TARZAN #210
(Cover by Joe Kubert)
Published and © by DC, Jul. 1972
[Buy from Mile High]
“Completion: Origin of the Ape-Man! Book 4: Civilization”
Synopsis: Tarzan travels to America to reunite with his lost love, Jane — but will he arrive too late?
Writer: Joe Kubert
Penciler: Kubert
Inker: Kubert
Review: Joe Kubert has been creating comics at a high level for more than 60 years, and his work remains surprisingly vibrant eventoday. But if your Comics Bronze Age editor had to pick just one high point, it’d probably be Kubert’s excellent adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan of the Apes. Kubert’s storytelling is solid throughout, and his scratchy, kinetic style adds new energy to a classic story. This final chapter feels a little rushed — it would have been nice to air out Tarzan’s journey to America — but it provides a fitting conclusion to a very strong four-part arc.
Grade: A-
Second opinion: Recommended by The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide (second edition).
Cool factor: High-level work from a timeless master of the form. Hard to get much cooler than that.
Not-so-cool factor: William Clayton is the new Lord Greystoke? How the heck did that happen?
Character quotable: “A girl is lost … in that green hell!” — William Clayton, Tarzan’s chief rival for the affections of Jane.
Tarzan story collected in: Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years Volume One [Buy from Mile High]
Have you seen the Kubert Tarzan tabloids reprinting this story and the adaptation of the second ERB novel? Simply gorgeous, probably the high point for that format.
It’s a shame DC never reprinted any of Kirby’s New Gods or Kamandi at that size. Some of those two-page spreads at tabloid dimensions would have knocked people out of their chairs.