Killraven - Publishing History

Publishing History

Co-creator Neal Adams' early ideas for Killraven involved the character being the son of a Doc Savage archetype. This conception had been reworked by the first issue, a multiple-creator goulash in which the two originators and co-plotters turned the scripting over to another writer, and in which artist co-creator Adams penciled only the first 11 pages and Howard Chaykin the remaining nine. The second issue was fully written by the debut's scripter, Gerry Conway, followed in the third by Marv Wolfman.

After this, the book became the province of writer Don McGregor for an acclaimed run from #21 (Nov. 1973) to the final issue, #39 (Nov. 1976). Pencillers were Herb Trimpe, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan, and, most prominently, P. Craig Russell from issue #27 on.

Two of its characters, Carmilla Frost and the African-American M'Shulla Scott, shared color comic books' earliest known serious interracial kiss, in issue #31 (July 1975), page nine, final panel. The earliest known humorous interracial kiss was in the March 1954 issue of "Nuts!" a Mad Magazine copycat published by Premier Magazines.

Aside from McGregor, with whom the character became as associated as Howard the Duck with Steve Gerber or Tomb of Dracula with Marv Wolfman, other writers include Bill Mantlo (a fill-in Amazing Adventures and a Marvel Team-Up with Killraven and a future-flung Spider-Man); Joe Linsner (a 2001 Marvel Knights one-shot, Killraven, set in 2020 New York City, at odds with the original series' locale by that fictional year); and Alan Davis (also artist), in a 2002 parallel universe miniseries, Killraven vol. 2.

An Essential Marvel volume reprinted all his appearances except the Alan Davis story in 2005.

McGregor and Russell, however, remain the series' signature creative team; more than two decades after the original series end, comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that,

It was writer Don McGregor who transformed the Killraven saga ... into a classic. Of all of Marvel's writers, McGregor has the most romantic view of heroism. Killraven and his warrior band were also a community of friends and lovers motivated by a poetic vision of freedom and of humanity's potential greatness. McGregor's finest artistic collaborator on the series was P. Craig Russell, whose sensitive, elaborate artwork, evocative of Art Nouveau illustration, gave the landscape of Killraven's America a nostalgic, pastoral feel, and the Martian architecture the look of futuristic castles.

Some planned elements of the "Killraven" saga were incorporated into his the Eclipse Comics series Sabre, McGregor and Russell each said in 1983.

The character made latter-day appearances in Marvel Zombies 5 #2 (April 2010) where the war against the Martians is concluded, and in The Avengers vol. 4, #4-6 (Aug.-Oct. 2010), the latter in the present day after time-traveling. Killraven (taken during his war with the Martians, shortly after a team-up with Spider-Man that took place in the pages of Marvel Team-Up) was one of many heroes taken from the timestream to aid Kang the Conqueror in battle against Ultron. In the end, while all of Kang's time-stolen allies are returned to their proper universes, Killraven fell through the cracks and remained in the present day, where he was offered membership in the Avengers.

Killraven features in Claws II (August 2011), drawn by Joseph Michael Linsner where Wolverine and Black Cat meet him in the future fighting Martians.