Tarzan 101 | Edgar Rice Burroughs' Fantastic Worlds

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Griffin's chapter on Burroughs' non-Tarzan stories is probably also the longest and with good reason: There's a lot to cover. Griffin highlights the best of the many other series and standalone stories that Burroughs wrote, with short summaries of each. I'm going to condense it into an easy list, but as usual, Griffin's version has more details than mine.

Before I do that, though, I want to point out that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. is adapting some of the most famous of them (plus Tarzan) as weekly webcomics on the ERB site. There's a subscription of $2 a month, but you get about 24 pages of comics/month for that and the first few pages are free.

I should also mention that Griffin includes a whole other chapter called "The Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs." It's simply a list, so I won't reproduce it, but it's complete and also includes all the movies, TV and radio shows, Broadway productions, and comics.

Martian novels

Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and Warlord of Mars: The original John Carter trilogy in which the hero goes to Mars, meets its various inhabitants, and fights against the cult of a horrific goddess.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars: John Carter's son, Carthoris, rescues and woos a Martian woman.

Chessmen of Mars: Carter's daughter, Tara, and her husband are forced to battle as living chess pieces in an arena.

The Mastermind of Mars: A new earthman, Ulysses Paxton, arrives on Mars and battles an evil scientist.

A Fighting Man of Mars: Another hero fights another mad scientist to rescue another princess.

Swords of Mars: John Carter returns to combat an assassins guild.

Synthetic Men of Mars: The villain from Mastermind creates more trouble and has to be defeated by yet another Martian hero.

Llana of Gathol: Combines four novelettes featuring Carter and his granddaughter, Llana as they try to stop a megalomaniac.

John Carter of Mars: Combines two novellas in which Carter meets a giant and travels to Jupiter.

Venusian novels

Pirates of Venus, Lost on Venus, Carson of Venus, and Escape on Venus: A more humorous approach than the Martian series as Carson Napier accidentally ends up on the wrong planet and chases a princess and fights monsters in an attempt to rescue her.

Lunarian novels

The Moon Maid, The Moon Men, and The Red Hawk: Set in the future, humans try to take Earth back from alien invaders.

The Time novels

The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, and Out of Time's Abyss: Burroughs' other lost land besides Pellucidar, which Griffin covered in an earlier chapter due to its crossover with Tarzan. But though Pellucidar and TLTTF are Burroughs' most famous lost worlds, they're not his only ones.

Miscellaneous fantasies

The Lost Continent: Burroughs' third lost land is set in a future in which the world has been devastated by a long war.

Jungle Girl: A doctor discovers a lost civilization, and a princess of course.

The Cave Girl: An ill-equipped smartie-pants is marooned on an island and learns to survive with the help of a primitive woman.

The Monster Men: A Tarzan/Frankenstein hybrid in which a mad scientist creates a heroic giant.

The Lad and the Lion: Another Tarzan-esque tale where a young man tries to survive in North Africa with a lion companion.

Beyond the Farthest Star: Burroughs' final space story wasn't as romanticized as the Martian or Venusian ones. A WWII pilot finds himself on an alien world beleaguered by its own war.

The Mucker trilogy

The Mucker and Return of the Mucker: An anti-hero from the slums of Chicago fights samurai warriors on an island.

The Oakdale Affair: Continues the story by following the Mucker's hobo companion in a murder mystery.

Real-life novels

The Efficiency Expert: A dude becomes an efficiency expert with no prior experience.

The Girl from Farris: A romance between a wealthy businessman and a poor woman.

Marcia of the Doorstep: Burroughs' attempt at the Great American Novel, but with island marooning, a Western ranch, and a Hollywood stunt pilot.

The Girl from Hollywood: A thinly disguised homage to life on Burroughs' ranch and how it was way better than Tinsel Town.

Baltic romances

The Rider: Inspired by books like A Prisoner of Zenda, Burroughs wrote this story of mistaken identity between a dashing highwayman and prince.

The Mad King: Another mix-up between an adventurer and a royal.

Historical romances

The Outlaw of Torn: Medieval English adventure.

I Am a Barbarian: Fun times in Caligula's Rome.

