The Complete Aztec Ace!

It was a great pleasure to at long last read the full run of Doug Moench's Aztec Ace from Eclipse. I was an Indy fan when this book debuted from Eclipse but soon had to draw back in because of family responsibilities and financial obligations. One cannot justify getting expensive (at the time) comic when the wife and child need to taken care of. I could've filled in the collection at anytime, but never did. But when I saw that Dark Horse had reprinted the complete run with a few extras I was intrigued. That is until I saw the asking price of $79.99 -- too much for idle curiosity I thought. Then I found the book for half that and jumped. I'm very happy I did for this is a very intriguing read. I won't suggest it's a complete epic, because the reader is left with a number of questions after all is read and done. But that's to be expected of a series this densely packed with details and motivations which doesn't reach its natural ending. 

Aztec Ace is a time traveler from the 23rd century who operates out of a base hidden in the world of the Aztecs in the 14th century. The funniest detail is that he uses the accumulated slime from slugs to power his time travel devices. He hooks up with a woman named Bridget Kronopoulous from 1940 and they fall in love. But first she has to die. Later they take a swing at a bogus Ben Franklin and a fake Cleopatra among others. There are appearances by the real Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller and Ambrose Bierce. They have an ally hidden in a head shop in 1969 and another who is a detached head who sounds like Sigmund Freud. They make sure that Galileo's work survives. They battle strange creatures called "Gaunts" which serve the whims of a man behind a gas mask named Nine-Crocodiles who rules a land isolated from time itself. The latter has a wife named Shakreen who gives birth to a baby, but the baby might the child of Aztec Ace himself. Aztec (or Caza as he's called) pretends to be a number of things including a Mummy and a bonafide Golden Age superhero. There is no way to fully explain all that goes on in this series without creating a vast network of cross-referenced entries with deep annotations. The series rewards dealing with the complexity by treating the reader as an adult. 

Doug Moench's scripts are dense and require a reader's full attention, but that's worth the effort. The artwork is by a number of talented chaps including Mike Hernandez who does the first two issues another later on, and Ron Harris who lays out several issues late in the run. Tom Yeates sneaks in toward the end of the series and I assume we'd have seen more from him if it had continued. (His cover rendition of Cleopatra in the penultimate issue is a stunner.) But the core of the art is done by Dan Day who offers up sterling and ornate artwork ideally suited to the tone of the book. Nestor Redondo is on hand to give the series a solid look with is masterful inks. Mike Gustovich steps in to ink later issues with great results. 

Below are the covers for the full run. Also included in the collection is a single story from Total Eclipse. 

It's a lot of money for a collection. But if you can find it for less like I did, I highly recommend it. It was nice to time travel back to the 80's again, if even for a little while. 

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The Once And Future Tarzan!

The Once and Future Tarzan is a bizarre adventure for our friendly neighborhood Ape Man. The future referenced is apocalyptic. Modern society has broken down and crumbled around the edges. The reasons are at once mysterious and obvious. Too much interference with the natural order finally reached a tipping point and suddenly people ain't so fertile anymore. 
 

In the ruins of what once was still lives Tarzan and his wife Jane. They are three hundred years old and have become the stuff of legends. These legends live in a collapsed London in which Tarzan and Jane tend to hidden habitats protecting sundry species from extinction. They are assisted by loyal folks who likely don't know the secret both Tarzan and Jane carry, that they are from the time before the collapse. 

Into this scenario appear a matriarchal society of warrior women who seek Tarzan and find John Clayton who promises to lead them to their prize. Also on hand are men who still seek to control the natural world and turn it to profit. These men seek Tarzan to get the secret of "eternal life". The saga begins in England but soon a ragtag band are headed to Africa, but the way there is extremely dangerous due to an impossibly large storm which continually rages in the ocean. We begin to learn some of the secrets of this world, but slowly as this makeshift quest unfolds. 

All fifteen chapters are written by Al Gordon. The first three chapters were drawn magnificently by Tom Yeates. The later chapters were all rendered by Bo Hampton. These chaps have styles which, while not identical, do cohere. The chapters appeared in issues of the revived series Dark Horse Presents. The first three chapters were collected many years ago and more recently the whole saga was collected. 

