Blog

Mighty Samson – Dark Horse Archives Vol.1
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Written By: Otto Binder
Art By: Frank Thorne
Cover Art By: Morris Gollub and George Wilson
Foreward By: Dylan Williams
Just in time for the Mighty Samson revival in December, Dark Horse presents us with an archive edition of the original Mighty Samson comics, collecting issues #1-6, originally published by Gold Key Comics. As the title of the article says, Mighty Samson is mighty damn good, filled with fun post-apocalyptic adventure. Page after page is loaded with monsters, mutants, barbarians, and more!
Mighty Samson tells the story of Samson, a man born in the future years after the world has been destroyed and devastated by nuclear wars, who has the super human strength of ten men! After fighting off, and losing his eye to a mutant Liobear, Samson meets the beautiful Sharmaine and her scientist father Mindor. The series chronicles their adventures through this future-in-ruins in the city of N’yark, with such rivals popping up as the rotten Queen Terra, who hopes to enslave what is left of the planet through the use of this ancient science from the lost civilization. My favorite issue in this collection is issue #5, where Samson and friends while trying to figure how to stop radiation geysers from killing everything, come across a fellow scientist Vaxar, who comes to their aid. However, Vaxar holds a secret where like a werewolf, he changes form into a mutant Lion-lizard-man, who also has the strength of ten men and really gives Samson and the gang a run for their money.
The writing on these stories is solid, and all were done by Otto Binder who worked for every comic book company around at this time. He originally created such characters as Mr. Mind in the Shazam! comics, Brainiac, Krypto and more in Superman, plus many more throught the comic book world. Binder’s writing is incredibly fun and it is great to see him get to play around and let his imagination run free in a post-apocalyptic world, without the constraints of the typical men-in-capes stories in comics. If you like Binder, this is surely Binder at his best and most playful here. Frank Thorne, who would later go on to draw such things as Red Sonja, performs stellar artwork here in these pages. His landscapes of a New York City in ruins are amazing, and such priceless shots as a passed out Samson laying on the face of a ruined Statue of Liberty deserve to be iconic and leave us in awe. Most importantly artwork-wise here are the numerous action sequences of Samson fighting an array of mutants and giant monsters, always done with precision, never boring, and leaving us always wanting more. The painted covers are done by both George Wilson or Morris Gollub, depending on what issue. These covers are fun painted-adventure with this pulpy sci-fi feel, and in themselves, little works of art.
It is a shame this title has not seen more light over the years and has been kind of lost over time. Mighty Samson has been majorly over due for a re-discovery, so thank god Dark Horse is here to save the day again!  Dark Horse, as with their other archive editions, provides us with the best versions available. Unlike other collections, this collection is printed on a thicker-pulpy paper, versus Dark Horse’s usual glossy-paper for archive editions, however it just feels right for this title, like I have the original copies of these lost treasures in my hands. All wrapped up in a nice hardcover, for the price of $49.99, it is the best value for the best version we can get. Buy it today!
Drew McCabe
drew@comicattack.net