Perhaps the greatest hero factory during the heyday of the pulps was New York’s Street & Smith, a publisher whose roots were set in the late 1800s and the dime-novel era. They single-handedly created the ‘hero pulp’ in 1931 when, as a method to establish copyright to a mysterious voice acting as narrator on radio programs, they contracted writer and magician Walter B. Gibson to pen the adventures of The Shadow for a quarterly magazine of the same name. The Shadow was an immediate success, selling so well that it was soon bumped up to a monthly and then the bi-weekly frequency it would maintain for almost a decade (with the incredible Gibson whipping out novels so fast that even this aggressive rate wasn’t able to daunt him). Street & Smith soon expanded into other character-based magazines (a concept they’d started in the dime-novel era with Nick Carter) and stands were soon playing host to Doc Savage, The Avenger, and The Whisperer.

Success always breeds competition, and chasing after Street & Smith’s market was Popular Publications. Keen to reap some of The Shadow’s profits, Popular began printing their own magazine about a cloaked scourge of the underworld, The Spider. Just as Walter B. Gibson was the first writer veiled in the Maxwell Grant house name, so it was Norvell W. Page who took on the mantle of Grant Stockbridge in the Spider’s formative years. Page was even friends with Theodore Tinsley, the second man to assume the guise of Maxwell Grant as Street & Smith brought in a pinch-hitter for fear that something might happen to Gibson and leave The Shadow without a writer. The two authors even bounced ideas off one another, further establishing the murky relations of The Shadow and the Spider.

What has all of that to do with fantasy? Well, Street & Smith published a good many magazines besides their hero pulps. Among these was Unknown, helmed by John W. Campbell’s editorial hand. First appearing in 1939, Unknown acted as a more fantastical companion to Street & Smith’s Astounding Science Fiction. While perhaps not as well known as Weird Tales for its contributions to sword and sorcery, in 1939 two novels would appear in Unknown that were such sturdy examples of the genre that in the 1970s they would be adapted by Marvel Comics as further tales of none other than Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian. These stories, however, started out as something much different and the author behind them was The Spider’s Norvell W. Page. The hero in both stories was Wan Tengri, aka Prester John.

The historical pedigree of Prester John is an old one. Tales of this Christian king ruling an empire somewhere in the distant east began appearing in the 12th century during the Crusades, perhaps holding out hope that this great empire would arrive at the back door of the Muslim empires and help the Crusaders cleanse the Holy Land of their adversary. In Page’s character there remains only scant traces of the original myth, however. His Prester John isn’t a priest-king as depicted in the myths (or at least he isn’t during these stories) but rather derives his name from a Greek term meaning ‘hurricane’. In the stories he is often referred to as ‘Wan Tengri’, a Mongol name that translates as ‘John of the Wind-devils’. Nor are the stories set in the 12th century, but much further back in the 1st century when the Roman Empire was still the dominant power in the western world. John was a gladiator from Scythia fighting in the arenas of Alexandria before gaining his freedom and travelling far into the east. By his own account, he’s journeyed into India and China, gaining such notoriety that he’s been compelled to leave both lands just as he did Roman-dominated Egypt.

The initial novel, Flame Winds, appeared in the June, 1939 issue of Unknown. Prester John has spent some time among the Mongols, learning much of their ways and becoming a skilled bowman under their instruction. Because of his greater size and strength, Wan Tengri employs a war bow larger and more powerful than that of any Mongol, creating a formidable weapon that impresses the nomads and earns him their esteem. Prester John is restless, however, and convinces one of his Mongol friends to take him to the fabled city of Turgohl north of Mongolia near Lake Baikul on the edge of the Karakorum Desert so that he can sell jewels stolen from a waylaid wizard. In Turgohl the Wizards of Kasimer rule, seven sorcerers who dominate their kingdom through their magic and the dreaded might of the Flame Winds that can sear a man to cinders.

Prester John sneaks into Turgohl seeking riches, but soon finds himself at odds with the ruling wizards. Though he often invokes the names of Ahriman and Mitra, Prester John also honours the new god, Christos, and wears around his neck a talisman crafted from a sliver of the True Cross. Our hero’s interpretation of Christianity is eccentric to be sure, and after escaping a sorcerous snare, he makes a vow to Christos that a hundred thousand will ‘accept Christos or he would slit their throats’. The gentler teachings of Christ don’t seem to have made much impact on the former gladiator, though he has taken the mantra of ‘suffer not a witch to live’ to heart, seeing it as almost a sacred duty to destroy the wizards who reign in Turgohl. At least some justification for the innate loathing the heroes of sword and sorcery so frequently express for wizards!

Events in Turgohl steadily escalate, with Prester John fighting the soldiers who serve the wizards while he plots how to best topple them from power. He falls in with the diminutive thief Bourtai and his gang of rogues and from this humble start he hopes to overthrow the rulers of Turgohl. The wizards, by the same token, seek to make use of Prester John in their own bitter rivalry, trying to answer the riddle of an arcane prophecy that will set one of them - alone - as supreme ruler.