This is a story which requires patience in the reading. The reader is put in the place of many of the characters and stays in the dark about critical details about how this strange sad world came to be. One aspect of the storytelling which I found remarkable is how the romance of Tarzan and Jane is communicated so effectively. Jane is a remarkably capable character in her own right and the story of a marriage which is centuries old is fascinating. This one is worth the time. 

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Groo Meets Tarzan!

I buy very few new comics these days, preferring to spend money and time on vintage collections of comics from years gone by. But when I saw Groo Meets Tarzan advertised I knew I would be getting it. I held off picking up the individual issues, preferring to wait for the inevitable trade. The small wait was worth it. Once again Serio Aragones and writer Mark Evanier have turned in a fascinating story about the world's most incompetent sword-wielding barbarian. 

The Groo duo are joined this time not only by regular letter Stan Sakai and colorist Tom Luth but by Thomas Yeates. Yeates drew the parts of the story starring Tarzan just in the same way that he did for the earlier offbeat dust up between Groo and Conan the Barbarian. This kind of work requires a great deal of planning but when it works as well as it does in these issues it's well worth the effort and the price of admission. Be careful reading below as I've included many spoilers. 

SPOILERS BEGINNETH!

In the debut issue we are treated to a trio of narratives which will run alongside one another for most of the series save when a few of them intersect. The first narrative is set in the modern world and features Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier at Comic-Con. Sergio wants to do a crossover between Tarzan and Groo and Evanier is reluctant. There are the usual gags about fanboy behavior at Comic-Con and even a few cameos from the likes of Magnor and Rainbow. Them we meet Tarzan who is troubled by slavers who are in his territory practicing their vile industry. This part of the tale has a deadly serious to it and I worried at first if the differences in tone were going to cohere. The third narrative follows Groo and his constant companion Rufferto as they are literally eating their way from village to village and creating panic as food reserves are depleted. Meanwhile Sergio and Mark go to the Chula Vista Jungle Safari Land, a park of ill repute where Sergio is overcome with his reseach for the proposed Tarzan book and gets lost in the park. 

As the narratives continue, Sergio tries to survive in the park as his hero Tarzan might've done. Tarzan for his part is still scheming an effective way to counter the slavers who are immense in number. And the villagers in Groo's world hatch a plan to send him into a mysterious mountain pass from which no one has ever returned. While Sergio goes feral, and Mark goes back to the Convention, Groo finds himself in the world of Tarzan, a landscape that bewilders him more than usual. 

Sergio's troubles continue and Mark eventually grows concerned enough to go back to look for him (after his many panels have been conducted). Amazingly Tarzan and Groo meet and then work together (more or less) to battle the slavers. Tarzan says he needs an army to defeat the slavers totally and Groo says he knows where to get one. Mark heads back to the safari park with a woman from California Animal Rights and Environmental Rescue to find Sergio. Sergio's phone has been swallowed by a hippo by the way. Tarzan goes to warn natives of the threat of the slavers and Groo heads back to his land to find help. 

In the rousing finale Groo successfully gets help from villagers too afraid of him and his appetite to say no, while Tarzan uses disguise to mislead the slavers for a time. Sergio's woes in the park continue as he joins an employee and impersonates a crocodile. Groo surprisingly is successful in getting his army back to Tarzan's world and the offbeat looking warriors prove effective in the battle. It's also a delightful artistic endeavor as the two styles are blended quite effectively. The search for Sergio intensifies when nearly all of Comic-Comes to the safari park to help rescue him, which they do. Groo leads his villagers back to Groo-world through the cavern passes while the slavers escape Tarzan and follow. The villagers get home as does Groo but the slavers end up in the exceedingly dangerous world of Pal-Ul-Don where they are set upon by hungry dinosaurs -- a fitting end. The pass to Groo-world is cut off for all time (for now) and Tarzan heads home, thankful for the help...he thinks.

SPOILERS ENDETH! 

