Edgar Rice Burroughs

Descent Into the Past

2012-02-10T21:47:00.000-08:00

Edgar Rice Burroughs invented the lost worlds of Pal-ul-don, Pellucidar and Caspak. Tarzan visited all three (Caspak only once in the comics, thus non-canonical). But other prehistoric realms have featured occasionally in the Tarzan comics. There was a prehistoric world that existed just outside the elephant graveyard in a Hal Foster print, in which Tarzan encountered swarms of pterodactyls, a giant carnivorous saurian rather like a flesh-eating sauropod, called a "gigantosaurus," and a tryrannosaurus rex. In the Kubert DC comics, Tarzan encounters a lost realm deep in pymy country, where he encounters both a sabertooth tiger, and later on a strange survival from the dinosaur age, to whom the pygmies offer human sacrifice.

Then there is this Russ Manning illustrated comic story, published first during Tarzan's Dell comics run, and reprinted later when Dell became Gold Key, called Descent Into the Past. It has Tarzan venturing to a lost plateau were time his stood still for millions of years. A couple of astronauts land on the plateau in their space shuttle. It is up to Tarzan and his mangani freind Barkat to rescue the astronauts and lead them safely off the plateau.

Unlike most other lost worlds, Manning's lost plateau appears to harbor only mammals. There is not one dinosaur or prehistoric saurian to be seen, which indicates this particular lost land must have become isolated more recently then the others, sometime during the Cenozoic.

Tarzan says that the plateau represents Africa as it was a million years ago, but that is not quite right: most of the fauna he Barkat, and the astronauts ancounter is not African. There is the saber-tooth cat, whom is first seen attacking a herd of zebra-like horses. Tarzan and Barkat later slay the same beast or another of its kind. Though the saber-tooth dinofelis did indeed roam the African savannah of a million years ago, this species appears to be the more familair smilodon, which was indiginous only to the Americas. The phorohacas too, are strictly New World, as is the giant sloth. Both of these originated in South America. The dinohyus lived in North America during the Miocene, and other entelodonts ranged across Eurasia.
The Homo Eretcus-type hominids could be characterized as African, as humans first developed in Africa, then swept in and out of the continent on many separate waves.

The hyenodons are perhaps the only distinctly African species, but here Manning makes an additional error. He depicts them as merely huge, preshitoric versions of the familiar spotted hyena (as he did also in one of his Pal-ul-don strips), and this is incorrect. Hyenodons were not ancestral to hyenas; nor were they ancestors of canines, as Burroughs himself depicted them in the Pellucidar books. Hyendons were creodonts, an entire family of carnivous mammals separate form all the modern canrivora. There were also many types of hyenodont, ranging from small, weasel-like species, to enormous brutes. In fact one species, hyenodon horridus, was indeed nearly horse-size (as one of the astronauts observes), and likly superficially resembled the modern hyena. To get a good idea of a hyenodon horridus, check out the "wargs" in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Anyway, it's a good comic. it would still be interesting for Tarzan to discover a lost world that si authentically African, with libatheriums, deinotherium, chalictotherium, pelorovis, African tigers, dinofelis, and of course, our own ancestor, Australopithicus Africanus.

Did Burroughs Write Alternate History?

2011-12-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

Some have opined that ERB's "universe," and most particularly Tarzan's Africa, represent an alternate reality. Of course, ERB and others wrote in a time before the term "alternate history" had been coined. The "alternate history" genre seems to have had its genesis in the novel The Wolves of Willouby Chase by Joan Aiken, who wrote a Dickensian series of novels that took place in an alternate England, in which King James III was never deposed, and wolves have migrated to Britain via a Channel tunnel (rather than merely survived from Arthurian times). More recent novels of alternate history focus on such questions as : what if Rome never fell? What is the South had won the Civil War? What if aliens had become involved in WWII ? What if the newly discovered Americas had been inhabited not by native human tribes, but by Homo Erectus? Those last two examples are derived directly from the novels of Harry Turtledove, a veteran of alternate historical fiction.

Such writers as ERB and Conan Doyle didn't set out to write alternate history. Burroughs wrote in an era when life on Mars and Venus and even the moon seemed higly probable, however wild their speculations were. But as time has passed, Burroughs novels could easily be classified as such today. The locale for Doyle's Lost World actaully exiists but no prehistoric fauna exists there; Robert J. Sawyer's novel Dinosaur Summer speculates on how history might have preceded had Conan Doyle's story been fact (among other things, the movie King Kong, was a flop!).

As far as Burroughs' Africa goes, he seems to have been drawing on the mythic "Dark Continent" of Western cultural imagination, which in fact, Tarzan's Africa resembles the most. For one thing, the Congo appears to be far more extensive than it on our earth, and the savanna lands, which make up the bulk of the Africa we know, correspondingly smaller. It is generally assumed that Lord and Lady Greystoke were stranded on the coast of the Cameroon; however the first novel suggests that the locale is far south of the there, where technically there should be no jungle.

Another difference is in the fauna. It is fairly obvious that the Mangani are a speciesof great ape absent in the Africa we know. Just what are the Mangani? Most depictions of them resemble the chimpanzee the most closely, but are larger. Like chimps, the Mangani are aggressive, omnivorous creatures. They seem to be considerably more inteligen than any known ape species, and even havea language. However, this last may or may not set tham apart, as other primates such as the Bolgoni (gorilla), and even the Manu (monkey) seem to comprehend and speak the same tongue in Burroughs' Africa, which merely sounds like animalistic gibberish to humans. And speaking of the Bolgoni, the gorilla of Tarzan's Africa seems to be of a more aggressive disposition (and also omnivorous). This corresponds to what was then known (and feared) about gorillas by European explorers, but has little to with what has since been learned. There is also no mention of the chimpanzee (and their smaller, less aggressive cousins, the Bonobo, or pygmy chimps) in Burroughs novels. The bonobo may not have been officially recognized at the time, bu Burroughs may have intentially cosen to eliminate the chimpanzee from his version of Africa. I wrote a pastiche once set in Burroughs Africa in which I gave mention to "Rogani the chimpazee," but that is only speculation; others have speculated that this species may not exist in Burroughs' Africa any more than the Mangani exist in ours.

Then there is the matter of African tigers. In Tarzan of the Apes Burroughs intended the mangani term "Sabor" to refer to the tiger. It was originally a tiger, not a lioness, from whom Tarzan rescued Jane. This error may well exist in the origianl pulp publication. The only thing, of course, is that no tigers exist in Africa. Burroughs simply did not know this, so there was no intent on alternate world-building here. He corrected this error his later drafts, and the African tiger disapeared from Tarzan's Africa. This ommission may be, in general, for the better, as evidenced when Tarzan encounters a Sumatran tiger in Tarzan in the Foreign Legion. However, the possibility of African tigers remains enigmatic. Professor Louis Leakey, famous for his discover of mankind's ancestors, speculated that tigers did indeed once roam Africa's plains and jungles in his book Animals of East Africa. This book includes a fascinating chapter on the prehsitoric fauna of Olduvai Gorge, incuding pelorovis, a giant relative of the cape buffalo with sweeping horns, giant bison-sized pigs with four tusks, libitherium, an extinct girraffid crowned with antlers, giant baboons, elephant-like deinotherium, calictotheres---and Afria tigers. But were they truely tigers? Leakey writes that the skulls of lions and tigers appear virtually indentical, but when placed on a flat surface, the skull of a lion can be rocked back and foreward, while the skull of a tiger will remain flat. The "African tiger" skulls remain flat. However, Leakey cautions, "there exists no evidencd for he cat's striped coats." The jury appears to still be out on the existence of African tigers. But had Burroughs not corrected his error, Tarzan's Africa would be all the more identifibale as an alternate historical account.
Perhaps the most profound difference between ERB fictitious africa and our own is its apparent human history. Tarzan encounters many lost civilizations tucked away in its vast jungled reaches. This, in itself, indicates a far more extensive rainforest tha in our own world. Some of these lst colonies are from identifiable historical periods. The colonists ventured into the depths of Africa, put down their roots, and were subsequently cut off form their parent civilization. But other lost colonies-such as the warring cities of Athne and Cathne in the lost valley of Onthar--have a much more enigmatic origin. They resemble no known civilation from recorded history. What, then, do they represent? Opar is identified as a colony of lost Atlantis. But why are no native civilizations represented? Only Ashiar, which is possibly of Egyptian origin, would be a exception. Some might count the lost city of Ur, in the semi-pastice by Joe R. Landsdale, as canon, but other than it, no civilzation of subSaharan African origin exists. Burroughs invented the city of Ur, but never got around to describing it. In all likelyhood, it would have turned out to have been of near-Eastern origin, as its name indicates, not sub-Saharan African, as Joe Landsdale describes it (I really don't think the Landsdale portion of ths story should be considered canon, inventive and Burroughsian as it is).

The fact is that the inhabitants of cities like Athne may, in fact, be of true African origin, only it is NOT the Africa of our own history. In The Eternal Savage, Burroughs discribes a fictional, prehistoric Africa inhaited by white prmitives and primeval monsters. Nu, the hero of the tale, is in fact, astonished that some of the inhabitiants of modern Africa are Black! In Phillip Jose' Farmer' Hadon of Ancient Opar novels, and in Time's Last Gift, he strongly suggests that Africa's first human inhabitants and original civilizations were white rather than black. So did history proceed on a radically different course in Burroughs' Africa? Farmer may not be canon, but one look at the Niocene Africa, with its Pellucidar-type fauna and humans idicates, the answer, at least in part, is yes.
Are there any thoughts on this?

Beasts of Amtor

2011-12-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

There are a number of fierce beasts that roam the forests and seas of Amtor (oERB's version of Venus). Here are some of them.

Tharban

Tharbans, or "peppermint tigers" are a ferocious species of Venusian carnivore. Sleek after the mnner of the great cats, they are striped logitidally in white and red. They have pointed ears and stiff, bristly mans along their spines. The tharban obviously evolved paralell with the great cats of earth, in order to fill an equivelant ecological niche. That is what is known as paralel evolution, and it takes place upon many worlds.

Basto

The basto is the mighty bison-boar of the forests of Venus. Like earthly swine it is omnivorous and very fierce. The animal sports the boar-like tusks, and also the horns and great humped back of a bison. It is similar to the giant eltelodonts of primeval earth, but is of the prportions of an elephant. Bastos are hunted by he Venusians for their meat, which is considered excellent: "there is nothing like a basto steak grilled over a wood fire." Of course, this is only obtained at great personal risk to life and limb.

Targo

Targos are giant spiders of the Amtorian forests. Their web-silk (called "tarel") is greatly prized by th Amtorians, who use it for a variety of purposes.

Rotik

The rotik is the most numerous of the Amtorian marine saurians. Growing up to the size of small ocean liners, the rotik possesses a fleshly extension growing up from its skull. This terminates in a third eye, which the beast can uses as a natural perioscope.

Tongzan

The tongzan is a bizarre, arboreal predator the size of a panther. It has grasping claws, a single, scarlet eye, sharp fangs, and a air of chelae, or lobster-like claws with which it siezes its prey. Its yellowishish fur is marked longitudaly with crimson stripes. It hunts among the giant trees of the Venusian forests.

Vere

An arboreal reptilian predator of the Amtorian treetops. It is something like an oversized gecko with a crocodilian head. The vere has a striking pattern of crimson, yellow, and black scales. A series of ivory horns protrude from either side of its head. Its gaping jaws are toothless. It has a single, huge eye in the center of its foreheead, and sticky, chemeleon-like togue with which the vere captures its prey. It then incapacitates its victim with its foul, vaporous breth.

Gantor

The gantor is gigantic, herbivorous ox-like animal larger than a terran elephant. It bears a single horn in the center of its forehead. It is used as a draft animal by the Amtorians.
Kazar
The kazar is bizarre quadrepedal avian, with a parrotlike head. They run and herds (or flocks), and as such are highly aggressive and dangerous. However, they can be tamed.

Klangans

The klangans are a semi-sentient race of bird-like humanoids; their name literally translates to "birdmen." They often serve as slavers for human villains such as the Thorists, or Amtorian Communists, lassoing their victims with ropes.

The Niocene Era

2011-12-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

Edgar Rice Burroughs invented the fictonal Niocene Age for his novel the Eternal Lover, subsequently retitled The Eternal Savage. It's hero was Nu, a Cro-Magnon warrior whose beloved was Nat-ul. Nu seeks the head of the great sabertooth tiger Oo, much as the primitives of Pellucidar seek the head of a tarag to awin the mate of their choice. He successfully slays the beasts after a battle royal, but ends end gettig thrust back into present-day Africa where he meets with Victoria Custer, who is Nat-ul's modenr incarnation. Later, Custer expereinces life in the Niocence as Nat-ul, and Nu rescues her many more times. This the one notable "prehistoric" novel set not in a Lost World locale, but in the ancient past. While it supposedly takes place in Africa, it is not the Africa of actual history. If anything, it takes place in a mythical prehistory similar to One Million B. C. or Joe Kubert's Tor, where the Age of Reptiles has over lapped into the dawning ages of Man, and beasts of differnet prehistoric ages intermingle. Niocence Africa very much resembles Pellucidar, and many of the same species predominate. Ice-Age fauna seems the most common, with a few Mesozoic holdovers, mainly marine and flying saurians. ERB mentions, "from the distant sea and swamp came the hissing of saurian and amphibian." Surviving dinosaurs may lurk in the swamp, and labyrinthodont amphibians, like Pellucidar's sithic, may lurk there as well. The human inhabitants seem to be all white Cro-Magons, though with an inhanced ability for swinging through the trees. There exists on an island a race of hairy beings called "tree-people", with pig-eyes and worlf-fangs, which may be a relic populartion of Homo Erectus.

Oo

The great saber-tooth tiger, whom Nu slays and beheads for Nat-ul. He represents essentially the same species as the giant tarags of Pellucidar. The body as as huge as a full-grown bull, gorgeously striped in brilliant gold and glossy black. The ivory slashers are fully eighteen-inches long. Burroughs greatly inflated the beast's proportions for dramati effect.

Ur
The great cave-bear of the stone age, Ursus Spaleus, the mortal enemy of Oo.

Gluh

The wooly mammoth of the ice age, not native to Africa in our own history.

Ta
The great wooly rhinoceras, Coleodonta, a native of Plesticene Eurasia, but not Africa, in our own history.

Zor

The mighty cave-lion of the Plesticence. Burroughs describes both sexes as being maned.According to actual cave-paintings, this species was in fact maneless.

Aurochs

Giant bovines, common to Europe up into historical times. Did in fact roam Afica in prehistoric times.

Cave Hyena
Giant relative of the modern hyena

Pterodactyl

A giant flying reptile, possibly actually a pterandon, possibly synonomous with the thipdars of Pellucidar. One bore Nat-ul to its nest on the island of the tree-people. Burroughs remarks that "even in Nat-ul's day they were practically extinct."

Marine Saurians

Marine reptiles still proliferate in the Niocence oceans, such as the plesiosaur that attack's Nu's boat, as he crosses the water to save his beloved. The artist above protrayed a rather fanciful representation of the beast.

Races

The people of the Niocence, called "troglodytes" by Burroughs, are white-skinned Cro-Magnon people. There are two main cultures where Nu lives, the cave dwellers, Nu's people, and the boat-builder's Tur's people, who live on the edge f the paleolithic sea. Nu's people dress in the hides of carnivores slain in battle, while the boat-builders wear the hides of aurochs and other herbivores.

Tree People
The Tree people are a relic popultion of some former stage of human development, who have manage to persist one of the islands. They are hideous race ofcreatures with fur and fangs.

Beasts of Barsoom

2011-12-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

Banth

The banth is a ten-legged Barsoomian"lion." Of course, the banth is not a true lion, or member of the feline family. They naturally prey upon the thout, but anyanimal or being is a potential meal for the giant banth. Banths have protrubing green eyes, hairless bodies, and stiff-bristling manes. They are sleek in the manner of earthly felines. Their long jaws house a double row of hooked teeth, like the smaller calot, suggesting a common ancestry somewhere in the dim Barsoomian past. Obviously, it is a separate (non-feline) family of mammalian carnivores unique to Barsoom. All life-forms on the planet apparently began with ten legs; those with less evidently dispenesed with those limbs durng the long course of Barsoomian evolution. It may, in fact be mere comi coincidence that Earth's vertebrate lifeforms sport four limbs. Other six or more legged plans may exist throughout the universe.

Thoat

Thoats are eight-legged Barsoomian "horses." Again, they are not true equines, or related to anything else on earth. They are often vicious and foul-tempered, but the sentient Martian races can train them as steeds, and use them in gladatorial jousting. Their powerful legs sport great padded toes, the hoof never having evolved upon Mars.

White Apes

The monstrous white apes of Barsoom are an anomaly. They have the multiple limbs as the majority of other lifeforms indicating a common ancestry with all other life on the planet; however unlike the thoat, banth, and others, they apparently share the same family as the true primates of earth. John Carter even describes the face of the white ape as being strikingly similar to the African gorilla. So...why are primates represented both on Earth and on Mars? It seems very unlikely that identical families should evolve--but apparently, it happened. The copper-skinned humans of Mars are also primates, and though they lack an extra set of limbs, they share the same basic reproductive system with other Barsoomian lifeforms. The primate family it seems, is found throughout the ERBs universe on trillions of worlds. Tarzan was able to communicate with the first white ape he stumbled upon being attacked by a swarm of ulsios in Tarzan,Jahn Carter: Warlords of Mars: "I speak the language of all mangani!" Mangani must be a universal tongue among Burrouhgs' primates, even on distant worlds. White apes roam in bands throughout Barsoom, but especially are encountered among the ruins of abandoned cities.

Plant Men

The bizarre "plant-men" of Barsoom are perhaps the wierdest lifeform to have evolved upon the planet's surface. They are virtually unique to the Valley Dor, the (dispointingly hellish) Martian version of heaven. Vaguely humanoid in outline, the plant-men are a nonsentient herding species. They perhaps are an example of a protist (kingdom of lifeforms that exhibit both plant and animal characteristics) that has developed into a large multi-cellular species. They sport a crop of angleworm-like tendrils for "hair,", a single, whitish eye that takes up their entire"face",a single nostril-like orfice for breathing, arm-like appendages which terminate in mouthlike orfices (through which the creatures graze), and massive, powerful tail. Their entire bodies are a weird, ghoulish blue color. Though they are "normal" four-limbed creatures, the plant-men have undoubtedly evolved along as separate trajectory then the other of Barsoomian species.