The action in Flame Winds keeps a brisk pace, though at the expense of characterization. Only Prester John and Bourtai are given much attention. Wan Tengri is quickly established as a reckless and over-confident braggart whose boasting continually gets him into trouble. His devotion to Christos comes across as much a matter of convenience as it does belief, with Prester John even rationalizing that he’ll present the souls of Turgohl’s people to the new god while he keeps the more material ‘loot’ for himself. He is a strategist and skilled with both sword and bow. Some of the old tricks from the arena are still in his arsenal as well, and it would seem he’s more than familiar with how to use a net in combat. Unlike many heroes in sword and sorcery, Prester John disbelieves in magic for the most part, holding that much of it is mere trickery and superstition. This is probably his major asset against the Wizards of Kasimer, whose sorcery draws its strength from the belief of its victims (a concept that gaming fans might be familiar with from AD&D’s rules for illusions). The prideful Wan Tengri rarely loses confidence in himself, but when he does he grips the sliver from the True Cross and seeks to cut some kind of deal with Christos for a little extra help. 

The more grating aspect of Wan Tengri is his bullying nature. While he shares that hatred of slavery that is universal for heroes of the pulp era, and the quickest way to provoke his ire is to call him a slave, he can hardly be called egalitarian. In any interaction, he sets himself in a superior position. At times the haughty abuse slipping from his tongue, like his arrogant pride, is more to blame for his troubles than anything else. The sneaky, devious Bourtai, for instance, often earns the reader’s sympathy merely because of the continuous insults Prester John heaps on him. 

The second Prester John novel, Sons of the Bear-God, didn’t appear until the November, 1939 issue of Unknown. Having left Turgohl worse off than he started, Prester John now finds himself pursued by Mongol horsemen. Wan Tengri is accompanied by Bourtai and the two escape from the Mongols only by entering the Buryat, a vast sea of waving grass held to be the home of murderous grass-devils. With his typical disdain of superstition and magic, Prester John forces Bourtai into the tall grass and by this method the two escape the Mongols, who will chase them no farther. 

Adventure awaits within the Buryat, and after avoiding the poisonous vapours of the unseen grass-devils, Prester John and Bourtai are set upon by armed soldiers who turn out to be Goths, John’s own race. It is revealed that Prester John’s real name is Amlairic. The Goths, who Prester John describes as being as regimented and disciplined as the legions of Rome, are slaves to the dwarfish Tinsunchi, who dominate them by means of their arcane science. Once again, Prester John sets out to topple a kingdom and place himself on a throne. As before, Bourtai seeks to play his own treacherous game, exploiting Wan Tengri towards his own ends.

Sons of the Bear-God moves fast, but doesn’t quite match the breakneck pace of Flame Winds. The story makes for a fast read and the different approach to the magic of the Tinsunchi contrasted with the illusions of the wizards in the first book keeps enough variation to keep the reader guessing. The ending chapters, however, create a marked difference in tone that is a bit jarring and at this stage the story could have done with stopping for a moment to catch its breath. 

While not on the level of Howard’s Conan (despite Marvel’s adaptations of the novels as Conan comics), Page’s Prester John tales are fine examples of pulp era fantasy. During the great revival of Conan in the 1960s, Berkley Medallion reprinted both novels, first in 1969 and again in 1978, and these paperbacks seem to be frequent denizens of used bookstores for those interested in delving into Wan Tengri’s bold exploits.

With the breakneck success of their Conan publications, Marvel Comics adapted both Prester John novels as Conan stories. Flame Winds was turned into a Conan adventure in issue #32 of Conan the Barbarian, dated November, 1973. This adaptation, shifting the action to the Hyborian Age and the land of Khitai, was written by Roy Thomas with interior art by John Buscema. The story would run through issue #34 in January, 1974. The character of Bourtai would appear in this adaptation and tag along with Conan for one more adventure, being killed in issue #35. However, Marvel wasn’t quite done with Prester John and the second novel would itself be adapted as a Conan story. Conan the Barbarian issue #109 of April, 1980 began an adaptation of Sons of the Bear-God with Roy Thomas taking on writing duties and John Buscema providing the artwork. The adaptation would run through issue #112 in July of the same year.

Norvell W. Page’s fantasy tales may be few and today he is certainly best remembered for his work with the Spider and other pulp mystery men, but the two Prester John novels from 1939 certainly leave one wondering what might have happened had he decided to delve even deeper into the genre of sword and sorcery. 

Exiled to the blazing wastes of Arizona for communing with ghastly Lovecraftian abominations, C.L. Werner strives to infect others with the grotesque images that infest his mind. He is the author of over thirty novels and novellas in settings ranging from Warhammer, Age of Sigmar, and Warhammer 40,000 to the Iron Kingdoms, Mantica, Beyond the Gates of Antares, and Wild West Exodus. He has also written “The Get of Garm”, an official story featuring Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane which appeared as a serialized prose story in Marvel’s Conan: Serpent War. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies, among them Rage of the Behemoth, Sharkpunk, Kaiju Rising, and several issues of Tales from the Magician’s Skull.