Gray Morrow, known for his serialized strips on Buck Rogers, Tarzan, and Flash Gordon, as well as for co-creating Marvel Comics' Man-Thing, has a surpGray Morrow, known for his serialized strips on Buck Rogers, Tarzan, and Flash Gordon, as well as for co-creating Marvel Comics' Man-Thing, has a surprisingly limited body of work in publication. His short story, "Orion", was serialized in the pages of Heavy Metal, and was exactly my first exposure to Morrow's ample artistic talents. This book collects "Orion" in full along with a second story, "Edge of Chaos", collectively serving as Morrow's most concentrated body of his colored works in one edition.
The first story follows the generic archetypal hero named Orion who is pursued by nefarious magical enemies who covet his mystical sword. Orion's blade allows him to carve open seven portals that lead to seven bridges to seven stars. The narrative is mired with excessive prose and lack of direction, but it's the imaginative layouts and vivid sense of anatomies that makes this a somewhat compelling read. Morrow doesn't have the strongest handle on colors, with some fairly inconsistent uses throughout, but the overall compositions have a vivid, hallucinogenic design to them. It's no surprise that "Orion" was a feature in Heavy Metal given the abundance of nudity and violence, but the exploitation-style works well enough with the slim story.
"Edge of Chaos" is a bit more complex of a narrative as Morrow begins to play around with myths a bit more. The story is centered on adventurer Eric Cleese who is summoned to meet the Greek pantheon. Eric is tasked to serve as a mighty warrior who can take out a rogue member of Olympus. The premise is well designed, but the narrative lacks momentum to deliver a satisfying ending, and once again is weighed down by excess text.
As a sampling of Morrow's artistic sensibilities, this is a pretty fun ride. The two stories leave much to be desired, with a lack of focus and brevity making for lackluster tales. For an artist known more for his black-and-white strips, this does demonstrate a bold effort on his part to deviate from his comfort zone, but perhaps if these works were paired with a more competent writer we could be discussing something more akin to a masterpiece within the medium....more
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