[2] This concept had been reworked by the first issue, a multiple-creator goulash in which the two originators and co-plotters turned the scripting over to another writer, and in which artist co-creator Adams penciled only the first 11 pages and Howard Chaykin the remaining nine.
Two of its characters, Carmilla Frost and the African American M'Shulla Scott, shared color comic books' earliest known dramatic interracial kiss,[4] in issue #31 (July 1975), page nine, final panel.
Killraven and his warrior band were also a community of friends and lovers motivated by a poetic vision of freedom and of humanity's potential greatness.
McGregor's finest artistic collaborator on the series was P. Craig Russell, whose sensitive, elaborate artwork, evocative of Art Nouveau illustration, gave the landscape of Killraven's America a nostalgic, pastoral feel, and the Martian architecture the look of futuristic castles.
[11] In 2005, writer Jim Valentino said his aborted plans for the Marvel comic Guardians of the Galaxy involved Killraven, in his 50s, joining the team and forming an attraction to Yellowjacket (Rita DeMara).
[12] Writer Robert Kirkman and artist Rob Liefeld announced in August 2007 they were creating a five-issue alternate universe Killraven miniseries planned for release in 2008, but the project never went into production.
[13][14] On the alternate-future Earth designated Earth-691 by Marvel Comics,[15] the Martians from H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds return in 2001 for another attempt at conquering the planet (they were later retconned as extrasolar aliens using Mars as a staging area[16]).
[volume & issue needed] Pursued by the cyborg Skar, the Freemen encounter various victims of Martian transhuman experiments, as well as emotionally and psychologically scarred survivors.
[21] After learning that his brother Joshua (Deathraven) is still alive,[22] Killraven fights Martian slaves alongside a time-traveling Spider-Man,[23] The Freemen eventually reach the Everglades, where they encounter a military cadre of survivors and the butterfly-like Mourning Prey.
Killraven possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of human history, art, and science predating the Martian invasion of A.D. 2001, implanted in his mind by Keeper Whitman.
He is very much the barbarian type, yet at the same time he has this seed planted in his brain that is the history of the human race — a racial memory of everything that has been obliterated by the Martians.
There have been counterparts of Killraven in several stories: In the mainstream Marvel Universe that the company dubs Earth-616, Jonathan Raven appears in the 2006-2007 miniseries Wisdom.
Wisdom is forced to kill Maureen in order to stop the Martian invasion, while Jonathan is taken to an MI-6 safehouse in Prague and trained by martial artist Shang-Chi.