Ten Ten Ten's Ten Tens: Ten of Harvey Dent's Favorite Comic Books

Ten two-faces equals twenty half-faces! Or, something like that. Anyway, this is a sequel to "Two-Faced" from October 23, 2006. Remember when two-facing was all the rage back then and all the kids were running around throwing acid in each other's faces? Ah, the days.





















(More Ten of a Kind here.)

A Wodehouse a Week #66: Indiscretions of Archie

I am not allowed to read Cosmopolitan magazine. Every week John takes me to the newsstand and I am allowed to buy some magazines with my pocket money. I am allowed to get Time Out London and Games and MAD and Starlog and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and especially Bull's Life. But I am not allowed to get Cosmopolitan magazine. Why? Because it looks like this:



No, I am not allowed to get Cosmo no matter how much I ask for it:



No matter who is on the cover:



But it didn't always look like that! Here, take a gander:



Fact is, once upon a time, Cosmo was a literary magazine, especially under the ownership of William Randolph "I am not Charles Foster Kane" Hearst, Cosmopolitan was a leading fiction periodical. Isn't that right, Wikipedia?

...it was subtitled The Four-Book Magazine since the first section had one novelette, six or eight short stories, two serials, six to eight articles and eight or nine special features, while the other three sections featured two novels and a digest of current non-fiction books.

But by the 1970s, Cosmo had turned into a women's magazine featuring fashion, advice, and models who have trouble bundling up for cold weather. I blame Helen Gurley Brown, the little-known older sister of Charlie Brown, because I sure would like to plunk down my twelve cents on the counter of the newsstand, fix the newsagent with a firm stare, and ask him for a copy of a magazine that contains four whole books for me to read. Also, some M&Ms and a packet of Doublemint.

What's all that got to do with Wodehouse, you may ask, Kind Reader? It's because tonight's Wodehouse a Week, Indiscretions of Archie, originated in that now-sexy magazine: Indiscretions of Archie was first serialized in short stories that appeared in Cosmopolitan during 1920 (and turned into book form in 1921). Man, what I woulda given to get that magazine in my postbox once a month throughout the year of 1920! (Plus, all those saucy daguerreotypes of Mary Pickford on the cover!)

Indiscretions of Archie is a series of linked stories that are a bit of a departure for Wodehouse: they feature a married hero, the titular Archie Moffam (pronounced "Moom"). Affable but aimless Archie has gotten married to the lovely Lucille Brewster, daughter of Manhattan hotel magnate Daniel Brewster, who loathes Archie's very presence, and that, as they say in the sitcoms, is where the fun begins. In fact, the basic premise of Indiscretions of Archie is very much an early situation comedy, with each chapter an episode in Archie's adventures to ingratiate himself with his bristly father-in-law but failing miserably (until book's end, of course). That traditional sitcom triangle of sweet daughter, bumbling son-in-law, and prickly father is a comedy classic, as, say, f'r instance, in the John Ritter Three's Company spin-off Three's a Crowd. But just like Cosmopolitan magazine for its time, it's all very innocent and G-rated for every audience—probably a little too tame for ABC-TV's Tuesday night late-seventies line-up but a perfect frothy comedy for this little stuffed bull.

In many ways it's also a predecessor and a practice run for Wodehouse's Bingo Little short stories: the adventures of a cheerful but aimless young man and his adoring wife, and aforesaid young man's frequent attempts to make a bit of ready cash on the side without dear wifey finding out. Wodehouse didn't feature too many married protagonists—he was more interested in getting the booted towards the altar rather than hanging around after the rice had been thrown to see what happens—so this early comedy-romance is a bit of an unusual duck for Plum's work. Which in my book makes it absolutely a delight: it's different enough from the later more-predictable (but always fantastically entertaining) country house plots, and his dialogue and description is, nearly twenty years into his career, sparkling and witty. Which is not to say that there isn't a handful of clichôs in Indiscretions of Archie: in a plot—later much used in movies and sitcoms—Archie accidentally bids for an expensive item at an auction. Nowadays we can look at a scene like this and shake our heads at the predictability of Wodehouse, but hey, it was 1920! In the words of Montgomery Scott, "how do we know he didn't invent the thing?"

'Willie,' he observed, eyeing that youth more with pity than reproach, 'has a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy, don't you think so?'

Archie nodded briefly. Precisely the same criticism had occurred to him.

