A 100th issue is a big deal for any comic, and The Warlord marked the occasion by bringing creator Mike Grell back for a painted cover. Inside, it’s a double-sized war story that sets up the end of a long storyline, drawn by a young Adam Kubert.
The basics
- Title: The Warlord #100, “Skartaris Unchained”
- Publisher: DC Comics
- Cover date: December 1985
- Cover price: $1.25
- Length: 52 pages
- Writer: Michael Fleisher
- Art: Adam Kubert
- Cover: Mike Grell
- Editor: Ross Andru
Who is the Warlord?
Travis Morgan is an Air Force pilot flying an SR-71 spy plane who passes through a hole in the Earth’s crust over the North Pole and crash-lands in Skartaris, a hidden world inside the planet. It has dinosaurs, sorcerers, lost cities and a sun that never sets. He trades the flight suit for a sword and a fur loincloth, marries Tara, the warrior queen of Shamballah, and spends the next decade of comics fighting for the people of his new home.
Grell created the character, and he debuted in 1st Issue Special #8 in 1975. According to Wikipedia, Grell wrote and drew the ongoing series for six years before handing off the art after issue #59 in 1982. The book kept going without him, which is how it reached 100.
What happens in “Skartaris Unchained”
This issue is one big two-front attack, and the Warlord Wednesday review at From the Sorcerer’s Skull has a good rundown of it. Morgan and his ally Krystovar sneak toward a back entrance to New Atlantis, stopping along the way to fight a giant crab. Meanwhile Machiste, Shakira and Mariah slip into occupied Shamballah to steal weapons and clear the palace walls, so they can signal Tara to bring in the army against Lord Sabertooth.
It all comes to a head when Krystovar holds off a swarm of guards so Morgan can go after Cykroth the Wizard-King. Then the issue ends with “to be continued,” just as their fight starts. So don’t expect the 100th issue to wrap everything up. You’ll need #101 for that.
This is also the home stretch of the New Atlantis storyline that Cary Burkett spent years building. Burkett’s gone by this point and Fleisher is the one finishing it, and the Sorcerer’s Skull review thinks the wrap-up feels rushed.
Grell’s cover, Kubert’s pages
The cover is the reason to pull this one out of a box. Morgan stands front and center in his winged helmet with his sword down and a shield behind him, in front of a huge stone pillar with the logo carved around it. To the left, a parchment scroll shows sketched portraits of a white-haired, mustached Morgan and a woman who looks like Tara, under a pale sun in an orange sky. Grell signed it right on the scroll. The red border and “Double-Sized 100th Issue” banner keep it looking like a newsstand comic, and there’s a Comics Code seal up in the corner.
The credit line at the bottom is fun to see now. Adam Kubert, the son of comics legend Joe Kubert, was still early in his career here. A few years later he’d be one of the biggest artists at Marvel.
Is it worth anything?
Not much, but a 100th issue with a Grell cover is a fun one to own. PriceCharting puts ungraded copies at about $6 based on completed sales, with recent sales running from about $1 to $10. Two CGC 9.4 copies sold for $17.50 and $29.99. The higher graded numbers on that page are estimates, since it doesn’t list actual sales at those grades.
Where the Warlord went next
The original series ran 133 issues, plus six annuals, and ended in 1988. Morgan has come back a few times since:
- Grell wrote a six-issue miniseries in 1992.
- Bruce Jones and Bart Sears relaunched the book in 2006 for 10 issues.
- Grell returned as writer for a 16-issue series starting in 2009.
If you see a run of these in a bin, they’re an easy way to spend an afternoon in Skartaris. Just pick up #101 along with this one.