Tor (comics)

Tor is an American comic book series, created by Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer in the story 1,000,000 Years Ago! (Sept. 1953), published by St. John Publications. The series' protagonist, Tor, is a prehistoric cave man who has fantasy adventures set in a realistically drawn setting. The original series only ran for five issues and ended in 1954. Tor was revived by DC Comics in June 1975 for six issues. In June 1993, Marvel Comics released new adventures of Tor.[1]

Concept

Tor is a prehistoric warrior. He is a loner whose only true friend is his pet monkey, Chee-Chee. Despite being drawn in a realistic style the stories were full with notable fantasy elements, including humans and dinosaurs living together in the same era and many animals being portrayed as prehistoric monsters, even ones who actually were herbivores.

Publication history

After his debut in 1,000,000 Years Ago (St. John, September 1953), Tor immediately went on to become one of the first comic book characters to star in 3-D comic books.[2] The second issue of that series was renamed 3-D Comics[3] before being renamed Tor with issue #3 in May 1954.[4] At this point the series was once again in the traditional two-dimensional format. This series lasted until issue #5 (October 1954).

In an interview, Kubert said: "Certainly in a superficial sense, Tor was my Tarzan. Of course, Tor wasn't raised by apes. He was raised by other primitive men and women. I suppose Tarzan and Tor are similar in that they are superior to the others of their clan. But with Tor, I chose to emphasize that he had an extra spark of humanity, and was instinctively striving for a better, more civilized way of life than that of his brothers".[5]

In 1959, Kubert and inker Carmine Infantino unsuccessfully attempted to sell Tor as a newspaper

Reception

In The Dinosaur Scrapbook, Donald F. Glut wrote about Tor: "Thanks to the work and obvious love that went into the series, what might have become a standard adventure strip, with man battling monster within the usual prehistoric-world settings, and situations, was elevated to art".[15]

Bibliography of the original publication

The first six comic books starring Tor were published under three different titles — the second of these in multiple 3-D editions:

• 1,000,000 Years Ago (Sept. 1953)
• Tor in "Dawn", 11 pages + 1 extra page, 11-page reprint in DC's Tor #2; "Danny Dreams", 7 pages, reprinted in DC's Tor #2.
• 3-D Comics #2 (Oct. 1953)
• "Tor" 8 pages; "Fire", 6 pages; "Imagine", 3 pages, both reprinted in DC's Tor #6.
• 3-D Comics #2 (Nov. 1953)
• "Killer Man", 6 pages, reprinted in DC's Tor #4; "Giant-One", 10 pages + 2 extra pages, reprinted in DC's Tor #5; "The Run-Away".
• Tor #3 (May 1954)
• "Isle of Fire", 11 pages reprinted in DC Tor 3; "Black Valley", 9 pages. reprinted in DC's "Tor" #4 with 1 extra page; "Danny Dreams", by Alex Toth.
• Tor #4 (July 1954)
• "Red Death", 10 pages; "Last Chance", 4 pages; "Great Wolf", 7 pages.
• Tor #5 (Oct. 1954)

Collected editions

Three hardback books published as the "DC Comics Joe Kubert Library" reprints the St. John comics from the 1950s, the stories of DC's 1975 Tor #1-6, and the 1993 Marvel/Epic miniseries Tor #1-4:

• Tor, Volume One - ISBN 1-56389-781-4
• Tor, Volume Two - ISBN 1-56389-830-6
• Tor, Volume Three - ISBN 1-56389-998-1
• Tor: A Prehistoric Odyssey

Other similarly named cavemen

In 1941 Willy Vandersteen already drew a gag-a-day comic about a caveman named Tor.[16] Later Johnny Hart had a caveman named Thor appearing in his gag-a-day series B.C., named after a friend whose name was Thornton Kinney.

External links

• Archer St. John & the Little Company That Could