Westerns

The War Chief and Apache Devil: Highlight the perspective of the Apaches during their wars with the U.S. cavalry.

The Bandit of Hell's Bend: A more conventional Western.

The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County: Adventure on a New Mexico dude ranch.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan the Magnificent

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Like some of the other Tarzan novels, Tarzan the Magnificent (no relation to the film of the same name) was actually two different novellas. In this case, they'd even been published in two different magazines. Argosy published "Tarzan and the Magic Men" in 1936, about a couple of Amazon tribes led by powerful sorcerers who control their subjects with huge, supernatural jewels. Griffin speculates that Burroughs got the idea from the novel Trader Horn, which features a woman who uses a large ruby to control an African tribe.

In 1937, Burroughs' sequel to this story appeared in Blue Book, titled "Tarzan and the Elephant Men." It has Tarzan following one of the jewels back to Cathne and Athne, the cities from Tarzan and the City of Gold.

In Magnificent, Burroughs describes Tarzan's eyes as being able to "reflect the light of a summer sea or the flashing steel of a rapier." Griffin takes advantage of this to offer a supplemental chapter on "Eyes of Gray," a character trait that Burroughs gave all of his leading men and a lot of supporting characters as well. Tarzan had gray eyes, as did his father and son. So did La of Opar, John Carter of Mars, David Innes of Pellucidar, and Carson Napier of Venus. Griffin lists a total of 25 Burroughs characters with gray eyes, noting that Burroughs "rarely described any other color." In fact, Carson's started out blue in Pirates of Venus before Burroughs changed them to gray in the third novel.

10 Honorable Mention Films from 2012

20. The Five-Year Engagement



I lost patience toward the middle when it took some really stupid decision-making to prolong the engagement to five years, but even when it stretched credibility, the movie never stopped being funny or having Jason Segel in it. It wins points for both of those things.

19. John Carter



Nowhere near the mess that lots of people claim it was; just not as spectacular as it should have been for the talent involved. It's a fun, scifi escape with a couple of legitimately great moments; we just all hoped for so much more.

18. The Amazing Spider-Man



"Expectations" are a recurring theme on my honorable mentions list this year. I didn't have high ones for The Amazing Spider-Man and like most people, I questioned the fundamental existence of the project. It was made for purely cynical, We Have to Do This or Lose the License reasons.

But though it contains some highly unnecessary rehashing of the Sam Raimi material, it also found some new things to do with its tone and the central relationships. It's worthwhile for Peter and Gwen alone.

17. ParaNorman



I love the theme in ParaNorman about being your own person and not letting other people define you. Also: the animation is amazing. I wasn't totally in love with the character designs though, and since that's what I was looking at for most of the film, that's what keeps it out of my Top 10.

16. The Hunger Games



I'm disappointed that this isn't in my Top 10 for the year, either. I totally thought it would be, but during the second viewing I found myself getting bored. I kept myself entertained by focusing on Jennifer Lawrence's wonderful performance, which communicated very well the horror of Katniss' situation. Without her internal monologue though, it was hard to get what I wanted from her moral struggle over how to act in the arena.

Still looking forward to Catching Fire, but I'm more detachedly curious about it than wildly enthusiastic like I was for this one.

15. Underworld: Awakening



In a year that brought a disappointing entry in the Resident Evil movies, I'm thrilled that we got a worthy film in my other favorite horror/scifi adventure series starring a woman. Awakening pretty much punts and launches a Bold New Direction for Underworld, but it's a good direction with some likable, new characters and I enjoyed it very much.

14. 21 Jump Street



I want to say that this is so much better than a movie based on an all-but-forgotten TV show has the right to be, but even though that's true, it's not really fair to suggest that that's all 21 Jump Street has going for it. It's just a very funny movie, period. That it gets a small part of that humor from pointing out and making fun of its sordid roots is just frosting for the cake. I'd probably rate it higher if not for the skeevy romance between Jonah Hill's character and a high school student.

13. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted



Listen: After the horrible piece of derivative crap that Madagascar 2 was, I'm as surprised as anyone to find Madagascar 3 on this list. In fact, I didn't want to see it at all when it was announced. It wasn't until it got a 79% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes that I had to see what the heck was going on with this thing. To my surprise, it was hilarious and - more importantly - original. It also pretty much wrapped up the saga with a nice bow on top, so I don't expect to be interested in a Madagascar 4, but never say never.

