Warlord of Mars #21 Review


Oh, Warlord of Mars, you and your sibling titles have a rough time of it, don’t you?

WoM #21 picks up half a year after Dejah Thoris’ imprisonment in the Temple of the Sun. Make sure you read the credit/recap page, because otherwise you’ll be lost. Here’s the official description from Dynamite:

John Carter is just coming to grips with the loss of his princess, Dejah Thoris, when he catches wind of a diabolical plan – Matai Shang, Father of the Therns, knows how to free Dejah from her prison. But Shang is Carter’s greatest enemy, and he’s not about to hand her over! Mars’s greatest hero is in for the wildest ride of his career, and it all starts in Warlord of Mars #21 – The Temple of the Sun!

Arvid Nelson‘s writing on this series has been the most solid of all the Mars books, but this time he drops the ball. Unless he’s decided to change the book’s tone to a pulpish style, which would make sense, because Edgar Rice Burrough‘s Barsoom series originated as pulp fiction. If that’s the case, it’s well written, although it’s a drastic change in the tone of the series.

In this issue, the characters’ dialogue and reasoning are inane. They jump to too many convenient solutions, and the reader is forced on a regular basis to suspend his disbelief to a far greater extent than is typically demanded by the series. In short, it’s a writing style that has a lot in common with comics of the 1940s and 50s, and the art style is in keeping with that era as well.

Vicente Cifuentes’ art is technically sound, and he does a good job of making the anatomy sexy or impressive as necessary, without going too far. However, his figures are stiff, with unnatural, exaggerated movements and expressions. The “Ha ha  ha’s” of laughter are seemingly added as an afterthought and one scene, with Woola picking John Carter up in his mouth, is ridiculous to the point of being silly.

Again, all of this matches the tradition of the golden age of comics. While it’s certainly an interesting change in the style of the book, I really do wonder how much of it was intentional. I guess only further reading will tell. Until then, keep you tongue in your cheek if you start this new Warlord of Mars story arc.

2.5/5

 

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