Reptiles

Reptiles on modern-day Mars are exceptionlly rare, though they were common during the planet's infancy, although whether the planet experienced a true Mesozoic era is unknown. And it is easy to understand why. Once Barsoom was warm and wet, with great oceans teaming with scaley life, and vast regions of rainforest. Creatures like the great albino cavern-dwelling lizard pictured above have lingered in forgotten pockets here and there, and are essentially prehistoric survivors. As monster's such as Pellucidar's zarith are generally considered extinct on Jasoom (Earth), surviving reptilian giants persist in realms such as Pal-ul-don and Caspak, as well as the inner earth. And so it is on Barsoom as well. John Carter noted a number of reptiles that bore resemblence to prehistoric fossil remains in the infamous pit of serpents. Like the mammals, Barsooms reptilian species (excluding serpents) sport multiple legs, indicating that reptiles gave rise to the mammals on Barsoom, just as they did upon earth.

Calot

The calot is something of an equivalent of a Martian canine, as the banth has evolved paralel with the great cats. Calots chase down their prey on ten powerful stout legs, and latch onto it with their multiple rows of hooked teeth. Calots are often trained by the red and green Martians and are fiercely loyal, bonding with their owners after the same manner as earthly canines. The most famous calot is Woola, who remained loyal to Carter after saving him from a Martian ape.

Apt

The apt is a monstrous, white-furred denizen of polar Mars. It sports six limbs, four o which carry it over the glaciers, the other two it can grasp prey with. It shead is described as something like the earthly hippopotomus (though the Whelan illusration above depicts it as a bit more rhinocerine), with mighty fanged jaws. Two horns of bone depend on either side of the great lower jaw. Its huge, insectasoid eyes encompass the majority of the apt's face. Each eye is composed o thousands of ocelli, all of which it can open or close independently and at will.

Orluk

The orluk is another arctic monster, described as "a great elephantine beast of prey." it has yellow and black striped pelt. It conjurs up the image of a giant, furred, multi-legged carnivorous mammoth striped in gold and black. I could find no image (so far), but in the Thomas Yeates illustration above, some men appear to be clothed in orluk hides.

Sith

The sith is monstrous wasp-like insect-creature common to the Forest of Kabool, the size of a hereford bull. It has thrumming wings and deadly tail-stinger. The huge compund eyes are its one vulnerability. In the T. Yeates illustration above, Woola attack's this weakness, during his rows fangs deep into the eye. The insect in the Whelan painting may, in fact, be a related species native to the Tantolian marshes.

Malagor

A giant, "prehistoric" Martian bird with a 40-ft wingspread. They are used as beasts of burden in the country surrounding the Tantolian Marshes. A relic from Barsoom's primeval past, the malagor combines features both avian and reptilian, much like the dinosaur ancestors of birds on earth.

Ulsio

The ulsio is a repulsive scavenger found underneath barsoomian cities, rather like a large, mulilegged rodent. The term "ulsio" is not one of endearment.

Zitidar

The zitidars are gigantic draft animals used by the red and green races of Barsoom. They are proboscidian in form, resmbling a Terran elephant or mastodon, though unrelated.

Darseen

A small reptile with powers like the earthly chameleon.

Sorak

A small six-legged mammalian carnivore kept as a pet by Barsoomians, and to kill small vermin. It is possibly a diminutive relative of the much larger banth.

Spiders Of Ghasta

Monstrous, upside-down-hanging arachnids native to the jungles of the Valley of Ghasta.

Others...

Other animals have been added to the Barsoomian fauna in comics and pastiches, most notably in the DC comics Tarzan family series. There was a one-shot story called "Amazon of Barsoom," which told the story of Martain princess. A predatory lizard-beast is pillaging the eggs when th princess hatches. Before she is eaten herself she slays the creature with his own sword. The "cannibal lizard" seems more than a mere beast however, as he wears both a tunic and a sword with scabbard! Later the Amazon of the title saves her Jeddak father from the "demon apes of the misty caves." She slaughters the red-furred simians en masse, proving herself as worthy to her father as any son would have been. Now about those apes--now we have TWO primate species (other than the red, yellow, black-skinned humans) native to Mars!

Another, separate, storyline involves a series of "lost journals" or John Carter. They are discovered in a trunk by a member of the aquatic Myopsian race (which are, in fact, native to Amtor (Venus), NOT Barsoom!

The first journal sees John Carter rescuing a beautiful princess who is trapped within a giant green gemstone. While searching for an implement to cut the crystal, he encounters a multi-legged styracosaurus-like beast that is unnamed in any of the canonical tales. The beast charges the gemstone, shattering it and freeing the princess. Carter then slays the beast with his sword. Later, the two are menaced by "the scavengers of Barsoom," flying reptiles which resemble three-headed pteranodons!

The "Amazon" story also shows flying reptiles which it refers to as "sky-kites."

The Babes of Burroughs

2011-12-12T16:23:00.000-08:00

Dejah Thoris
Dejah Thoris is the titular princess of Burroughs Princess of Mars. The daughter of Mors Kajak, Jed of Lesser Helium. She is John Carter's beloved, and eventually his wife. Her beauty is often refered to as "incomarable." To look at these pictures, one can see why this is.

Tara of Helium

Tara was the daughter of John Carter sand Dejah Thoris. Strange that an Jasoomian and a Bersoomian princess are capable of reproducing, given their different reproductive systems. Tara obviously has inherited her mother's beauty and curvaceousness. Here, she is depicted recoiling in horror from one of the Kaldane/Rykors.

Thuvia of Ptarth

A princess of the Barsoomian city of Patarth. She becomes is the mate of Cathoris, the son of John Carter. She has the ability to control the great banths, the six-legged "lions" of Barsoom.

Llanna of Gathol

The beautiful daughter Gathan and Tara of Helium (sorry, I couldn't find a picture)

Duare

Carson Napier's beloved, the beautiful daughter of Mintep Jong of Vepaja on the cloud-shrouded forest world of Amtor. Here she is facing off with a tharban, or Venusian "tiger." Wait--aren't tharbans supposed to be peppermint-striped--and striped longitudinally? Anyway, the way Frazetta depicts her, her pants don't come up very far...
Seeing this picture, certain words come to mind: "Shara drew her blade, held in her small, capable fist and waited, as the great predator snarled in menace."
Don't know why; this IS Duarre of Amtor, not a jungle girl named Shara. Oh, well...

Nah-ee-Lah

The "Moon-Maid" of the novel of that title, Na-ee-Lah, princess of the lunar city of Lathe. She is perhaps the most beautiful heroine Burroughs ever created, and the most lovely Frazetta ever illustrated. She became the beloved of Julian 5th, man of Earth, who describes her thusly:"...there before me, was as perfectly formed a human female as I had ever seen. ...she appeared a girl of about eighteen, with hair of glossy blackness, that suggested more the raven's wing than aught else and a skin of almost marble whiteness, slightly tinged with a creamy shade. Such perfection of features seemed almost unbelievable." - from The Moon Maid
Frazetta depicts the Va-gahs as a race of centaurs, although that is not technically correct. The Vah-gahs are sentinet quadropeds, but not centaurs. "Frazetta Comics" did a one-shot issue based on this painting. The story was vaguely Burroughian, but the princess was not Nah-ee-lah, and it had nothing to do with the origninal tale by Burroughs.

Oh, and notice the difference between frazetta's illustration for the paperback edition, and the more commonly seen version above.

Dian the Beautiful

Dian the Beautiful is the beloved of David Innes in Burroughs' Pellucidar series. The first of the illustrations above may, in fact, depict a different girl in At the Earth's Core(one who tragically fell victim to the Mahar), or it may in fact depict Dian, but no particular scene from the novel. The second Frazetta pic shows a well-developed Dian facing off against a Tarag in the Mahar arena; the thipdars in the painting sized the tarag and carried him off, saving the lives of David and Dian. This was becuase a dept that Tu-ul-sa, the Mahar queen owed to David after sparing her life. The final Frazetta pic is from a scene for Savage Pellucidar, showing Dian between two snarling smilodons. This same painting was also used on one edition of Burroughs' The Cave Girl, though that was erroneous, as no sabertooths, nor any other beast save a large panther, ever appeared in its pages.

La-ja
A blonde barbarian girl of the Pelluicdaran village of Basti, von Horst's beloved in Back to the Stone Age. She acted as though she hated him throughout most of thier adventures. In truth, she feared that Gaz, her suitor would kill von Horst When the German finally killed Gaz, La-ja let him know her true feelings for him. Sorry, I couldn't find a picture. Note: In one of the Russ Manning newspaper strips it is suggested that La-ja was killed, and von Horst fallen into deep depression. I still wonder if that was really true, and perhaps La-ja was still alive, much as Jane was still alive in the comic series Tarzan: the Savage Heart. Anyway, it was non-canonical.

Jana (the Red Flower) of Zoram

Jason Gridley's beloved in Tarzan at the Earth's Core. He saved her from unwanted suitors, and eventually returned to the surface with her.

Nat-ul

The beloved of Nu of the Niocene in Burroughs stand-alone novel The Eternal Savage.

Victoria Custer

Nat-al's reincarnation in present-day Africa.

Victory

Jefferson Turk's love interest in Lost Continent. He saved from a primitive suitor named Buckingham. Victory was queen of the land of Grabritin, a savage tribe in a post-apocolyptic future. England and mainland Europe)had fallen into barbarism. The lands were overrun with primitive tribes with beasts such as lions and tigers.

Nadarra

The heroine of The Cave Girl Nadarra was actually a civilized girl of noble blood, who had grown up and "gone wild" on a primitive island inhabited by Neanderthal tribsmen. She becomes the mate of Waldo Emerson Smith-jones, who eventually becomes known as Thandar. There were no prehistoric beasts on the island, save a species of huge black panther.

Fou-Tan

The jungle girl of The Land of Hidden Men. The princess of Phom Dek, a lost civilization in the depths of Asia, a different continent than most Burroughs' stories. The becomes the mate of American Gordon King, who saves her, among other perils from a mad ruler who beleives himself (falsely) to be infected with leprsy, and attempts to infect her. Now, if can ever find the time to write a pastiche where Tarzan himself enters the Land of Hidden Men, and battles a maltese tiger.

Ajor

A Galu princess of Caspak. Tom Billings saves her from a giant panther, and worse human dangers.

La of Opar

La of Opar was High Priestess of the lost Atlantean colony of Opar in ERB's Tarzan series. The women of Opar were beautiful, while the men were degenerate and bestial, partially because of breeding with the local Mangani. La was cold, haughty and ruthless; she nearly sacrificed jane Porter in The Return of Tarzan. Terribly jealous repeatedly vied for Tarzan's affection, but was forever spurned; Greystoke was committed to one woman only, much to her chagrin. The Frazetta pic of the girl with the lioness may not be intended to depict La, and the lost city in the distance may not be Opar, but there is certainly a resemblance.

Nemone of Cathne

Nemone was the proud, cruel queen of Cathne, the city of gold, in the hidden valley of Onthar. She had a desire for Tarzan, but of course, she could never have him. The above risque depiction by Frazetta may not be Nemone, but then again, it might. The lion could very well be Belthar, Nemone's faithful pet. Lions were used as guard beasts and to drive chariots in Cathne as well.

Pan-at-lee

Pan-at-lee was a Waz-don girl of Pal-ul-don, whom Tarzan rescued from a Tor-o-don, and later, from a gryf. Here she is depicted by artist Joe Jusko hiding form her pursuers among gigantic prehistoric clubmosses.

Itzal Cha

Itzal Cha was a Mayan girl of the lost colony of Uxmal, whom Tarzan rescued from sacrifice in Tarzan and the Castaways.

Itzal Cha might have been a model for Chel (below), the female lead in The Road To Eldorado. She was one character who really did have a frazetta-esque build.

Filmation's Tarzan

2011-08-18T23:40:00.001-07:00

In the 1970s, children's televsion was generally cheesily produced by such studios and Hanna-Barbera and Filmation. As with entertainment of any generation, that of Generation-X was mostly mediocre, some bad, some good, some crushinly awful, and some truely outstanding. One of the best at the time, in my opinion, was Filmation's Tarzan series, officially called Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle.On a personal note, it was perhaps the third "biggest" shows from my childhood, right behind Jonny Quest and Land of the Lost. As with most series, the first season was arguably the best, but I didn't really start watching until about halfway through the season. After, Land of the Lost was still on, but by this time it was already into its'terribly cheesy third season. I was already familiar with Tarzan from DC comics at the time (Marvel would soon launch a short lived series following the DC Tarzan's cancellation). I knew of the lost lands of Pal-ul-don and Pellucidar from the reprint's Russ Mannings comic strips, which were often printed in the DC Tarzans. I was unaware at the time, however, that many of Filmation's Tarzan episodes were genuine adaptations of Burroughs' novels. To be sure, these stories were severely homogenized and shortened for young viewers. Violence was kept to a strict minimum, and the Ape Man did not carry a knife. Children's TV was still relatively new at the time, and many of the producers of the Saturday morning lineup were the targets of angry campeigns over televised violence, and other supposed dangers that threatened young viewers. These messages were less intended to influence the attitudes of kids themselves then to appease the demands of grownups with clean, wholesome entertainment. Filmation, for some reason, seemed to be the "preachiest" of these companies. Almost all their series, it seemed, had a "moral of the week" tacked on to the episodes. Some, like Batman and the eighties animated Ghostbusters, actually told you what the moral was at the end, just in case you didn't get it, even though though the morals were all about as subtle as a nuclear warhead. Looking back, I really don't think Saturday morning morals were a good thing. They painted an unrealistic view of life, and I was betrayed by actually beleiving such morals once. LOTL and JQ had no "moral of the day" for the kids, and were better shows for that (JQ first aired long before Peggy Charren and her concerned parents took over, thank the Lord.)
The thing is, Filmation's Tarzan's morals did indeed work with my own parents.Becuase of the moralistic content of the stories,they thought it was one of the best shows ever, and heartily approved of my watching. I myself actually liked this seemingly more noble and heroic version better than the Tarzan of the comics. For one thing, Filmation's Tarzan never killed animals,even in battle. He would always simply subdue the beast,and send it on its way by saying the word, "unk!"(that's right--the show used many of Burroughs own ape terms, and much of my knowledge of Mangani-English came from this show). I was a huge animal fanatic at the time, and I actually thought the Tarzan of the comics was a louse for killing panthers and lions in battle. I was even embarrassed to show the comics ( which were, of course, far truer to Burroughs than the TV show) to my parents, who, in turn, reacted with shock and dismay. After graduating to the books, I realized that in realistic fiction writing, it would severely strain credibility to have even Tarzan merely subdue powerful predators again and again, and come away with nary a scratch.
Another curious aspect of Filmation's Tarzan was the total lack of any Black Africans on any of the episodes. Most of the episodes featured the inhabitants of Burroughs' lost cities, none of whom, by the way, were true African natives (I'll leave alone for now the theory that Burroughs' Africa actaully exists in a separate reality were Blacks may not have been the continents first inhabitants), and occasionally white poachers and adventurers. I wondered about this at the time, but the reason was what is now known as "political correctness." Filmation was not adverse to featuring Black characters: witness the stars of Superstretch and Microwoman. It seems there were no Blacks on Tarzan because the producers feared it offend by making the ancestors of African Americans look like savages.Not to mention what with the higly moral tone of the stories, a white man setting them straight every week would probably be seen as unforgivable.
But in spite of all this, the basic plots of many of Burroughs original novels remained remarkably intact. And even in those that deviate largely from their sources remain largely the same in their basic content. There is an adaptation Tarzand & the Golden Lion, which features Tarzan's rescue and training of Jad-bal-ja, and the liberation of the devolved humans (not negroid in this version) form their slavery in the Valley of Diamonds. Another features tarzan's journey to the Valley of the Suplecre form Tarzan Lord of the Jungle, which ends in a jousting matching between Tarzan and Malord, a villain taken directly from the book. There is also an adaption of Tarzan and City of Gold, which includes Queen Nemone, her lion Belthar, Tomos the Cathnean Prime Minister, and Tarzan's battle with Phobeg. This scene is remarkbaly true to what ERB wrote, with Phobeg eventually returning the favor for sparing his life. Phobeg is much more of jerkish braggart in ERB original, though. The episode even includes the scene in which Nemone, having fallen for Tarzan, tells him, "Belthar does not like you!" The city of Cathne, BTW, was re-christianed "Zandor" on the TV show, perhaps to avoid confusion with the name of the rival city, Athne, which retained its original name. Filmation also included episodes on which Tarzan returned to both he Valley of Diamonds and to Cathne/Zandor. Strangely, he never visited Athne, even though he helped Athneans on each of these episodes (he did eventually visit Athne in the novels). Stranger still, Tarzan would return again to both locals during the 1979 season.

