Mountain Comics #25 – Arak, Son of Thunder #3

MOUNTAIN COMICS #25 - ARAK, SON OF THUNDER #3

For the Season 3 finale of MOUNTAIN COMICS, Rob welcomes the legendary Roy Thomas to the cabin to discuss DC Comics' ARAK, SON OF THUNDER #3, written and created by Thomas and drawn by Ernie Colon! Plus your listener feedback!

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28 responses to “Mountain Comics #25 – Arak, Son of Thunder #3

  1. WHOA!!! I’m grateful for any time Roy appears on a podcast. Now to resume my praying for someday hearing him talk as long as he chooses to about All-Star Squadron…

  2. As Roy’s number one Earth-Two fan, I also would love to hear him talk about All-Star Squadron. Back in the day, he published and answered a few of my letters to that comic and would love to meet him someday.

  3. Great episode Rob, and what a guest to have on your season finale! It’s always a pleasure to read Roy’s thoughts on his comic projects, or to hear them in person as we did at Heroes Con a few years back. I don’t recall seeing Arak much as a kid, but I was pretty much a “super heroes only” type of kid at the time, so I would have probably passed it up…because I was dumb. It’s a shame that Valda mini never saw the light of day, and even worse if McFarlane never got paid for it! No wonder the guy went “creator-owned” only!

    I had Hercules and Machiste from the Remco Warlord series of figures. I wanted Travis Morgan himself, but all I could ever find was Hercules and Machiste! It would have been cool to have Arak interact with He-Man, who back then, was also part of the DCU, of course!

    It’s also great to see Roy recently coming back to some of the properties he helped make great, like the Captain America and the Invaders one-shot, and the new Conan story he did with Alan Davis. Maybe DC WILL wake up and give us more Thomas-penned Arak!

    Chris

  4. Wow, what can I say? It’s always nice to hear a creator talk about one of their stories, but having a chat with none other than Roy Thomas is some next level stuff. And it’s a great conversation, Rob, I learned a lot of new stuff.
    I recall have this issue of Arak, as I had about the first dozen issues, but then I sort of lost interest; that was when I was moving deeper into my teens and started to drop a lot of the comics I was reading up to that point – and sword & sorcery was never high on my list back then. I remember it as being a pretty solid series, though, and wouldn’t mind revisiting it – if DC ever gets around to reprinting any of it.

  5. Excellent job! To have Roy on as a guest was awesome! It was great to hear about his thoughts on Arak and, oddly enough, his chinchilla lifestyle. Arak was definitely a title that was a great mountain (or in my case, camping) comic. It wouldn’t have been a comic I would have picked up normally, like Warlord or Kull, but sometimes that was all the newsstand would have. Any port in a storm, I guess. Any time I would pick it up, I would enjoy it, but then never bought it when I got back home. Listening to this episode makes me want to go back and revisit the series.
    I’m already looking forward to the next season up at the lodge and wondering who the special guest/creator will be! Keep up the great work!

  6. Why couldn’t Ryan Dailey have been invited on to discuss his love for Roy’s writing style and their I’ll-fated meeting, or have Shag ask him about what influenced Roy to develop the Earth-Two Aquaman into the hero we all know and love?

  7. That was a treat, lovely of Roy to come on the show. I’m trying to work out why we had Rick Springfield at the end of the episode, I’d have gone for something horribly Scottish as this was the Rob Roy show.

    I bought Arak from the first issue and loved it, having a fantasy series set amidst real history gave things a pleasingly different tone. I loved that it started in Northumbria, where I’m from, and the fabulous art by Colõn, DeZuñiga and Gafford, along with the rich writing by Roy. Mind, getting someone removed from a book due to a disagreement about whether a word should be possessive or not? Too precious by half. Writers need editors, and in this case I’d have gone for ‘serpent’s kiss’ too, it sounds better to my ear.

    And how very dare Roy call Amethyst ‘lacklustre’!

    I’d be happy to see DC commission more Arak from
    Roy, but given he’d definitely have an editor, he’d probably not do it.

    Roll on next year!

    1. Martin–With one exception, the songs at the end of any given episode are what was playing on the radio when I bought the comic at the time. So that’s why these songs are all hits from around July-August but different years.

    2. “Rob Roy” show. Ha! Ha! Too bad this comic came out between the hits of The Bay City Rollers and The Proclaimers. (Although Sheena Easton was on the charts then, right?)

      1. Just don’t call it the “Roy Boy” show. I suspect we might get some sour comments about Jack Kirby’s Funky Flashman and Roy Boy from their appearances in the Mister Miracle comic.

    3. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who found Thomas’ comments about Amethyst a bit petty. Maybe Thomas is upset Arak didn’t have connections that threaded out towards the Legion os Superheroes or animated shorts?

  8. I’ve long been an admirer of the great Roy Thomas. I rejoiced at his recent return to the Golden Age of Marvel with Captain America and The Invaders special (which also reunited him with the extraordinary Jerry Ordway).
    However I’ve never been a fan of sword and sorcery, but die yo this podcast I tracked down a copy of Arak #1 and I LOVED it! Arak, Son of Thunder is now on my “complete this run” list.

  9. What a treat to hear Roy Thomas! Congratulations, Rob, on getting such a notable guest! Thank you, Roy , for being a good sport!

  10. An epic episode! Rob, add my thanks to the pile you’re passing on to Roy.

    Like Martin, I enjoyed the fantasy-amidst-history aspect of Arak, especially since I was unfamiliar with the Middle Ages in general and Charlemagne in particular. (Martin, I’ve read your expression of confusion over what a “dad joke” is. That’s ironic, since your Rob Roy crack is a stellar example and would make any dad proud!)

    I’m going to have to stop by my LCS and get that Invaders one-shot. I should also ask the proprietor (Dwayne, a prince among men) to keep an eye out for new issues of Arak.

    Finally, Rob, I will speak as an officer of the 2nd law: You read my name exactly as I hear it in my head — i.e., just like the announcer to my non-existent 1940s radio serial would. God bless you, Rob! And though entropy spares no one, may it go easy on you!

      1. That wasn’t at all where I meant to go with that, Mart, but I feel like I should’ve anticipated it. Or am I just blaming the victim?

  11. Hey Rob,

    Fun issue, as usual. 🙂

    I have two younger brothers. One liked comics, but was a lousy reader at the time (several years younger). The other read fine, but didn’t really care about Superhero stuff. I used Roy’s books (All Star Squadron and Arak) to get these two into reading comics. 😉

    The one quibble I had was that Roy was fine if nothing was done in the future with the characters he worked on. While I understand his feeling that way, I would LOVE to see a ongoing with decent treatment of some of the characters that he worked on – from Arak and Valda to Alley-Kat-Abra.

    1. Me too! Roy should be proud that writers want to use the characters he developed, and that readers want to see them. Where would we be if Roy had never developed the likes of the Avengers, Conan and the JSA?

      1. Just thinking about it, Mr. Bones has been one of his creations that seems to have had the longest legs. Some of the other Helix characters from Infinity Inc. seem prime for reappearances. I can understand Thomas’ resistance to seeing his characters used again, especially if they’re just going to be used as cannon fodder during a crossover event. Kind of like the way the alternate Earth version of Atom-Smasher was used in the Flash TV series. Still, for every time that something like that happens, you also get something great like James Robinson and Paul Smith’s GOLDEN AGE mini, which read like a love letter to the ALL-STAR SQUADRON.

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