This can be said to be true when it comes to the Iron Warrior.
I can onloy find one source with any information on the character up to 1990 and that is the late Denis Gifford’s Encyclopedia of Comic Characters [Longman,London,1987]. In the entry for The Iron Warrior,Gifford writes:
“..the most violent and bloodiest strip ever seen in British comics to this time,and for several decades to come. Rodney Dearth,seeking the Jewels of Junius,arrives at the site of the Temple of Sloth in Central Africa,accompanied by his robot,the Iron Warrior. Captured by a White Princess,he summons the Warrior (‘wavelength 60,impulse 400′). Crying ‘I come Master!’ and also ‘Ahrrr! Whoo-roo! Roar!’,the Warrior’s built-in chopper slices up the Sloths,cuts up a giant crocodile,and pulls the head off an outsize eagle.”
And from this we get entries in the Internationalheroes site:
“A robot controlled by Rodney Dearth, who used it to hunt treasure with him in Africa.
The Warrior isn’t really a hero, as it kills anyone who threatens its master, whose own goals are far from altruistic.”
Hmm. But then we get,at the League for Extraordinary Gentlemen fan site:
“The Surrogate League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
When the government decided to form the Worral’s League they based it very closely on Mina’s first League, “When in 1946 it was apparent that Miss Murray and her colleagues had deserted our employ by going missing in America, MI5 elected to replace the group with surrogates in an attempt to recreate the impact of the 1898 ensemble…”
- The Invisible Man (Peter Brady) = The Invisible Man (Hawley Griffin)
- Prof James Gray = Nemo (both submarine builders, Nemo even inspired Gray in League V2)
- Worrals = Mina (female leads experienced in death)
- Wolf of Kabul = Quatermain (both in the great white hunter tradition, they even both wear pith helmets)
- The Iron Warrior = Hyde (both really killers pressed into service).
YAAAR! RRRAHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Oh. I do beg your pardon. Had a bit of an “Iron Warrior” moment there. Seriously,I hate this whole “we know nothing about the character but it seems it was a killer controlled by a killer so let’s write that” crap.
“…Dearth was not a hero and had a more villainous overtone. He would command the Warrior to do various illegal things, including kill people.”
Dearth was not a villain or scheming killer. Anyone read any old boys adventure books or H. Ryder Haggard? By applying what the League page and Internationalheroes entry has written then we have to re-classify Alan Quartermaine as a cold blooded villain. In fact,up until more politically correct times,most heroes would need to be re-classed according to this methodology. Biggles takes on arch villain proportions. Even Indiana Jones would be classed as out-doing the Nazis considering how many deaths he’s caused directly or indirectly. Think on that.
Let’s get a little bit of perspective here. Sit down kiddies because if you’ve not watched any films made between 1920 to…well…now,and if you’ve not read any history on the British Empire or American Imperialism ["Hey,Japan:we've gun ships and troops harbored offshore now do business with us 'voluntarily' or we'll make you!"] -in fact any empire or power!- you may be shocked.
Most sea-faring nations such as Spain,Italy,England,France etc.,sent out exploratory ships/fleets to seek out new lands and new treasures and subdue the local population by any means including genocide [keep some alive for slaves,of course]. The Ashante were great at being slavers and made a lot of money out of it. It’s a two-way thing you see -are black african slavers villains? Hey,slavery still exists today and amongst some of the West’s best pal nations.
But these Europeans were brave hero-explorers. Anyone hear of a little group called the Conquistadores? Dutch East India Company? The British East India Company -all had their private armies to,uh,”smooth things through”.
Ever read King Solomon’s Mines?
In comparison,Dearth was a limp-wristed liberal! Hmm. If you were a British soldier at Rourke’s Drift with Zulu warriors rushing toward you would you throw down your rifle and wave -”Hello! I’m really against all this imperialism stuff -care for tea and a chat?” Mind you,in Zulu Dawn,Denholm Elliott’s character more or less did just that -and was killed straight away!
Whichever city you lived in -London,Berlin,Paris- you would hear stories of strange lands,lost treasures and much more. The urge to follow those tales continue to this very day. If a chap was on his uppers and the old estate was falling to bits and,to be frank,the family coffers had been emptied long ago it was disgrace and destitution -but if you could find the “lost treasure” or anything worth a few quid you were saved!
I know that it is wrong to just go marching in,putting down the “locals” and stealing things that belong to them,whether they want to exploit it themselves or not –hey,I’m still for returning the Elgin Marbles and all those Egyptian artefacts we,uh,borrowed!
The context is that this was a totally different world. Officers and troopers posing for photographs of themselves resting their feet on a heap of natives heads should have been totally unacceptable even in the 19th century but it happened -apparently “fun” hunts were organised with horse-riding officers carrying “pig-stickers” but I get a feeling the natives involved weren’t having too much fun!
A white man would have his weapons because,even if a peaceful person,not all native persons were friendly in return [read some history]. I could write on the subject all day but it wouldn’t help.
The point is that we know,in the Iron Warrior strip,only that Dearth arrives in Africa with his creation. If attacked he defended himself. In volume 3 of the Black Tower Gold Collection,I published such a strip. Dearth is exploring an area when a local priest stirs things up -Dearth is attacked and,though he could easily do so,he does not set about killing everyone. In fact,he does fend off an attack by rushing straight at the warriors but then tries to use cunning to defeat the witch doctor.
Once the threat is sorted,Dearth goes on his way. The one thing we see is that the Iron Warrior is far from some type of remote-controlled killer doing its master’s bidding. It’s what would today be called a controlled vehicle or “power suit”.
Dearth get’s inside the Iron Warrior and operates controls and fires his weapons from here. He also operates the axe-wielding arm. Guessing at Dearth’s height the Iron Warrior has to be around 3-4 metres tall [10-12 feet]. But,it is still nothing more than a kind of hostile environment suit -almost similar to later [better designed] deep water suits.
What Denis Gifford wrote I have to take to be accurate -he did have a massive collection. So,I’m guessing that there was a remote control device and,it seems,a vocaliser of sorts. This does not appear in the later strips I’ve seen. That said,continuity was never a great strongpoint in comics back then.
Yes,the strip was violent but you have to recall that in early Tarzan films there were people being killed violently and arrows sticking out of heads. And,sadly,in war time Britain death was a daily event and kids [and adults] enjoyed a good “Darkest Africa” story with some white chap up against the natives.
So,do not think that,based on what people who have a narrow view of a character write,that Dearth and the Iron Warrior were just deadly killers. They weren’t.
Now,back to Big Bong!
The Iron Warrior vs Big Bong:When Giants Fought,written & drawn by Ben R.Dilworth is available from:
http://www.lulu.com/hoopercomicsuk
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