'Forty-five-five-five-five-five,' chanted the high-priest. 'Once forty-five. Twice forty-five. Third and last call, forty-five. Sold at forty-five. Gentleman in the fifth row.'

Archie looked up and down the row with a keen eye. He was anxious to see who had been chump enough to give forty-five dollars for such a frightful object. He became aware of the dog-faced Willie leaning towards him.

'Name, please?' said the canine one.

'Eh, what?' said Archie. 'Oh, my name's Moffam, don't you know.' The eyes of the multitude made him feel a little nervous 'Er—glad to meet you and all that sort of rot.'

'Ten dollars deposit, please,' said Willie.

'I don't absolutely follow you, old bean. What is the big thought at the back of all this?'

'Ten dollars deposit on the chair.'

'What chair?'

'You bid forty-five dollars for the chair.'

'Me?'

'You nodded,' said Willie, accusingly. 'If,' he went on, reasoning closely, 'you didn't want to bid, why did you nod?'

Archie was embarrassed. He could, of course, have pointed out that be had merely nodded in adhesion to the statement that the other had a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy; but something seemed to tell him that a purist might consider the excuse deficient in tact. He hesitated a moment, then handed over a ten-dollar bill, the price of Willie's feelings. Willie withdrew like a tiger slinking from the body of its victim.

...but Lucille is a good deal more understanding than Rosie M. Banks (Mrs Bingo Little), even suggesting he pop into a pawn shop for a bit of ready money:

'That's all right. You can pawn that ring and that bracelet of mine.'

'Oh, I say, what! Pop the family jewels?'

'Only for a day or two. Of course, once you've got the thing, father will pay us back. He would give you all the money we asked him for, if he knew what it was for. But I want to surprise him. And if you were to go to him and ask him for a thousand dollars without telling him what it was for, he might refuse.'

'He might!' said Archie. 'He might!'

'It all works out splendidly. To-morrow's the Invitation Handicap, and father's been looking forward to it for weeks. He'd hate to have to go up to town himself and not play in it. But you can slip up and slip back without his knowing anything about it.'

Archie pondered.

'It sounds a ripe scheme. Yes, it has all the ear-marks of a somewhat fruity wheeze! By Jove, it IS a fruity wheeze! It's an egg!'

...which has a lovely callback when Lucille uses the same phrasing in reply to Archie's joy:

'This really does begin to look like the point in my career where I start to have your forbidding old parent eating out of my hand.'

'Yes, it's an egg, isn't it!'

'Queen of my soul,' said Archie enthusiastically, 'it's an omelette!'

What a lovely little lady! I'm sure that when Keira Knightley and I am married, she will be as understanding and as ready for me to go to the pawnbroker's.

No, no problems here with the lovely Lucille. The fly in the ointment is dear old Papa Brewster, who (of course) didn't approve of Lucille marrying this Englishman, much less Archie sponging off him by living rent free in his finest hotel.

'Have you really inflicted this—this on me for a son-in-law?' Mr Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while watching with a frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new relative's Adam's-apple. 'Go away! I want to have a few words alone with this—This—wassyourdamname?' he demanded, in an overwrought manner, addressing Archie for the first time.

'I told you, father. It's Moom.'

'Moom?'

'It's spelt M-o-f-f-a-m, but pronounced Moom.'

'To rhyme,' said Archie, helpfully, 'with Bluffinghame.'

'Lu,' said Mr Brewster, 'run away! I want to speak to-to-to—'

'You called me this before,' said Archie.

...and every attempt to ingratiate himself with dad-in-law sets Archie further down the path:

Mr Brewster snorted.

'I am informed that this precious friend of yours entered my grill-room at eight o'clock. He must have been completely intoxicated, though the head waiter tells me he noticed nothing at the time.'

Archie nodded approvingly.

'Dear old Squiffy was always like that. It's a gift. However woozled he might be, it was impossible to detect it with the naked eye. I've seen the dear old chap many a time whiffled to the eyebrows, and looking as sober as a bishop. Soberer! When did it begin to dawn on the lads in the grill-room that the old egg had been pushing the boat out?'

'The head waiter,' said Mr Brewster, with cold fury, 'tells me that he got a hint of the man's condition when he suddenly got up from his table and went the round of the room, pulling off all the table-cloths, and breaking everything that was on them. He then threw a number of rolls at the diners, and left. He seems to have gone straight to bed.'