Above are production drawings of Queen Nemone (top), the Athnean girl Thea (middle), and Phobeg, Tomos, Belthar, and Nemone respectively (bottom)

There are also adaptations of Tarzan and the Forbidden City and Tarzan at the Earth's Core, though the latter bears very little resemblence, plotwise, to the original. No dirible transports the Jungle Lord through the polar opening, and there is no mention of David Innes. Instead, Tarzan helps a young Pelluicdaran whose Neanderthal tribe is at war with a race of pallid underground dwellers. The kid looks higher evolved like a Cro-Magnon, BTW. During their journey through cavern world, they encounter an eryops, a huge labrinthodont amphibian, which would be called a "sithic" in Pellucidar. Tarzan incorrectly refers to the beast as "an ancient ancestor of Gimla." Once they enter Pelluicdar itself, Tarzan and the lad are menaced by a tyrrannosaurus rex, which the boy refers to as a "Zabor." Actually, the true Pellucidaran term is "zarith." Tarzan is able to defeat the beast by ramming a tree in his mouth. Later, they encounter a pterandon (thipdar), which is called by the correct pellucidaran term. The huge pterosaur swoops down and captures Tarzan, nearing feeding him to her brood of squalling young. Yes, the flight to the thipdar's nest is the one scene on the episode lifted directly from the book. They also encounter a dimetrodon (grator) which Tarzan wrestles twice in the episode. There are also mammoths and huge panther that Tarzan summons to his aid during the battle between the cavemen and the pallids at the end. The episode ends with the two tribes seeing the error of their ways and becoming allies. In contrast, the Forbidden City episode reasonably follows the original, with Tarzan helpinmg a couple locate their missing son, held captive in the ciy of Ashair for seeking the fabled Father of Diamonds. One difference is that Tarzan's battle with a dwarf t-rex has been pruned. Also, there is a giant Octopus but no giant eel in Ashair's aquarium. The ending, in which the long sought-after Father of Diamonds turns out to be a mere lump of coal, is also intact, although the villain does not fall over dead from shock like in the book.
The first season also includes many original tales, most with Burroughs-type themes, such as the discovery of lost cities and races, including a displaced Viking colony, and city built entirely form elephant ivory. This last was not Athne, "city of ivory", and resembled none of Burroughs lost civilization. It was ruled by an evil monarch who has his soldiers slaughter the jungles elephants for their tusks. He captures Tarzan and tries to get the Ape Man to divulge the location of the Elephants' graveyard. Eventually, the mangani and Tarzan's other animal friends save him, ands the tyrant is overthrown. Also of note on this episode is that Tarzan gathers a huge congregation of animals on "the plain of the baobob trees," as a distraction for the king's soldiers. Also, the inhabitants of the city worship a giant wooly mammoth as a sort of god of elephants. The beasts is eventually set free by Tarzan. Where did the mammoth come form--Pellucidar? The great chasm seen in the earth would suggest it. The mammoth's name, Ben-Tor, BTW, means "great beast," in the language of the primitives of Pal-ul-don--hardly a coincidence, since the mammoth is also called"Great Beast" in English. Another episode has Tarzan encountering robot double of himself created by two diamond-smugglers intent on plundering the vaults of Opar. Strangely enough, this is the only episode involving Opar at all, and even here, La and beastmen are nowhere in sight. Wait, not quite, about there being no Opar at all in the other episodes. In the episode "Tarzan the Hated," the female archeologist refers to the Valley fo Diamonds as being "in the Opar region."
Another episode had Tarzan encountering an ancient Egyptian civilization. In the original novels, only Ashair, the Forbidden city, was possibly of Egyptian derivation, but the city on this episode is very obviously Egyptian in origin, complete with pyramids. The city is ruled by an evil queen who has the inhabitants convinced she was a powerful sorceress. Tarzan exposes her "magic" for the fakery it is. He also is pitted against a Nile crocodile. Of note in this episode is that the city's inhabitants hail tarzan as a savior becuase of towering statue of him with Nkima perched on his shoulder, which stands over the entrance to the city. The statue's origin remains a mystery to the end, in which Tarzan says, "Well he is a good-looking chap isn't he?" and then throws back his head and laughs. I've actually thought of a possible origin for that statue, depending on whether you consider Phillip Jose Farmer's Tarzan pastiches canon; one of Farmer's stories has Tarzan (who according to Farmer, is immortal) going back in time and having adventures from the end of the Plesticene to the modern era! This is why in Farmer's Hadon of Ancient Opar there are rumors of a bronzed god-man who rides an elephant. So was Tarzan there previously, in the ancient past? Did he become revered as an Egyptian deity? Of course, the Filmation cartoon series can hardly be considered canonical itself, but it makes you wonder. Nikima, by the way, IS very much in this series. He's the one character (other than Jad-bal-ja), who is also a regular in the Tarzan novels. That is, until the 1979 episodes, but I'll get to that later.
For the second season, Tarzan was paired with Filmation's Batman cartoon, under the title The Batman/Tarzan Advnture Hour. They did this sort of thing with kids' shows all through the seventies. I've read this was idea of Fred Silverman, one of the Bigwigs in charge of children's programing. He thought this approach would be more attractive to children, even though they were still obviously very separate shows--Tarzan and Batman certainly didn't team up, though there was a far more recent Dark Horse commic series where they did. Although the episodes were still good at this time, the overall quality seemed to be slipping. Fewer animals were shown, more invented cities, and less Burroughs-derived material was the general rule this time. I remember them showing one new episode, followed by one old one, the old ones being generally the better. The episodes also seemed to take on a more fantasitic quality. There was one where Tarzan befriended a beached whale who took him to a sunken colony of Atlantis, where whales and dolphins were enslaved by a cruel monarch with no sense of animal rights. The villan was overthrown, though he came to realize the error of his ways. There was an episode where Tarzan encounters a race of bird-people, winged men who lived in luxury, while they oppressed the "land people," a tribe of peasants. This episode was the first to feature "Argus", the giant eagle, a character from the Dell comics series! They did do an episode that seemed like a semi-adaptation of Tarzan and the Ant Men, which featured two warring races of miniturized humans. One of the tribes invents a huge robot called the colossus to defeat the other. The political conflict on this episode made it seem rather like "Tarzan in Lilliput," although like Burroughs' novel, it also had the Ape Man shrunk down to miniture size.
One of my favorite second season episodes was the one where Tarzan and Nikima venture into the mountains and encounter the Den-Lu-Mangani, a race dwafish prehumans. A band of Spanish conquistodors seeks the treasure of dimunitive ape-men, which is located high in an ice-cliff. Tarzan saves one of Den-Lu-Mangani first from the ruthless leader of the conquistodors, then from Tar-sheeta, "the great snow tiger," whom the Ape Man battles. The name "Tar-sheeta" technocally would mean "white leopard," in ape lingo but Tarsheeta is a huge, shaggy-furred white saber-tooth. The rest of the conquistodors abandon their leader once his pursuit of the treasure causes a cave-in that nearly kills them all. They are saved by trzan and Tar-sheeta, now an ally. Peace between the conquistodors and the Den-Lu-Mangani is attained by the end. It is never explained where the 15th-centry Spaniards have come from, but perhaps they hail from another displaced city, one form 15th century Spain, somewhere in the vastness of Tarzan's jungle.
This season also included a one-time venture to Pal-ul-don. The story was a take on Alexandre Dumas's The Man in the Iron Mask, with a Waz-don chief named Den-at imprisoned behind mask in a tower by his evil twin, Tan-at, who impersoantes him and takes over the tribe. He tells the other Wz-dons that the tower holds a deadly beast. Tarzan climbs the tower and learns of the ruse, and that the key to the mask has been desposited in the cave of a fierce dimetrodon. Tarzan allows Tan-at to capture him and put him to work in the mines. The jungle lord sneaks off to find the key. After wrestling the dimetrodon, he succeeds in recovering it. All is put right in the end, with Den-at opting to banish his evil sibling, rather than subject him to the mask, a true act of mercy. Oh, and Tarzan summons a gryf (a Pal-ul-donian triceratops) whose injured foot he had cared for earlier, to save the Waz-don tribe when the tower nearly collapses. Not that it matters greatly for the cartoon, but I doubt Burroughs' Waz-dons could work iron.
By the following season, Tarzan was whittled down to fifteen minutes in order to fit among various other Filmation series, in Tarzan and the Super Seven. Needless to say, this move didn't do the show any good. The season's new episodes were rushed, and had little to no authentic Burroughs in them (though they managed to retain relative quality), and the old episodes had many of their better scenes cut out. The moral messages this season were somehow more blatant, and very heavy-handedly politically correct. One episode carries a very environmentalist theme, with a "lost civilization" that has invented steam-powered saw machines, and is devestating Tarzan's jungle. A group of rebels have saved some of the trees in their own land, by pretending a certain forest is haunted. Eventually, the city's queen and her underlings learn the value of trees, and destroy no more forest. Another episode has Tarzan and a female aviator discover a valley where mythical creatures thrive. They recover a lost orbital satelite from the lair of a minotaur. This episode features a mischeivous satyr who learns the folly of his practical joking. Perhaps the best episode this season features Jad-bal-ja, and a lost colony of ancient Mayas. In the original novel, Tarzan and the Castaways, Tarzan also discovers a lost colony of Mayans, but it is on an island, NOT in Africa. Here, the Mayan city is ruled by a man-god who calls himself Kukulkan, and can assume the form of a winged serpent, which is also the likeness of the Mayan deity of the same name. It turns out that Kukulcan is actually an extraterrestrial who is keeping the cities' inhabitants as his own personal lab animals. Remarkably, this episode is strikingly similar to one of Filmation's Star Trek series, on which Kukulcan is also revealed as of extraterrestrial origin. He is, I beleive, portrayed as being more benevolent on the Star Trek series. There is also a similarity to an episode of The Young Sentinels, on which the Egyptian jackel-headed god Anubis is also an extraterrestrial. Filmation may have used the same writer for each of these stories.
In contrast to the fairly low quality and heavy moralizing of these episodes, the following season, 1979-80, proved to be a pleasant surprise. Tarzan returned to its half-hour format, this time paired with Filmation's new Lone Ranger cartoon. And contrary to the general rule that when a show jumps the shark, it's all downhill from there, this new season proved as good as the first, and in some ways even better. For one thing, contrary to an increasing trend to show less wildlife, far more animals were shown this season, including Horta the warthog, and Dango the hyena. There also seemed a conscious attempt on the part of the writers and animators to steer the series back in the direction of authentic Burroughs. Some of the characters and locations of the first series returned, and most episodes had a very Burroughsian flavor, whether directly inspired or not. On a more minor note, it was this season where they used a real elephant sound for the "voice" or Tantor. The kookaburra call, so common to many actual Tarzan movies, was heard in the background during this season. This gave the series a more authenic jungle flavor not felt until then, even though it's not technically accurate at all--kookaburras a native to Australia only.
Tarzan again revisited the Valley of Dianmonds and the city of Zandor/Cathne (although the latter epsiode was a virtual repeat of the earlier episode set in an ancient Egyptian civilization, only with Queen Nemone as the one practicing fake magic to deceive the populace). The one in the Valley of Diamonds featured a character known as "Fana the Huntress," a female warrior who is trapping animals in Tarzan's jungle. Fana's trusted pet is Pasha, a white tiger whom she captured in India. Though Fana seems to have a fondness for her feline companion, she sometimes curses him as a "stupid beast", and lashes him with a whip. Her goal is to capture Tarzan's friend Jad-bal-ja, the Golden Lion, and train Jad to hunt with her alongside Pasha. Naturally, Tarzan is very opposed to this, and warns Fana to leave his jungle. He and Jad take refuge on the veldt. Meanwhile Fana and Pasha are captured by the Bolgani and taken to the Valley of Diamonds. The Bolgoni intend to keep Fana as hostage in order to lure Tarzan. Pasha manages to escape, but refuses to free his mistress on account of his earlier harsh treatment by her. Tarzan later saves Pasha from as pack of hyenas. He, Pasha, and Jad are then able to rescue Fana from the Bolgoni. As a result of her captivity, Fana learns to respect the rights of non-human animals, and promises to return Pasha to his own country and free him there.
Another episode, "Tarzan and the Sifu," had the Ape-Man encountering a displaced Chinese civilization, something Burroughs never got around to inventing (but Burne Hogarth, in the newpaper strips, did). Tarzan befriends a young martial artist who intorduces himself as "nephew of the Sifu." Tarzan accompanies the lad to his city, Dhou Jing, where they learn that a traitor named Wu Han has imprisoned the Sifu and assumed the throne. Wu Han informs the Ape-Man that he intends to attack and conquer the other cities in this jungle (it would be interesting to see a Chinese army storming Cathne). It seems that Wu Han has gained possession the "Dragon Pearl", an orb he uses to summon a fire-brething dragon from its lair beneath the city. When Tarzan battles the beast in the arean, Wu Han calls Tarzan a mighty warrior and offers to make him a fellow conqueror. Tarzan declines the offer of course. The imprisoned Sifu gives Tarzan the "inner strength" for him to bend the bars of their cell. Tarzan, the boy, and his uncle escape, and Tarzan summons Tantor from the jungle to defeat the dragon. It ends well, of course, with Wu Han overtrown, and the Sifu reinstated.
The most remarkable development this season was, however, the inclusion of Jane on one episode. It is generally assumed that Jane was absent in this series. Well, almost. Jane does appear on this season in a semi-adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes. Jane and her father are abandoned by mutineers on the Congo river. Tarzan trails then, once saving them from a python and then a lion. Tarzan takes them to the cabin on the coast that was built by his parents. Not long afterward, the rogue ape Kerchak abducts Jane. Tarzan had defeated and banished Kercahk in an earlier scene, and the ape wants revenge, as well as a desire to take jane has his mate. That's right-- this scene is actually in the episode. Only here Tarzan only defeats Kerchak instead of killing him in battle, then rescues him from falling over a cliff. Naturally, Kerchak learns the error of his ways. This incident pays off later, when Jane and her father discover the ruins of the lost city of Kaluum, a realm never found in the pages of Burroughs. They are attacked by the city's fabled guardian, a gargantuan ceratosaurus-like monster. The city's inhabitants tell Tarzan that the beast came from below, and drove the city's populace undergound, the same place the beast came from. Does this indicate that the prehistoric-looking behemoth is, perhaps, Pellucidaran in origin? Anyway, Tarzan, with the help of the grateful Kerchak, is able to defeat the monster and drive him back whence he came. Interestingly, the creature looks EXACTLY the same as one of the dinosaur-like monsters of the planet Mongo that appeared on Filmation's Flash Gordon series, also running at the time. The story ends with Tarzan, having fallen in love with Jane, promising that he'll see her again.
All of this seemed a great improvement. The 1980 season, however, (if it can even be CALLED a new season), proved a major disapointment. Not only were no new Tarzan episodes produced, the old ones were whittled down once again to fit a fifteen-minute time-slot, along with similarly shortened episodes of The Lone Ranger, to make way for episodes of an animated Zorro. It is easy to blame this new Zorro cartoon for Tarzan's demise, although it was aruably as good as both the Tarzan and Lone Ranger series; it just didn't go over as well. Zorro was soon cancelled, and Tarzan and The Lone Ranger with it.
Around that time, I graduated to the actual Tarzan books, as well as to other Burroughs creations. AS sufficient as these cartoons were at the time in their depiction of lost cities and monstrous beasts, they still pale in comparison with the original stories that inspired them. I never had a need to return after encountering the real Tarzan. At least, not for a while. Years later, I was able to find some tapes of the Filmation series at a comci convention.More recently, I did manage to find all of them on DVD, though not an official release, of course. They are worth a look for anyone who can find these cartoons today. After all, despite their shortcomings, there was actaully more authentic Burroughs to them than many other adaptations, including the Ron Ely TV show, which was also running in sindication at the time, and the many movie adaptations.

The Revival of Andra

2010-08-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

Here is a story which got published in either the Mucker or Panthans of this year's Dum-Dum (which I was unfortunately unable to attend) Enjoy!

