There are many comic book adaptations of Tarzan of the Apes, the 1914 novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the latest Dynamite Entertainment title, Lord of the Jungle, is vando! If you only know Tarzan through popular culture, what you heard about him or seen in a comedy skit or movie, then you don’t really know the Tarzan character. Tarzan comics started with Four Color Comics and then his own title #1-131 1948-1962) by Dell Comics and then Gold Key piced up the numbering #132-206 (1962-1972). This shifted to DC Comics that picked up the numbering with #207-258 (1972-1977). The series started with art by Joe Kubert. It moved to Marvel Comics as Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle #1-29 (1977-1979) with art by John Buscema. Dark Horse Comics published a Tarzan series from #1-20 (1996-1998). Dynamite published a first series, Lord of the Jungle #1-15 (2012-2013). Now let’s enter the kambo!
Lord of the Jungle #1 features a cover by Gary Frank, it has Tarzan hunched with a knife with a menagerie of animals, to his right side, Numa and Mangani, on the other side, Sheeta and Tongani, behind them looms, Tantor! This part of the story, “The Bleak Zone” is written by Dan Jurgens, he was the writer and artist of the first story in The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special #1. Benito Gallego is the artist who worked on The New Adventures of Tarzan comic strip written by Roy Thomas. The first page is dark, literally, by colorist Francesco Segala. It starts in the 1950’s, where a storm-tossed ship is off the coast of Africa with a dimly-lit town with cliffs. Great detail and storytelling with the panels. We have a narrator starting the story about a friend. We see the crew noting the brooding man in a suit at the bow. This is shifts to the man's childhood as a boy, swinging through the jungle with the great apes, they look more chimpanzee with slight builds, instead of the classic hulking, more gorilla Mangani.
What instantly strikes me is that the simple lines, but facial expressions and shadowy detail makes me think of Joe Kubert’s artwork. This goes to excerpts of the journal of John Clayton, as he says the voyage is to show his grandfather he is worthy of the title, Lord Greystoke! The setting is now 19th century, the original time period is 1888, where John and his wife, Alice, are stranded on an African beach. The mutinous crew killed their captain and left them with supplies. The faces of the characters struck me like as if it were John Buscema’s artwork. So, Gallego’s art is a combination of my two favorite artists, Joe Kubert and John Buscema, both Tarzan artists. Plus, Gallego gives the art his own originality. The couple struggles to survive, John builds a log cabin, but they find Alice is about to have her baby! She starts to hallucinate that she is in England. He is watched by the Mangani including a great ape with his right eye blinded and scarred.
The baby is born and John goes to hunt for food. Alice has died weeks after giving birth. A deer, Bara, dodges his arrow which ends up striking the ape leader known as Kerchak! The apes kill John Clayton and tear apart the cabin. The Mangani mother, Kala, spares the infant. A very tragic beginning to Tarzan. We get in a splash page a montage of Tarzan raised by the Mangani though he is weaker than the others. Then, Tarzan leaves the familiar territory to watch African children, the first time that he sees humans. At night, he travels to a village and sees the narrator, Bouanga, as a young boy watching over his sister. Bouanga is startled to see Tarzan illuminated by the moonlight, but he escapes. Tarzan is drawn to his human side, carving an image of a village hut in the sand, this is discouraged by Kerchak. Eventually, Tarzan makes his way to the log cabin of his birth. He sees the wreckage, a skeleton in a bed, and finds a knife. His cleverness and jungle training make Tarzan formidable. This also shifts back to the 1950’s so two parallel storylines. Lord of the Jungle is a brilliant adaptation of Tarzan’s past and a mystery tied to it in the future! “Kreegah bundolo!”
Five Journals out of Five!
#LordOfTheJungle, #TheBleakZone, #DanJurgens, #BenitoGallego, #FrancescoSegala, #Tarzan, #JohnClayton, #Kerchak, #Kala, #Bouanga
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