OUT OF THIS WORLD (vol. 1) #1 (June, 1950). Avon Publications. Cover by Gene Fawcette.
Ho hum. Just another science fiction comic, right?
Normally you'd be right. But this little gem contains the first appearance of the one-and-only Crom the Barbarian!
Yes, decades before a certain Cimmerian first appeared at Marvel Comics, writer Gardner Fox and artist John Giunta brought a very Conan-esque barbarian to the four-color pages.
Curiously, Crom's tribe - emigrating from Northern Eurasia (perhaps Siberia, where blond hair is thought to have originated) - is called the Aesir. That's the collective name of the Norse gods of myth, not Asgardians, as Stan Lee and company would have you believe. Oddly enough, though, Crom makes reference to characters from Norse myth (Thor, Jormundgandir, Freya, Garm, Uller), as well as mythological characters from other countries (Set, Nessus). And another guy even invokes Zeus' name (here spelled "Zues").
Crom was a very neighborly guy. According to the text, "To Crom, all men who were not Aesir were enemies. They must be killed, that his tribe might become rich and prosperous."
I could make a MAGA joke here, but that's too easy and obvious.
Crom also deftly wields a sword with the heartwarming moniker Skull-Cracker. He often talks to the sword, encouraging it to drink its fill of his enemies' blood. A real sweetheart, this Crom is.
Crom is also quite the lusty fellow with an appreciative eye for the ladies. In just ten short pages he finds three different lasses that tickle his fancy.
The last gal turned out to be a queen. Originally, she tried to knife Crom in the back because he was stealing a treasure from her vault.
Crom's response to that was "the barbarian way:" he grabbed her and kissed her until she fell limp in his arms.
Politically correct this ain't.
Speaking of political, it is said that "Crom's gorilla-like strength, the cunning of his sword-hand" (plus his ability to leap like a deer) "swept (away) the soft, politically appointed guards before him."
Back to the queen: despite Crom using her as a hostage to cover his escape, and threatening to kill her if she doesn't cooperate, two panels later she's in love with him and wants him to rule by her side as king.
Like the Cimmerian he is likely based on, Crom is not role-model material. Mildly entertaining, yes, but I can see parents - especially mothers - back in the 1950s getting upset that little Johnny is reading this sort of stuff in a comic book.
Still, the story is relatively important because it is, arguably, the first Robert E. Howard-style sword and sorcery tale in comics. And as we all know by now, it would certainly not be the last.
