan Raven in the Wisdom miniseries (“The Rudiments of Wisdom” collected in Wisdom - TPB (MAX Comics) ) by Paul Cornell, Manuel Garcia and Mark Farmer, in 2006-2007.

A faction of Martians from Earth-691 have apparently opened an interdimensional portal and invaded London. Peter Wisdom from MI-13 and Alistair Stuart race through the ruins. Al fills in Pete, “The Martians rule an entire parallel Earth, which they invaded six years ago.” The two hook up with the John the Skrull and the Skrull Beatles, and Sid – Captain Midlands – and an army of civilians.
(Cover – Wisdom #6
– Tripods Return!)

The Martian's have captured Peter Wisdom's ex, Maureen, and her teen-aged son Jon – Jonathan Raven. The martian looks like the ones last seen in Alan Davis' Killraven series. The Martian tells Maureen, “You are mother of Jonathan Raven.

Power of your bloodline visible across the universes!” This Martian is a precog and has seen the “future” where Killraven leads the revolt against them: “On our Earth, unless his will is broken, he will challenge us! On all Earths! Always! Every one of him is dangerous! Ruling council plan to invade all other Earths. So I urged this first expedition NOW. Before he is grown.”

The Martian fuses the dimensional doorway to Maureen's mind to stabilize it as Wisdom, MI-13 and friends fight their way towards the command center. Tink brings in reinforcements and they defeat the Martian forces surrounding them, but there are more all over town and Alistair Stuart points out the tripods have been coming through the doorway once every five minutes. They have to destroy the doorway now hardwired into Maureen.

(A Martian Precog vision of Killraven

Young Jonathan Raven Trains with Shang-Chi

and the Freemen from Wisdom #6)

Wisdom destroys the Martian holding Maureen and frees her, ripping off the alien headgear. But when they regroup with the others, they find the doorway is now a permanent part of her. She asks where Jonathan is and is told that according to some prior plan, MI-6 had Shang-Chi spirit her son out of the country. “Good,” she says, and Wisdom puts a bullet in her head, killing her to close the doorway. The Martian tripods and forces disappear as she dies. The second to last page shows Shang-Chi training the young Raven. It reminds us of the Iron Fist-like appearance of Corps member Jonathan Raven as Will of the People from Earth-7305 in Excalibur #50 we saw earlier.

(Jonathan Raven trains with Shang-Chi
– art by Garcia, Farmer and Guru eFX from Wisdom #6)

And that catches us up to the most recent appearance of Killraven in Guardians of the Galaxy #18 that opened up this Cosmic Crackle Profile on Killraven. But it's certainly not the end of the road for the rebel Martian fighter.

What's next for the character? Back in 2007, Robert Kirkman and Rob Liefeld announced at Wizard World Chicago they were going to do a reimagined “Killraven” 5 issue limited series together. Wizard Magazine wrote that this Killraven wasn't “your father’s Killraven. They’re offering a new twist on the War of the Worlds – inspired hero and his guerilla war against a Martian-dominated alternate future.”

When asked how many elements of the original series would be appearing, Kirkman answered,”Virtually none. This is a brand new take on the initial concept.” In one way, the take is similar to Alan Davis' approach, as Kirkman said, like Davis' Killraven, “this is really just another Killraven from another universe. The original Killraven is still out there.”

There's been no real news on the project since then, but turning to Twitter brought an update on the status of the project. I asked: “@robertliefeld Researching an article on 'Killraven' - anything ever come of your project w/Kirkman?” To which he replied: “Kirkman and I have completed 4 issues of Killraven to date @MikeLuoma Need to finish issue #5 and then Marvel should solicit.” So now we know! Seems Marvel is waiting until the project is complete to release it.

(Found on the Internet - Liefield's Killraven)

A new version of Killraven, on the way. Of course, with the Fault out there wreaking havoc across the Marvel Cosmic Universe, any Killraven from any Earth could potentially appear in our current continuity. With DnA at the creative helm, one never knows...

Sources:

The various Marvel Comics issues cited above were, of course, consulted for this profile.

P.Craig Russell and Don McGregor were interviewed by Steve Ringgenberg in 1983 for David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview #3 for the release of the Killraven Graphic Novel.

The Various Earth-### designations are consistent with the Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes (2005) issue.

Comic Book Resources reported on the Millar/Morrison 2099 pitch:
(Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #67 by Brian Cronin: COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Grant Morrison and Mark Millar had a pitch for a revamp of Marvel's 2099 line of comics. STATUS: True.)

Alan Davis' comments are from his Introduction to the Killraven Premiere HC collection (2007).

Rotten Tomatoes reported on the Killraven movie:
(Sony to Bring Old-School Comic "Killraven" to the Big Screen - Posted by RT-News on Monday, Mar. 21, 2005, 12:33 PM)

The New Kirkman/Liefeld “Killraven” was covered by Wizard:
('By Jim Gibbons and Sean T. Collins - Posted August 10, 2007 4:30 PM - original page no longer available)

AND Thanks to Rob Liefeld for responding to my Tweet!