REVIEW: Beowulf #1

Chronicled by Michael Uslan
Artistry by Ricardo Villamonte
Review by Will Dubbeld

Oh, 1970s DC Comics, you're the best. Gone were the sci-fi 50s and best left unremembered were the zany, goofball antics of the 60s. The 1970s ushered in a metaphorical Golden Age of superhero books, horror comics, and a healthy dose of fantasy.
Also Lady Cop.

Amongst these fantasy comics was a short-lived Beowulf comic that was hardly a direct adaptation of the epic poem. Moreso I believe it was an outlet for DC Comics to showcase a sweet barbarian warrior and, since Marvel held the Conan rights, they looked to the Public Domain and came up with Beowulf.
Apparently Gilgamesh didn't make the cut.

This book is a treat, cover to cover. Case in point, the inside cover features an ad pitting the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin against a 2000 year-old mummy, narrowly defeating him with the power of Hostess Twinkies.
I could've closed the book there and been satisfied, but swords and sorcery awaited!


Page one paints the picture of, "A distant past shrouded in the mist of time" and other Purple Prose informing the reader of, "All-Mighty Wyrd, the God of Fate" and "The terror of Satan, Dragon-Lord of the underworld."

Yeah, give me all of that.
The villains, demons, spirits of evil, mystic lagoons, devil-haunted castles, and all of the other fantasy high-adventure promised on pg. 1.

Promised and delivered.

Beowulf and his merry band of barbarian ass-kickers, including such luminary characters as Wiglaf, Hondscio, and Klenzo, are shown shredding through an enemy tribe and, after victorious smiting and back-clapping, are whisked away on their next great adventure. It seems Hrothgar, an old ally of Beowulf's father, is befouled by the creature Grendel, and fans of the source material will recognize at least a trickle of the original here.

We're treated to a scene of Grendel wreaking havoc inside Hrothgar's castle, as well as a nod to The Odyssey when Beowulf's crew is mesmerized by the siren song of a woman draped erotically around a wind-swept rock.
Turns out she was just possessed by spirits...
After a brief tussle with Beowulf, the potential sparks fly between the two and our newfound warrior-woman joins the crew.
Huzzah!

Amongst the remaining pages we find Beowulf and his band of warriors in audience with King Hrothgar, an untrustworthy sorcerous fellow named Unferth, and a whole mess of Swamp Men, disciples of Satan!

Satan, as an aside, is mentioned more in this one issue of Beowulf than he is in the entire bible. I've not done an exact word count, but The Dragon-Lord of the Underworld is PROMINENTLY name-dropped every other page or so. Sometimes twice per page...
Grendel? Satan's hell-spawn
Why's he besieging Hrothgar's castle? For Satan
The siren? A creature of sorcery? Nope. Satan.
The Swamp Men? Disciples of Satan.
Next issue? "The Slave-Maiden of Satan".

I'm not even kidding when I say there's probably ten more mentions of Satan in this book.
More Satan than a Chick Tract...

His Satanic Majesty notwithstanding, my favorite part of this script is the character of Beowulf. He's essentially a Conan cipher with a bit more selflessness and a bit less banditry. Archetypical loincloth and fur boots, corded muscles, flowing locks and a gleeful misogyny are the orders of the day, just like one would expect from a 1970s barbarian. So's not to be completely Conanesque our hero Beowulf has red hair instead of black and wears a suit of half-ass banded mail armor fashioned to display his rippling pecs. I'm not even kidding. Dude's armor stops 3/4ths of the way up his torso.
Ladies . . .

Our hero, in addition to stylish armor, fights the forces of Satan with only the most ridiculously-sized weapons imaginable. We aren't talking full-blown Final Fantasy VII large, but Beowulf features in his arsenal a giant spikey mace-thing, giant sword, and giant club made of rock.
This is probably a subtle way to infer the EPIC MAN-SIZE of Beowulf genitals, but we'll never know for sure.

My absolute favorite thing about this book, art aside (which I'll cover forthwith) is Beowulf's motivation. En route to Hrothgar's castle, Wiglaf asks why Beowulf would put his life on the line for a king with whom he's merely on neutral terms. Beowulf's answer, to quote, is priceless.

"For 'lof', Wiglaf! 'Lof', or fame as some call it, is the most permanent of all things in an impermanent world! That fame will keep 'the spirit of Beowulf' alive centuries after I am dust!"

Motherfucker is gonna go fight Grendel for street cred.
I love it.

Hand in hand with a phenomenal slice of 1970s storytelling is some phenomenon 1970s art. Comic art across the board, in my opinion, pretty well peaked in the mid-latter '70s and that level of detail continued into a majority of the '80s. I can't articulate what particularly I love about that era, whether it's the painstaking attention to detail or simply the penciling style, but it remains number one in my book. Not to say that there haven't been spikes of great artists in the years since, but simply they used to be the rule rather than the exception.
One of my favorite examples of the stylization is a full-page depiction of Hrothgar's castle. Rather than an expected Viking longhouse or mead hall, we are treated to a glorious, gilded palace adorned with spires and dragon statuary. Certainly not the expected humble Nordic architecture. This thing looks like it could have been a Masters of the Universe playset.

Beowulf only lasted something like 6 or 9 issues and is well worth checking out. You should be able to pick them up on the cheap, and in one of the issues he fights Dracula!
Who is most likely an agent of Satan!
Do yourself a favor and read the poem, but certainly don't deprive yourself of the comic book.

Satan!