It occurs to me that since Dynamite does
not date its publications like DC does (I was going to write “and
Marvel,” but I'm frankly not so sure about that anymore, so seldom
do I buy a Marvel comic), my blog header is a bit of a misnomer.
Properly it should be “released in May 2012,” but since they come
to me at the end of the month along with the DC comics dated July,
I'm going with it.
This month has a bit of a mixed bag.
Lord
of the Jungle #4
“4:
The Village of Torture”
[ previous
issue ]
Continuing
with what looks to be a five-issue adaptation of Tarzan
of the Apes,
we open with a scene not in the novel. Lt. D'Arnot on the French
cruiser Jeanne
d'Arc
find the hulk of the Arrow
adrift, with its crew apparently reduced to cannibalism. At least
that's how I took it. Either that or some bloodthirsty creature had
its way with them. Nothing more is done with that – I don't think
that when the French sailors reappear a few pages later, having found
the Porters' party stranded, much more is said of the Arrow
than that they found it and “it was not a happy sight.” I'll
say. It's pretty grisly, with bodies in various states of
decomposition and dismemberment, including one laid out across the mess-board with its guts hanging out. And a dinner knife sticking out of
its knee. I swear one of the crewmen cowering in the background
looks alive – hunched in crazed shock, but alive.
Anyway,
soon thereafter D'Arnot and company find Esmeralda and the others.
Esmeralda can communicate with them, being Haitian … she says. But
she pauses as she says it, as if she was making that story up. Maybe
she was, because I don't remember the book's character being anything
but a black nanny stereotype, which this character is very definitely
not. Meanwhile, Tarzan and Jane are having an idyllic time in a
shelter he erected for her. He's acting goofy (“Oo. Oo,” he
says as he holds fruits before his eyes like bug-eyes), but also
communicating with her by writing in the dust of the ground, “I AM
WHITE SKIN OF THE APES.” She perceives that he “think[s] the
letters for 'White
Skin'
make the sounds for 'Tarzan'
….” Uh, Jane, didn't Esmeralda say as much last ish? – Why so
surprised? She ends up proclaiming her love for him, I guess it's
easy to do when the guy can't understand you. “I couldn't say this
if you did.” She's torn between staying with him and returning to
her father, whom she knows will be worried.
Headed
into the jungle to find the missing girl and her companions who had
previously set out to rescue her, D'Arnot and company find Cecil
Clayton and Prof. Porter just in time for them all to be attacked by
the man-apes from the first issue, who drag D'Arnot off as the others
manage to fight their way back to the Clayton cabin where Tarzan has
deposited Jane before heading off to investigate the gunfire. Here
Cecil's jealous calumnies from the novel when he learns of Jane's
time spent in the ape-man's company comes out as full-blown dickery.
The issue ends with D'Arnot in the man-apes' village, being prepared
as the main course.
Of
course, the man-apes continue to be Nelson's way of being more
politically correct and not portraying the black Africans as
cannibalistic savages as they are in the original novel. While I
don't think much changed in the way the story was told in this issue,
I found myself enjoying it less than I did the previous issues. Not
sure exactly why. It's still good enough. But there's no
way it supplants the old 1970s DC adaptation by Joe Kubert as “my”
comics version of the story.
Warlord
of Mars: Dejah Thoris
#12
[
Previous
issue ]
The
Boora witch in the Toonolian marshes has captured Dejah Thoris and
wants her body for herself. She casts some spell that will bring
that about gradually: “By day, my consciousness will reside within
yours in secret. By night, I shall emerge. My thoughts will be your
thoughts – my heart will be your heart. … After your body adjusts
to my presence, I will live in you completely and you will live no
more.”
Of course, Dejah Thoris is acting pretty peculiarly even during the
day by the time they return to Helium, their quest for minerals vital
to the city-state being so wildly successful as to raise Kantos Kan's
suspicions. By night? – first she almost succeeds in kidnapping a
child but has to settle on its pet calot pup, which she boils up for
supper. Then she attempts to seduce Kantos Kan in the palace
swimming pool. Swimming pool? – on Barsoom? I guess Dejah Thoris
learned to swim somewhere [see
my comments to issue #6]. Kantos Kan exercises the better part
of valor and cuts his swim short. Anyway, the witch gradually taking
over Dejah Thoris is basically angling to take over Helium, and by
the end of the issue is engaged in some hot and heavy “conspiring”
with Sab Than. I think Dejah Thoris is going to regret her body's
unwilling actions. “But I was under the mind-control of a witch!”
– yeah, right, sure you were. Which, since I don't remember
sorcery ever being a big part of ERB's novels at all, especially not
the Mars novels – wonky science, yeah, but not sorcery – will
probably be as unbelievable to the Barsoomians as it would to us.
Oh, and I don't remember any creatures of Barsoom except the humanoid
red, yellow, black, and white races ever being quadrupedal. The
artist seems to have forgotten that and has four-legged lizards in
the Toonolian marshes.
Dejah
Thoris and the White Apes of Mars
#2 of ??
[
Previous
issue ]
Having
just witnessed the massacre of their crew and warriors, Dejah Thoris
leads her friends, the other ladies of Helium, and their lady
servants, through the city, with the dread white apes hot on their
tails. One by one, they fall. A couple sacrifice themselves for the
princess, including her friend Brin at the very end, giving us more
bloody death scenes. Until only Dejah Thoris herself is left, with
the apes still in pursuit, and her knowing that the second ship
carrying the Hatchlings, including young Carthoris, is getting ever
nearer.
And
that sums up this gruesome, bloody book. I'm not sure what the point
of this series is. I don't care for the art, the story is worse.
There's not even the intriguing question of the “Battle of the Face
of Barsoom” referenced here. We are only left with the promise
that whereas things got worse in this issue, as the end of issue #1
put it, next issue will be “Much worse!” Yay.
But
it is a nice cover, even if it is sideways. It's by Brandon Peterson
again – but it looks like Dejah Thoris found her navel – or at
least has a pronounced dimple in her midriff.
MCR
liked this a lot more than I did. To each his own. His Review:
http://jcomreader.blogspot.com/2012/05/comic-review-dejah-thoris-white-apes-2.html
The
Shadow #2
“The
Fire of Creation, Part Two”
[ Previous
issue ]
The
Shadow and Margo Lane end up in a running fight with Nazis on the Pan
Am China Clipper just short of their completing their long journey
from the States to Hong Kong in search of some doohicky. The Nazis
are working with the Japanese villain Taro Kondo who is seeking the
same doohicky on behalf of his Emperor … and is an old enemy of the
Shadow. He seems to know the Shadow's identity as Lamont
Cranston/Kent Allard. And that's about the gist of it. The Nazis on
the plane come to a bad end, of course, and Lamont and Margo arrive
at their destination.
Cheers!,
and Thanks for stopping by!
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