'Dashed sensible of him, what? Sound, practical chap, Squiffy. But where on earth did he get the—er—materials?'

'From his room. I made enquiries. He has six large cases in his room.'

'Squiffy always was a chap of infinite resource! Well, I'm dashed sorry this should have happened, don't you know.'

'If it hadn't been for you, the man would never have come here.' Mr Brewster brooded coldly. 'I don't know why it is, but ever since you came to this hotel I've had nothing but trouble.'

'Dashed sorry!' said Archie, sympathetically.

'Grrh!' said Mr Brewster.

Archie made his way meditatively to the lift. The injustice of his father-in-law's attitude pained him. It was absolutely rotten and all that to be blamed for everything that went wrong in the Hotel Cosmopolis.

It's not just these three that populate mid-town Manhattan's most hotel: like any good sitcom, the cast is bolstered by grand appearances of characters and guest-stars galore. There's the Sausage Chappie, a pal of Archie's so hideous that his future as a horror movie star is ensured the moment a movie producer walks in the hotel lobby; The Growing Boy, the small son of a diet guru whom Archie enlists to win a pie-eating contest, and Roscoe Sherriff, the gung-ho movie publicist whom we've met in Wodehouse's Uneasy Money. In short, enough plots and personalities to populate an entire BBC series of half-hour sitcoms, and enough left over for the spin-off following the happy event of the final chapter finally pleases Mr Brewster with his son-in-law: the announcement that soon they'll present him with a bouncing little grandbaby:

A curious change had come over Mr Brewster. He was one of those men who have the appearance of having been hewn out of the solid rock, but now in some indescribable way he seemed to have melted. For a moment he gazed at Archie, then, moving quickly forward, he grasped his hand in an iron grip.

'This is the best news I've ever had!' he mumbled.

'Awfully good of you to take it like this,' said Archie cordially. 'I mean, being a grandfather—'

Mr Brewster smiled. Of a man of his appearance one could hardly say that be smiled playfully; but there was something in his expression that remotely suggested playfulness.

'My dear old bean,' he said.

Archie started.

'My dear old bean,' repeated Mr Brewster firmly, 'I'm the happiest man in America!'

The Grinch with his triple-sizing heart? Ain't got nothin' on Daniel Brewster at the end of Indiscretions of Archie.



While we wait for some brilliant telly producer to snap up the rights to a weekly Indiscretions of Archie situation comedy, there's better way to while the hours than to read "The Book That Inspired The Hit TV Series!": the original stories, now back in print in an expensive paperback edition, thanks to our old pal Public Domain. Pick up a copy by clicking on the Amazon link to the right, or, if you're as low on cold cash but as savvy as Archie Moffam, read the whole bally thing online for free. For the most authentic results, lounge about in the ornate lobby of your cranky pa-in-law's hotel, mooching free wifi and putting shrimp cocktails on your wife's tab. Mmmm, yummy shrimp cocktails.

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

Reviews: Back from the pond

Hullo folks hullo! I'm back from my fishin' trip. The fishies weren't bitin', but never worry: I still managed to hook a basket of last week's comic books! Let's review 'em, shall we...before they go off and start smelling bad!


GREATEST HITS #2: This comic is fun. I mentioned in my last review of Vertigo's Greatest Hits that I was impressed David Tischman and Glenn Fabry had taken the concept of "The Beatles as Superheroes" and run with it fancifully and furiously, but it didn't really sink in until this second ish that altho' the inspiration surely is The Fantastic Fab Four, Greatest Hits avoids the cliché of an easy parody. This isn't a thinly disguised John, Paul, George and Ringo—Solicitor, Crusader, Vizier and Zipper have vivid and different personalities, gradually becoming more distinct as the series progresses and the current-day documentary subplot takes shape. Give or take a Stu Sutcliffe-as-the-Hulk subplot, this is fun and original, and Glenn Fabry's bright and sharp-lined art is a perfect fit, especially in facial expressions and the wild two-page party scene that opens the comic. It's been a long time since Vertigo did superheroes, and this is a fine return to form.


