If you are a member of Prince Valiant's family, then you are going to be frequently placed in danger. In fact, in the case of Valiant's third son (and fifth kid overall), that danger will begin pretty much the instance you are born.
This is part of a Prince Valiant story arc that ran through late 1983 and early 1984. John Cullen Murphy was the artist by this point, with scripts being provided by his son Cullen Murphy. Hal Foster created the strip in 1937 and, after handing the strip to Murphy in 1971, still continued to provide pencil sketches and scripts throughout the 1970s. Foster is justifiably considered a master (arguably THE MASTER) of the art form, but I'll be darned if I can find a drop in quality in the strip during the Murphy years.
Anyway, it was in 1983 that Val's wife Aleta gives birth to another son, who is promptly stolen in a plot instigated by the Byzantium emperor Justinian, who had become the Valiant family's enemy.
Val's oldest son Arn--by now a young adult--ends up trying to track down the boy. This takes him to what is now Turkey, where he learns that the boy had been given to a family living along the frontier of the Byzantium Empire. Arn soon ends up traveling with a Rabbi named Ezekiel. Because of persecution, there aren't currently many active Rabbis in the Jewish community. So Ezekiel travels from village to village, visiting each one along his route perhaps once a year. He's able to help Arn ask about the missing child in each village they visit.
But things get dangerous--and tragic. Justinian knows Arn is searching for the boy, but his minions don't know exactly where the child ended up either. Troops search for Arn, but he keeps dodging them. So a back-up plan is put into effect. All the young children in the area are to be slaughtered.
The above panel is one of the most heartbreaking ever to appear in a Sunday Comics page. The children in a village that Arn had just left are killed. Thanatops (Justinian's thug-in-chief) pauses here, letting rumor and fear do the job of flushing out the baby they are actually looking for.
Arn soon finds his young brother, who is being raised by a Jewish couple named Matthias and Judith. They've named him Nathan and love him as their own.
Frightened villagers have tracked down the boy as well and Thanatops is close behind them. The troops attack, ruthlessly cutting down any Jews they encounter. Ezekiel is mortally wounded. Arn and his baby brother seemed doomed.
In this brief summary, I'm not really doing justice to how awesome a character is Ezekiel. Learned, wise, compassionate and faithful to God, the story arc brings him quickly to life, makes us like him and leaves us devastated when he's killed. I hadn't read this particular story arc prior to it's recent reprinting, but he instantly became one of my favorite fictional characters ever.
If I have one criticism here, it's that Arn and Nathan's rescue is something of a deus ex machina. Persian invaders show up (without any foreshadowing) to kill Thanatops and scatter his troops.
After that, though, the story gets back on track. It's mentioned that the Jewish community in the area is better treated by their new rulers and Arn is able to deliver Ezekiel's Talmud to Babylon. It turns out that the rabbi is one of the chief scholars behind compiling the Babylonian Talmud, which would a key component in Jewish religious thought for centuries to come.
Arn then takes Nathan back to his parents in Camelot. But what about Matthias and Judith? They've raised Nathan and consider him their son.
What follows is another favorite fictional moments. The Jewish couple accompanies Arn and Nathan to Camelot. Judith and Aleta stare daggers at each other at first and Aleta insists on calling the baby Egil--his original intended name. But "Egil" is just a meaningless sound to the child and he cries whenever Aleta holds him. It's not until she starts calling him Nathan that he begins to bond with her.
The sequence literally drips with a sense of real humanity and emotion. Aleta and Judith bond as well, with the Jewish couple becoming a part of the Valiant household. Aleta has her son back and the heartbreak of Judith is lessoned when she can still be a part of Nathan's life. This part of the story unfolds naturally and seems real, without a hint of deus ex machina. It's really a wonderful bit of storytelling. It's a great example of how good Prince Valiant remained even after it's creator retired.
Next week, we'll board an LST off the coast of the Philippians in 1944.
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