COMICS: The Weird World of Mexican Turoks

The battle between T-rex and tetrabelodon could only take place in a lost land

Encounter with a stegosaurus in the 1st issue of Mexican Turok

An all-new (at the time) "Young Earth" educational feature in the 1st issue that was not ever in any American issue. it shows nautilids, sea-scorpions, and a creature with a sail, that looks very like a platyhytrix, a sail-back amphibian, rather than the more commonly shown dimetrodon.

Styracosaurus herd

It was only relatively recently that I even knew that Mexican Turoks even existed. Now Turok: Son of Stone was, as you know, an American comic published by Gold Key (formerly Dell), with painted covers, about two American Indian braves, young adult Turok and teenage Andar getting lost in a vast cavern system, and discovering a lost world of dinosaurs and primitive men. To recap, the first valley they enter is inhabited primarily by Mesozoic and Permian fauna and flora, with a few caveman tribes and just a few mammals including giant panthers, dire wolves, and antelope. A few issues later, they discover a second valley dominated by ancient mammals and other Cenozoic fauna. Later, they wonder through regions where the fauna of both ages mixes and overlaps, as is the case with most lost world adventure stories. However, it seems that least from the late sixties on, the adventures of Turok and Ander take place in the regions of Lost Valley inhabited only by Mesozoic and Permian animals, save for the cavemen (who may in fact have been Paleo-Indians). I've read that there was some inexplicable rule at the time, that they would only encounter dinosaurs and other ancient reptiles. Why, is anyone's guess.

A herd of dinonhyus, entelodonts, from an early issue

That's the first obvious difference between American and Mexican Turok comics: Mexican issues had the two braves encountering wildlife from all prehistoric eras. While some of the Mexican issues merely reprinted the covers and interiors of the American comics, most others were brand-new stories with brand new cover art. Yes, they are all in Spanish, which I can't read that well, so be prepared.

When I first saw Mexican covers of Turok I was really intrigued. Turok fighting a Roman Centurian? Turok and Andar facing a giant spider in what looked like a colony of ancient Egypt? Now the American Turoks had occasional fantastic elements, like giant insects or spiders that would occasionally turn up. And several issues featured man-eating plants. But it was the Mexican series that took the series in fantastic directions that the American series never dared venture. There was one American issue that featured a lost Meso-American civilization that had traveled northward and become trapped within lost valley, and another wherein the two braves discover the remains of civilization that might have been Phoenician. One Mexican issue did indeed have them discover a lost Roman colony here in the Americans, and another a lost colony of Egypt, who worshipped a giant spider that trapped pteranodons in its web! Only one American issue featured aliens invading Lost Valley; there were at least three in Mexico that did! Plus the covers very often showed giant insects, crab-like monsters, spiders and other things, not all of which were featured within. There was an issue with a race of frog-like beings, and another with winged humanoids. Now one thing lacking with many of these issues, in comparison with the American comics, is the art.

The first ten or so issues of Mexican Turok had art nearly on par with Tomas Giorelo, the excellent artist on the American comics during the seventies (who also did the art for the Dell adaptation of the original King Kong). After that, though, too many issues had art that is comparatively crude. The frog-people, sad to say, looked more like Mr. Toad from Wind in the Willows than a believable race of sentient batrachians --the sequel to the Frankenstein Underground, had a much better race beings descended from frogs. The issue with winged humans was similarly crude, and the cover was direct rip-off of an issue of Mighty Sampson. And speaking of the cover art, my one criticism, in general, is that far too many of them were swipes of other artists like Frazetta and Russ Manning.

The Egyptian issue with the pterosaur-devouring spider

Still, there are plenty of gems to be found among these issues, and much of the art falls somewhere betweeen Giorelo, and the art found in earliest American issues.

How do I know all this, by the way?

I was able to purchase a CD a year or so ago, that showed the interiors of a large sampling of Mexican Turok issues. The first issue I actually found bought on ebay had a giant staghorn caterpillar on the cover. It has Turok and Andar discover a subterranean world where they witness a battle between plesiosaur and a giant crab, and witness other fantastic creatures, including the aforementioned caterpillar. Just this month I was able to purchase seven more issues, including four of the first ten. One of them has a trunked glyptodont, based on the speculation that glyptodonts may in fact have sported trunks based upon the position of their nostrils. Another has Turok and Andar teaching one of the cave tribes (in one of the mammal-dominated regions) how to build a more advanced village and agriculture system.

The trunked glyptodont

Turok and Andar educate the natives

A Charles R. Knight swipe!

Among the issues I still lack (and there are many) is one that I know has a genuine tetrabelodon, a species of gomphothere, or four-tusked elephant. To my knowledge, this beast has never shown up in the comics other than in this issue. Another, set in an ice-age region of Lost Valley, is about the quest for an albino mammoth, and has quite a few other Pleistocene fauna.

The lizard-like reptile shown here seems like the "Crystal Palace" depictions of iguanodon from the 19th century. And of course, a T-rex.

A huge pteranodon attacks a cave tribe

Such is the weird world of Mexican Turoks.

Having said the aforementioned Spanish warning, if anyone is looking for some good old-fashioned prehistoric adventures or loves the Turok series, there's tons of them waiting discovery out there. There's been at least four, maybe five, Turok revival series. The one in the Nineties had a respectable run. The rest were very short-lived, and none of them had anything on the Turok series that started it all, possibly because no one now thinks that series format could possibly work in the modern world. The Jim Shooter series was possibly the best attempt, but that's a tale for another time. If you want all-new old-school Turok adventures in Lost Valley, these issues come closer than anything produced after 1990.