The great tandor lumbered over a park-like savanna swarming with life from all eras of earth’s prehistory. On his broad back, behind the great domed skull, there sat a man with flaming red-hair and a beautiful young woman, curvaceous and nearly naked, her arms entwined about him. The man was Clive Neville of the surface world, and his sweetheart was Jahlanna, princess of Nu-al. Behind them sat an elderly man, a scientist named Alistair Simmons. Behind him, there sat a young teenaged couple, their arms also locked about one another. Their names were Jarn and Jarla. To the right side of the mammoth, there strode a man who was not quite a man, and bore a coat of sleek, shiny fur of a reddish tint. He was also equipped with a long prehensile tail, and carried a large spear ending in an iron blade. His stride was longer and quicker than that of a human, and he was able to keep pace with the beast on the ground. His name was Jal-mar, a member of a race of marsupial tailed-men. The party was bound for the land of Nu-al, where Clive and his primeval sweetheart were to be wed.
At about half the length of their journey, they heard a volley of terrible roars erupt from the nearby jungle. Looking in that direction they saw what they feared the most. From the leafy shadows of the forest there starred the striped, devil-face of a sabertooth. Then another. And another. The great cats began pouring out of the jungle in droves. These were the gigantic tarags of Pellucidar, each one capable of taking down a full-grown sadok. Often, they gathered into mighty packs in order to bring down prey such as tandors. But never had the onlookers beheld a pack of this size and ferocity.
“Oh....Clive!” Jahlanna cried.
“Keep calm,” he told her, “And wait. Perhaps if we are still they will not attack.” He stroked the mammoth behind his ears in an attempt to calm him. But the great bull had already sensed the threat. He had stopped and was now readying himself for the attack.
The attack came, swiftly and surely. The leader of the great cats gave an incredible roar, ending in a tortured scream. The pack’s subordinate males fell in behind him. All of the gigantic, striped bodies surged forward, flanks of them fanning out to surround the great tusked brute. Clive readied his pistol, the one weapon he still carried from the surface world, now loaded with new bullets made in the advanced land of Sari. They braced themselves for the ensuing assault. The tigers charged. The dominant male reached them first, with a gigantic leap directly toward Clive and Jahlanna. The tarag, as Clive had noted several times since his arrival in the inner-earth, seemed possessed of an almost fiendish intelligence. The cats doubtless knew that riders had mastery over the great beasts they rode, and that taking them out first was the best strategy. Jahlanna screamed as Clive aimed his pistol squarely at the creature’s snarling face. There followed a quick crack of thunder, followed by the sharp scent of shotgun powder in the humid dawn-world air. The bullet cleanly penetrated the giant tiger’s skull between the eyes and into the brain. Killed in mid-leap, the great pack-leader fell back to crash onto the grassy sward. The other tigers continued their assault. The beta tiger now assumed the role of alfa, and the assault continued in spite of the death of their leader. The tandor’s flanks were already raked raw and bloody by the gigantic talons, and the pack could now hardly restrain itself. And still more cats were pouring forth from the forest. They were leaping and raking in snarling fury. Jal-mar of the Baraboo had now leapt astride the great tandor, and was now ingaged in fighting them off with his comrades. He was agile enough, his kind having evolved among the trees to position squarely upon the great back while battling savagely. Jal-mar had managed to spear three of the great tigers, through the thick, snowy fur beneath their throats; he had managed to kill each one, and pull free the spear without it becoming stuck. Clive managed to kill another with a well-placed bullet and wound three others. But the assault continued unabated.
“We’ve got to get off this beast!” said Alastair, over the crescendo of deafening roars. “It’s the tandor they want! We can’t just die along with him!”
“There!” yelled Clive, “An opening through the pack!” On the grassy, blood-splattered sward, three of the mighty tigers, mortally wounded by Clive’s bullets, thrashed and spat. Their fellow pack members avoided them, concentrating on their gigantic target. Clive and his band saw their chance, and took it; leaping to the grassy sward and racing for the nearest trees. Once they had abandoned their mighty mount, the tarags ignored them, concentrating on the far greater amount of meat. When they had nearly reached the edge of the forest, Clive looked back. The great bull was seizing his striped assailants with his gigantic trunk and flinging them mightily. But the might of the ravening pack of striped killers prevailed, and the tandor went down, submerged beneath the snarls and roars, and the sea of striped bodies.
“Now what?” Clive asked, once they had reached a safe distance.
“We go this way, “ Jahlanna told him, “Nu-al lies in this direction.”
They began walking in that direction, the princess leading the way. The boles of gigantic trees grew all about them. Huge dragonflies, and diminutive flying reptiles flitted past them in the gloom.
At length they came upon a sight which stunned them. Coming out into a clearing, they saw, incredibly, the remains of what appeared to be a mighty city. The walls, towers, and battlements encrusted with age, overgrown with mosses and lichens, rose gigantically out of the jungle. Jal-mar starred at the decaying ruins uncomprehendingly, as did Jarn and Jarla.
“What—what is it, Clive?” Jahlanna breathed, clinging on his shoulder.
“It looks like a city!” Clive said, realizing his beloved had never seen one before. “But that’s impossible here...”
“Maybe not, my boy,” Allastair said, “That architecture looks Greek. It’s conceivable that a colony of ancient Spartans or Trojans or some similar culture made it down here in ages past, and then died out, or were killed by the beasts or natives.
Cautiously, they entered the ancient city, gazing about in wonder at the towering roofs and Greek-styled colonnades. It seemed that the former inhabitants, whomever they had been were now long gone, and the place belong now only to the wild beasts. Birds and small pterosaurs nested among the deserted eves, and once a family of lemur-like tremarctus chattered aggressively at them from the shadow of a long-collapsed roof.
Then, suddenly, a vast bellowing sounded behind them. All of the party turned in the direction. Lumbering toward them across the plaza was a gigantic reptile the size of a school-bus. It had a vast, humped back, huge back-legs and stunted front ones. Twin rows of huge, cartilaginous plates ran over the great arcing back. The tail was arrayed with a series of gigantic spikes. The small head and beaked maw opened to emit a low hissing sound.
“A dyrodor!” Jahlanna exclaimed. “We must run!”
“But isn’t it supposed to be herbivorous?” Clive asked, noting the thing resembled a stegosaurus.
“Some are,” the girl replied, “They live in herds on the plains. But this dyrodor lives in the jungle and eats meat as well as plants.”
“Then let’s go!”
The entire party ran, several tons of ravenous stegosaur lumbering after them. They ran swiftly, but the creature’s titanic bulk was not easy to out distance.
“This way!” called Jal-mar. “There is an opening, here. The beast will be unable to fit through” There was great, rectangular entrance in the side of what looked like an ancient temple. The made for it, rushing into the opening at the last second. The great dyrodor hissed savagely in frustration at losing his kill through the entrance.
“Well, “ said Clive, “I guess we’re safe here—for now.”
At that moment human shapes materialized out of the gloom. The group drew a collective gasp at the sight of them. The appeared to be soldiers clad in what appeared to be ancient Greek or Roman garb. Each bore a guttering torch in his hand. The bore the helmets, robes and swords of a far-removed time and place.
The man who appeared to be the leader of the soldiers stepped forward to examine the party. He appeared perplexed by Clive’s red-hair, at the sight of an oldster like Simmons, and the member of non-human race like Jal-mar amongst them, as well as two youngsters. But when his eyes fell upon Jahlanna, they shone with disbelief, followed by something akin to worship. The others fell in to also observe her more closely. Jahlanna stood back with a gasp. Clive stepped in front her to shield his beloved from any possible threat, but two of the soldiers seized him. Other soldiers seized his other companions. They had not yet seized the girl, as all their eyes were engaged in looking upon her, starring in rapt wonderment. The princess must have had a more alluring face then any of them had ever before seen. But as they studied her nearly-nude body, even more gasps of astonishment rose to the lips of the astonished onlookers. The girl’s hips, they saw, were sensually disproportionate to the rest of her, their curves and roundures emphasized to the utmost extent.
“Juno...!” one of them breathed.
The soldiers bound each of their prisoners’ hands behind their back, and began to usher them into a tunnel beyond the entrance. All save for Jahlanna. Her they merely escorted on each side. The girl was unwilling to abandon her companions, but regarded the soldiers with a haughty contempt for them for forcing her to accompany them.
The tunnel begun sloping downward. In the guttering light of their captors’ torches, they could see that the walls were covered with ancient writing and pictographs.
“Can you make out any of it, Allastair?” Clive asked him.
“Not sure, my boy, but they look like a variety of ancient Greek. But I can’t make out some of it...”
They emerged into an open plaza. But this one was not outside, but beneath the surface. A high, vaulted ceiling arched overhead. Everything here was brilliantly lit with huge glass globes of phosphorescent gas-light. Before them stood an ornate throne of white marble and tiled with lapis-lazuli. Upon this throne sat a figure whose white robe was bordered in royal-purple. He was a stern-faced figure of royal bearing, obviously a king or a lord of some type. To his side stood other robed figures, obviously nobles or courtiers. He stared down imperiously upon the captives. Upon seeing Jahlanna, as the princess was ushered before him, the man’s face broke out in awe, though not in desire or lust, as had the faces of the other men. There was, however, a definite appreciation for the beauty of the girl’s face and form. One of the Roman-style soldiers, the captain, it seemed, stepped forward and gave what had to be an account of the prisoners’ capture. He made special emphasis on the capture of Jahlanna, and gestured several times in the princesses’ direction. In the exchange between monarch and captain, the name “Juno,” was mentioned several times.
“What is he saying?” Clive whispered to Allastair, “What’s he want with Jahlanna?”
“I can’t discern everything,” Allastair told him. “But I know that Juno is a Greek goddess who was rather renowned for her...um...hips. They seem to think that Jahlanna is Juno incarnated. Or the guard captain does, anyway. The king there isn’t so sure. I think he was suggesting that she should be tested, or something like that.”
“Tested?” Clive said fiercely, “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure. “I’ll see if I can talk to them.”
The aged professor muttered some words in Greek, which Clive was totally unable to understand. At a gesture from the robed monarch, the soldiers released their hold on Alastair, and allowed the old man to approach the throne. There followed a lengthy, if halting, exchange between the monarch and Alastair. When they had finished the monarch concluded with some obviously harsh words and a sharp gesture at the prisoners. The soldiers seized Alastair and the others, and ushered them away. All save Jahlanna, that is. She was escorted by two soldiers in the opposite direction.
“Jahlanna!” Clive cried out to her. He struggled against the soldiers holding him. Jahlanna cried out to him as well, but the two soldiers seized her, restraining her.
Clive and the others were taken to a large cell in the palace dungeon. Naked, white, rodent-like reptiles called slurrels skittered here and there screeching over bits of refuse. Once the party was captive behind the iron grill of the cell, Clive said to Allastair. “Maybe you could tell us what was said between you and the king? And what about Jahlanna! Does that madman want her for himself?”
“Okay. It was a bit difficult, but I think I understand what he wants. I told him I was a learned man of science, and knew some of his dialect. I was curious as to what his people are doing miles from the surface in a lost world at the center of the earth. He said that he is King Ravius, and that his people are descendents of the original Atlanteans.”
“Atlanteans! But that’s—“
“Merely legendary? It appears not, my boy. I’ve heard rumors of a lost colony of Atlantis still exists somewhere in equatorial Africa. Some fellow named Greystoke claims to have discovered it. At any rate, we’ve stumbled upon living proof. According to the man’s story, the last survivors of the original Atlantis found their way underground to an undersea catacomb formed millions of years ago by a pressure bubble in the earth’s crust. Their civilization continued long afterward, even into the modern era. Some groups of Atlantean colonies found their way to Pellucidar, but war with Pellucidar’s dominant species, the Mahar, who were far more advanced than they were, eventually caused them to retreat, and the tunnels to the inner earth were sealed off and forgotten. Yet they were also unable to return to the surface, because modern humans had poisoned the air and polluted the seas. But it seems King Ravius had a daughter, a rebellious young lass named Andra, who was always trying to stir up trouble with the other young people about tales of the surface world. Andra, you see, hated the ways of her elders, and longed to escape Atlantis and return to the surface world. She might have grown out of it though, if it hadn’t been for a very unfortunate incident. It seemed that some surface dweller, a youth of Andra’s age, found his way into New Atlantis, and Andra fell in love with him at first sight. The elders would have slain the outsider for the danger he represented, but he escaped—and Andra along with him. And—“ the old man’s voice trailed off.
“What--?” Clive pressed.
“Well, King Ravius sent his whole army after his daughter and the youth, but they escaped through one of the vents. In their protective helmets and aqua-gear the king’s soldiers scoured the entire surrounding ocean. Of the young man, there was not a trace. But... they did find Andra. Or what remained of her. Floating in the ocean, not far from the vent. “
“Did the youth, then—“
“No, she was poisoned by the air. The pollution of the modern world. The delicate lungs of the Atlanteans, isolated for so ,long, couldn’t take it. Her corpse was shiveled and gray, her smooth skin had taken on the texture of stone. Ravis, naturally filled with rage, searched far and wide of the youth, even though the girls’ death, likely wasn’t his intention at all, but they never found him. Anyway, they took Andra’s corpse back to Atlantis, where she was given the royal funeral services, and placed in the royal tombs. But Ravius, you see, could not recover from his daughter’s death. He became obsessed with finding a way to bring her back from the land of the dead. He poured over the ancient scrolls in the science section of the royal library, works dating from a time when Atlantean civilization was far more advanced. But the answer came to him in the scrolls that told of Pellucidar, and the strange race of scientific winged saurians that inhabited it. It seemed they had found a way to defy death, at least in cases like Andra’s who was positioned almost instantly. Her body had been well-preserved, so they uncovered the ancient seal to the earth’s core and brought her here to this ancient city. Her corpse is here, right in this city! But it seems the Mahars took an interest in the manner of Andra’s death, but for the wrong reasons. They took her from him, with only an indefinite promise of reviving her, and warned him not to interfere. The Mahars are the ones who control this city, but there are only two of them here now. They are in the north quarter, where they are examining Andra’s corpse...”
“That’s all very interesting, Alastair, “ Clive interrupted the old man’s story, “But what about Jahlanna? What does that madman want with her?”
“I really wouldn’t call Ravius mad, “ said Allastair, “Unless he’s half-mad from grief. But I’m afraid what he wants with the Princess is not good.”
Clive’s face grew dark with rage.
“The king was unconvinced that Jahlanna was truly a goddess, and demands that she undergo the trial of Dratha. She is to appease the hunger of the great god Dratha following the sleep period.”
“Then we’ve got to—“
“I know, but she’ll be okay for a while!”
“Hell with that! I’ll find a way to break out of here—now!” They probed the cell for any signs of weakness, but were unable to locate any. Then one of the guards tossed in what looked like two small capsules. They started to dissolve, and as they did so released a noxious type of fume that made Clive dizzy and his eyes sting fiercely. All at once his resolve collapsed, and he slumped to the floor. The others collapsed also. But the equivalent of an hour later, the boy, Jarn awakened. He had been less affected by whatever drug had knocked all them out because he’d had the quick sense to have held his breath from the start. Quickly, he shook Jarla awake. Groggily the girl opened her eyes.
“Jarn...? Where are we? What happened?”
“Remember? Those men with metal skins captured us! We’re still in the place Al-li-star calls At-lan-tus. “
“Oh, no! We’re still here! I dreamt I was safely back in O-lar. With you.”
“Did you hear what Al-li-star said? The king’s daughter is here in the city! But the Mahars won’t bring her back! But I think I can rescue her!”
“Don’t be silly, Jarn! Not even the Mahars can bring the dead back! You certainly can’t!”
“But I’m going to try.”
“Jarn, you silly boy!”
“Go back to sleep, Jarla. If the others wake up, tell them where I’ve gone.”
“You fool, Jarn, you’re just going to—“
“Shhhhhhh!” he shushed her. Jarla furiously put her head down, knowing full well her sweetheart was as stubborn as ever. Jarn crawled his way over to grating and threw himself into a feigned epileptic fit. The guard stationed outside took notice, then summoned another guard. “What is it?” the other man said.
“It’s the stripling,” the fist guard told him. “He’s having some kind of fit.”
“Bah! He’s not worth bothering with. Take him to Ru-kah. She’ll know what to do.”
They regarded the youth with a mixture of amusement and disgust. Then, seeing the others were safely knocked out, they opened the grating and carried the still thrashing caveboy out and out of the dungeon and to a room that looked like a medical facility. Jarn immediately went limp. Chortling and shaking their heads, the two guards left him there and walked off.
Jarn came immediately awake. He was in a huge laboratory-type room, of the sort used by Mahar scientists. On a rectangular table made out of something like aluminum in the direct center of the room lay the form of a young woman in Atlantean garb. At least, it might once have been a young woman. As Jarn approached her, he saw that her skin was gray, shriveled, and appeared to be composed of granite. Her hair, arrayed out behind her head, was a dead-white color. There were a number of colored buttons on a consol in front of the aluminum table. Jarn had seen the Mahars do things by pressing such as these. Maybe if he began pressing all of them, one of them could revive the Ravius’s daughter.
Stop, Apeling! The voice was like a wave of static coursing numbingly over his mind. Jarn whirled around as a shadow fell across him. The scientist known as Ru-kah had returned. She loomed over him in her grisly reptilian splendor. Jarn immediately averted his eyes from the Mahar’s frigid, consuming gaze, and ducked spryly under her wing. The Mahar gave a reptilian screech of fury, and whirled after the cave-lad. Jarn’s gaze fell instantly upon the nearby lab table, where lay a number of weird instruments. Jarn seized up a cloth and a bizarre scalpel-like implement. He then raced around the side of the Mahar, realizing that the reptile appeared sluggish due to the relatively low tempature in the room. Ru-kah and her fellow scientists had not reckoned on such an incident occurring, but this gave Jarn the advantage. The boy sprang upon the primeval monster’s arched back with the celerity of a zorag. With a boyishly triumphant yell, Jarn brought the cloth down over Ru-Kah’s deadly gaze and held the blade at the scaled folds of her throat.
“Tell me how to bring girl back, Mahar!” Jarn yelled, “Do it, or I’ll kill you!”
Never, young apeling! I do not take orders from a gilak! We are scientists, researchers! I must study the effects of the poisons of the outside world—something very valuable to us, and beyond your puny understandings! “If you don’t, I’ll find a way myself!” he pressed the blade in further.
Very well. It is the largest button. Allow me to do it.
“Not so fast, bird-lizard!” Jarn had secured the cloth over the creature’s eyes. He now bound it tightly beneath the Mahar’s beak. He noticed some chords lying in the corner of the lab. He leapt to ground and seized them up. But at that moment Ru-kah surged forward.
I can read your thoughts, apeling! Now you die!
The winged reptile surged in Jarn’s direction. But the Mahar, also, had made an oversight. She lunged toward the caveboy, fanged reptilianbeak snapping shut on empty air, as Jarn, with the quickness of youth, threw himself to one side in just the nick of time. Screaming in primordial rage, the sentient saurian bore down upon the boy again. But this time Jarn was ready with the blade. He ducked and drove the it up under the Mahar’s lower jaw, pushing it up until it penetrated the cold reptilian brain. Jarn sprang back out of the way, as Ru-Kah gave a weak cry, and then the Mahar scientist collapsed in a concealing pool of her own oily blood.
Jarn’s chest heaved as he surveyed the body of the slain reptilian. And it dawned on him—if he had failed to complete his passage into manhood up until this moment, then now, surely he had succeeded at last! At his feet one of the Great Lords of Pellucidar lay dead! Ha! Could his elders now regard him as a mere boy, and not a warrior? He could not wait for them to find out—assuming they would not regard this feat as one of his tall tales. Then he remembered: Andra!
Though he had little trust of the Mahar, he also had little choice. Jarn pressed the large red button, then flung himself back, bracing himself for what might occur. There was a momentary flash of light from what looked like an overhead UV lamp. Waves of red and green brilliance washed over the still, pathetic form of Andra of Atlantis.
And then...
Before the startled eyes of Jarn of Nu-al, her granite-like skin smoothed and tightened, took on once again the clean, rosey hue of youth. Her features became once again beautiful, ellicting a gasp of awe form Jarn’s lips, and her hair became once again rich and red with the luster of vibrant health.
Her lovely green eyes fluttered open. “What....where am I? Oh! Korak!”
“Korak?”
“Oh! You’re not Korak! You look rather like him. But I can see your features more clearly now...”
“My name is Jarn! I’ve just slain the Mahar and saved your life!”
“Jarn....you’re a handsome warrior, much like him. He slew the devil-monster that guarded my city. I escaped with him to the surface. But the air! It felt like a wind in my blood. I was certain then that I was dying. But now I’m here. Where are we?”
Jarn long regarded all the crazy talk of a surface world as so much thag manure. People like Clive and Allastair were a bit touched in the head, much as he liked them in other ways. Right? They had to be. But now he was beginning to believe it. Something had happened to Andra, after all. But she was fine now.
Andra sat up on the table. She gave a startled scream as she beheld the corpse of Ru-kah. “Oh, Jarn!” the girl exclaimed. “You are as fine and brave a warrior as he!” She threw her arms about the furiously blushing boy and kissed him full on the mouth.
* * *
Once the effects of the sleeping drug had worn off, the prisoners were led up a broad flight of stairs to a large arena in the center of the city. This was located above ground in an ancient arena which, unlike the rest of the surface city, had been renovated. Clive found himself momentarily blinded by the sudden glare of Pellucidar’s eternal noonday day. The roar of the crowd-filled ampitheatre deafened his ears. The bleachers rose all around them in steep marble tiers. Crowds of New Atlanteans had already filled them. The center of the arena was a vast pool. And in the center of this was a raised circle of marble upon which was driven a large wooden stake.
And tied to this stake was Clive’s primeval sweetheart, Jahlanna, princess of Nu-al.
Clive called her name. The guards prodded the captives into their place at the fore of the arena, seemingly so they cpould get the best view.
King Ravius, in his royal box overlooking the spectacle rose suddenly his feet, one hand raised to silence the crowd. “We are here to witness the fate of the girl whom many claim may be the goddess Juno. I have said otherwise. But if I am incorrect, we shall all fall our knees in supplication to her. In order to pass the test, she must first appease the will of the great god Dratha, the mighty one who dwells beneath. If Dratha spares her life, then a goddess she is. If not—well, we shall see!
As for the girl, she remained tied, her lovely face fixed, horrified at the dark waters before her. Then—in the murky waters of the wavering, deep green pool there gradually materialized form the depths a monstrous, night mare vision of lunacy, vast and gigantic. It was the form of a titanic kraken-like beast, its’vast, mighty tenacular arms spanning what must have been a hundred feet. The dimensions appeared so stupifying that Clive could at first scarcely credit his vision. The thing itself was an oily green in color, and as the lashing tentacles parted, Clive could see that their soft, pinkish undersides were covered with row upon row of suckers tipped with curved barbed spines. He could see that the creature bore a vast, rounded shell the size of a small house, gigantically coiled, a trait which identified the beast as a member of the nautilid family of prehistoric cephalopods.
This, then, was the great god Dratha of New Atlantis. The mighty, spined tentacles burst through the surface, eliciting a volley of gasps and cries from the onlookers. The monstrous appendages were slick and oily. They snaked toward the helpless princess, the barbed protrusions gleaming hideously in the glaring daylight. Jahlanna, lovely eyes wide with terror, screamed long and loud. Clive thrashed against his bonds, throwing himself against one of the guards in fury to save his mate. Then, with a sudden burst of pure, primeval rage, he tore loose from his bonds. Clive sent his right fist smashing into the other guard’s jaw. Then he tore loose the sword from the fallen man’s scabbard. Before anyone could further restrain him the surface man, he had leapt over the railing and had plunged into the turgid depths of Dratha’s pool.
A collective gasp rose from the massed onlookers. King Ravius himself was awe-struck, as he rose from his seat to have a better look. Clive, sword in belt, was now swimming in furious strokes down toward the mighty-squid-like monster. The great cephalopod turned his baleful gaze from the captive princess above, and his array of vast appendages on her mate. With sword now in hand, Clive hacked clean through one of the thick, rubbery tentacles. Purplish-black gore flooded the jade-colored waters. Filled with bestial fury Dratha seized the small human morsel in one terrible crushing grip. Clive felt himself being drawn inexorably into the center of the tentacles; he could now see the great chomping beak in the center. Clive’s vision was blurring, his lungs now throbbing for lack of oxygen, as the creature’s hideous spines worked their way into his flesh as the great coil constricted him. Gripping the Atlantean sword in his most steely hold he brought it slicing down into the rubbery flesh of the greenish black arm, slicing halfway through the arm. The man brought up the sword and brought it down again, finally severing Dratha’s grip.
A vast cloud of purplish ink erupted, engulfing the dazed Clive Neville, as the grip of the monster loosened, and the great octopoid vanish into the depths of the vast well. Clive thrashed for the surface, but the battle had left him nearly senseless his tortured lungs burning for air. Then he felt two strong pairs of arms grip him, bear him upward toward toward the beckoning light and air.
Clive had all but blacked out when he found himself coughing on the marble edge of Dratha’s pool. Hazy consciousness returned in bursts of light. Blinking dazedly in the sun, Clive saw the faces of Jal-mar and Jarla, who had pulled him out of the water. The guards were standing around, but this time, none of them moved to arrest him. Looking up at the gathered crowd, Clive saw that they were awed by his victory over the tenacled god. He had earned their respect.
“No!” came the voice of King Ravius. “The red-haired outlander—the surface dweller—has slain Dratha. He has great courage, I’ll give him that, but he and his companions must never leave this city alive!”
“Father! No! Stop!”
All eyes turned in the direction of the shrill young female voice. An even louder murmur of awe rose from the crowd. Entering the arena were a beautiful young girl with flaming red hair and a youth. The youth Clive and his companions recognized instantly as Jarn of Nu-al. The girl he did not recognize.
But a look of astonished recognition wrought the face of the king Ravius. And slowly that look turned to one of astonished joy beyond comprehension. “Andra....? No! No...it can’t be!”
“Yes....yes, father, it is I!” she ran forward and flung herself into her aged father’s embrace before the astonishment of the vast throng. They held each other, both weeping tears of joy. At last Ravius said, smiling through his tears, “Andra...it’s really you.”
“Yes, father. Oh! You’ve grown old! But your’e still as handsome as I remember.”
“And look at you! You’re still young! And more beautiful than ever. Andra...how?”
“It was this youth—Jarn—who saved me.”
“Andra...I’m sorry?
“For what, father?”
“For what I was about to do. Jarn, the boy...is a companion of the prisoners whom I had only now commanded to be slain—may the gods forgive me.”
“I forgive you, father—for everything.”
King Ravius commanded the prisoners to be released. Before they said farewell, Ravius told Clive, “For a while I hated all surface dwellers because a youth unknowingly caused my daughter’s death. I had a wife long ago, but she died young, and then Andra was taken from me. Perhaps I wanted you and your mate slain because I wanted no one, especially a surface man to love, I couldn’t I see the error of my ways. But now that I have her back, I see how wrong I was. Forgive me, and go in peace.”
Clive and his companions left the land of New Atlantis, and were once again bound for Nu-al.

