| Issue | #4 |
| Published | June 1968 |
| Cover Price | $0.12 |
| Pages | 36 |
| Editing | Dick Giordano |
| Notes | detailed synopsis courtesy of Dean Webb for each sequence |
| Characters | Hercules |
| Genre | fantasy |
| Pencils | Sam Glanzman [as SJG] |
| Inks | Sam Glanzman [as SJG] |
| Notes | detailed synopsis courtesy of Dean Webb for each sequence |
| Reprinted | in Charlton Classics (Charlton, 1980 series) #4 (October 1980). |
| Characters | Hercules |
| Synopsis | The issue begins with a splash of Hercules battling what appear to be green flying monkeys. The story itself starts with Hercules walking through a storm and seeking shelter in a cave. In the cave in the smoke of his fire Zeus and Hera appear. Hera reviews the successes Hercules has had battling the Nemean Lion, Gerion the Three-bodied Giant, and Cerberus of the Underworld. She then offers up a fourth task, to get her something to eat. She wants Golden Apples only found in the other-dimensional world of Nul. She opens a portal for Hercules and tells him he has three days. He leaps into the portal and moves through a psychedelic zone to come out in a desert landscape. He starts to eat some of what looks like a giant cactus but the plant attacks him and he has to uproot it. Then his attention is taken by young boy crying for help, but this turns out to be a Harpy in disguise. The Harpies look like green flying monkeys with spikes for hair. Hercules battles many of these Harpies before being overcome by a magic net that puts him to sleep. He's taken before King Poov, leader of the Harpies and is told he will be a slave. Hercules takes Poov's staff and shatters the light escapting into the desert. There he meets a giant named Atlas who is chained and holding up a giant stone slab to give shade and protection to the Harpy village. Meanwhile the Harpies uncork a magic urn filled with weapons and attack Hercules again with exploding rocks. Hercules throws the chain of Atlas into one of these rocks and frees the giant. Then Atlas takes the slab and covers the mouth of the cave in which the Harpies dwell. A fire leaks out of the magic urn and destroys the Harpies. Atlas then takes Hercules to the Golden Apples and then tells him that time is different in Nul and he's almost out of time and throws him through the portal before it closes. Hercules returns with the prize much to Hera's displeasure but Zeus is very happy. |
| Genre | fantasy |
| Script | Dennis O'Neil? |
| Pencils | Sam Glanzman [as SJG] |
| Inks | Sam Glanzman [as SJG] |
| Letters | typeset |
| Reprinted | in Charlton Classics (Charlton, 1980 series) #4 (October 1980). |
| Synopsis | tells of a wicked warrior named Nicherin who steals a jewel from the Goddess of Mercy and summarily punished for his impudence transforming him into a tiny stone statue. |
| Genre | historical |
| Letters | typeset |
| Synopsis | features four letters, two by Canadians. There is the usual praise for the Hercules and Thane of Bagarth and recommendations. One letter writer would like to see Son of Vulcan replace Thane of Bagarth but the editors reject this idea and point out that reading nothing but superheroes would be dull. There is a great little thumbnail portrait of Hercules by Glanzman done in a more realistic style. |
| Letters | typeset |
| Notes | Letters from Luciano DiNardo, William Silvester, Michael Ontko and David Brown. |
| Characters | Thane of Bagarth |
| Synopsis | The story starts with Hrothelac captured by Vikings and chained aboard a Viking galley as a slave. After several lashes of the whip he begins to row. The leader of the Vikings is Figlaf and he imagines where they are headed, a new world beyond the great ocean and he wishes to explore it for his king. Hrothelac dispairs. Meanwhile King Beowulf seeks out a Hag who can tell the future who reveals to him in magic mists that Eowanda the new Thane of Bagarth will lead Beowulf's forces in battle and get great fame. Beowulf is at once confused and threatened by this prediction. He rides back to his castles as Hrothelac suffers under the lash. A storm is building as the chapter closes. |
| Genre | sword and sorcery |
| Script | Steve Skeates (signed) |
| Pencils | Jim Aparo (signed) |
| Inks | Jim Aparo (signed) |
| Letters | Jim Aparo |
| Reprinted | in Thane of Bagarth (Charlton, 1985 series) #25 (December 1985); in Swords of Valor (A-Plus Comics, 1990 series) #4 |