12. Haywire



No, Gina Carano is not a great actress. And the plot of Haywire is nothing new. But the movie makes up for both of those things with heart and authenticity. I wrote a full review of it, so I'll point you there for more thoughts, but it really was one of my favorite movie experiences of the year.

11. Moonrise Kingdom



This was my first Wes Anderson film since Rushmore, which I never quite forgave for stealing Bill Murray away from movies like Groundhog Day and The Man Who Knew Too Little. Seeing Moonrise Kingdom makes me want to find out what I've been missing. It's a small movie, but a lovely one, and makes great use of its setting and awesome cast.

John Carter Hates Cephalopods

By Skottie Young. [Comic Book Resources]

Princess of Mars (2009)

The Asylum isn’t exactly known for quality filmmaking, so there’s a You Pay Your Money and Take Your Chances element working every time you sit down to one of their movies. Naturally, that also applies to their adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars. But knowing that, Princess of Mars is surprisingly entertaining in parts.

The framing sequence on Earth has been updated to modern times, but not just to make John Carter a more relatable character. At least, that’s not the only reason. He’s no longer a Civil War vet, but a Special Ops soldier in Afghanistan. That not only makes him contemporary; it also lets the writers offer an explanation for Carter’s transportation to Barsoom. When Carter is severely injured in a mission, the military lets him know that they’ve more or less cloned him and kept his genetic info stored on a flash drive. When he dies, they’ll be able to transmit that data to a planet in the Alpha Centauri system that scientists have dubbed Mars 268 or something like that. They think it may be habitable by humans and want Carter to check it out.



There are all kinds of holes in that explanation if you think about it too hard, but the movie does its best not to let you do that. Everything happens quickly and before you know it, Carter is on an alien world.

Once he gets there, the plot follows the novel’s events fairly closely for a while. Carter meets Tars Tarkas and the other Tharks (missing their extra pair of arms in this version, but otherwise recognizable as Tharks by their tusks and general largeness) and begins working his way up their hierarchy by kicking butt in battle. There unfortunately aren’t any giant, white gorillas (we get monster insects instead), but Carter eventually meets Dejah Thoris and sets himself up as her protector when she’s captured by the Tharks. And he eventually reaches the Tharks’ city for a reality check when the Thark ruler doesn’t see everything in him that Tars Tarkas did. The film even keeps Carter’s super-jumping ability; something I wouldn’t have bet on.



Most of the film’s entertainment value is due to Antonio Sabato Jr. He’s not the book’s John Carter, but he’s charming and shows some really nice comedic timing when delivering his lines. Traci Lords is merely endurable as Dejah Thoris though. She looks good in her Slave Leia outfit, but she consistently maintains one expression – scowling – throughout the movie. There’s no chemistry between her and Sabato either, but he comes across as a nice enough guy that you believe he’d try to save her anyway, even if you can’t believe he’s in love with her.

In spite of a promising beginning, I got a little worried towards the end. The writers bring part of the Afghanistan plot to Barsoom and that takes getting used to; especially for fans of the novel. But though they weren’t terribly gentle with how they did it, the maneuver works and helps fix a problem with the novel.



It’s been a while since I’ve read the book, but I remember that the end of it – a crisis at Barsoom’s atmosphere plant – felt very disconnected from the rest of the story. The movie ties it in with the rest of the plot so that what happens at the plant is a natural consequence of everything that’s come before. Lord knows that the writing in the movie isn’t perfect, but I appreciate that it noticed some of the same trouble spots I did about the book and tried to solve them. They could’ve been solved better, but credit for the effort.

If only the Asylum had the budget for some real fight choreography and better supporting actors (the guy who plays the Thark ruler is especially atrocious, which is weird because he has a dual role in the movie and isn’t half bad in his other part), it could have been a legitimately good – though flawed – adaptation. That doesn’t take into account the typically poor special effects, but my not totally hating it has me feeling generous.

Two out of five Martian princesses.

