In the Shadow of the Atomic Age 6 6

[Tri-Color Brian]

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[Scrooge]

On 3/19/2019 at 12:32 PM, Scrooge said:

Tarzan # 23 - Cover, IFC and assorted panels.

It's been a while 

Tarzan # 24 - Cover and panels

In this issue, Tarzan makes two trips to the land of Pal-Ul-Don.

In the first story, he lead a researcher to the land of still-living dinosaurs and collects eggs while the scientist goes astray. All's end that ends well and the professor flies away with an un-hatched egg. Wonders what happens to it?

In the second story, Tarzan with the help of the Waziri goes back to Pal-Ul-Don to rescue his friends Ta-Den and Oloa's kingdom from invasion. Nothing than 100 Waziri warriors and a dozen wild Gryfs cannot handle though.

As always, Marsh's work is immersive, direct and benefits from stories that play in a known, consistent and familiar universe with loose continuity. Probably one of the most readable series from the Golden Age.

Note: this issue contains the final installment of Two against the jungle as the boys reach Lake Tanganyika and end their journey. Next issue, Brothers of the Spear starts.

Cover - possibly one of the most ridiculed cover from the series -

Marsh always portrays his apes with power and "solidity". It makes you anxious when Tarzan goes against one as strength radiates from his enemy -

Here's Oloa recapping her misadventures -

The Waziri warriors agree to help her and Ta-Den -

Prisoners are curious as to what stirring their oppressors. Yes, Ta-Den was able to enroll the Waziri's help to mount their rescue. I love how Marsh stages the small domestic vignettes surrounding the main story -

 

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Scrooge

[Scrooge]

Tarzan # 25 - Cover, IFC and panels

# 25 is the last 52-pager for a short while. The title dropped to 36 page from # 26 to 35 before jumping back up to 52 pages until # 59 when it dropped to 36 pages for good. That means for the next 10 issues, there is only 1 Tarzan story.

In this issue, Tarzan is busy as always rescuing folks from forced slavery. In the first story, he rescues his friend Kilumo's soon to be bride N'tala from the Queen of Arrack. In the second story, he frees Laura Thomas and other unfortunates from the clutch of King Lakau who blinds his slaves.

Inside front cover feature - Jungle World with the serval entry -

The main opposition to Tarzan in the first story are giant spiders that the story admits Tarzan cannot best. Here he is faced for the first time with their web -

And when he tries to escape, Queen Mataha -

... has a spider capture Tarzan back - Once he escapes, Queen Mataha is still in power. It seems like this will be remedied in a couple of issues when she will make another appearance.

In the second story, it's Laura who needs help. She was taken prisoner and blinded and worked for months before escaping and thanks to Tarzan, she helps rescue all prisoners - Note: love how her hair is done.

from the mad King Lukau ... whose secrets are not know but whose crib looks pretty good -

[Scrooge]

Tarzan # 26 - Cover and panels.

One Tarzan story and the Brothers of the Spear back-up.

After a professor negligently tells Tarzan in a public place of a lost city and its treasure, it's a race to the finish for the treasure of Isis. Across the desert, over tall mountains we go for a punny finish: the words carved on the mountainside topple over the bad guys and wrap up the story, along with assorted giant rats, ancient felines & dinosaurs and giant scorpions, never a dull moment when you hang out with Tarzan.

Again, Marsh makes the most of his page-wide panels. I scanned 4 of those below.

Going across the desert - When Marsh was drawing Gene Autry, he attempted the same type of panels but never as masterfully nor as inspired as he was by African vistas

Arriving at the destination -

where the hard work can begin -

with the big payoff -

 

[Scrooge]

Tarzan # 27 - Cover and panels

Tarzan steps into his role and landlord of the jungle when a harvesting / logging party works outside of its authorized boundaries. This irks the apes who go on a rampage so to add insult to injury, now Tarzan has to rescue them on top of their transgression. Needless to say, no long-term relationship comes out of this encounter.

Cover -

Here's Tarzan, landlord of the jungle, requesting paperwork. This jungle is very organized! -

I never cease to be impressed with the background Marsh is producing. They don't have to be very realistic but he manages to make us feel we are there in the thick of a forest, here when the apes hurry to the logging camp. I really like the blues that the Dell colorists applied to the night scenes in these comics -

In these early issues, unlike later on IIRC, Marsh uses a lot of shading on the characters themselves, in a "old" style that he will drop off and that artists drop off as well -

I also look fondly at how March depicts children. He gets a chance one in a while with Boy and in this story with the child of the logging foreman -

Here are a couple of panels from Brothers of the Spear. Notice the texture of the forest in the background and how the figure works pops out in this panel, very nice contrast -

And I'll leave off with a page-wide panel from Brothers of the Spear -