Indie Squid Kid

The Brave and the Bold #24 (July, 1959)

The first incarnation of DC Comics’ The Brave and the Bold ran for 200 issues from 1955-1983. Originally it was an anthology series featuring adventure tales set in ages past and starring characters like the Silent Knight, the Golden Gladiator, and this guy—the Viking Prince. Issue 24, which featured two Viking Prince stories, would be the last to follow the original swashbuckling format. The title’s next 25 issues were used to test out new characters and concepts (such as a little team called the Justice League of America, which debuted in Brave and the Bold #28), and after that it featured a rotating roster of superhero team-ups.

So back to issue #24, the cover (drawn by comics legend Joe Kubert) depicts Jon, aka the Viking Prince, and his wife Asa struggling against a giant cephalopod of indeterminate identity. Considering that the Viking Prince stories were set in 10th century Scandinavia, I think it’s safe to describe this monster as a Kraken. I don’t know if this is a scene from one of the stories in the issue or if it was created just for the cover…it can be difficult to track down detailed information on these old comics.

The Viking Prince still shows up every now and then in modern DC continuity, most recently in the 2008 mini-series The War That Time Forgot.

Tags: Brave and the Bold, DC Comics, Kraken, tentacles, Viking Prince, Wednesday Comics

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 9:45 pm and is filed under comics, octopuses, squids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.