Caspak

2010-08-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

Caspak is another Lost World setting created by ERB. Unlike Pal-ul-don and Pellucidar, there were no crossovers to any of the other Burroughs series. The Caspak series was a trilogy consisting of just three novels, The Land that Time Forgot, The People that Time Forgot, and Out of Time’s Abyss.

Caspak is a huge island or small continent located in the South seas somewhere between South America and Australia. Unlike Pal-ul-don, for example, lifeforms on Caspak have literally remained unchanged from their myriad eras. However, what makes Caspak unique, is that is actually a huge cross-section of earth’s prehistoric history, a living record of life on earth from the Cambrian up to the early Holocene(which marked the beginnings of human civilization.)

Beasts

Unlike Pellucidar, which is actually a huge melting pot of earth’s various ages where all types of ancient fauna and flora intermix, the fauna and flora of Caspak is organized into different zoogeographic zones, where fauna from the different respective ages are confined. Giant amphibians and insects such as the giant dragonfly Megamueria are confined to the southern extremity of the island. Reptiles and dinosaurs dominate slightly further north. The lagoon in this region is infested with huge aquatic saurians, “a veritable Mesozoic nightmare”, according to Bowen Tyler’s journal. Pterodactyls ply the misty skies, and dinosaurs such as the Jurassic diplodicus and allosaurus overrun the land. Further north, the mammals begin to dominate, beginning with the most primitive types, and upward through the late Pleistocene fauna, including aurochs, mastodons and giant sloths, preyed upon by cave bears, saber-tooth cats, and giant panthers. Primates are thick throughout the island, including “monkeys of all sizes and shades”, and a variety of apes and man-like creatures.

There are beasts from all ages on Caspak. Among the ones mentioned are the Plesiosaurus which ambushed the U-boat in first novel, the colorful allosaurus encountered shortly afterward, the giant herbivorous diplodocus, and the giant pterodactyls. Later in the novels are mentioned the hyenodons, the aurochs the mastodon, the sabertooth, and the cave bear. At the north end of the island, more contemporary fauna is found, including horses similar to the Asiatic Prewolski’s horse, which is tamed by the Galu, the highest type of human. The only beasts whose name in the native language is mentioned are the giant pterodactyls, which are known as jo-oos, and the ecca, the name for the dimunitive eohippus, or dawn-horse.

Races

There are a number of races on Caspak, virtually all of them types of human that actually existed during the earth’s past. The most primitive, the Alus, are found in the southernmost portion of the humans range, They stand erect, but are fur-covered, and otherwise very apelike, possibly corresponding to the Australopithecus Africanus ancestor of man. The Bo-lu, the next most primitive, may correspond roughly to Australopithecus Robustus, a slightly higher form. Both these employ blunt sticks or clubs as weapons. The next highest, the Sto-lu, are also known as the “hatchet people”, because they are able to make crude stone hatchets. They are still somewhat ape-like, but nearly hairless, proabally of the same species as Homo Erectus. The Band-lu, who have “better-shaped skulls”, according to Billings, are probably synonomous with the Neanderthal man, although Billings believes them to be a Cro-magnon type. Cro-Magnons, actually were indistinguishable from modern humans, other then being “cave people”. The next highest, the Kro-lu, are more advanced, and have forted villages, and domesticated stock, including goats, and domestic dogs. The highest type, the Galu reside at the northmost portion of the island. They are physically identical to the Kro-lu, but higher in technological development, showing the beginnings of true civilization. They have invented cloth-weaving, bows and arrows, and have domesticated and bred horses. But the most striking aspect of the Galu race is a unique element of their reproductive cycle. Galu women bathe in special ritualistic pools. During this time, they release clusters of eggs which drift on the current to Southern region of Caspak where they develop into the most primitive lifeforms, thus recycling the entire chain of life on this remarkable island.

One other race is native to the island, an entirely fictitious one invented by Burroughs. These are the Weiroos, a race of winged humans that consists entirely of males. They have dead-white skin, and goggling eyes, which lends them an eerie death-like appearance. They can see in darkness as well as a cat. It is uncertain entirely bizarre race came about. The Weiroos seem to regard themselves as the highest race on the island, but they seem to have originated, not from the Galu, but through some freakish off-branching in the Caspakan chain of human evolution. The Weiroo exist on an island in the center of a lake, in a city constructed entirely from human skulls. They prey on the women of Caspak’s human races. The young born to female captives of the Weiroo is always male, showing no characters of their female parent.

Pastiches

Caspak has been represented twice in the movie adaptations of Burroughs first Caspak novels during the seventies. Both adaptations are fairly good, compared with the many other adaptation of Burroughs work. The first move is a decent adaptation of Burroughs novel, following the story fairly closely. A variety of prehistoric reptiles are depicted by sophisticated (for their time) rod-puppets, and a few life-sized mockups. These include pterodactyls, plesiosaurs, mososaurs, allosaurus, tyrannosaurus, a pair of styracosaurus, and even a polacanthus (a pike-backed herbivorous dinosaur). The story ends with the island being seemingly destroyed, or at least damaged, by a volcanic holocaust (a staple of lost-world romance). As in Burroughs novel, Bowen Tyler and Lys La Rue remain stranded on the island in the windswept northmost portion, and cast their record into the sea. The next movie adaptation, The People That Time Forgot, follows an expedition seeking to locate the missing Bowen and Lys. The film is a fair effort, but not nearly as good as the first one. The prehistoric creatures featured in this film include a museum-quality, but very stiff-looking pterodactyl which attacks their plane, a less-convincing life-sized stegosaurus, a couple of very fake-looking ceratosaurs, and a better-looking gorgonops (a saber-toothed proto mammal), and scutosaurus(a species Triassic pariosaur), both of which seem to have been copied from the paintings of Zednek Burian. Though the Weiroo race comes into play near the end of Burroughs novel, the creation of a convincing race of winged people was beyond the technology of the time, and a race of humans similar somewhat to Burroughs Galu, with a faintly oriental samarai-ish culture, but with a city of skulls, similar to the Weiroo. Some Frazetta posters were used as part of the background scenes. These seemed to fit the atmosphere, but were jarring to anyone who recognized them. The third and final Caspak novel, whose action centered around the Weiroo race, was never filmed for obvious reasons.

Comic legend Russ Manning took Tarzan himself to Caspak in a series of two excellent graphic albums released during the seventies. These were called Tarzan in the Land that Time Forgot, and Tarzan and the Pool of Time respectively. The former was released in Great Britain, the latter in Swden. Dark Horse released both stories in single package in the US during the nineties. It was an excellent move, getting these stories out to where many fans had missed them (wish they’d done the same with Manning’s other European graphic novels while they were at it), but the coloring, like most of the Dark Horse reprints, was not nearly as good as in the originals. It was better than in the Dark Horse prints of the Dark Horse comics, though, where even Tarzan’s skin was darkened.

Lost Cities of Tarzan's Africa

2010-08-19T20:26:00.001-07:00

Opar

By far the most famous lost city in Tarzan’s Africa the City of Opar. Tarzan first discovered Opar in the second Tarzan novel, and returned in no less than three more times. Opar is an Atlantean colony located deep within what is now Zaire (the former Belgian Congo), nestled within the mountains that are the source of the Zambezi river. Unlike other cities in Tarzan’s Africa, Opar is not thriving. It is still inahbitated, but only by a small number of degenerates, and the city has fallen into ruin. Thousands of years ago, Opar was a bustling center of commerce. But after the continent of Atlantis sank, the colonists were cut off from the rest of the empire. This occurred durnng the rainy season, when tourists and tradesmen were away, and few besides politians and the priesthood remained. The Oparian religion has persisted throughout the ages, albeit in a degenerate form that demands blood-sacrifice. Over the thousands of years that Opar existed in isolation, the populace underwent a dramatic sexual dimpophism. Perhaps to avoid the hazards of inbreeding, the Oparians frequently mated with the Great Apes of the regions, and even aquired some of their culture and tongue. What remains of their original Atlantean dialect is confined to terms relating to their religion. The male Oparians are a devolved race of beast-men, very hairy, and stoop shouldered, and pornathus browed. The Oparian females however, remain very human, and are stunningly attractive. This may be because, it was the Oparian females who chose (or were chosen by ) the Great Apes, and the Apes perhaps chose the most attractive Oparian tarmanganis to mate with. La, the high priestess is the most beautiful of the Oparians, with the lustrous black hair, beautifully chiseled features, and queenly baring. Opar is also a very rich city, and contains a vast wealth in gold and diamonds, which is left over form its colonial days when the city was a center of trade, and the diamonds and ore were mined from the mountains. This makes Opar much sought after by treasure seekers. Opar has been featured many times in the comics. There was, surprisingly, only one episode of the Filmation TV series to feature Opar (Tarzan the Hated), and even more surprisingly, Opar was depicted as merely a ruined city, and there was no evidence of La or the Beast men. The only time that Opar ever appeared in a Tarzan motion was in the 1998 movie Tarzan and the Lost City, starring Casper Van Dein. While a bit better than some other motion picture adaptation, the inclusion of Opar did not make for a better film. The movie’s version of the lost city consisted of only a single pyramid, and was inhabited by a race of black sorcerers, even though Burroughs never including sorcery or mysticism in his novels at all. And, of course, there’s no sign of either La or the beast-people. One of the mysteries surrounding Opar is that Burroguhs did not delve deeper into the city’s Atlantean origins. Phillip Hose farmer wrote two Opar pastiches, Hadon of Ancient Opar, and Flight to Opar, which are set during this ancient period in Tarzan’s Africa. The Atlantern empire is at its height, and a great inland sea exists where the Congo basin does now. It is a very well-conceived depiction of Burroughsian Africa in its prime, complete with a now-vanished race of beast-men, though I did not find the story itself terribly readable. There is also a mysterious reference in these novels of a god-like personage who rides an elephant and travels with a monkey on his shoulder. This seems to be a reference to Tarzan himself, though this is impossible, unless Tarzan somehow got transported backwards in time.

Xuja

Xuja is a lost city in Africa that lies in an elevated desert in the remote mountains of Tanganyika. Unlike the surrounding wasteland, Xuja existed in fertile valley fed by mountain streams. Richly cultivated fields surround the city. The Xujans themselves have stiff, course, black hair, and yellowish skin, and prominent canine teeth. Their cast of features is somewhat oriental. They worship parrots as sacred animals, and one old parrot is venerated as a god Parrots feature prominently in their religious art, and to a lesser extent, lions. Lions are kept and bred by the Xujans as both guard animals, and for food. They have developed a very dark leonine strain that is nearly black in coloration. These “black lions” are used to guard the city against intruders. It is not known what civilization or race from which the Xujans are descended, though their dialect is somewhat Greek.

City of the Bolgoni

This is the civilization of the Bolgoni, the dominant race of the Valley of the Place of Diamonds. This valley lies adjacent to Opar lie in the mountains of Zaire. Two races inhabit this valley, a race of devolved gomangani humans, which are (unlike the beastmen of Opar) are meek, and used by their Blogani as slaves, and Bolgoni themselves, a race of sentient gorillas. Though they refer to themselves as “Bolgoni” the same great ape term for nrola gorillas, the Bolgoni of the Valley of the Place of Diamonds walk upright, and have human intelligence. They are able to built cities, weave cloth, and (especially) make jewelry, which they wear in abundance. The Bolgoni keep a lion in their palace who is their “king.” This strange race came about probably in much the manner of the Oparians, of mixing of Oparian blood with both Burroguhs’ fictional Great Apes, and gorillas. But instead of producing a race of degenerate humans, this mixing resulted in gorillas who have evolved sentience. They still retain the language of the Great Apes. They are enemies of the Oparians.

Nimmr and the City of the Sepulcher

Two rival cites that exist within the Valley of the Sepulcher hidden in the mountains of southern Abbysinnia. The inhabitants of both cities are the descendents of English crusaders. A fifty-foot limestone cross marks the passage to the valley. Nimmr is also called the “Leopard City” as they use leopards are hunters and guard animals. Jousting in the medieval knightly tradition is a common form of entertainment for both cities.

The Valley of the Ant Men

Another lost realm within Tarzan’s Africa is the valley of the Ant men. This strange hidden land is veiled in mist, and girded by a massive thorn barrio. The land is inhabited by two weird races: a strange, white-skinned race, the females of which are dominant, and muscular warriors, and whose males are physically weak and subordinate (called Alu); and the Minuni, also called “Ant Men”, who are normal humans of “shrunken” miniature proportions. At least some of the Alu have reverted to the more normal relation between the sexes by the end of the novel, thanks to Tarzan’s influence. The Minunians are a fierce, belligerent race, and use the diminutive Royal antelope as war-mounts. This small African species is little larger than a hare, but to the Minuinians is the size of an eland. They are technologically advanced beyond that of the outside world, in at least some aspects. Minunian scientists have discovered a way to shrink “normal” sized men and animals down to their size by applying magnetic waves to the nervous system. The ant-men inhabit, vast hive-like cities that have the appearance of termite mounds. This is not a “lost city” proper, but it nonetheless one of Burroughs most interesting hidden realms. The origins and evolution of these strange peoples are a complete mystery. Joiper, a warrior of the Ant Men, is a friend and often a companion of Tarzan’s in the Manning strips.

