The third volume gets underway!
Creative Staff:
Story: Fred Van Lente
Art: Vincenzo Carratu
Colors: Kike J. Diaz
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
Evil Sonja and the Drakulonian sisters Vampirella and Pantha may have turned back the plague on Earth, but what happens when zombies from MARS start to invade?!
Hear that cry in the jungle–that’s right, TARZAN has joined the insanity, and the Ape-Man has hands full with ZOMBIE DINOSAURS in a lost valley! How does this incursion connect to Barsoom?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The second volume of this large sprawling storyline ended the lives of several characters but set things where it was pretty open-ended with where it could go. This third one plays a bit small here in focus but it then makes it clear we’re going to Mars next. I’m still easily lost at times on some of the characters because of the nature of Dynamite’s various licenses but you can still enjoy it and have fun with the basics of what’s going on. As before, Fred Van Lente continues to manage the story pretty well and its cast of characters so that it feels about right and on-brand for most. For Vincenzo Carratu, this means a lot of designs to try and get just right while still having his particular style about it. It definitely comes together well and has a good cohesive feeling while still going wild and weird as needed for what the undead are up to or some of our other players.
This opener basically serves as a decent launching point in that all you really need to know right now is that zombies have overrun large areas of the world. It spends its time here in the Uziri National Forest at the Kenyan/Tanzanian border where Tarzan and his family live and spends his time with the familiar close animals. His life takes the change many others have since this outbreak began when a college student comes running into the territory as her encampment and others in it got turned. Tarzan’s been paying attention to all of this from a distance – and her as well – so he knows what’s coming but the firsthand experience is not what he expected. Partially because the first thing he gets to deal with is a zombie dinosaur, a z-rex no less, and it’s hard to kill because the brain is so small inside that large head. It’s a brutal piece but one with additional fallout in that it ended up turning the girl which Numa the panther gets a taste of, which in turn makes her zombified a well.
We do get to spend some time with familiar characters as Evil Sonja, Pantha, and Vampirella are together with Sword Smiley looking for the Drakulon ship that crashed near here. That has them slowly coming close to encountering Tarzan and we get some material with Fields and what’s going on back in the world we left before. It’s not grounded enough to really fill in new fans, which is unfortunate as a recap would have been nice as the previous series ended about five months ago. But we get a handle on their style here and the ending part of the book delivers us some solid Tarzan material focusing on him coming across the Drakulon ship itself, which is pretty intense and sets the stage for where Tarzan is going next. I’m looking forward to it but I really wish the book had pulled back just a bit more at the start to remind us of where things are at this point in time.
In Summary:
I continue to enjoy this overall crossover event as Fred Van Lente definitely has fun with the characters and playing to some interesting choices in pairings and locations. Carratu’s artwork is great as always and I’m curious to see where this will all go since Barsoom is next on the agenda. I do wish it had cemented us a bit more with the past events, even just a text paragraph of some sort on the credits page, to remind us where things left off as it went big and crazy. This is still easily a jumping-on point but a little more context is still a good thing.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: March 2nd, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