This volume also contains some one-page Rufferto gags as well as all the original covers (see above) for the series. This one was even more fun than I expected. Groo was more effective than I expected, though most of that was dumb luck. The artwork though is the main reason to seek this one out. Yeates as always draws a realistic but compelling Tarzan and Sergio Aragones is a force of nature filling pages with details that will delight for days. And many of Evanier's jokes were funny too. 

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Tarzan Vs. The Moon Men!

The Moon Men saga is one of ERB's less well known. But that didn't stop Dark Horse from using the concepts in a lovely four-issue saga that closed out Dark Horse's regular Tarzan series way back in the 90's. Tom Yeates is the artist with Al Williamson giving his pencils a lush finish. Timoth Truman is the writer, and he does a bang-up job of blending in three of ERB's yarns. 

The story begins when two lovers seek a quiet and remote location and enter the same cave in which Nu of the Neocene had taken shelter eons before. They find his bones just as ERB described in his novel The Eternal Lover. It turns out the cave is a temporal portal and all of a sudden there pops up a man from the future who claims to be a descendant of Muviro, Tarzan's top man among the Waziri tribe. Soon we learn he is in fact a descendant of Muviro and he comes to the present to seek help from Tazan against a wave of Moon Men who have invaded Africa. This story seems take place in the wake of the events in The Red Hawk, the last of the three Moon saga books. 

Tarzan, his son Korak, and another Waziri warrior go to the future to fight the Kalkars and the Va-Gas, two species from the Moon. The Kalkars had brought the savages to Earth to help them win the planet, but their schemes don't really come together very well. While Tarzan is left to fight the Moon Men and the hybrid beasts they have bred here on Earth, Korak finds some comfort in the arms of the lovely Na-ee-lah, a descendant of Orthis  the man who sparked the invasion to begin with. 

Tarzan must battle Go-Va-Goh the savage leader of the Va-Gas. And it turns out there is treachery aplenty in this cracking yarn that shows a planet under siege. The story is a smart one with dandy artwork.  There is a little confusion on my part about time frames, but I was careful not the let such details ruin my enjoyment of this rousing bit Tarzan adventure. 

The story was collected along with all the other issues in the Dark Horse run in a handy easy-to-read omnibus volume. More on other stories in this collection as the month unfolds.

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Tarzan - The Beckoning!

Back in those halcyon days of the "Hot" 90's when superheroes were popping up in comic bookstores like so many mushrooms, tasty but alas very much alike, there came the occasional different kind of comic book experience. And from Malibu by way of Sweden came some very different takes on Tarzan of the Apes. Sadly in America ERB's Ape Man is perceived too much through the movie camera lens and much of the background depth of the myriad world's Burroughs created are lost. In Tarzan - The Beckoning by artist and writer Tom Yeates with assist from Danish writer and editor Henning Kure, we get a story about Tarzan that challenges both expectations about the Ape Man and his lovely bride Jane.

This series was first published by Malibu Comics, made famous as the launching platform for Image Comics. In collaboration with the Danes, Malibu brought out several fascinating Tarzan stories, all rich with mythology and fresh exciting takes on the classic Jungle Lord. There was a trilogy by Henning Kure and Peter Snejbjerg called Tarzan - Love, Lies and the Lost City and another by Marc Hempel and Neil Vokes called Tarzan the Warrior. The third and most impressive was Tarzan - The Beckoning which ran a lusty seven issues, all seven of which were gathered up by Dark Horse some years ago. The others deserve a new audience as well. 

The story begins with Tarzan and Jane in San Francisco where they are living comfortably very long lives. Tarzan is at least one hundred years old and still vital, and we learn why before this story is over. Jane too is still young as well. The two are fighting to end the ivory trade which is exterminating the elephants of Africa. Tarzan for his part fights the fight with his usual direct methods. But he is hampered in his struggle by strange dreams which cause him to revert to his most savage nature. 

The powers that be decide that Tarzan must die after he destroys a particularly rich shipment of ivory. For him these tusks are parts of his friends and he'd rather see them burned and sunk to the bottom of the sea than sold. He is targeted by foes both old and new, foes who don't really know the true nature of the man they are targeting. 

