REVIEW: Elric #3

Script: Roy Thomas
Layouts/inks/colors: P. Craig Russell
Pencils/colors: Michael T. Gilbert
Lettering: Tom Orzechowski
Review: Will Dubbeld
 

Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné was always, in my opinion, a bit of an unsung hero in the sword-and-sorcery genre. He has a large fan base to be certain, but hasn’t the widespread attention of his peers.

Falling somewhere in between the trope-laden swashbuckling of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser and the visceral paganism of Conan, Elric tells the tale of the decadent, crumbling island civilization of Melniboné and its emperor. A sickly, albino sorcerer king who is both puppet master and pawn to the lords of Chaos and Law, Elric seems like a 1960s counterculture answer to the Pulp fantasy heroes of yore.
Reliant on drugs to maintain his vitality and betrothed to his cousin, Cymoril, to boot...

Issue 3 finds Elric and his rat-bastard cousin, Yyrkoon, at the head of a flotilla returning victorious to the homeland after repulsing an invasion force.
Enfeebled from battle, Elric is helpless without his drugs and Yyrkoon tosses his sickly, albino ass overboard.
Confident Elric will drown, Yyrkoon crowns himself emperor and sails home, eying the Ruby Throne and with designs on fair Cymoril.
Cymoril, his sister...
G.R.R. Martin didn’t start the trend, folks, he just slipped it into the mainstream.

What follows is a spectacle highlighting political coup, violence, orgiastic hedonism, and a dash of black magic.
While Yyrkoon makes good with his designs on the throne (and possibly his sister...), Elric entreats Straasha the sea god, who rescues him and returns the erstwhile emperor to Melniboné.
While he recovers the Ruby Throne, Elric loses Yyrkoon as he escapes with Cymoril.

What also follows is a fever dream of pages as Elric goes on a three day drug-bender and fingerpaints his room with eldritch sigils and summons the Hell-Duke Arioch, Lord of Chaos.

I can only imagine how many 1970s-80s fantasy power-metal bands Michael Moorcock inspired.
Probably all of them...

This comic is probably not for everyone, but it should be.
Far from superhero fare, Elric isn’t exactly a swashbuckling fantasy tale either. It’s grim, dark fantasy, bordering on weird fiction and fantasy horror, and this is before Elric finds a demonic,soul-sucking black sword...

If nothing else, you have to respect the all-star lineup on the creative team.
Roy Thomas was Stan Lee’s Golden Boy in the late ‘60s through the 1970s. He’s written everything from Conan to the Avengers to Batman and every damn thing in between.
P. Craig Russell is something like an eight-time Eisner Award winner and deservedly so.
Tom Orzechowski has lettered pretty much every issue of Uncanny X-Men that matters, and Michael T. Gilbert is probably most well known for his reimagined Mr. Monster.
He also worked on a few issues of American Splendor, and you know Harvey Pekar has a special place at the HCB...

I picked up this gem for a quarter on Free Comic Book Day.
Twenty-five cents, folks.
Well worth the price of admission and certainly worth sniffing out the remainder of the series.
I hadn’t revisited Moorcock’s Melniboné is several years, but I think it’s high time to sail once again to the Dreaming City...
Tygers of Pan Tang!