thank you, all, also weapons im thinking sword(it been years sense read a kull book, and only one at that
) and for and axe ive seen picts of him with all kinds of axes but mostly double headed. the marvel comics also showed him useing an axe alot, did REH do this as well or was this another way for marvel to make dfferences between him and conan?,i mean was an axe kulls preferred weapon??? sorry if these are silly questions
in one conan story conan states he prefers lighter armor to the heavy plates( i forget witch one, i read it in another thread here), is there any reference to or from kull on armor?
From Kings of the night :
Sandals of curious make were on his feet and he wore a pliant coat of strangely meshed mail which came almost to his knees. A broad belt with a great golden buckle encircled his waist, supporting a long straight sword in a heavy leather scabbard. His hair was confined by a wide, heavy golden band about his head.
I think you're right about Marvel trying to differentiate Kull from Conan with a few details like the scar. The Severin siblings made Kull's features quite different from Conan's, but that's not something later artists adhered to. The general "look" of Valusia was also pretty well established in the first volume (and was quite distinct from Marvel's vision of the Hyborian age) but that, too, is something that was lost over time. Kull's somewhat frequent use of an axe is probably due to the power of the story "By this axe I rule", as you pointed out. That being said, in the defining first dozen issues of Kull the conqueror, the king used a sword most of the time; in fact, for a while he was using a particular sword that he had pulled out of a tree at the bottom of an enchanted lake.
For my part, I think Kull's scar is a worthy addition to the myth. Just like the phrase "Elementary, my Dear Watson" for Sherlock Holmes, the scar is not something that the character's creator came up with and so is not canonical. And yet, it is an add-on that does not contradict the creator and that fits the character well. In that regard, it is quite unlike add-ons that are widespread in pop culture but that do contradict what the character's creator established, as the "Conan was a slave as a kid" meme would be.
Cheers!
- Ben
