The Warlord #53 - Video Review by 80s Comics

Well, all right, it's Friday and do you know what that means That means it's time to crack a beer and read The Warlord. Today I'm going with a Helltown Buffy from Helltown Brewing outside of Pittsburgh. Terrific beer, by the way. All their beers are good. Helltown's awesome. I love their can designs. Fitting for The Warlord, I think. This might be my second one. But don't tell anyone. That'll be our secret.

One thing I've learned to do over the years. Pour beer over a comic book and not spill a drop.

The whole hazy IPA fad is kind of overblown these days, but I get a strong sense of mosaic hops in this one and I really like it. It's not even that hazy. It's juicy more than anything.

I digress. Let's get back to business. The Warlord issue number 53. That is the worst Warlord cover ever. A bold new look for The Warlord. Brown and a whole lot of it. But that's okay. The interior is good as we're going to see the Sorceress's apprentice. And you also get a bonus comic.

Follow the epic battle of Dragon Sword, which I still haven't followed yet because I've been too preoccupied with The Warlord. This is like my new favorite comic book series. Like you know I love Conan and G I Joe and Transformers and stuff, but The Warlord fits right into 80s comics. It's just incredible. I love the 80s mixture of fantasy. It's like James Bond mixed with fantasy. So we've got a downed MiG in the mountains, a Russian helicopter shows up to assist, and remember this is 1982, the height of the Cold War. Who shows up to help The Warlord. Though he's probably not helping them very much. He is helping himself by hitting one of these Russian goons in the face with a sword. This one is written by the incredibly talented and imaginative Mike Grell. Artist is Mark Texira, if I'm pronouncing his name correctly. He did a lot of great work in the 80s. Various series. Swift and silent, his fury as cold as this frozen waste, the Warlord strikes and just throws that goon against a mountain and glowers.

Glower is a fun word you should try to use at least once a day. He just wants to go home to the center of the earth where there's a sun inside the earth because that makes complete sense. And remember the Warlord is not Conan. Conan does not know how to fly a helicopter because the Warlord is from the future, well, the past from our perspective. The present when they wrote it. He's from the 80s. Remember, his SR, it's in the 70s, whatever, whatever. His SR-71 crashed inside the earth and I picked up a whole stack of Warlord comics from Ides in Pittsburgh, one of my favorites. They have a great dollar section and basically I just robbed the whole dollar section of Warlords. In fact, as I was paying for them, the guys working there were like, seriously They had Warlords in the dollar section They did. Now you're looking at it.

So my point here is I missed a whole bunch of issues. I went from like issue seven to 53. I really have no idea what's going on. Apparently Morgan, the main guy, the Warlord, has a daughter and something's wrong with her, but she's into technology and computers. No doubt, newfangled technology like five and a quarter inch floppy disks. And some, I know, I really have no idea what's going on. But some other magician girl here shows up wearing a sweet metal bikini. All the rage really after Leia. Wait, no, this is before, holy crap, this is actually pre-dates Return of the Jedi. Nevermind, I take my, I'll cut that out in editing. There is no editing, so I'm just going to admit that I just totally screwed that up, whatever. She kind of looks like Wonder Woman combined with Leia and really, I'm okay with that. Where was I Now I'm totally distracted.

Yeah, so she's a magician, sorcerer, a sorceress. That's like a total Wonder Woman Leia there. A sorceress. The sorceress's apprentice. She's doing something in this girl's brain to appear like her mom and they're, I don't know, they become friends and there's this other guy here who looks like, I don't know, deranged muscular hot guy. That whole part of the story, I just don't know what's going on yet. So I assume I got a whole bunch of sequential issues after this. Issues in sequence but at the moment let's concentrate on the Warlord who's flying the helicopter. It's fun, very nice artwork, very nice storyboarding, very nice characters. Terra is in here somewhere. I love the 80s style. I love the 80s mixture of fantasy and adventure. It's like Prince Valiant meets Spaceballs. It's just a lot of fun. These are quick reads. They're not too long. They're not too short. They're just right. And they're perfect for Friday nights with beer.

The whole series. From what I can tell, this is incredible. Why aren't they still making these Because everything gets screwed up in the future. That's why. But the 80s were awesome. And so is The Warlord. And so is a good Helltown. And so is Friday. Enjoy. Thank you for watching 80sComics.com. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to prepare myself to shift gears and review this. That's a big difference.