Robert E. Howard (1906-36) is best known for Conan the Barbarian, but he wrote about many more characters. Probably his second most well-known character is Solomon Kane, who also appeared in Weird Tales, though before Conan.
Kane is a 16th-century English Puritan who travels the world fighting evil in all its forms. He is known for his dark clothes, including a slouch hat, cloak, a pair of flintlock pistols, and a Spanish rapier. A distinctive element is the Staff of Solomon he carries, which was a gift to him from the African shaman N’Longa.
His stories are sword-and-sorcery, as Kane confronts evil in all its forms in his travels; the stories also often have a supernatural element, so there is also a bit of the occult-detective element, though here less detective and more fighter.
Howard wrote seven stories that appeared in Weird Tales from 1928-32, along with two unpublished stories, three poems, and four fragments. All are collected in The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (2004) along with some essays and a forward by artist Gary Gianni, who did the cover and interior artwork.
One interesting thing is that Kane travels to Africa a few times. This happens in the first, and what is considered the best, Kane story, “The Red Shadows.” It’s also the first time he meets N’Longa. But it won’t be until another story where he returns to Africa and again meets up with N’Longa that he gets the staff.
Another journey to Africa occurs in the longer story “The Moon of Skulls,” where Kane travels to the lost city of Negari, which was built by Atlanteans, who were later all killed. What I thought was strange was that this Atlantis seems very different from the Atlantis of King Kull. But maybe Howard hadn’t fully worked that out yet or something.
Movies
There has been one movie with Solomon Kane, the first of a planned trilogy. This is an original story, telling of Kane, a former privateer who converts to Puritanism before the written adventures. It was released in the U.S. in 2012 after being filmed in 2008 and released overseas. Go figure. I’ve not seen it, but I took a look at the trailer on YouTube. It looks interesting, but they make it seem like he already has the staff, unless it’s just a generic staff.
Comics
There have been several comics with Solomon Kane, starting with Marvel Comics. When they had the rights to Conan, they also did both color and black-and-white Solomon Kane comics, a mixture of adaptations and original tales. These stories were later reprinted in a single volume by Dark Horse when they had the rights as The Saga of Solomon Kane. More recently, Marvel reprinted this as the hardcover Solomon Kane Original Marvel Years Omnibus. Titan will be reprinting this soon.
After Marvel, the rights to REH’s characters moved to Dark Horse. During this time, it did three mini-series, which were then collected into trade paperbacks. These were a mixture of adaptations and expansions of fragments. The three series are: The Castle of the Devil, Death’s Black Riders, and The Red Shadows.
As with other REH comic adaptations, it’s interesting to see different adaptations of the same story.
Now, Titan Comics is doing an all-new comic series. The first couple of issues are out so far.
So if you haven’t checked him out, do so. What is funny for me is that it was the Dark Horse Comics new series I read first with this character, before reading the original stories or the Marvel Comics versions.
