The significance of Joe Kubert’s Tor

Tor is a prehistoric fantasy comic franchise co-created by the late Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer (but owned from the 80s-90s onward by the super talented artist and later his own studio, Joe Kubert Productions). 

There’s the 1950s Tor comic book series and its own kin. 

The 1950s series is the prototype for all the other incarnations. The prototype’s eponymous hero is considerably lighter and softer than other incarnations. He strived for a better world. 

While the 1975 DC series is largely a remake cum reprint, it’s safe for me to assume that this incarnation’s eponymous hero also appears in a then all new volume 1, itself a revised origin of his own backstory, which began life as a failed comic strip. The two sojourn strips made in 1977 are technically both loose sequels to the St John incarnation and the pilots to both the Marvel and DC incarnations. 

There’s also the 1993 Marvel series, which is perhaps a darker but more ponderous continuity reboot to both the 50s and 70s incarnations. There’s also a short story made in 1991 which is its beginning. Its eponymous hero, now a gritty fella, must survive in a world just as unforgivingly deadly as it was when his father was once alive. 

The 2008 DC series, a more optimistic continuity reboot of both the St John-Sojourn and Marvel incarnations has its eponymous hero go into a mysterious mountain containing a deadly underground world.