He leaves Jane in California and heads to Africa but in a brutal sequence his plane is shot down with all its many passengers. This series as full of fantasy elements as it is still has a shocking realism to it thanks to Yeates remarkable art. He draws figures which feel real. Needless to say Tarzan survives the savage attack. In classic ERB tradition he washes up on the shore near his old cabin in which he was born. We get bits and pieces of his "origin" as the series proceeds. 

His enemies, thinking they have killed him seek to end the threat of the Waziri who also fight to save the elephants. Tarzan is key to turning back a savage helicopter raid the fabulous Waziri village. Death is meted out on all sides as the primitive struggles against the weapons of the modern deadly world. 

But there is still the mystery of Tarzan's dreams and we discover that the same man who give Tarzan his long life now is invading his dreams. That man, called Loc the Trickster, has also taken Jane captive when she came to Africa hearing of Tarzan's seeming demise but hoping for the best. Loc needs Jane to get him into a strange valley where the secret of long life resides. Again in classic ERB style Jane has lost her memory. 

Followed by the aged son of an old enemy Tarzan does to the ancient valley and battles savages there who descend from Atlantis. The culture he seeks is older still and dedicated to peace. Jane for her part escapes her captor and survives thanks to her instincts and training and while still not knowing her name becomes a savage jungle woman of the most attractive variety. Yeates is at his best when he renders Jane, she's exceedingly sexy but still very much a realistic if somewhat idealized woman. 

Without give too much away the saga concludes in typical ERB form with a somewhat happy ending for most. For those who like the literary Tarzan this series is a real treat, both modern but still evoking those classic ERB themes. Tom Yeates draws a Tarzan I can relate to. He's idealized but somehow of still human proportions --he feels real. The dreams in this storyline are rendered in a looser style and that makes the story telling much clearer than it might've been under less capable hands. Over a hundred years ago ERB created his idealized noble savage in an Africa mostly myth and countless lost civilizations. But in an Africa which is much better known, there is still room for magic and monsters, and most importantly there is still room for Tarzan.

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To The Moon Maid And Back!

That's a lovely pair of Moons don't you think. (That Frankie Frazetta was a scamp.) As it turns out the Dojo is going to the Moon. Specifically, we are visiting the fictional Moon of the savage "Va-Gas" and the brutal "Kalkars" as imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs for a trio of yarns that reveal a tragic and terrifying invasion in Earth's future. This saga of the Moon Maid is not only wild science fiction and bizarre adventure but really a striking political commentary as well. 

The main focus will be on ERB's most famous creation --Tarzan of the Apes. In particular on Saturdays this month the Dojo will feature those Tarzan stores drawn by Tom Yeates. Yeates has been illustrating Tarzan stories for decades and every outing offers an inviting fresh take on the classic Ape Man. Tarzan as rendered by Yeates feels more like a real man than a noble hero, though he's that too. 

And speaking of noble heroes, I will wrap up my look at Burne Hogarth's Tarzan of the Apes work on the comics strips as well as the stunning work he did in the 70's for graphic albums intended primarily for overseas markets. Look for these glimpses of some great art on Sundays. 

During the weekdays, I will be dusting off and revising some vintage reviews of the Tarzan movies from the 1930's. In addition to the famous Johnny Weissmuller take on ERB's classic hero in the MGM classics, look for Tarzan as interpreted by other actors such as Herman Brix, Glenn Morris and Buster Crabbe. The world was never quite so rich in Tarzan goodness as it was during the Great Depression years when escaping into the wilds of darkest Africa might've seemed even more appealing. 

I'm also reading Tarzan adventures as drawn by Jesse Marsh. Marsh was the artist who first rendered the Ape Man on Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan for Dell Comics back in the late 40's. He was considered the definitive comic book Tarzan artist until the arrival of a chap named Manning a few decades later. Not everyone cottons to Marsh's take on the character, but I like it just fine. 

And there might be other jungle surprises along the way as we slowly wend our way to Summer. 

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