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AlthoughDC Comicsis known more for superheroes than for fantasy hero , they have at various times seek to get more phantasy to their audiences – with results that are nothing if not underrated . Since their beginnings in the forties as National Comics , DC has offered readers a wide variety of fictitious character – between super - powered do - gooders , colored - costumed mystery men , and earthly divinity , they have always had more esoteric offerings in good order alongside them . For every Supermanthere has always been a Spectre , for every Wonder Woman a Madame Xanadu – and for readers starve something else in the seventies , DC in short bid a bit of steel and black art comic strip .
Much of this was a thing of opportuneness . In the reality of fable , phantasy was a turn commodity , thanks to publishing successes such asConan(by Robert E. Howard,)Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser(by Fritz Leiber ) and of courseThe HobbitandLord of the Ringsby J.R.R. Tolkien . Fantasy comics commence to know achiever on the newsstand as well , as Marvel title such asThorandDoctor Strange(and of course their adaptation ofConan the Barbarian)led to a brief though rapid increase in stake in fantasy comics . It was in this climatethat adult - point fantasy - heavy anthologiessuch asHeavy MetalandEpic Illustratedfirst saw print – and it was in this publication environs that DC in brief forayed into fantasy comic .
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DC offered a bit of fantasy poor boy in the 1970s : fromClaw the Unconquered , a Conan pastiche by David Michelinie and Ernie Chan , toWarlord , a long - running scientific discipline - illusion series create , publish and suck up by Mike Grell , toBeowulf , loosely - adapted from Old English legend by Michael Uslan and Ricardo Villamonte ; understandably , DC in the mid-seventies was fearless of branching out beyond the boundaries of superhero comic strip . One of the fantasy hoagy who fell by the wayside , however , wasStalker , " The Man With the Stolen Soul , " created by Paul Levitz andSteve Ditko ( co - creator of Spider - Manand Doctor Strange , among others . ) Stalker , despite the descent of his creators ( including inker Wally Wood , a comic legend in his own right hand , ) only run for four issues in 1975 before being unceremoniously offset on a cliffhanger .
The premise ofStalkerwas classic glum fancy : a nameless orphaned youth living in a far - off region take the name Stalker after make a deal with the demon D’Grth , trading his someone for enhanced fighting prowess . Of course , Stalker comes cursorily to repent this bargain , and set off on a quest to overcome the demon D’Grth and retrieve his soul , hacking and trounce his way through sinister magical challenge at every turn . The series end abruptly at issue four , wherein it is revealed that , because D’Grth is a deity , the only way to defeat him is to ruin notion in him – and the only way of life to do that is to clean the earth of war .
Stalker was a supernaturally set role , so surely , had the series run for more than four issuance , it would have detailedhis continuing cause to retrieve his psyche . Stalker was brought back briefly for the Wonder Woman storyline " Ends of the dry land " by Gail Simone and Aaron Lopresti , ( Wonder WomanVol . 3 # 20 - 23 , ) but his write up , and the conditions of frustration for D’Grth , were retconned heavily . He was also re - imagined briefly by Marc Andreyko and Andrei Bressan as the backup feature in theNew 52seriesSword of Sorcery – but again , his write up was boot , leaving his original quest incomplete . irrespective of its incomplete condition , Stalkerwas an exciting and spectacularly - beautiful comic from a classic full stop of fantasy – and maybe it is fourth dimension forDC Comicsto return to the fantasy genre .
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