John Carter, Warlord of Mars Omnibus by Marv WolfmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
John Carter, Warlord of Mars Omnibus collects issues 1-28 plus annuals 1-3 of John Carter, Warlord of Mars published by Marvel in the late 1970s.
I read the first three or four John Carter of Mars books sometime just after the dawn of time when I joined Goodreads. I liked the concepts well enough but wasn't a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs' prose. I've had my eye on this omnibus for years and finally found one cheap enough to justify buying it.
Marvel put a lot of heavy hitters on this book. Marv Wolfman and Chris Claremont handled the bulk of the issues with Bill Mantlo, Peter Gillis, and Alan Weiss each taking a single issue. The art was also an all star team headed up by Gil Kane, Dave Cockrum, Carmine Infantino, Ernie Colon, and others, with Walt Simonson and Frank Miller getting some early work.
The bulk of the book is made up of two stories: Air Pirates of Mars and Master Assassin of Mars. Both are original works but capture the spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs very well. Even by Bronze Age standards, Air Pirates is wordy as hell. I respect what Wolfman was trying to accomplish with his first person narration in captions but you know a comic is wordy as hell when Chris Claremont's stories aren't the wordiest.
Anyway, the stories encapsulate the pulp fun of ERB's originals. There are sword fights, chases, gunfights, and countless reversals of fortune. Dejah Thoris is a lot more capable here than in the pulp originals that I've read.
The art is fantastic in this omnibus. Despite having close to 20 artists and as many inkers, the series doesn't feel as disjointed as one might think. Dave Cockrum did great design work on the characters and the other artists stick to those designs for the most part. Dejah's look changes the most but a metal bikini isn't appropriate for all situations.
Mars looks suitably bleak, the green men look as monstrous as they should, as do the white apes, thoats, and other creatures. This had to be a labor intensive book with all the Martian cityscapes and panels choked with figures to draw.
I liked this book quite a bit but it got to be like Homer Simpson eating that 12 foot sandwich after a while. It's apparent nobody expected anyone to read two and a half years of these comics one right after another but nobody did back then.
John Carter, Warlord of Mars Omnibus is a hulking tome of Martian fun. Four out of five stars.
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