For the first time, Savage Tales is officially Giant-Sized Savage Tales. Not even original publisher Marvel Comics called it that. Perhaps Dynamite Entertainment should have called it Giant-Sized Savavallone Tales. Either way, it’s landing in stores in April 2026.
They’ve had good results with writer David Avallone. An expert in pulp fiction, Avallone has written Doc Savage, The Shadow, Red Sonja, and of course Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Somewhere in there he contributed to Dynamite’s revival of Savage Tales, tackling a certain Warlord of Mars. No, not that one, though he’s written John Carter, too. He went back further to Captain Gullivar Jones, launching a multi-part story in previous issues of Savage Tales.
So heck, why not give him the whole magazine for an issue? In addition to finishing “Gullivar: His War” with Chapter 4, he adds Allan Quatermain with “The Invaders.” Vampirella, now possibly more associated with Dynamite than her original publisher Warren, gets the Avallone treatment with “The Old Country Trigger.”
After writing the mysteriously maltese Red Sonja: Noir for Dynamite, he rounds out Giant-Sized Savage Tales #1 with a Red Sonja tale, “The Code.” Drawn by Pasquale Qualano, the Red Sonja story promises to be fun. Heck, they all do.
Avallone collaborates for the first time with artist Sebastián Piriz on the Allan Quatermain story. Like Gullivar Jones, Quatermain isn’t a character much associated with comics. The H. Rider Haggard creation may have last appeared as a comic character in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. Come to think of it, Gullivar Jones was in that, too.
Both the Vampirella and Gullivar stories are illustrated by Mariano Benitez-Chapo, a recent graduate of the Joe Kubert School. Benitez-Chapo has worked with Avallone in previous issues of Savage Tales. But never giant-sized.
It’s 2026, so of course Giant-Sized Savage Tales has multiple variant covers. Bjorn Barends contributes two (that we know of), one featuring Vampirella and one with Red Sonja looking suspiciously like Vampirella. The recent innovation of a Blind Bag will be in effect, too. Accomplished cosplayer Ivy Cosplay contributes three photo covers. Though the men in this comic get mentioned on some of the covers, I guess that’s not what causes a book to leap off the shelves into the hands of unsuspecting readers.
Me? I want to see how “Gullivar: His War” ends.
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