A Re-telling??

Who can forget the famous meeting of Mandrake & Lothar(S101:The Meeting of Mandrake and Lothar;1967)?? Later a great friendship was formed & that becomes one of the greatest Crime-fighter duo!!


Yesterday I bought a Diamond Mandrake(DC #71) which consists two Mandrake dailies & one of 'em was 'The Ears of Earth' .This particular daily is from the Post-Indrajal era (D214:19 July,1993 - 27th November,1993).

As I went through this strip,it seems Falk had completely changed/re-told a couple of facts those are inherent part of Mandrake adventures!

One of those was Theron's age ....which was clearly mentioned many times in past as 308 years & he was 275-year old when Mandrake born! But,in this strip,surprisingly Theron's age becomes 408 years & he was 380-year old during Mandrake's birth!!
Anyway,Falk was never consistent over the statistics & it's somewhat ok...but the second 'change' was really like a re-telling of some inherent tale & needless to say,quite puzzling!

It's about how Mandrake & Lothar were first met and in this daily:'The Ears of Earth(1993)' ,Falk completely changed that famous tale!! Only common thing was their meeting place:the deep African jungle ....otherwise,it's completely different tale!

In the ORIGINAL tale of 1967,it has been shown that Mandrake was looking for a cruel killer:Mad Dog Dill. Lothar was also looking for the same killer,when his father,then king of his tribe ,ordered him to do so! In this way they met & later Lothar left his kingdom & joined wid Mandrake...

But here,in this 1993-daily,the situation was completely different. After death of his father,Lothar's uncle became the king & as Lothar refused to marry some tribe-girl,her brother attacked him wid his gang....,,that's when Mandrake appeared in the spot & saved Lothar wid his mighty magic.Between,this time Mandrake was intend to explore the ruins of Lothar's ancestor(and NOT to after any killer)!

I donno why Falk re-told that tale which's itself a real classic(n special too!) thriller for all Man-Fans !!
Anyway,in this 1993-daily,all though story began wid Collage of Magic,Theron,Mandrake-Lothar's meeting etc....but the basic plot was completely different and quite thrilling as I can say! :-)

Between,DC #71 has another daily,from Davis era:The Chief(D125 :1964) which had publicised in Indrajal Comics twice(The Mouse Trap :Ijc #90 & Vol.24 No.39)..