BOOSTER GOLD #13: This comic is sorta fun. I'm not as fond of the post-Geoff Johns/Jeff Katz Booster as I was the original issues (the series was #1 on my "Fun Fifty of 2007 list). Chuck Dixon and now Rick Remender seem to be struggling to make concepts that sound like solid fun come alive on the page. In this issue, Booster and Goldstar chase Starro across time and space, trying to prevent the re-creation of the DC Universe in the image of the evil mind-controlling asteroidean. The concept's solid and the dialogue's fine, but our heroes spend too much time reacting and chasing behind the villain that the plot seems oddly flat and muted. We know Booster will save the day, but we're not seeing a sign of his cleverness here. To be fair, it's a to-be-continued story, so I'm reserving judgment until I see the wrap-up. Remender might just pull a rabbit out of his hat after all. And hey, you can't hate a comic book which features The Best Panel of the Week, a world in which everything is controlled by Starro's starfish, from the President to Oprah and Tom Cruise to starfish-faced Superman helping a starfish-faced little girl by rescuing her starfish-faced cat:



ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY #1017: This magazine is fun. Hey, that's not a comic! Who cares! This week's EW brings this little stuffed Trekker the first inside look at 2009's big-screen Star Trek movie, with plenty of photos and news behind the screens of J. J. Abrams's revisioning of the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. I love the sneak peek, brief as they are, of the characters and the interiors...I'm no hater lamenting that Chris Pine's eyes aren't the same color as William Shatner's or that the bridge looks too bright! Sure, there's other great features in America's Most Entertainingist Magazine™: Eminem, Britney, Elizabeth Banks and Sarah Vowell are all among the surprise guest stars you'll find in these pages. But for me, I've got full-color clipout pictures of Kirk 2.0 and company to hang up on my walls, and then I'm going to stand in line and wait for the movie to open in 200 days.


RASL #3: This comic is fun. RASL! It's a candy and a gum! It's also a heckuva fun comic. Let's face it, Jeff Smith coulda followed up Bone with Bone: The Next Generation or Son of Bone or Bone 2: Electric Booglaloo and I woulda happily climbed aboard for another fanciful ride. But just doing something different isn't the sole reason to follow a creator you like: s'gotta be good and compelling too. I'm enjoying RASL quite a bit: Smith's giving us a tension-building world-hopping mystery of an extra-dimensional thief lost between realities. His characters are vibrantly drawn; tho' they may need a bit of fleshing out motivation-wise, it's still early days yet. That's my only quibble about the book: its quarterly schedule leaves a lot of down-time between issues, and this is one of the current books I honestly can't wait to see what happens next.


SIMPSONS COMICS #147: This comic is fun. "Never a disappointment, always a delight" is my usual feeling about Bongo's line of Simpsons comics, and this issue is as almost always, genuinely funny and fast-paced. At the same time it's dense with dialogue and visual and verbal jokes: this is not a comic you whip through in three minutes, and if you are, you're missing lots of the fun. While Lisa conducts a science fair experiment with startling results (could her mother really be someone other than Marge?), Bart and Milhouse challenge each other to stay awake for two weeks. I love me some homer, but it's always a delight when the brightest little Simpson takes the spotlight, and Lisa's tale is well-paced with a funny twist to the ending. And it's a Chuck Dixon comic! Whodathunkit?!? More proof that if you're not reading Simpsons Comics, you're missing out on the most consistently fun four-color experience at your comic book store!


DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #2: This comic is fun. I've praised Rich Morris's wonderful whimsical "The Ten Doctors," his webcomic that's a loving tribute to those great Doctor Who episodes of yesteryear where all the incarnations of our favorite Time Lord are spotlighted in front of the BBC cameras. (It's still going strong and Rich is currently on page 125; don't miss the fun!) Last year the BBC brought back the tradition of Multiple Doctors with its David Tennant/Peter Davison team-up "Time Crash", and there's rumours that all seven current living Doctors—yes, even Tom Baker, the story goes—will join Tennant on screen for an upcoming episode. In the meantime, you can whet you appetite with Doctor Who: The Forgotten, a clever and nostalgic story of the Tenth Doctor facing off against a mysterious enemy that's forcing him to remember previously-untold adventures from his past nine incarnations. It's very lovingly and authentically done (the Second Doctor flashback in this issue is even done in black-and-white) and shows a great knowledge and love of the Doctor, past and present: dialogue, action, and humor is spot-on, and everyone from Martha Jones to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart...and faithful old Bessie...has their moment in the spotlight. I've not been a huge fan of IDW's movie/TV comic tie-ins, even the previous Doctor Who series, but The Forgotten is great fun and a wonderful romp, even if the only Doctor you know is the current one. That's why DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #2 is the most fun comic of the week, don't you know!

