4 out of 5

I have been dying to read Michael Moorcock forever, but there’s not the easy “start here” Tolkein path to the million-and-one books in the Moorcock world.  And also: I don’t like Tolkein, so there’s the worry that time invested will prove disappointing, drawing into question… I dunno, stuff that’s been influenced by Moorcock.  (Which is illogical, as I’m sure I like plenty that would claim LOTR as its influence, but logic, as we well know, can rightly get totally fucked, bro.)

Anyway, add to my pile of neuroses a building curiosity for Mike Baron’s work: having read all of Badger volume 1 and some of Nexus, venturing into bits and bobs from the rest of Baron’s catalogue has provided uneven results, but he seems like the type of writer to benefit from experiencing a wide range of his stuff…  So do I combine my worry about disliking Corum with realizing I wasted money collecting Badger by reading a Moorcock adaptation as scripted by Baron?  OF COURSE I DO BECAUSE I AM BRAVE.

Spoiler: I still like Mike Baron quite a bit and now I’m really buzzed to read the next entry in this series.  That being said – and with my light familiarity of Baron’s writing style – a huge debt of the enjoyability of this series (four First-published issues as collected by Titan) goes to artist Mike Mignola, rendering Baron’s narrative-heavy story with his deft storyteller’s sensibilities, and gifting the Corum world his incredible design skills.  Costuming and characterizations that would just be cluttered or cheesy in others’ hands are stunning, panel after panel.  Which, flipping back, isn’t meant to say that Baron doesn’t carry his weight, here, as this tale of the peaceful, spiritual Corum coming to terms with the annihilation of his species – and then having to learn, step by step, how to feel and use aggression to fight back against the encroaching human race (and their manipulative god overlords) – has a lot of sections during which, on a surface level, nothing happens.  Plaintive back-and-forths on the nature of the world; periods of rest; a romantic interlude.  But Baron strings it together in such a fashion as to not feel rushed, and yet keeps the reader feeling fully invested in every step along the way, even smart enough to leave some aspects up to reader intuition to piece together, which I sincerely bet wouldn’t have been allowed had this been a Marvel or DC publication.

Looking elsewhere, the colors (Ripley Thornhill) are a great complement to Mignola’s proto-blocky style and Moorcock’s world, and Carrie Spiegle’s stately lettering makes all those monologue blocks easy to read.  Two all-star inkers – Rich Burchett in issue 1 and Kelley Jones in 2-4 – are also great matches for Mike, giving his costuming and scenery denseness without sacrificing the floatiness that makes Mike’s pages move.  Burchett edges out ahead, in my eyes, with a bit more confident line, as it takes Jones an issue to find a balance, but by book 3 the two are on par.

Of course, being fantasy, the world is stuffed with new lands and names and concepts.  Moorcock, from my exposure to him here, knows how to juggle our expectations of reality with the fantastical; everything feels grounded just enough that I can swallow the extras without blinking.  However, there is a spiritworld / dreamworld concept that Baron doesn’t quite work into the narrative effectively, causing the only hiccup in which I had to flip around to understand how much time had passed and where we are.  But given my otherwise praises, this certainly didn’t stop me from flippin’ them pages.

…And the first Elric collection is now in my Amazon cart.