Castrum Mare & Castrum Saguinarius

These are ancient outposts of the Roman empire, founded in a remote valley deep within the Wriramwazi mountains of Africa. Though the cities are rivals they trade for fish, snails and paper, for gold and slaves. The inhabitants of the valley trade once a year with local tribes outside the valley, who river them as spirit-beings. The ancient Roman sport of gladiatorial common is still common in these twin cities, both against men and captured beasts, such as lions and elephants.

Cathne and Athne

Cathne and Athne are twin rival cities in the lost valleys of Thenar and Onthar in the Ethiopian highlands. The two cities are eternally at war with one another, but once a year the Cathneans trade hay, fruits, and vegetables with the Athneans for steel and cloth. Lions are sacred to the Cathneans, as elephants are to the nobles Athne, and roam the city’s streets as freely as house pets. There are about 500 adult male lions in Cathne, a city built almost entirely of gold, 300 of which belong to Queen Nemone. Nemone’s personal pet and guard lion, at the time of tarzan’s arrival, was named Belthar. The Cathneans also drive lion-driven chariots, and use the beasts as war animals. The ruling class of nobility are called “Lion Men”. A particular lion is even worshiped as a god in Cathne, but though he once may have been a regal beast, at the time of Tarzan’s arrival, he was old and toothless. The Catheans also use their lions to hunt elephants, and to run down escaped slaves. They are rather cruel people, relish blood sports, and taking the heads of their enemies, the Atheneans in battle. Tarzan visited only cathnean in the novel Tarzan and the City of Gold , though he encountered both cities in Tarzan the Magnificent. It is unknown from what race these peoples are descended, though their ancestors were possibly Greek. In this last novel, outsider Stanley Wood, opins that they may by a remnant of lost Atlantis, similar to the Oparians. The city of Cathne features greatly in the Filamtion tarzan TV series (though it is wrongly called “Zandor” , perhaps to avoid confusion with the name it its rival), and three episodes are set there. The City of Athne, though mentioned repeatly on these episodes, is never shown.

Kaji and Zuli

Another pair of rival cities of a white race of Amazon women. Once they had been balck, but selective breeding with white male captives over centuries had changed them. They are ruled by two wizards who wield the powers of two giant hypnotic crystals, a diamond for Kaji, and an emerald . for Zuli. These cities are in the Ethiopian highlands not fat from the twin valleys of Onthar and Thenar

Midian

A hidden valley secluded by mountains, and inhabited by two sects of a degenerate fanatical religion, descended from an early form of Christianity. The South Midians are corrupted by centuries of inbreeding, and demented fanaticism. They are uniformily dark-haired and epileptic. They believe that St. paul (the prophet) was a god, and practice human sacrifice of sinners. The North Midians, are blond, less inbred, of cleaner appearance, though no less fanatical. Neither of these people are not truely “civilized” though they do represent a “lost race”, as do the Kavuru, described below.

Kavuru

The Kavuru are a legendary tribe of mysterious white men within the depths of the Congo. They are a race of immortal celibit priests, consisting entirely of young men. Sometime in the past, the Kavuru invented a potion wich gave whoever consumed it immortality. There are many ingredients in this potions, chief amonst them being the glands of young girls. Kavura are feared by the local tribes because of their habit of luring yoiung women awy from the villages by blowing hypnotic whistles. Their village was guarded by trained leopards, who also served as source of leopard spinal fluid, another ingrediant. The Kavuru are not civilized, and dress in the savage manner of the native black tribes. Their origin is unknown.

Ashair and Thobos

These are yet two more rival cities, this time hidden deep within the mountains of Rhodesia. They are located at opposite ends of Lake Horus, named for the Egyptian Hawk-God. The inhabitants are descendants of the ancient Egyptians, making these cities the only ones in Tarzan’s Africa that are native (though non-negroid) in origin. The “Forbidden City”, of the novel of that title is Ashair. Intruders who see it, are taken captive for life. The Ashiarians worship a legendary stone, and man they rever as a god, both of whom are called “the Father of Diamonds”. The stone sank to the bottom of Lake Horus during the war between the cities. Both peoples have tried to recover it. However, two caskets were discovered in Tarzan and the Forbidden City ,one of which was revealed to contain nothing more than a lump of coal. Certain prehistoric creatures seem to have survived in this isolated mountain valley, including a dwarf species of T-rex, about the size of a Cape buffalo. The lake itself is inhabited by an array gargantuan sea life, including giant seahorses, and a monstrous eel, which Tarzan battles to the death. It is not known of these creatures are prehistoric in origin, or if some property of the lake (or perhaps breeding by the Asharians) has increased their size.

Alemtejo

A lost Portuguese colony located high in the Abyssinian highlands, butyl tat the top of a plateau in the early 1500s by Cristoforo Da Gama, who named the city for his homeland. By the twentieth century the Alemtjans were a mixed race of white Portuguese and Bantu blood. They retained icons of both their native relions, including many Christian symbols, as well as tribal gods and blood sacrifice. The city was girded by a deep gorge, inhabited by man-eating lions to guard against intruders.

Chichen Itza

A lost Maya colony somewhere in the south Pacific. It is located on the island of Uxmal (not the original Uxmal), and named after an original Mayan city. This lost city is not located in Africa, but Tarzan was taken to the island after being captured by enemies and their ship crashed. There, he rescued the Mayan girl Itzal Cha from human sacrifice, which is still part of this people’s culture.

Ur

Ur was the last city invented by Burroughs himself, for a novel he never completed. Besides the name, which was penned by ERB, nothing else of this mysterious lost city is known. This novel was finally completed in the 1990s by Joe R, Landsdale, an author better known for his Western/Horror novels, under the title Tarzan: the Lost Adventure, and published by Dark Horse comics. It was given the pulpish treatment it deserved, published in serial format in four separate parts, with noted illustrators like Tom Yeates, and Micheal Kaluta. Landsdale’s version of Ur is a most interesting one that Burroguhs himself strangely never got around to writing; a civilization of highly cultured Black Africans, perhaps similar to ancient Kush. According to Landsdale, all of Africa had once been under domination by the Urites, but gradually their empire collapsed, its inhabitants became isolated, and though their culture is still advanced, it has also degenerated, and its inhabitants relish human sacrifice to a god-being called Ebopa, who originally came up from “the world below”. In reality, Ebopa is a giant species of Pellucidaran mantis, which somehow made it up from the Earth’s Core. The details of Urite culture are very Burroguhs-like, to the extent of other of Burroguhs’ lost cities. These civilized Blacks ride in zebra –driven chariots. Their city is girded by a moat infested with “sacred” albino crocodiles. The throne room of the royal palace of Ur is guarded by a pair of black lions (jet-black, unlike the nearly black lions of Xuja). The question, however, is that is this city-and the rest of the novel-the way Burroguhs would have envisioned it? The answer is probably not. First, Burroughs’ own lost cities, were, with the exception of Ashair and Thebos, whose inhabitants descend from colonies of ancient Egypt, non-African in origin. While it is hardly certain, it is likely this trend would continue had Burroughs continued to write. Second, the name “Ur” does not sound native in origin, and certainly not Negroid. The civilization would almost certainly have been near-eastern origin, had ERB lived to complete it. The ancient Babylonian colony, simply called “New Babylon” featured in the Russ Manning-illustrated story “Tarzan and the Glorious”, first published in issue #26 of Comics Feature, gives a better example of what Burroughs own version of this lost city might have been like (the story, by the way, features an ancient prophecy written over 3,000 years ago, of a woman of legendary beauty who will someday rule all of Africa. Warriors from all over Tarzan’s Africa make a pilgrimage to New Babylon, not only of the Arabs and numerous Black tribes, but of the various Lost Cities as well. Even a warrior of lost Pal-ul-don, and Joiper of the Ant-Men are there. They compete for this prize by crossing wood beams set over a pit of ravenous lions. The first warrior to reach the girl wins). There are other aspects of Lansdale’s story that don’t seem like the way ERB would have done it, even though the story is very much in Burroguhsian vein. It is a bit bloodier, for one thing (remember, Landsdale is better known as a horror writer). For another, the present inhabitants of Ur seem to be entirely evil, at least the ones the main characters encounter; Burroughs would have at least some I habitants of any lost city turn out be good. For another, he includes a cliché that is common among “lost race” stories, particularly in film versions, and has Ur destroyed in the end. Burroughs kept his lost cities around, and even had Tarzan return to some of them for further adventures. Finally, though Lansdale steers away form Political Correctness (which, unfortunately, has become the bane of many recent Tarzan comics stories), the conclusion of the novel seems oddly downbeat, and modern, uncharacteristic of Burroughs, with Tarzan reflecting that his Africa is slowly being destroyed by modern civilization, and hoping to find refuge by following Ebopa’s tunnel to Pellucidar. As the Tarzan pastiche, Landsdale’s novel is a good one; the only trouble was that it was advertised as being authentic Burroughs, which in fact it is not.

Others….

Many other lost civilizations have been discovered by Tarzan in the numerous pastiches and comics over the years. Burne took the Ape-man to a lost colony of Vikings, and later to two rival colonies of ancient Hindu or near eastern origin, one of whom had learned to train mastodons (who roamed their remote island) as war-mounts. The Hal Foster comics strips took the Ape-Man to a lost colony of ancient Egypt, still ruled by a Pharoe, and to another “City of Gold”, which was built by a descendents of a civilization of ancient minor who were unrelated to the inhabitants of Opar or Cathne. Burne Hogarth took Tarzan to other numerous lost realms, including a colony of ancient Vikings, a forgotten Tartar civilization, who had learned to train the wild mastodons still found on their native isle as war-mounts, and lost Chinese colony, guarded by a ravine filled with voracious lions. Lost remnants of ancient Egypt featured again in the DC comics series drawn by Joe Kubert, the Filmation TV series of the seventies, and the Russ Manning strips., in his story “The Stone Pharoah”. It was Manning, incidentally, who established that the numerous “lost valleys” found throughout Tarzan’s Africa (at least some of them) actually resided within “pocket dimensions”, which explained how they could remain undiscovered into the modern era. This was most emphasized in the case of lost Pal-ul-don, perhaps because a hidden land filled with prehistoric men and animals surviving into the modern era seemed even more farcical. Phillip Jose Farmer, in his recent Tarzan pastiche, The Dark Heart of Time, takes the Ape-Man on a “missing adventure,” that is believed to have occurred sometime after Tarzan the Untamed, and before Tarzan the Terrible, and actually ties up a notorious “loose end” of the former novel. This loose end involves a an ancient skeleton bearing conquistador-like armor which Tarzan finds in the Xujan dessert, along with a curious metal cylinder containing an enigmatic parchment. What follows is an adventure much in the Burroughs tradition, filled with the usual perils and escapes, and encounters with lost races, such as bizarre race of “tree pygmies”, and a lost city, called the ”City Built by God”. Unlike Farmer’s Opar books, I found this novel to be very readable, much like Burroughs originals, although certain aspects such as the alien “Ghost Frog” worshipped by the city’s inhabitants seemed more science fictional, than one would expect in a Tarzan book.

Tarzan of the Comics

2010-08-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

Has interest in Tarzan diminished over the last three decades? If one looks at the duration of the various Tarzan series produced in comic book form, it certainly seems to have done so. After all Tarzan had his origin in the Pulps a form of literature which is now passed into extinction. The same is true for plethora of other pulp heroes and “lost race” stories that were directly modeled after ERB in the 1930s and 40s. The same now seems to be true of Robert E. Howard’s Conan, and the entire “Sword and Sorcery” genre that sprang form the original Conan stories. All these heroes were of course, staples of the pulps, and once the pulps were gone, jungle and barbarian heroes, were quite likely already beginning to diminish. For someone who never truly knew the pulp heroes in their original medium, it seems a bit strange to declare them “unsuited” to the medium of comics, which they were soon forced to adapt. After all, the “Sword and Sorcery” boom of the late sixties and early seventies, not only saw the original Conan tales published in novel form, as well as their many imitations, but the birth of most of the barbarian comics, most notably Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, which was to last for well over one hundred issues over three decades. There were many imitations as well, most of them short lived. Two of the Warlord and Ka-Zar, borrowed from both the ERB and Howardian gnres, but managed to use fresh approaches, and in-depth characters which managed to breath new life into both. Ka-Zar, in particular, was a direct copy of Burroughs jungle man, and Warlord took place with in a hollow, prehistoric land within the world’s center. But without going into further detail on these separate pulpish creations, suffice saying that all of them-Ka-Zar, Warlord, Kull, Red Sonja Skull, Stalker, Claw, Tar, Tragg, Turok, Jungle Twins, Brothers of the Spear, Tor, Conan and even Tarzan and Korak—none of them exist now. Some heroes, such as Toka and Jongor of Lost Land, never made it beyond the demise of the pulps themselves. While the graphic medium of the comics seemed an ideal home to these fantastic adventures-I will never forget the gorgeous art by the likes of Mike Grell, Brent Anderson, and John Buscema-it was super-heroes who had their roots in this medium, which perhaps the plush heroes could never entirely adapt. Comics remains the domain of the super-hero up until this very day, but the jungle and barbarian heroes have passed into oblivion.

The first Tarzan comics series was produced by Dell comics in the fifties and sixties. It was a very successful run, lasting for well over one hundred issues. In addition to original adventures, the early Dell issues also featured sections on the Ape-English lexicon, educational bits on African animals and cultures, and information on Tarzan’s jungle realm, such species of ancestral elephant which inhabited lost Pal-ul-don. Most of the artwork tended to be substandard, and while most of the material was derived from Burroguhs, they didn’t follow ERBs stories particularly well. The Lost cities of Athne and Cathne were incorporated into Pal-ul-don, for example. The gryfs of Pal-ul-don were usually a drab green or gray, and “Pal-ul-donian” species such as pteranodons and Phororhcas were given the Pelluciadaran terms “thipdar” and “dyal”. The stories were much in the Burroughs tradition, however, in spite of the many embellishments. And the series also featured adaptations of the original Tarzan novels, which they followed very closely. Many of these adaptations, such as Tarzan and Ant Men , Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, and “Incredible Pal-ul-don” (Tarzan the Terrible were adapted by comics legend Russ Manning. Some of these were reprinted in the nineties by Dark Horse, but they pretty much spoiled them by their bad coloration.

After the series had been cancelled, DC took up Tarzan, Korak, and other Burroughs heroes for a fairly successful run. DC’s approach was different than Dell’s, but no less true to Burroughs. Comics legend Joe Kubert, who had patterned his own hero Tor on Tarzan scripted and drew the first several issues. Kubert’s writing was distinctive, and in his Tales Tarzan is often an educated jungle loner, one of the few who truly understands honor and selflessness, in a world in which the lost races and tribes he encounters are governed basically by instinct, and man’s basic “animal” nature. This is very much in the vein of Kubert’s earlier hero Tor. Korak, Jane, are entirely absent from these stories, in which Tarzan’s only occasional allies are the Great Apes. In one of these tales, Tarzan liberates, a strange white-skinned race from a cruel Black Queen. He wrestles her champion, then fights a jet-black lion, which eventually becomes Tarzan’s companion. It turns out that the Queen is not truly evil, though part of her, up to the end of the story, had been morally blind. Her own tribe had been enslaved by Europeans, and she sought a misguided vengeance on people who merely looked the same. The following issue is the story of a ruthless white poacher who seeks to find trophies of “only the rarest African species”. He kills a caracal, and a white elephant calf, and then becomes obsessed with taking the head of the black lion. Since he is in Tarzan’s Africa, this of course, earns him the wrath of Tarzan. The Ape Man is eventually able to kill this intruder, but not before the black lion has been destroyed. However, a new lion cub is born to the black lion’s mate, which carries the trait of melanism from its paternal parent. In another story, Tarzan encounters a tribe of African pygmies living deep within a secluded region of jungle.

The region has preserved certain prehistoric species (though this is neither Pal-ul-don nor Pellucidar, but a separate lost realm). These include a saber-tooth cat, which Tarzan battles and slays in the opening sequence, and a strange carnivorous reptile, which isn’t quite like any known dinosaur species. Tarzan rescues two girls of the tribe who were intended as a sacrifice to this beast. Later, he is able to kill the beast in front of the tribe’s chief, who believes Tarzan’s rescue of the sacrificial victims has imperiled his people. Tarzan tells them that their own cowardice kept them from destroying the beast long ago. In addition to these original stories. Kubert also adapted some of ERBs actual novels, some of which hadn’t been done before, such as Tarzan and the Lion Man. Strangely, Kubert made some alterations in certain of the Tarzan stores. In his adaptation of “the Nightmare” (one of ERB’s “Jungle Tales of Tarzan”), he makes the dream-lion made of stone, and the Bolgoni Tarzan fights to the death at the climax is an albino!

This actually makes a bit more sense than the way Burroughs wrote it, as it is easier to see why Tarzan would mistake the gorilla for a figment of his imagination. Kubert left the series sometime after that, but the alterations of some of the novels would continue, even with a different set of writers and artists. The lost city Tarzan encounters in their adaptation of Tarzan the Untamed, looks nothing like that of the mad Xujans, and the inhabitants appear to be of either Greek or Roman descent. The people also worship a monster called a “glyph”, to which captive outsiders are fed. It resembles a mutant carnivorous glyptodont (a huge armadillo-like mammal). Tarzan battles and slays the beast, and rescues Jane, whom he had not found yet in the original. This ending may have come about because the writers had originally intended to adapt the next novel, Tarzan the Terrible, but by this time cancellation was pending, and they decided to wrap things up.

