Our story, such as it is, begins in the midst of an alien invasion that the humans are losing. A young man fleeing from a raid by the aliens takes shelter in an ancient ruin. In the process, he awakens King Arthur, who rises to aid England in its darkest hour. Then things get weird. For plot convenience and maximum sacrilege, there's reincarnation in this universe, so the knights of the Round Table must be reassembled from a checklist of stereotypes, including a Japanese warrior, a genetically engineered worker-drone, and a woman who chooses between her revealed past self and a man she loved in a handful of panels. With the aid of Merlin, they soon discover that the invasion has been orchestrated by none other than Morgan Le Fey, who has enslaved the aliens' breeder-queen. To stop the invasion and free both species, Arthur and his crew must once again turn to the cosmic power of the grail. But their old intrigues and betrayals are close behind, especially when Lancelot meets Gwenevere and Morgan finds the reincarnated Mordred. And what I can't easily convey is how badly the comic fails to make any of this interesting.
My own experience with this comic is that my older brother brought the graphic novel home somewhere around 1988. I now know that it was a compilation of a 12-issue comic published from 1982 to 1985, but that's not going to figure any further. I read it or at least looked through it avidly, without much understanding of the comic or the source material. It definitely left a deep impression on me, to the point that it was probably my introduction to the Arthurian legends and possibly the main reason I took any interest at all in the subject. My memories of the characters and images were vivid and enduring, even for my world's-worst-superpower standards. In early 2017, soon after starting a new job, I finally looked it up, and I was quite happy to find that it was available as a reprint. I read it promptly, and easily recognized many of the scenes and visuals I recalled from way back when. What truly startled me was how little emotional or intellectual depth there is here. Sure, the artwork is good and the concepts are traumatizingly weird, but these are cardboard cutouts in a cardboard world that would have been cliched in the 1950s. Here's a few more pics just to show the level of false advertising.
Naturally, this isn't all bad; with this much random, however, the law of averages was enough to ensure that. Fans will still point to the storyline of now-lady Tristan, who discovers Isolde as also a woman. I can grant that it is at least a non-stereotypical LGBT portrayal. There's a potential for equal pathos in Tristan's ex, who becomes a literal monster in his grief and anger, but it's all as cursory and emotionally thin as everything else. There's somewhat more substance in the arc of the mutated Perceval, who becomes a potent symbol of the downtrodden. Most interesting is Morgan, who is on the verge of decay or worse from a sort of magical disease that breaks out as a creeping corruption without regular regeneration. The most interesting arc comes late when the history between her and the aliens is revealed. It's especially amusing when the sorceress reveals that she felt suppressed their development of magic in favor of science to protect her own power. Here's a couple more pics of the more interesting visuals, including the finale, which was possibly my strongest memory out of the whole thing.
What's most interesting for the purposes of this feature is the mix of new and old cliches. We have an early appearance of the flying car, and buildings that look about a generation past Futurama 2. Also present is the usual World Government, apparently in place for some time before the invasion. The most unique elements are the spaceships and aircraft, clearly influenced by Star Wars, yet distinctive in style. They're streamlined almost to the Art Deco level, noticeably free of pseudorealistic kit bashing convolution, at times almost organic. All in all, it's a bit retro even for the 1980s, done with enough flare to be interesting, which is more than can be said for far too much else.
Where my overanalyzing kicks in is the uncritical treatment of the Arthurian "myth". From what we know now, the Arthurian Age is more historically certain than Arthur ever was, and its realities were closer to Mad Max or the Wild West than the dreams of the Medieval and Renaissance poets. The idea that plants in my mind is that this could have worked far better starting with a world where the aliens had already won, leaving only collaborators, isolated holdouts, and bands of hunter-gatherers behind. That would be a world truly worthy and in need of an Arthur, new or old, one that would bring out the conflict of idealism, pragmatism and sheer force of personality. What we get instead is the legend buried in its own hype.
Meanwhile, what really brought me to this is simply how something like this came out of what people remember as a golden age of the medium. I thought of it especially when I reviewed the movie The Rocketeer, which gave me the same soulless vibe. What really leaves me conflicted is that there are plenty of 1980s comics I read then and later that were certainly far better, like Concrete, Dark Horse Aliens, and the original TMNT. Even titles as mainstream as Iron Man and Amazing Spider Man had surprising depth, including nuanced depictions of masculinity at a time when Hollywood apparently decided being smart and being strong were mutually exclusive. One could charitably allow this as an experiment that came ahead of the real breakthroughs. What seems just as likely is that this is simply average, whereas the ones we remember were the very few that set a higher standard. As usual, we can be grateful that this is available at all, if only because it means other, more worthy works of the same vintage also remain accessible, in some cases (certainly TMNT) far more so than they ever were in their own time. The lesson remains that not all things stand the test of time, but even those that don't can make a difference.
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