And then they meet!
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragones
Art: Sergio Aragones, Thomas Yeates
Colors: Tom Luth
Letterer: Stan Sakai, Adam Pruett
What They Say:
A bumbling barbarian encounters the cunning lord of the jungle, but will Groo wind up destroying the jungle itself or teaming up with Tarzan to fight slavers? With cartoonist Sergio lost and running from hungry lions in Chula Vista’s Jungle Safari Land and script writer Mark doing panels all day at Comic-Con, how will this comic get finished in time? Legendary Tarzan artist Thomas Yeates swings in to help! Plus–the Rufferto backup strips continue!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The pairing of these two characters is one of the more unusual things out there that I can think of but it’s not done as one might expect. This series is a little different – which is good – in how it’s approaching the crossover. With two very different characters, and the modern incarnation of Tarzan being treated as it is, the two really don’t mix in just about every way. So, for the moment, they’re existing in separate spaces but you get that sense of how things are getting closer and closer. Evanier and Aragones handle the writing for the whole thing and Aragones delivers us Groo as only he can, but we get some great pages from Thomas Yeates with an intriguing version of Tarzan that may be the first time people see it this way.
As with any Groo book, this is a hugely busy work. We get the fun of Aragones being stuck in the zoo where so many animals are on the loose and the place has closed. For Aragones, he’s on the run from the lion and does his best to keep one step ahead of it, at least until he finds out that the lion is friendly. But he’s smart enough to sleep in the tree, which is where we get the dreams of Tarzan happening as that’s what pleases Aragones. Amusingly, Evanier doesn’t try hard to get into the zoo since it’s after hours and he needs some sleep himself, but he also has the whole series of panels at the con the next day to work on. We even get a humorous joke made to colorist Tom Luth at the con that he may not have any big crowd scenes to worry about coloring anymore considering what may happen to Aragones. The mix of these real-world pieces is definitely fun, especially since it’s in traditional Aragones style.
On the flip side, we see Groo’s journey continuing as the people he’s come across are freaking out that he’s there. He’s just looking for food and they’re trying to hide everything because he really does eat everything. And Rufferto is excited when they come to challenge him to leave since it just means a chance for a fray that will lead to more food, and a bigger fray to more food. But, amusingly, Groo gets distracted by the small fray and ends up going exploring the mountain, which has a section that allows him to pass through to Tarzan’s world. This is just surreal with the two styles coming across each other and seeing Tarzan just trying to understand what it is that he’s seeing. It doesn’t make sense to him while Groo kind of just processes everything in a way where there’s no real judgment or understanding beyond whether he can eat it or kill it. Where this goes is just… hard to tell.
In Summary:
This continues to just be a really strange book overall that’s hard to pin down. We get some good classic Groo pages that makes up about a quarter of the book and delight. We get some fun “real world” things to comical effect with Aragones and Evanier running about and getting into situations that I’m definitely enjoying as it takes me back to a lot of older Groo works that touched on these things. The Tarzan pages look great but the story hasn’t captured me in the slightest, which is problematic, as we’re now at the crossover phase and I’m struggling to connect with it while enjoying the surreal aspect of these two very different designs coming together. It is… what it is.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 1st, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