The Original Martian Manhunter

I was busy riding on a steamroller all day yesterday, but if you remember back two nights ago I promised to show you J'onn J'onnz doing a startling transformation that was also an imitation! Can you guess who it is he's imitating in these panels? (Hint: it's not Richard Nixon. That's Rich Little's gig.)



Panels from Martian Manhunter v.2 #9 (August 1999), script by John Ostrander, pencils and inks by Tom Mandrake, colors by Carla Feeny, separations by Heroic Age, letters by Bill Oakley

Now my first guess was that he was trying to cosplay as this guy:


Panel from Amazing Spider-Man v.1 #100 (September 1971), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Frank Giacoia, letters by Artie Simek

But it wasn't, even tho' it would have been fun to see J'onn try to juggle Gwen and MJ as well as taking care of his elderly Aunt Maytian.

Nope: J'onn's formation of two extra arms is a tip o' the chestplate to the original good-guy Martians...and by "good-guy" I mean not the Martians with the falling capsules on Horsell Common, with the death rays and the tripod walking machines and the Red Weed and the uuuuulllllaaaaaaa.



Nope: not the Martians of War of the Worlds, but rather those of Edgar Rice "Hey, I Created Tarzan" Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars" novels (now it begins to ring a bell, perhaps?) beginning with 1917's A Princess of Mars. Yep, that same John Carter that is now a major motion picture with terrible reviews ("A giant, suffocating doughy feast of boredom"— Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) but the pretty-cool looking special effects, now appearing beginning today at a theater near you. (With my usual luck in going to the movies, I'll probably wind up seeing The Lorax by accident instead of John Carter, so I'm keeping my distance for the moment.) Burroughs' swashbuckling romance/adventures gave us the history of the world of Barsoom (that's Martian for Mars, of course) and its native race of little big green men:

[A]s I stood watching the hideous little monsters break from their shells I failed to note the approach of a score of full-grown Martians from behind me.

Coming, as they did, over the soft and soundless moss, which covers practically the entire surface of Mars with the exception of the frozen areas at the poles and the scattered cultivated districts, they might have captured me easily, but their intentions were far more sinister. It was the rattling of the accouterments of the foremost warrior which warned me.

On such a little thing my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point of that huge spear, a spear forty feet long, tipped with gleaming metal, and held low at the side of a mounted replica of the little devils I had been watching.

But how puny and harmless they now looked beside this huge and terrific incarnation of hate, of vengeance and of death. The man himself, for such I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height and, on Earth, would have weighed some four hundred pounds. He sat his mount as we sit a horse, grasping the animal's barrel with his lower limbs, while the hands of his two right arms held his immense spear low at the side of his mount; his two left arms were outstretched laterally to help preserve his balance, the thing he rode having neither bridle or reins of any description for guidance.

That's John Carter's narration describing the first adult Martians he meets in A Princess of Mars: his (and our) introduction to one of the finest and noblest alien characters in all of fantastic literature, Tars Tarkas, the warlord who befriends and aids Carter in his adventures.

Some of our contemporary ideas of Burroughs' Martians come from the colorful illustrations on the front of paperback editions of the Barsoom books:



...especially those of fantasy's top artist Frank Frazetta.



Until this weekend we've had little opportunity to see one of Burroughs' Martians on screen. There was a cheap knock-off film produced in 2009...with Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris (!!!), but more intriguing was the possibility of an animated John Carter movie in the 1930s by Bob Clampett. Sadly it was never produced. Who knows how popular the Mars books would be today if it were? Here's a glimpse of what might have been, altho' without any four-armed Martians:



But...and here's where it gets really interesting...Barsoomians really come to their visual zenith in comic books adapting or based on the John Carter books. Let's look at some of their portrayals, shall we? (Yes! Lets.)

Here's the first John Carter adaptation: Four Color #375, an abridged but generally faithful version of A Princess of Mars:


Cover of Four Color #375 (February 1952), pencils and inks by Jesse Marsh

Jesse March's Martians are more frog-faced than other portrayals, but they retain their impressive bulk, dangerous upwards-curling fangs and double set of arms.


Panels from Four Color #375 (February 1952); pencils, inks, and letters by Jesse Marsh

Burrough's impressive trademark world-building—Carter's narrative gives us solid history, culture, and traditions of the Martians—come to life in these comics.


