Stolen Relics, A Quest and an Ally who is a Kind of Dumb

 One might have justifiable presumed that when Hal Foster retired from producing Prince Valiant, that it was the end of an era. Foster's art was literally breathtaking. His plots and characters melded with that art to bring us an epic saga set not just in Arthurian England, but taking Valiant and other characters to many far-flung lands, including America.

But when John Cullen Murphy stepped up to the plate beginning in 1970, he hit it out of the park (with Foster sending him layouts and scripts through 1979. Though Murphy was an experienced and talented illustrator in his own right, his willingness to emulate Foster's work gave the strip an important continuity of style. Without missing a beat in terms of quality, Prince Valiant continued his adventure. A story arc that ran from March to July in 1977, for instance, is typical of the strip's continued excellence.

A ship approaching the Misty Isles is attacked by pirates, but defended by a knight named Gunther, who is badly wounded in the process. Naturally, Val, Aleta and their family take the young knight in. They find out that his family history is a fractious one. His father was a king. Gunther's oldest brother assassinated both the father and another brother before himself being killed. His five co-conspirators robbed the local cathedral of holy relics and made a run for it.

Gunther is pursuing the thieves, determined to bring them to justice and recover the relics. Aleta urges Val to help out the young knight.

So together they travel to Alexandria. Here we begin to realize that Gunther tends to act without thinking. In fact, though he is brave and skilled in a fight, he doesn't have a lick of common sense. When he, by chance, sees one of the thieves, he kills the guy before they can get any information out of him.

Val, on the other hand, is taking more considered action, employing intelligent detective work and discovering that the remaining four thieves are on their way to Jerusalem to sell the relics. Gunther is all for pursuing them across the desert, but Val convinces the dolt that they should take a ship up the coast and ride to Jerusalem from Jaffa. This will get them to the Holy City ahead of the thieves.

Along the way, they help a girl named Zara escape from a desert raider. This is fortuitous, as Zara is the daughter of a sheik, which gives them an ally and a base of operations in Jerusalem. 

Gunther is wounded yet again, this time in a fight with the desert raider who is still out to get Zara. Zara nurses him back to health and he mistakes her attentions for love. He's now convinced he's found a wife, though her high spirits will, of course, have to be toned down. He's also completely oblivious to the fact that she's overtly in love with someone else. 

In the meantime, Val finds out where the thieves are staying and is looking for an opportunity to nab them and get the relics back. Once again, Gunther jumps into the situation without thinking, though through his undeniable bravery and a lot of luck, he comes out alive and with the relics (muddy and battered though they now are) back in his possession.

The story arc comes to a fun conclusion when the sheik denies Gunther permission to marry Zara and Gunther, storming out of the sheik's head, is immediately distracted from his heartbreak when he sees a pretty Saxon girl walking by.

The story is great fun. Gunther, as a character, can be a bit of a dense jerk, but he fits into the tale perfectly in that role, with the "he hasn't learned a thing" ending being both appropriate and funny.

Hal Foster was one of the best things that ever happened to the American comic strip, but John Cullen Murphy still managed to fill his shoes quite nicely.

That's it for now. Next week, we'll look at the next story in our examination of Animal Comics.