Hercules: Adventures of the Man-God Archive

by Joe Gill, Sam Glanzman (Illustrator)

Experience the adventures of the Man-God!

All twelve issues of Adventures of the Man-God collected for the first time! Comics legends Joe Gill ( Flash Gordon, House of Mystery ) and Sam Glanzman ( Our Army at War, Star Spangled War Stories ) brought this thrilling adventure to life in the late '60s and now you can read it all in one place! This timeless run of one of the most iconic heroes in comics returns in valiant fashion, collected in a beautiful archival format and showcased exactly as they appeared in their original state.

Genres: Comics, Fantasy

256 pages, Hardcover

Published September 11, 2018

About the author

Joseph P. Gill was an American magazine writer and highly prolific comic book scripter. Most of his work was for Charlton Comics, where he co-created the superheroes Captain Atom, Peacemaker, and Judomaster, among others. Comics historians consider Gill a top contender as the comic-book field's most prolific writer. Per historian and columnist Mark Evanier, Gill "wrote a staggering number of comics. There are a half-dozen guys in his category. If someone came back and said he was the most prolific ever, no one would be surprised."

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is going to be another quick one since my family is still recovering from the snotty, shitty plague we were stricken with yesterday.

This collects Hercules 1-13, published by Charlton in the 1960s. Joe Gill and Denny O'Neil split the writing chores and Sam Glanzman did the writing. It chronicles the 12 labors of Hercules.

This wasn't exactly bad but I wanted it to be better than it was. The writing was average but the big disappointment was how uneven the drawing was, odd considering it was all Sam Glanzman. I wonder if he was behind the eightball on some of the issues because he made some weird ass choices with panels. His Hercules has weird shaped eyes and an odd profile, odder still because most of the other characters had normal eyes and profiles.

Still, when Sam was on, he was on all the way. The monsters look great and some panels are jammed with figures. Even though this was a few years after Kona, I think his Kona art was better for the most part. I don't know what the fuck was going on with the art on this. I think this one is going to Half Price Books.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a touch surprised I like this as much as I do. Though the creative team is mostly consistent, the overall tone of the stories changes pretty significantly through this complete reprint of the series. In the beginning, the stories are denser, and the art, while very solid and filled with nice touches here and there, is nothing spectacular, but it conveys a storyline remarkably close to the Greek mythological labors of Hercules (sanitized mildly for kids) quite well. These stories are some of the best written work I think I've ever read by Joe Gill, who seemed to almost always be more comfortable pushing quantity over quality in his other material (probably a must given his primary publisher Charlton's notoriously low pay rate). The later stories, however, have a more loosely scripted feel more typical of the other work I've read by Gill, but Sam Glanzman really ups the ante on the art in these last few issues in a mildly psychedelic style reminiscent of his work on Kona more than the early issues (which look more like his war comics work). It kind of evens out, but ymmv a bit. All in all, though, a surprisingly enjoyable oddball reprint from the tail end of the silver age of comics.

[ISMOTU · Rating 4 out of 5]

This comic book retelling of the Twelve Labours of Hercules is artistically interesting. Sam Glanzman renders Hercules himself as if he had just stepped out of an ancient amphora. The later issues see Glanzman get more experimental in his layouts and evoke a much more 1960's feel that is not necessarily jarring but is a very bold creative choice. The stories themselves seem very faithful to the original myths with one exception, that Hercules is referred to as Zeus' son from his previous marriage to the mortal Alcmene. I'm not sure if this was due to the Comics Code or just the general social mores of the time but it struck me as kind of funny. Also Hercules appears to get invited to dinners on Mount Olympus a lot and they always end with him fighting Mars. The kitchens of the gods apparently can make mashed potatoes and hamburgers in addition to ambrosia. Weird but awesome.