Panels from John Carter of Mars #1 (April 1964); pencils, inks, and letters by Jesse Marsh

Dell would publish three Four Color issues of John Carter (and Gold Key would reprint them in the 1960s), including the usual impressively colored Gold Key "pin-ups" on the back covers.



DC acquired the rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs' books in the early 1970s, giving us some amazing Joe Kubert issues of Tarzan. John Carter adventures first appeared as back-ups in Tarzan and were later featured in Weird Worlds, with spookier and more threatening-looking Barsoomians than the Dell comics.


Cover of Weird Worlds #1 (September 1972), pencils and inks by Joe Kubert

Weird Worlds also adapted the original stories, but with a little more grit and adult adventure than the Dell version. But just like Major Nelson's Jeannie, egg-born Dejah Thoris had no belly-button.


Panel from Weird Worlds #6 (July 1973), script by Marv Wolfman, pencils and inks by Sal Amendola

The DC series gave Burrough's four-armed Barsoom natives an uncanny and alien design even further removed from Earth perspective.


Panels from Weird Worlds #5 (April-May 1973), script by Marv Wolfman, pencils and inks by Sal Amendola

And if you ever wondered what a Martian skeleton look liked, well, wonder no more:


Cover of Weird Worlds #5 (April-May 1973), pencils and inks by Michael Kaluta

Hey! Tarzan's doin' all right for himself!


Splash page from "Combat!" in Weird Worlds #5 (April-May 1973), script by Dennis O'Neil, pencils and inks by Dan Green

Naw, I kids the Tarzan. That's actually David Innes, hero of ERB's hollow Earth high-adventure Pellucidar books, also adapted in Weird Worlds. But by 1973 DC lost the license to publish Burroughs comic books, and Weird Worlds shifted to spotlighting Howard Chaykin's Ironwolf series. What, no Tarzan or John Carter comic books at all? Pfui, true believers! Just wait until 1977 and then step across the metaphorical street between the big two to find the Burroughs heroes at Marvel Comics!


Cover of John Carter: Warlord of Mars #5 (October 1977), pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Pablo Marcos

Marvel's John Carter: Warlord of Mars had a respectable 28-issue run (plus three annuals), and was unique in that it gave us the first "authorized" new tales of Barsoom: stories retconned between the Burroughs adventures (much like, in the same period, Marvel's Star Wars gave us tales that happened between the first and second movies). In fact, since A Princess of Mars ends (much like The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) with the hero spending years upon years on the red planet before being returned to Earth, all of these adventures actually fit during these two sentences in the pentultimate chapter of Princess:

For nine years I served in the councils and fought in the armies of Helium as a prince of the house of Tardos Mors. The people seemed never to tire of heaping honors upon me, and no day passed that did not bring some new proof of their love for my princess, the incomparable Dejah Thoris.

This gave us plenty of opportunities to see the Sensational Character Find of 1917, Martian Tars Tarkas:


John Carter: Warlord of Mars #9 (February 1978), pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Rudy Nebres

If he wasn't fighting at John Carter's side like J'onn J'onnz fouight alongside his allies in the Justice League, then Tars Tarkas was fighting Carter himself. The big green galoot just loved his fighting, is what I'm saying.


Cover of John Carter: Warlord of Mars #13 (June 1978), pencils by by Carmine Infantino, inks by

They fought, and fought, and fought and fought and fought...well, the comic wasn't called John Carter: TV-Watcher of Mars, after all.


Panels from John Carter: Warlord of Mars #1 (June 1977), script by Marv Wolfman, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Dave Cockrum, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by Joe Rosen

Here's a nice character bit (although Walt Simonson's early pencil style is all but obliterated under some heavy inks by Rudy Nebres) between John Carter and Tars Tarkas. Much like another man off his world, the lesser gravity helps JC leap taller than the highest skyscraper.


Panels from John Carter: Warlord of Mars #15 (August 1978), script by Marv Wolfman, pencils by Walt Simonson, inks by Rudy Nebres, colors by Glynis Wein, letters by John Costanza

The first half of the Marvel run of John Carter was written by Marv Wolfman, but Chris Claremont took over the scripter reigns with #16 with a variety of pencillers (including one ish by Frank Miller). Chris Claremont writing a book which featured a strong fighting woman barely clad in her itty-bitty outfits? That'll never happen again.


Non-consecutive panels from John Carter: Warlord of Mars #22 (March 1979), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Mike Vosburg, inks by Ricardo Villamonte, colors by Bob Sharen, letters by John Costanza

Hey! She's kinda got a belly-button! I call shenanigans! No navel for you, egg girl!

