
IDW Publishing 2017
Written by Tom Walz
Illustrated by Luca Pizzari
Coloured by Triona Tree Farrell
Lettered by Christa Miesner
The evil Serpent Men have attempted to infiltrate and enslave mankind from the time of the very first humans… only to be defeated at every turn by the Elder Race's ultimate warrior… Kull of Atlantis! And now they must call on Kull once more, as the Serpent Men make a last-ditch gambit to first conquer America… and then the world. Kull's long journey has come full circle—once a small boy who fled his home of Atlantis, which was lost to a monstrous cataclysm… now a modern warrior who must save the New Atlantis from monstrous creatures!
Why must this start off in the present day as if Kull has somehow been transported through time so he’s in Antarctica with men who have guns, automatic and otherwise? I mean c’mon Kull is a sword and sorcery character I don’t give a flying rats ass what your desire is to bring him to the present to tell a story is it’s not something that belongs. Point blank period. Atlantis and the United States of America should never occupy the same point in time or people who have or can life in both places regardless of whatever time travel, sorcerous otherwise you’ve come up with.
Then we spend way too much time with a sulking Kull who has become king and a jumbled mess of his past adventures. There’s no rhyme or reason to them just as series of demonstrations show his as the warrior he remembers himself being compared to the neutered King he’s become. Blah blah blah feel sorry for me.
Even the interior artwork here is all over the place. Not enough attention to detail, the past more stylised then the present and there’s no clear cohesion to the work. The linework differs between nice and too heavy. The use of shadows lazily hide faces and facial expressions and rob us of what they are the characters are feeling.
So naturally a woman posing as hooker gains entry into the castle fills Kull’s head with ideas of regaining his former glory and completely up to no good. More than likely a slut spy sent to distract him so someone may end up stealing his throne out from underneath him. There’s no mystery, no drama here just a bad series of woe is me moments culminating in unnecessary time travel.
With the success of Conan and Red Sonja you’d think there’d be more respect and dignity given to a character such as Kull. establish him in his own time, tell stories that reaffirm his greatness and show the world the fighter, ruler and kind of man that made him great and worthy. But no let’s forget all that and muck about with some outdated childhood fantasy by bringing him to the present without reaffirming why he’s one of history's greatest warriors first.