Jerry Ordway Talks ‘Primal Age,’ DC’s Foray Into Target-Exclusive Comics

Comic book legend Jerry Ordway has a pair of new stories out today in the target-exclusive 100-page giant DC Primal Age one-shot.

The stories will appear alongside the work of fellow veterans of the ’80s and ’90s like Jon Bogdanove, Marv Wolfman, and Louise Simonson — all of whom worked with Ordway during his acclaimed run on the Superman titles 25 years ago. That makes sense, he says, because of the nature of the property.

“The concept of the book was supposedly that it was a lost ’80s series, which ties into the toys, so I think that it makes sense to use older creators, you know?” Ordway explained. “‘Cause that’s what they’re selling, basically. I would imagine the toy market for this is likely, you know, people who were at least familiar with Masters of the Universe and the Warlord line from the 80s.”

The Primal Age figures, for those who might not remember, are molded to resemble those ’80s Mattel and Remco action figures, with popular DC characters redesigned with an eye toward how they might look in a society of mystical barbarians.

“I have this memory of when those toys came out, I was seeing a lot of my nephew and niece, my brother’s son and daughter, back around ’83, ’84, and the toys were huge,” Ordway said. “That was their age range for that — they were like six, seven years old. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, these toys are so ugly,’ you know? The figures are molded in such a grotesque kind of lumpy way. But for a kid, they just thought those were the greatest, because there were so many of them and they were fantasy characters. I think this comic series fits in that same range, because it’s basically DC superheroes in kind of a medieval-type setting, where powers were considered magic than science.”

For Ordway, he wrote two stories, drawing one of them. The tale he drew featured Wonder Woman squaring off against Solomon Grundy.

[Start Gallery Call-to-Action Key=7725]”I was thinking about kids, and I was thinking of that, you know, weird relationship that Solomon Grundy had with Jade in Infinity, Inc. way back in the ’80s,” explained Ordway, who worked on that title. “Where he was kind of always a bad guy, but then he kinda protected her, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s kind of a good hook, so let me come up with a character, just a swamp creature, and readers will know it’s Solomon Grundy.’ Then Kristy Quinn, the editor had said, ‘Oh, well why don’t you do a design for it? And if they approve it, we can use Solomon Grundy, if they don’t, we can just make it [a generic character].’”

You can check out some pages from Ordway’s stories in the attached image gallery. The art for the Joker story was provided by penciller Chuck Patton and inker Karl Kesel (another veteran of the ’80s and ’90s Superman boom).

DC Primal Age #1 is available in Target stores today. Fans can find it on the Funko endcap, along with the action figures in the toy aisle.