Marvel's John Carter ended with Annual #3 as their license on the ERB characters ran out, but these Marvel issues were later published as trade paperbacks by Dark Horse. They're over the top and have a lot of the same visual and narrative tricks as Marvel's superhero comics, but I like 'em a lot: they've got a genuine, if sometimes goofy, charm, good art, well-portrayed characters, and an attention for and respect of the source material. Here's a bonus two-page text feature from issue #1, including Dave Cockrum's early designs for the Barsoomians. How abruptly did the Marvel series end? So quickly that unused John Carter artwork was later recycled in Marvel's Star Wars comic book. (Remind me to show you Leia's adventures on a barely-disguised Barsoom some day!)




Although not with the frequency of the 1970s, Burroughs' Martian characters have endured in comic books through the 21st Century, including a Dark Horse team-up with Tarzan and the return of the characters to Marvel in two formats: straight adaptations of the books as well as John Carter movie tie-in comics.



Even our beardy pal Mister Alan Moore, no stranger to the attraction of now-in-the-public-domain stories, included Martians (with Tars Tarkas) and John Carter in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.



Panels from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen v.2 #1 (September 2002), script by Alan Moore, pencils and inks by Kevin O'Neill, colors by Ben Dimagmaliw, letters by Todd Klein

I started this journey through the sands of Mars gathered between the big green toes of Tars Tarkas with a Edgar Rice Burroughs allusion in the pages of Martian Manhunter, but I've saved the biggest connection between DC's and Burroughs' big green Martians for last: they were both guests of the Legion of Super-Heroes at the wedding of Bouncing Boy and Duplicate Lass (altho' Tars Tarkas appears to be hiding his extra limbs beneath his cloak) You know the old wedding proverb: "One Martian at your wedding, soon tears you'll be shedding. Two Martians at your vows, all the joys that life allows." I've highlighted our green guests below (click image to Barsoomisize):

Page from Superboy Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #200 (January-February 1974), script by Cary Bates, pencils and inks by Dave Cockrum, letters by Ben Oda


But wait! That's not the only connection between the Martians of DC and the Martians of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I've been re-reading the original ERB books, and the skill with which Burroughs fills in the history and culture of Barsoom is pretty impressive. The narration by John Carter would be great travel guides to Barsoom (if you cut out all that boring kissing). Anyway, I found this passage in the original text of A Princess of Mars thats hints maybe the two green alien races may be more closely related than we previously suspected:

Tars Tarkas folded his limbs beneath him and crouched down by the map to study it alongside myself. He nodded to me grimly, acknowledging the weariness of both of our bodies, and the dread of even more deadly battle to come. He gave me a sideways look, and a slight smile touched his grim lip as, reaching into his hip pouch, he said,

"I would scarcely recognize you, John Carter, beaten and bloodied as this. But there is no other mortal upon Barsoom whom I would have fight by my side. Take this refreshment and relax, my friend."

He handed me a small dark wafer, disc-like in shape, as he himself bit into another one. Although none of the Martian food I had yet consumed had proven unsettling to me, it continued to surprise me. I nibbled tentatively at the edge of the wafer to discover its crumbly biscuit texture melted on my mouth, followed by the smooth sweet taste of the wafer's filling: a butter-like spread but ambrosial to my tongue, like fresh cream from my homeland of Virginia. I swallowed in surprise and delight and took another, larger bite. Tars Tarkas curled his mouth up in that approximation of a smile I have described before to watch me consume the wafer. "Delicious," I said.

"And empowering," Tars Tarkas nodded. "They are a delicacy of the warlord class and a much needed respite on the battle trail. The provide energy and succor as well as a moment of relief. They are called in our language ch'oh'kas, although the Red Barsoomians have named them oh-ryeos. They are prized and delighted in by every Barsoomian."

Wow! Uncanny, huh?

Let's lift our glass of milk and whatever cookie we happen to have lying around in a toast to Edgar Rice Burroughs, for giving us hundreds of grand adventures around, inside, and beyond our world, for passing the narratives of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke; Carson Napier; David Innes; Bowen J. Tyler; but most of all today, all hail John Carter, Dejah Thoris...and Tars Tarkas, the original Manhunter from Mars!


Final page from Weird Worlds #7 (October 1973), script by Marv Wolfman, pencils and inks by Sal Amendola