For a movie that was rated certificate ‘X’ in the UK (the ‘18’ certificate was still over a year away), Marvel UK seemed quite keen on promoting John Boorman’s Excalibur upon its release in 1981. Not only was there a Starburst Poster Magazine featuring many of the film’s goriest moments, but they further cashed in with a one-off comic special called Merlin and Excalibur; a title seemingly designed to highlight the story’s two most magical (and topical) elements whilst excluding its lead character, King Arthur himself. I was 11-years old at the time and far too young to be allowed in to see Excalibur at the cinema, but I had both Merlin and Excalibur and the Starburst Poster Magazine, the poster adorning my bedroom wall for many years before I ever saw the film it was designed to promote. Excalibur is now one of my all-time favourite films, but I thought the time was long overdue to look back upon Merlin and Excalibur, the Marvel UK comic special.

First things first, Merlin and Excalibur does not feature the story of the motion picture Excalibur. It was a reprint of the 1980 American comic book Marvel Preview #22 featuring Merlin (sans Excalibur) and written by Doug Moench and John Buscema, the former of whom also illustrated it, with inks by Tom Palmer and Tartaglione. Marvel Preview was a Marvel Magazine, larger format releases with a more adult tone and released as ‘magazines’ rather than ‘comics’ as a sly way of circumventing the censorious Comics Code. Marvel UK frequently reprinted Marvel Magazine material uncut in kids’ comics here in the UK, including Star-Lord and The UFO Connection in Star Wars Weekly and various Conan the Barbarian and Doc Savage strips (the UK did not have a Comics Code). These strips were black and white in their original releases, so they always translated well to the British format.

The original US release had a very odd painted cover by Earl Norem, featuring a bare-chested Merlin conjuring a winged demon from a floating spell-book in front of a scantily clad maiden. The British version chose not to use this, partly because it was unsuitable for the intended audience, but mainly because it has bugger-all to do with the story inside. Merlin and Excalibur has a cover by Paul Neary, which is similarly out-of-context but at least conveys the feeling of the film that they were cashing in on. I’m not being harsh by calling it a cash-in, Marvel UK clearly saw the release of the John Boorman film as an opportunity they could exploit; someone, somewhere recalled that Marvel had material in their archives featuring King Arthur and Merlin and it was a natural choice to reprint it. If there had been a big budget Frankenstein film, they’d have reprinted the 1977 Classic Comics adaptation. If there had been a big budget Robin Hood film, they’d have reprinted the 1978 Robin Hood one. It’s a business and you take advantage of the opportunities as they arise.

The story does not borrow heavily from Arthurian mythology, using only the bare basics that every schoolboy knows: King Arthur of the Britons, his sword Excalibur, his wife Guinevere and his trusted mentor and sorcerer Merlin. Other than that, the fact they live in Camelot and what amounts to a brief cameo from Lancelot, the story – subtitled ‘Quest of the King’ – is completely original. It tells of a young man Baliar arriving at the gates of Camelot, weak and exhausted. King Arthur orders Merlin to nurse the lad back to health and when he is well, he tells a fanciful story about how he is the son of a Dutch nobleman travelling abroad, who encountered a dragon upon reaching England. He defeated the dragon, but was wounded in the process. The Knights of the Round Table are mightily impressed, but Merlin has his suspicions, knowing that dragons do not actually exist.

Of course, Merlin is correct; Beliar is a wrong ’un. After assorted acts of minor mischief, he rubs the King up the wrong way by first killing one of his knights in a duel, then acting in an unchivalrous manner during a jousting tournament with Sir Lancelot. Bizarrely, it’s the second of these two events that seems to tip Arthur over the edge and he banishes the stranger from the Court of Camelot. He does not go quietly however, disappearing in the middle of the night and taking Queen Guinevere with him! Consequently, King Arthur and Merlin go on a quest to rescue the Queen (it’s never really explained why they go alone and don’t take a shed-load of knights with them), which leads them to a sinister castle and a confrontation with Beliar’s master/father ‘the Prince of Evil’, whose powers of sorcery rival those of Merlin himself.

It’s strongly hinted, but never explicitly stated, that the Prince of Evil is the devil; his throne room is in the bowels of the earth and with his hooked nose and pointy ears, you could easily mistake him for Marvel’s Mephisto, but although he’s clearly a supernatural being, this ‘Prince of Evil’ is never clearly stated to be the Prince of Darkness. It’s an unusually coy move from the same company that released a comic book called ‘The Son of Satan’ within the auspices of the Comics Code, although that book had garnered several complaints from Christian groups in the USA, which might account for them being unwilling to embroil the actual Old Nick in their exploration of Arthurian legend. Nevertheless, the Prince of Evil makes for a worthy adversary, with Beliar indulging in a traditional sword fight with King Arthur while the dark sorcerer trades spells in a magical battle to the death with Merlin.

It’s a very handsome comic strip, with exceptional art by John Buscema, whose clean lines and interesting use of angles will be familiar to fans of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian – so he’s no stranger to this sword and sorcery stuff. Although there’s an old-fashioned Errol Flynn quality to the representation of Camelot, the historical detail is fairly accurate and Moench and Buscema’s script wisely chooses to steer clear of the ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ that plague the Mighty Thor comics of the era (which I always hated, because their syntactic use is always way out). The story has something of a mixed attitude to mysticism, with Merlin clearly stating that dragons are only a creature of legend and occasionally giving the impression that his magic spells are little more than complex illusions. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, the Prince of Evil is clearly a supernatural foe.

A lot of strips that started out in Marvel Preview, such as Star-Lord and Dominic Fortune, went on to have a life of their own, but although this is a very enjoyable one-off strip, the adventures of King Arthur and Merlin never spun off into its own title, which is a shame, because it would have been a lot of fun. Merlin crops up intermittently in the pages of Marvel, in everything from Doctor Strange to Captain Britain, but it’s never made entirely clear if it is the same character – probably quite rightly so. There’s probably a multiversal explanation for all this, but I’m really not going down that route. I’m happy to look at Quest of the King as a beautiful one-of-a-kind piece, with no more connection to Marvel continuity than their Classic Comics adaptations of A Christmas Carol or Moby Dick.

Marvel UK produced some exceptional ‘Specials’ in the 1980s and I cherish the ones that I own. Whether it was movie tie-ins with the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Gremlins or Summer Special oddities like Western Gunfighters and Warrior Women, they were never afraid to take a risk and publish something that may or may not sell. Merlin and Excalibur was one of my favourites; it’s a beautiful little book that you can read straight through without any ads (there’s only one, for Star Wars watches, on the back cover) and it holds up just was well today as it did 43 years ago. Modern comics fans might find it wordy and melodramatic, but for me this is what comic books are all about and Quest of the King beautifully combines the vibrant action of the Marvel comics style with the lyrical mysticism of British folklore. If you can lay your hands on either the Marvel Preview version or the Marvel UK edition, I would strongly recommend it.