Tarzan's Son Needs a Good Spanking, by Golly!

 Attentive readers of my blog may have noticed that I've reviewed a number of Jesse Marsh-illustrated Tarzan comics by Dell recently. The reason for this is simple. A short time ago, the digital edition of a 700-page omnibus of these comics was on sale for just 3 bucks. Though my ideal for comics is physical copies rather than digital, the explosion of e-comics does allow me to acquire and read comics I never otherwise would have experienced. It's a more than fair trade-off.

So as I read through the omnibus, I keep running into particularly cool stories on which I want to comment. The team of Marsh and writer Gaylord Du Bois were coming up with a pretty high percentage of winners. Thus--a lot of Tarzan reviews in a relatively short time span.  If you are reading this in the far future because you are compiling a biography of me as the savior of our culture, please make note of this.

I want to write about "The Beasts in Armor" (Tarzan #16, cover dated July/August 1950) for several reasons.

First, it reminds us that Tarzan's Africa is stock full of dinosaurs. In fact, in this issue we learn that the dinosaur-infested Valley of Monsters (first encountered a few issues earlier) is within reasonable travelling distance of the dinosaur-infested land of Pal-ul-don.

To be frank, this annoys me. I've been to Africa a half-dozen times. Granted I'm in a war zone and largely confined to a guarded compound, but all the same you'd think I'd at least occasionally see a dinosaur. They're apparently all over the place. But, no. Not a single dinosaur sighting so far. It's very upsetting.

Second, "The Beasts in Armor" is simply a great story. Du Bois and Marsh were drawing elements from both the Tarzan movies and the original novels to craft their own version of Tarzan's universe. As in the novels, Tarzan has learned to fly airplanes. As in the movies, he has a young son called Boy (as opposed to his adult son Korak from the novels). These elements come together when Tarzan does a fly-over of the Valley of Monsters, checking on a friendly tribe that lives near the valley and had helped him in the past. Tarzan doesn't know that Boy has stowed away on board.

 In the ERB universe, it is rarely a good idea to fly over a dinosaur-infested territory. An encounter with a pterodactyl is pretty much inevitable.

Tarzan's plane is lightly damaged and he manages to come in for a safe landing. He heads for the friendly village for help, which allows Boy to crawl out from the cargo space and go fishing. He catches several large spiny fish, which will be a plot point later on.

A couple of baby T-Rexes show up and eat the fish, then chase Boy up a tree. When the Daddy T-Rex puts in an appearance, Boy is in real trouble.

That panel above is magnificent, Jesse Marsh's figure work is always a little lacking in my opinion, but panels like this are a true strength and one of the reasons he was such a great storyteller despite his weaknesses.

Anyway, a native of Pal-ul-don (and a friend of Tarzan) shows up on a gryf, which dispatches Daddy T-Rex. A gryf, by the way, is a almost-domesticated triceratops used by the natives of Pal-ul-don as riding beasts.

The story structure here is interesting, essentially dividing events into two entirely different plots. The encounter with the T-Rexes is pretty much just a prologue to have Tarzan meet his friends from Pal-ul-don, tossing them into another, unrelated adventure.

Tarzan learns that a half-dozen thugs armed with Tommy guns have flown into Pal-ul-don, taken the prince of the city of A-Lur captive and are ruling as dictators. 

I really enjoy the way the prince is portrayed, maintaining a stoic dignity even while the thugs mock him. The comic book version of Pal-ul-don natives were more human-looking than those in the novels, with cat-like ears, but no tails. I don't know if this was intended, but the result of this is a story written in 1950 that shows a dark-skinned clearly-human man remaining dignified and unbroken while being abused by white men. Quite a remarkable statement for the time.

I also enjoy the visual variety among the thugs. The story never gets around to giving them individual personalities in terms of their dialogue or actions, but the top panel above kind of does this for us. Among the six, we have, for instance, a hairy-armed big bully and a dapper con artist type. The visuals alone gives each of them a degree of individuality.

Tarzan arrives to attack the thugs. A nifty action sequence follows, which includes Tarzan tossing the sub-machine guns out a window and forcing the thugs to run for it. They recover the guns and try to get to their airplanes, but natives riding nigh-invulnerable gryfs attack. The thugs' plane is damaged when it tries to take off and the thugs all die in the ensuing crash.

Boy has been stashed out of the way during this part of the adventure. When Tarzan re-unites with him later, he reminds the snotty little brat that his stowing away on the plane has probably left Jane sick with worry. Add to this the fact that his shenanigans also nearly got him and his dad eaten by dinosaurs and... well, Tarzan lets him off with a stern talking to. But, boy-o-boy, did Boy ever deserve a good spanking. Kids gotta learn right from wrong, Lord Greystoke. Sparing the rod is probably why Boy is a broken and forgotten figure today.

They get back to their own plane and discover that the young T-Rexes have died of indigestion after eating the spiny fish that Boy had caught early in the story, which ties up that plot thread. The good guys all get happy endings, though I hope that Boy at least got a time-out when he and Tarzan got home.

Let's end this review with one more example of Jesse Marsh's magnificent art. I do tend to be critical of his figure work, but he was indeed a great artist:

You can read this story in its entirety HERE.

Next week, we'll visit with Ben Grimm again as he again time travels back to World War II.