DC also produced a number of expanded issues of Tarzan around the middle of the series run. These issues featured not only a lead Kubert Tarzan story, but abbreviated Tarzan stories taken from the current Manning newspaper strips, a Korak story, and a few non-Burroughs features such as Detective Chimp, and Congo Bill. Later, they produced some “Giant” Tarzan Family issues. “Tarzan Family” was advertised as being “the” Burroughs book, and in this they meant exactly what they said. Only Burroughs characters were featured this time, including a lead Tarzan feature, a Korak feature, more Manning Tarzan features, and even some old Hal Foster Tarzan reprints, along with tales of John Carter and Carson of Venus. The series was soon cancelled however. Korak, by the way, was given his own series by DC, just as he was by Dell in the sixties. In most of the Korak DC books, the Son of Tarzan wanders the uncharted regions of the world like a lost spirit, in search of a girl he loves named Merium. This being Burroughs universe, he comes across all manner of weird monsters and forgotten races, in these lost regions. Often these Korak stories have a haunting, tragic quality about them, though there are a number located in the more familiar terrain of Tarzan’s Africa, with a couple of them even set in Pal-ul-don. DC also published a short-lived companion comics to the Tarzan series, titled Weird Worlds. These featured adaptations of the original David Innes and John Carter novels.

While DC’ Tarzan series enjoyed a fairly respectable run, it as cancelled before the end of the seventies, and shortly afterward Marvel picked up the Ape-Man, and run a series which lasted until 1979, along with another John Carter book entitled John Carter: Warlord of Mars. Marvel’s Tarzan had a less successful run than either of its predecessors, largely because of the numerous errors that were picked up by Burroughs enthusiasts. The first run of issues were a straightforward adaptation of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, interspersed with issues adapting stories from Jungle Tales of Tarzan. Then they went on to a Tarzan original story set mostly in Pellucidar, called “Blood Money and Human Bondage”.

All these tales were drawn by John Buscema, whose work on Marvel’s Conan was legendary, and who actually did a very good job depicting the Ape-Man. The main faults in the book lay in the script. The “Blood Money and Human Bondage” story was divided into chapters within each issue, which gave the tale a very pulpish, Burroughsian flavor. The story had plenty of action, captures and escapes, including two (Once where Tarzan dives off a Pellucidararn cliff the height of a skyscraper, and another where he breaks the jaw of a tylosaurus) that were a bit over the top. However, the story’s chief villain was Abdul Alhazrad, “The Mad Arab”, who is actually a character originally created not by Burroughs but by H. P. Lovecraft. Alhazard has acquired near- superhuman strength, and strange powers from a gigantic “living” crystal that is kept by the Mahars of Pellucidar. Alhazrad, and his flunkies, a gang of ruthless tarmangani, invade Tarzan’s jungle, kill one of Tarzan’s ape friend, and alter journey into Pellucidar through a “time portal” which seems out of place. Tarzan follows them across the inner earth in vengeance, and the story climaxes with a fight to the death between Tarzan and Alhazrad in the Mahar coliseum. One subplot involves a girl named Ashia, a princess of an African tribe, and her friendship with Danger, a young warrior of Pellucidar. These crash on the Moon of Pellucidar, where they are captured by the last survivors of the Mahar race. Here is where most Burroughs fans began to have problems with the series. Almost every aspect of the Mahars is wrong, as they are depicted as male, speaking without telepathy, and inventing a sound weapon when they are supposed to be deaf! They also bear only a faint resembles to the Mahars of Burroguhs novel. Another curious fact is that one reader remarked on the inclusion of Dangar, a warrior of Sari, who was introduced in Back to the Stone Age, when the writer were apparently unaware that a warrior named Dangar existed in the original series! After the Pellucidar adventure wrapped up, there began a new original Tarzan story, in which Tarzan returns home, only to have himself and his mate, along with Jad-bal-ja, captured by a ruthless showman, who takes them to New York for exploitation. Tarzan is drugged so that he can speak only in the guttural tongue of the Great Apes, which only sound like gibberish to the patrons, and is therefore billed as a “wild man” in Roger Tory’s “Safari Club”. Tarzan and Jad-bal-ja are forced to battle a gigantic albino gorilla in a simulated “Jungle”, behind thick glass for the amusement of the club members. The bolgoni has also been drugged, in order to make it savage. They are able to defeat the bolgoni and escape, however, when a New York gang,(to whom Tory owes money, intervenes. Tarzan and Jane scale the Empire State building, King Kong style, to escape their pursuers, and Korak rescues them in a biplane. The series lasted only one issue further, and this saw Tarzan and family safely returned to his native Africa. This final Tarzan adventure in the Marvel series had more in common with Mighty Joe Young and King Kong then with Burroughs. One problem I had with the story was that although hypocritical nature of the ruthless kidnappers, who are forever deriding Tarzan and his mate as savages, the animals throughout the series (with the exception of Jad-bal-ja), are simply portrayed as non-thinking killing machines. I was hoping that the drugs would wear off the bolgoni, so that perhaps Tarzan could reason with him, and both of them could get even with Tory. As it was, even though the gorilla is itself a victim of mankind’s cruelty, it is simply a “monster” that must be killed.

With the exception of a two- issue semi-tie-in with the Greystoke movie in the eighties, published by marvel, nothing more was seen of Tarzan in the comics after that for a long time. Then, sometime in the mid-nineties, Malibu launched their now-infamous Tarzan the Warrior series. To be fair, I cannot really comment on the script for this series, since I avoided buying it due to the very poor artwork. However, many ERB fans have complained that the story was non-jungle, and very non Burroguhsian. Malibu then continued with Tarzan the Beckoning, which was written and excellently rendered by Thomas Yeates. In spite of its Politically Correct content, this book was a vast improvement over what had followed. Set very much in Tarzan’s Africa, Yeates’ story featured flashbacks to Tarzan’s boyhood, African mysticism, and the discovery of a lost world, and thriving civilization which appears to reside within a “pocket dimension.” Strange beasts dwell here in, seemingly related to those in Pellucidar, including a strange flying reptile, which may in fact be a trodon, that nearly flies off with Jane, and a horde of giant lizard-like reptiles which set upon and devour the trodon once the flying creature becomes trapped in the forest canopy. Tarzan identifies the lizard as the same species as the gorobors of Pellucidar. As with most of Burroughs own novels the valley is inhabited by two antagonistic people. One are white-skinned descendents of the original Atlantis, who were once civilized, but who have devolved into a race of subhuman savages, by inbreeding, and the Rhomahal, a tall race of dark Africans who are technologically advanced, and have learned to live at peace with nature. While Yeates’ race of pacifist, vegetarian Blacks, who are the fathers of all human civilization, most definitely bears the stamp of modern Afrocentrism, Yeates’ infusion of his deeply held ideological convictions with his love of the original Tarzan novels make the tale interesting, in an offbeat kind of way. Beckoning comes across as exactly the sort of novel ERB himself might have penned, had he embraced the radical ideology of the sixties!

Malibu’s Tarzan was discontinued after that, but Political Correctness would remain a lasting presence within Tarzan comics from then on. Sometime later, Dark Horse acquired the rights to ERB characters. They began with their publication of Tarzan: the Lost Adventure, in authentic pulp format in a series of four issues. Each featured artwork by noted artists, such as Thomas Yeates, and Michael Kaluta. Later,the volumes were collected in hardback and paperback form. Each volume of The Lost Adventure also contained, as backup feature, a series of previously unpublished Tarzan strips by John Coleman Burroughs. The Lost Adventure was a good story for fans hungering for a new Tarzan novel, but in spite of the hype, most of it was a Joe R. Lansdale pastiche. Sales were successful, however, which prompted Dark Horse to follow up with two Tarzan comics’ series: Tarzan/John Carter: Warlords of Mars, and Tarzan vs. Predator at the Earth’s Core. While the former of these featured gorgeous cover and interior art by Bret Blevins, and script by Bruce Jones (a veteran at pulpish adventure yarns), it did not go over particularly well among fans. I am not entirely sure why this is so. First of all, it was true that there were at least two deviations from Burroughs’ Ape-Man which were indeed cause for Burroughs fans to raise cries of blasphemy. The first of these is that Tarzan apparently has a brief, but genuine love affair with Dejah Thoris, which sets up the coming conflict with her mate. Back in the eighties, Jones scripted a number of issues of Marvel’s Ka-Zar, who was a direct Tarzan take-off. He gave the love-relation between Ka-Zar, and his mate Shanna conflict, since Ka-Zar was constantly drawn to other beautiful women he encountered. With a Tarzan imitation, this was permissible, and even added spice to their romance. But with the original Ape-Man, it was entirely different story. The early Foster and Hogarth strips, in fact, much emphasized Tarzan’s monogamy. The other deviation was the curious fact of darkening Tarzan’s skin for no apparent reason. Tarzan skin remained uncharacteristically dark, for virtually all of the Dark Horse series, but in the John Carter team-up it was particularly extreme. Issues three and four in fact, colored him a dark purple brown of some of the native African tribes. Did anyone remember that the name “Tarzan” literally translates as “white-skin?” These two things aside, however, I found the series to be excellent. The art, in particular, was excellent, and harked back to the early Tarzan issues of seventies, when Buscema and Kubert were still working on them. The battle with Banths and White Apes in the arena was a treat, as was the sword fight between Dejah Thoris and Pudrid Mos. Jones gave the ending of the story was quite a twist, when Tarzan’s spirit returns to his body on early, the spirit of the White Martian Ape find the form of on of the Great Apes of Tarzan’s jungle. Curiously, though, some fans complained of the art, which was actually better than that which followed in Dark Horse’s ongoing Tarzan series. There was at least one objection, to Blevins’ scantily clad-sexy-drawn women, though I have never heard that compliant made of any other Burroughs artist. The Predator/Pellucidar series was also enjoyable, and brought some neat twists as well, such as when David Innes and his mate are found to be under the influence of a Mahar.

Dark Horse followed with Tarzan: The Ongoing Series. The first story sequence was “Tarzan’s jungle Fury”. The story concerned a strange plaque that had invaded Tarzan’s Africa., and has infected tarzan’s mate Jane. Also, strange animals like six-legged lions, and dinosaur like monsters, miles from the lost land of Pal-ul-don have begun turning up in Tarzan’s jungle. A mysterious girl named Kita tells Tarzan that her people, the Kavel have the cure. Tarzan Kita, and some tarmangani outsiders begin a trek to the Lost Cities of Fala, home to two races known as the kavel and the Arten. south of the Great Thorn Forest. The only problem is, Tarzan has visited the lost cities, and found them to be in ruin. Once they travel there, they find them to be inhabited and thriving. A series of a adventures follow, in which we discover the following: Upon his return from Barsoom Tarzan brought with him the spores of a sentient Martian plant known as the tara. On its native planet, the tara was part of the natural cycle of life, but once taken seed on earth, the plant’s DNA merged with in mutated certain terran life forms. It reawakened the DNA of the ancient Kavel and Artan, bringing the two people back to life. It also mutated the lower animals, turning them into monstrosities of Barsoomian and terran genetic structure. The human-tara hybrids are “grown” in pods, and human intelligence is increased a hundredfold. This enables Artan technology to grow at an exponetial rate, and their technology soon surpasses that of their ancestors. The Artan purposely cultivate more of their new species, aiming to eventually infect the entire planet. But where the original Artan and Kavel coexisted peacefully, their resurrected counterparts are bitter rivals. While the Artan seek to conquer humanity, the Kavel seek to destroy them through ritual sacrifice rather than to perpetuate the tara. Eventually, a means is found to eliminate the tara from the hosts’ DNA, therby eliminating the threat, and returning the plant/human hybrids to their original human form. The story neatly ties in with the John Carter crossover, and Jones is here at the peak of his form, expanding on the possibilities presented by the “lost race” genre, while making the grievous error which fled the previous series.

Jones wrote no further Tarzan stories for dark Horse however, and the following story sequences were less inventive. The next, “Tarzan and Legion of Hate,” dealt with a Nazi invasion of Tarzan’s Africa, and brought the Ape-Man back into contact with the Kaji amazons of Tarzan the Magnificent. It was a decent enough story, though it focused a bit too much on the destruction of Africa by Europeans. After that, Dark Horse launched a series of story sequences which teamed Tarzan with various icons of classic horror literature. These included Tarzan and the modern Prometheus, which teamed Tarzan with Frankenstein’s Monster, Tarzan Le Monstre, which teamed him with the Phantom of the Opera, and one other, which teamed him Jekyle and Hyde. I thought that these were getting away from being Tarzan altogether. There was no jungle in any of these stories, and it doesn’t seem logical that any of these characters, all of whom were the creations of other writers, would exist in Burroughs’ universe. The next few series were better though, and returned to the original format. Tom Yeates wrote and drew a separate Tarzan mini-series, which was first published in serial format in Previews This was an excellent adaptation of Burroughs’ The Return of Tarzan.

This occurred about the same time as a sequence called “Tarzan and the Moon Men” concerned a future invasion of Tarzan’s jungle by the war-like Kalkars, of ERBs’ Moon stories. Tarzan is able to reach them through the cave of Oo (from the Eternal Savage). This story offers a glimpse into Burroguhs’ Africa at the time some of ERB’s future projection novels take place. It also does decent job tying Tarzan and other ERB series together. The next separate mini-series teamed Tarzan with Carson of Venus, just as they had earlier with John Carter. The next Tarzan sequence was to be titled Tarzan: the Savage Heart, in which the Ape-Man was to return to Pellucidar on the false presupposition of Jane’s death. At this point something unexpected occurred. Dark Horse put this series, and any other ERB projects on hiatus for about a year, until the eve of the release of Disney’s Tarzan movie. At first, this seemed to be a wise move on their part. The trouble was, the movie, while a decent enough Disney cartoon, wasn’t Burroughs any more then their Jungle Book cartoon was Kipling. The film was aimed more for preschoolers and a “family audience”, and was as unlikely as anything to draw new fans to the real Tarzan. As a result of wait, the Pellucidar series was damaged. It was still among the best of the Dark Horse efforts, with Alan Gross (author of the excellent pastiche Farewell Pellucidar , which he actually tied in with this series), and Mike Grell on the artwork. Grell’s rendering of the savage splendor of Burroughs’ inner world for the first two issues is virtually breathtaking. However is art for the next issue is diminished, as some of the inks and finished pencils are done by another artists. The art for the final issue is wretched, and only the thumbnail layouts are Grell’s work. This is probably a result of the wait; Grell probably didn’t return to finish the book a year afterward. Dark Horse also published a single issue “Tales of Pellucidar”, as sort of a sequel to “Savage Heart” drawn by Tom Yeates and Steven Bisette. It is a black and white book. The stories are good, and it introduces two new Pellucidaran races, the Mealians, a race of cannibalistic humanoid, whoa re able to alter their skin colors as implied by their name, and a strange race of antlered ”Antelope people”.

The following stories were decent enough, but diminished much from what preceded them. The next was a Tarzan/ Batman teamup, which actually worked better than it sounded, since it brought batman to the jungle, rather than the Jungle lord to Gotham, and there ensues a very Burroguhsian tale, complete with a lost city. Tarzan: Rivers of Blood followed. This was a good story with decent enough artwork, at least to begin with. But the last few issues make the mistake of taking Tarzan back to civilization. Even Burroughs fans seemed to have lost interest in Dark Horse “s Tarzan by then, and the book was cancelled in the middle of the series. Very little has been seen of the Tarzan since, but Dark Horse has recently produced one more series, the disasterous Tarzan/Superman crossover. This series seems primarily set in the jungle, an features La of Opar. However, it is the most horribly drawn Tarzan comic ever, surpassing even Malibu. That is not to say that the art is sloppy or lacking in talent; it is intentionally rendered in the blocky “modern” stylized form sadly common in many modern superhero comics. This appears to be an attempt to connect with modern comics readers, but as with virtually all previous such attempts, it will only have the affect of alienating true Burroughs fans.

This brings up another attempt to “modernize” Tarzan in recent years, and has diminished the quality of Tarzan efforts in recent years: Political Correctness. The most obvious manifestation of this is the darkening of Tarzan’s skin throughout the dark Horse comics series. It may seem a bit of a stretch to suppose this is make Tarzan appear “less white”. But the remark of one of the Kaji Amazons who questions that Tarzan is truly white, and the fact that the Manning reprints issued by Dark Horse, are “recolored for today’s audiences” seem to bear this supposition out. The Dark Horse Manning reprints—of the Caspak graphic novels, and the Dell adaptations of Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, The Son of Tarzan, Tarzan the Untamed and Tarzan the Terrible, are all welcome additions, and featured stunning cover art by Mark Shultz, the artist for Xenozoic Tales. However, Tarzan’s skin is darkened even in these books. What’s more, even the Ho-dons are a shade darker than they are supposed to be, and the gryfs are a plain slate gray, quite a contrast from the brightly colored beasts of the book. This whole issue brings us back to the question of whether Tarzan’s can survive in the modern era. True there have been some Tarzan revivals, and more are likely to come, but each has had less duration than the one. Indeed, current interest in Tarzan seems at an all-time low. The seventies at least had the Filmation and Ron Ely TV series. The recent Tarzan TV show, and the movie Tarzan and the Lost City did not gather a following. The reasons for this apparent lack of new interest are not particularly clear, but current political trends may indeed be one of them. Indeed, the very concept of god-like white man in midst of “savage” Africa is apt to cause problems. The Filmation TV series, a and recent Disney cartoon solved this problem by removing African natives from the story entirely. The recent Tarzan movie made the mistake of emphasizing the role of tarzan’s loyal friends the Waziri. Taking pains to portray African people in a positive light, would, one might suppose be the way to go. But a critic in Entertainment Weekly, in his review of the movie, said, in effect, “What would those poor simple minded Blacks do without Tarzan to look after them. The grade he gave the film was “F”. Even worse was an online review (not by a mainstream critic, by the way) of the Disney Tarzan. Film. Since that film, avoided the controversy altogether by simply eliminating Blacks from the script, these writers charged the filmmakers, not with making a racist film, but making a film based on racist source material. Among their attacks one of them stands out as particularly ludicrous. This was an opinion that Tarzan’s killing of Kulonga, the native warrior who killed his ape-mother, is racist and shows that even an apes live is worth more than a humans to Tarzan and Burroughs, if the human happens to be black. Indeed! Suppose then, that Tarzan’s maternal foster parent had been killed by a white hunter? Would Tarzan’s reaction have been any less savage? Would Tarzan recognize the “humanity” of his mother’s killer, because the man’s skin happened to be as white as his own, and forgo his vengeful attack? The very question seems farcical, especially considering that a “civilized” hunter invading tarzan’s realm, would have been likely, if anything, be cause an even more ferocious rage in Tarzan. But this isn’t really the point here. The point is that many, especially the age of PC it seems, react to aggressively to what Burroughs wrote without taking time to consider it. While some Tom Yeates’s stories do bear the mark of PC, it is important to remember that Yates, a genuine Burroughs fan, unlike the afore mentioned critics, saw ERB’s Tarzan as very embodiment, rather than the antithesis of, the idealistic values he aspired to as a child of the sixties cultural revolution. He has remarked that Tarzan’s forsaking of his aristocratic roots in order to live a life in Africa among the Waziri has seemed to the essence of the sixties attempt to overturn an order they saw as outdated and corrupt. And indeed, Tarzan’s preferred life among the Great Apes, even after his discovery of his aristocratic roots, is even more primitive than that of the African tribes. Nonetheless, the very fact that Tarzan is a white-skin hero, in Africa is enough to provoke controversy. I am not sure how to get around this, though there a couple of ways. The first would be to limit the numbers of Natives in any given Tarzan project. Most of Burroughs indeed focuses on the lost civilization Tarzan discovers, and all of these people are of non-sub-Saharan African descent. This is route the old Filmation cartoon took. The second way is not to focus on Tarzan, but to develop more projects around Burroughs’ other heroes, such as John Carter, and David Innes.

