-like carnivorous Dinosaur. From
1,000,000 Years Ago! #1 (1953) published by
St. John Comics. Cover art by
Joe Kubert. After his debut in
1,000,000 Years Ago (St. John, September 1953), Tor immediately went on to become one of the first comic book characters to star in
3-D comic books. The second issue of that series was renamed
3-D Comics before being renamed
Tor with issue #3 in May 1954. At this point the series was once again in the traditional two-dimensional format. This series lasted until issue #5 (October 1954). In an interview, Kubert said: "Certainly in a superficial sense, Tor was my
Tarzan. Of course, Tor wasn't raised by apes. He was raised by other primitive men and women. I suppose Tarzan and Tor are similar in that they are superior to the others of their clan. But with Tor, I chose to emphasize that he had an extra spark of humanity, and was instinctively striving for a better, more civilized way of life than that of his brothers". In 1959, Kubert and inker
Carmine Infantino unsuccessfully attempted to sell
Tor as a newspaper
comic strip. The samples consisted of 12 daily strips, reprinted in six pages in
Alter Ego #10 (1969) and later expanded to 16 pages in
DC Comics'
Tor #1. DC Comics would publish the
Tor series for 6 issues from 1974–1975.
Eclipse Comics reprinted the two
3-D Comics featuring Tor, both in 3-D and non-3-D versions in 1986. As well, the magazine
Sojourn featured new Tor stories by Kubert, and in 1993,
Marvel Comics'
Epic imprint published the four-issue miniseries
Tor, with new stories by Kubert, who had acquired and maintained rights to the character.
Alter Ego #77 (May 2008) has a long article on St. John comics by noted comic historian Ken Quattro. The cover reprints the cover of
Tor #3 from the original artwork and there is a
Roy Thomas interview with Joe Kubert about his experiences at St. John. Between 2001 and 2003, DC Comics published a three volume hardcover reprint series called
Tor, while in 2008, they published a new six issue miniseries. In 2009, DC published a hardcover collection called
Tor: A Prehistoric Odyssey, while in 2010 they published it in the softcover format. A two-page story drawn by comics legend
Lou Fine in a toy company's custom one-shot,
Wham-O Giant Comics (1967), starred a
prehistoric man named Tor, but this character is unrelated to the same-name Kubert creation. ==Reception==