Art Show: The Unbelievable Secret of the Sasquatch!

Aquaman



By Nick Kilislian.

Sea Monster Approaches Beach Boys c.1969 to Get Pet Sounds Signed



By John Allison. [Robot 6]

Sasquatch, a four-armed ape, and John Berkey after the break.

Art Show: It's not the real thing. It's just a fantasy.

On the Rope



By Travis Hanson.

King Neptune



By Eric Kincaid. [Illustrateurs; who also has a very nice mermaid picture by Kincaid]

The Black Arrow



By NC Wyeth. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Conan



By Jean Pierre Targete. [Illustrateurs]

Dragon



By Berni Wrightson. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Beast Rider



By Travis Hanson.

The Sword of Ardenois



By Etienne Willem. [Illustrateurs]

John Carter of Mars



By Tom Fowler. [ComicTwart]

Captain Peanut Butter



By Jeremy Vanhoozer.

Canadian Space Girl



By Lucio Alberto Ruiz-Diaz.

Art Show: Every Girl Wants a Pony

Namora



Cosplayer Unknown; PhotoShopping by theblackhauke.

Bentlys Trading Post



By Robert McGinnis. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Faeries, aliens, and more superheroes (some of them in fishnets) after the break.

Art Show: The Dark Swamps of Barsoom

Cursed Pirate Girl



By Katie Cook.

Carrie



By Ryan Cody. [Hey, Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin Time!!!]

Richard Sala, John Carter, Flash Gordon, giant robots, more Katie Cook, and 3D Giant Hippos after the break.

Movie News: Da Vinci, The Shadow, Dan Dare, and Others

Leonardo da Vinci and the Soldiers of Forever



Not willing to let Marvel have all the fun, Warner Brothers is also turning Leonardo da Vinci into an adventure hero. Good idea, says I.  I'm a bit concerned though about their wanting to include secret societies, codes, angels, and demons in the script. Seems a bit unoriginal, doesn't it? [/Film]

DVD Late Show



Pulp-writer Christopher Mills has a blog called DVD Late Show on which he reviews "the best (and worst) of cult films, B-movies, and genre TV" available on DVD. Chris is a great, knowledgeable writer with a wide range of interests; his thoughts on this stuff are always worth reading. 

The Shadow, Batman 3, John Carter, and Dan Dare after the break.

Art Show: Hot Blue Catwomen

The Little Mermaid



Artist Unknown [Animation Backgrounds]

Pirate Girls



By Richard Sala.

Cave Batman



By Andy Kubert. [The Source]

Zorro



By Francesco Francavilla.

Captain America



By Steve Epting.

Sherlock Holmes



By Francesco Francavilla.

Zatanna



By Stephane Roux.



By Ms. Mars.

John Carter



By Larry Ivie. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Daughter of Pandora



By Grant Gould.

Movie News: Low guttural German

The Angry Sea



Robert Hood's got all the details about this low-budget, but impressive-looking movie about 18th century sea monsters. 

Mel Gibson's Viking movie

Not much info other than he's making one and he wants at least part of it to be spoken in Old Norse. Sub-titles don't bother me, so that's okay with me. And I like his rationale for doing it that way. He wants the Vikings to be scary.

I don’t want a Viking to say, “I’m going to die with a sword in my hand.”  I don’t want to hear that ...  I want to see somebody who I have never seen before speaking low guttural German who scares the living shit out of me coming up to my house.

Jurassic Park 4

It's coming, but remember that Hollywood's favorite word right now is "reboot."

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Martin Scorsese's planning to adapt The Invention of Hugo Cabret the steampunk novel about an orphaned thief, a bookish girl, a toyseller, and a mechanical man.

Bruce vs Frankenstein

The sequel to My Name is Bruce will have Bruce Campbell visiting Europe. I only wish I could figure out what he'll be doing once he gets there.

Meet Conan



The new Conan movie has a star. I'm still skeptical about the plot, but I'll buy Jason Momoa as the Cimmerian. 

Meet John Carter's nephew



The new John Carter movie will feature Juni from the Spy Kids movies as Carter's teenaged nephew, a young man named Edgar Rice Burroughs. That's kind of cool actually.