One last thing on Tarzan comics and their diminishing popularity: There was a letter in one of the Dark Horse Tarzan letter columns that urged the artists to changed the traditional style which dark Horse was sticking to, in favor of the more modern look in other comics. He sighted Marvel’s current 90s’ Ka-Zar (who they tried to make over in a super-hero image) as an example of what would sell. The reason was that, even though certain old-time Burroughs fans (such as myself) deplore this style of artwork, many other readers prefer it, and that this would be the beast way to bring a new generation to Tarzan. My response is simply this: readers, who prefer the new stylized approach to the artwork to the traditional, will also prefer the “new” heroes to the “classic” ones. The approach will likely only alienate the old-time Burroughs fans. If Marvels’ previously long-running Conan series could not stay afloat in the nineties, despite the efforts to “modernize” the artwork. The aforementioned Ka-Zar series lasted shorter than the previous one, and dark Horse’s own stylization of Tarzan in the Superman crossover, has not appeared to have drawn in a new generation of Tarzan fans.

Evolution in Pal-ul-don

2010-05-06T00:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a copy of an article I had printed in Frank Westwood's Fantastic Worlds of ERB:

Lost worlds—remote or near-inaccessible corners of our modern Earth where races and lifeforms still survive from prehistoric times have been a staple of fantastic literature since popular culture embraced the existence of dinosaurs. The term “dinosaur” was coined in 1842, by paleontologist Richard Owen, following the official recognition of the first discovered species, Iguanodon and megalosaurus, in the 1820s. As more of the remains of more incredible species were unearthed, it is hardly surprising that, along with the public’s fascination with prehistoric beasts, there was more than a little speculation that the living animals might still be alive somewhere. After all, there was still enough virgin territory at the close of the 19th century to make the possibility of fantastic monsters roaming the vastness of remote wilderness regions seem viable. Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), is certainly the earliest well-known example of lost world fiction. The prehistoric realm within the earth’s hollow center, which Verne postulated, came replete with oceans infested with giant aquatic reptiles, forest of giant mushrooms and conifers, and a variety of fauna long extinct on the surface world, including an apparent subhumaniod race of giants. Verne did not give his lost world the elaborate detail which Burroughs lavished on his own, though the novel does contain a memorable sea-battle between plesiosaur and ichthyosaur, with both animals described from rough engravings and the limited scientific knowledge by which they were known at the time.

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1911), the remote region was this time a hidden plateau in South America, where lifeforms from various prehistoric eras had managed to survive. Besides the even richer hidden lands envisioned by Burroughs, there have since been a number of others populating the movies, pulps, and comics, King Kong’s Skull Island being perhaps the most famous.

Nearly all these imagined realms, however, have two fairly common threads running through them. One, the lost world is commonly assumed to occupy a comparatively small land area. This is necessary in order to explain its lack of discovery. The problem with this is, of all the lifeforms which have lived on earth through the ages, those still living constitute around one percent. Such a small surface area would be unable to accommodate even a fraction of the ancient species usually found inhabiting therein, particularly such large and active creatures as living dinosaurs (Pellucidar is one notable exception to this, particularly since its land to water ratio makes it a larger world within a smaller one.) The other major problem is that the species found within the lost world appear virtually unchanged in 65 million years (or however long), and this is hardly feasible since evolution seldom if ever stops in its tracks, even in so-called living fossils. The dinosaur descendents would therefore not be the stegosaurus and iguanodon that Doyle’s Professor Challenger encountered, but new species radically altered to adapt to their changed environment.

ERB had the distinction of being the creator of three separate lost worlds, Pellucidar, Pal-ul-don, and Caspak. Though Pellucidar and Caspak had their own separate series, Burroughs confined Pal-ul-don to a single novel, Tarzan the Terrible,

the eighth novel in the Tarzan series. Even so, Burroughs appears to have been well ahead of his time when he invented Pal-ul-don, one of the most unusual lost worlds in literature. To begin with, it is clear from the many examples of Pal-ul-donian fauna that evolution has not come to a complete halt within this hidden valley somewhere within the Belgian Congo. Tarzan himself notes that even species with which he is familiar show either a form unaltered for countless ages, or an entirely separate line of evolution. The latter would certainly be the case among many species isolated from their parent species since prehistoric times. The most striking Pal-ul-donian example of this is, of course, the Gryf, the evolved triceratops which has taken up a carnivorous existence. Burroughs describes the Gryf as brilliantly colored, with vivid blue band circling the eyes, a yellow face below the hood, or transverse crest, this being bright red, with three horns ivory. The dinosaur had a beaklike maw filled with powerful dagger-teeth designed for the obvious purpose. The blunt hoofed toes of the ancestral dinosaur have become talons on the gryf for holding and sustaining prey. The gryf will feast on lion, antelope or humanoid as readily as on plant material. In contrast, Burroughs also describes another species of triceratops in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, the Gyor of Pellucidar. Unlike the triceratops of Pal-ul-don, the Gyor is an herbivore of similar but muted coloration, and is essentially unchanged from its surface counterpart of sixty-five million years ago. This is undoubtedly due to the even greater isolation within the hollow earth, Pellucidar being virtually a separate planet altogether.

Of the remaining Pal-ul-donian species Burroughs describes, the Ja, or spotted lion, is the best example of a species that has remained unaltered in isolation, since the environment within the lost world has remained nearly the same. Ancestors of modern lions were almost certainly as spotted as leopards, as both Tarzan and Burroughs speculate, since all lions are born with faint rosette-like markings, and Pal-ul-don’s lions continue to retain their spots into adulthood. A more striking example of evolutionary adaptation is the fond in the related species, the Jato. This animal is a black-striped hybridization of lion and saber-tooth, which, surprisingly, is smaller than a true lion. It is interesting to speculate that the last saber-tooth cats in Africa misht have crossed with lions in order to preserve their lineage. Though the saber-tooth feline megateron (which was actually smaller than a modern lion) did nonce roam the forests and plains of Africa, some paleontologists have speculated the actual tigers might have done so as well. This possibility has largely been shelved however, since confirmed tiger remains are virtually unknown outside of Asia, and lion and tiger skeletons are virtually indistinguishable. But if the controversial bones found in Africa were infact those of tigers, then Pal-ul-don’s sabertooths’ may have been the three-way mixture of lion, tiger, and saber-tooth. As feasible as this may sound, however, it is simply not scientifically possible. Crosses between lions and tigers (“tiglons” and “ligers”) are sterile. Saber-tooths, which constitute an entirely separate genus from modern felines, could likely not even breed with lions, let alone produce a viable species. Burroughs saber-tooth hybrids are, therefore, impossible, but they nonetheless illustrate Burroughs competent application of the natural forces of evolution and adaptations, aside from some errors which biologically prevent the existence of jatos.

The other beast worth mentioning in Burroughs novel is the strange carnivorous reptile which Korak battles and slays in the great barrier swamp. This odd creature is “like no living thing he had ever before seen, although it possibly resembled the crocodile more than anything which he was familiar”. The book never identifies what species this “frightful survivor of some extinct progenitor” is, though perhaps, like the gryf, this creature had also evolved so that it precisely resembled nothing from the fossil record. It also demonstrates Burroughs’ apparent knowledge of the close kinship between modern crocodiles and the dinosauria. (Note: recently, there have been discoveries in Africa of a genus of theropod, or bidpedal carnivorous dinosaur, that possessed elongated snouts not unlike the crocodilia. The eigthies saw the discovery of Baryonyx, a theropod that was partially aquatic, and fed on fish. In the late nineties, the related species Suchamimus or “crocodile mimic” was unearthed. The African finback theropod spinosaurus, which made an appearance in the third Jurassic Park film, is thought to have been a member of this genus as well, and was portrayed with a similar snout in the film, though the actual head of the creature is unkown. It is entirely feasible that members of this genus might have survived into persisted into Pal-ul-don’s swamp, thopugh Burroughs himself could not have been aware of them.)

Unfortunately, Burroughs single novel did not allow him to develop Pal-ul-don further. Tarzan never returned to the lost land in any of the original novels, although he did revisit Pal-ul-don in many of the stories concocted by many of the comics writers over the years. The most notable of these writers seems to be Russ Manning, who took Burroughs’ hero to the lost land a number of times in the Sunday strips. Manning did indeed allow Tarzan to explore Pal-ul-don further, adding his own embellishments as to how the strange world worked. He also invented a Weiroo-like race of winged humanoids, who, like their Caspakian counterparts, were a race entirely of males, and who constituted an even greater threat to the women of Pal-ul-don than rampaging Tor-o-don bulls. It was Manning’s concept of Pal-ul-don existing in its own separate time-frame which is most notable, however. This invention may have been in part due to the fact that the existence of a hidden valley full of prehistoric beasts and races, remaining undiscovered in modern Africa, seemed less feasible in the later 1960s than when Burroughs wrote. (This is a major reason why the pulpish adventure fantasy, concerning lost worlds and hidden races has severely declined over the years, but that’s another story.)

Burroughs describes Pal-ul-don as a region “where every known species of bird and beast appeared to have sought refuge from the encroaching numbers of men since the first ape shed its hair and ceased to walk on its knuckles.” As noted earlier, such an abundance of wildlife inhabiting a comparatively small valley does not seem very feasible, though Burroughs describes few species in the novel other than the gryf, the famed carnivorous triceratops. In contrast, in Manning’s strips, Pla-ul-don appears to be as rich in primeval fauna as Pellucidar-hardly likely given its much smaller land surface. But Mannings’s concept of a separate time-space gives him a way out: if visitors to Pal-ul-don actually traveled back through time, then the lost land of Pal-ul-don, could, like Pellucidar, be much larger within than without, perhaps even continent-size, and this would allow for the vast diversity of fauna, in Manning’s version at least.

At fist glance, Manning’s time concept may seem inconsistent with Burroughs, given the evolutionary changes wrought upon the gryf. This is not necessarily so, however, if one notes that Manning’s Pal-ul-don does not appear to reside within the Mesozoic (dinosaur) era any more than does Burroughs, but somewhere within the Cenozoic, in order to accommodate the coexistence of ancient mammals and humanoids. The millions of years it took mammals to diversify into the vast array of creatures today provides more than enough time for creatures like the triceratops to develop carnivorous habits. Thus, the dinosaurs of Pal-ul-don must have already been present when mammals, such as the jato, arrived sometime later.

Manning’s time concept, tough, remains an interesting one, and it might provide an explanation for the humanoid races of Pal-ul-don, that Burroughs himself never thought of. Burroughs describes the two dominant races of Pal-ul-don, the black-furred Waz-don, and the white-skinned, more civilized Ho-don as “pithacantrophines”, though the creature given that name by earlier paleontology, commonly called Java Man, bears little resemblance to these ficticious races. There is also the Tor-o-don race, a race hideous beings with fur and fangs. Burroughs describes the Tor-o-dons as resembling Java man now known as a type of Homo Erectus, modern man’s own supposed ancestors. Tarzan himself observes that they are “a truer example of the pithecantropi than either the Ho-don or the Waz-don; possibly the precursor of them both. Pal-ul-don’s two higher races could then be evolved forms of pithecanthropus, only belonging to a branch of evolution separate from that which gave rise to human’s as we know them. But since no known humanoid ever possessed the long prehensile tails sported by Pal-ul-don’s prehistoric races, another explanation presents itself.

Primates sporting prehensile tails occur in the New World tropics only. Modern anthropoids lack any tail whatsoever, as did man’s own direct ancestors. How could Pal-ul-don’s humanoids develop? Harry Harrison’s popular alternate prehistory novel West of Eden may provide an answer. In it, the author postulates an earth on which the reign of the dinosaurs continued unbroken, allowing one species, an evolved tylosaurus, to gain sentience. But during North America’s brief period of isolation as an island continent, the dinosaurs did die out there, allowing mammals to diversify, thus preserving the best of both worlds. The “humans” of Harrison’s alternate reality are descended from the New World primates. Though human enough in appearance, the young of the Tanu are born with vestigial tails that disappear well before adulthood. Harrison’s second novel in this series introduces another race, the Paramutan, who dwell near the arctic and sport both a coat of thick, silky fur over a dense layer of fat, and a long prehensile tail into adulthood. It is a well-established fact that Africa and South America were connected during prehistoric times. If Pal-ul-don existed in a separate time-space, as it does in Manning’s version, then perhaps a land bridge connecting the two continents might still exist at that time, allowing both Old and New world faunas to intermingle. The phororhacas and giant sloth in Manning’s strips—both of them distinctly South American lifeforms, support this idea. Pal-ul-don’s humanoid races then, might well have developed entirely separate from the ancestors of modern man.

Manning was not consistent with Burroughs in some details, however, and this is evident in his use of the Pal-ul-donian language. Burroughs developed a credible vocabulary for his fictional races, complete with its own grammatical rules. In the preface to his glossary in Tarzan the Terrible, Burroughs notes that “the names of all male hairless pithecantropi begin with a consonant, have an even number of syllables, and end with a consonant, while the names of while the names of females of the same species begin with a vowel, have an odd number of syllables, and end with a vowel. On the contrary, the names of all black pithecantropi, while having an even number of syllables, begin with a vowel and end with a consonant; while females of the species have an odd number of syllables in the names which begin always with a consonant, and end with a vowel.” Thus, according to these rules, a male member of the Waz-don could not have a name such as Bu-don(“moon-man”), as in Manning’s Sunday Tarzan strip, although a male member of the Ho-don could. Adhering strictly to this fairly complicated set of rules would be rather difficult, and seemingly unnecessary in concocting stories for the comics, though. Manning was able to make some good use of this invented vocabulary. Some terms coined by Manning, but based upon Burroughs fictional language are as follows:

Names of Individuals

Mu-ja (Strong Lion)-- a Tor-o-don chief. He forced Tarzan and Bu-don to battle

Lu-ta(fierce-tall)

O-ro-a (like-flower-light)—a Ho-don girl, daughter of In-jar-in

Ma-don(Child-man)---High priest and wizard of Pele-ul-ved, father to O-ro-a(This person was affected with achondrplesi or dwarfism, hence his name)

Jar-za(Strange-girl)—a pale-furred Waz-don girl with golden tresses. The Waz-don of Kor-ul-dan used her to impersonate Jane, and thus blackmailed Tarzan into aiding them against the Ho-don

In-jar-in(Strange-dark-strange) High priestess of the Hodon of the city of Pele-ul-ved. She was ruthless and cruel, and had Bal and Jane thrown to Jatos in Pele-ul-ved’s arena.

Bal(gold) A young Ho-don warrior of Pele-ul-Ved, O-ro-a’s beloved

Bu-don(moon-man) A Waz-don warrior. Fierce but honorable, Bu-don was once a bitter rival of Tarzan’s, but later earned the latter’s respect. He helped Tarzan and Jane escape Pal-ul-don, but was fatally wounded by a jato.

Bu-guru (Moon-terrible) High priest of Kor-lur and father of Bu-don. Unlike his son, Bu-guru was unscrupulous. Though Tarzan spared him from execution, Bu-guru later tried to seal the ape-man and his friends in the lair of giant worm, but ended up being devoured by the creature

Jad-guru-ho(The-Terrible-White) A huge albino gryf worshiped by the Hodon of Pele-ul-ved. Ma-don through Tarzan into his lair beneath the temple, but Tarzan used the beast to rescue Jane, Bal and O-ro-a.

Om-sog-dak(Long-eating-fat) a monstrous wormlike “deity”. This was creature Bu-guru sought to appease, but ended up falling victim to it himself.

Place Names

Kor-ul-dan (Gorge of rock)—A Waz-don cliff-village

Ta-lur(Tall City)—A Ho-don city

Pele-ul-Ved(Valley of Mountains)—name of another Ho-don city, and the volcano-studded valley surrounding it.

Kor-lur(Cliff-city)—another Waz-don village

Animals

Jad-ben-ko(The-Great Mighty)---Indricotherium, a form of giant hornless rhino, the largest mammal ever to walk the earth

Garth—T-rex (note: this term was originally used throughout the Dell Tarzan comics run, and may or may not have originated with Manning. It was recently used in a Dark Horse comic in (incorrect)reference to the tyrannosaurus of Pellucidar.)

Hacker—Phororhacas, a giant carnivorous bird of Miocene, called a Dyal in Pellucidar.

Of course, Burroughs was interested in telling romantic fictions, not hard scientific speculations on evolutionary biology, when he wrote his novels. But his knowledge of how the forces of evolution worked (he taught paleontology briefly, among his many jobs prior to becoming a writer) enabled him to create worlds that were rich in detail, especially since one considers the knowledge accumulated, since this puts Pal-ul-don, in particular, well ahead of the lost worlds created by such pioneers of lost world novels as Verne and Doyle. Though many of Burroughs’ inventions are clearly flights of fancy, much of what he created reflects an understanding of the principles of evolution well beyond his predecessors.

(Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally ran in issue 46 of Fantastic Worlds)

Pellucidar

2010-02-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

Pellucidar:

World at the Earth’s Center

Pellucidar, the greatest of Burrough’s Lost World, is a primeval realm within the world’s hollow center. Aminiture sun hangs suspended within this center, shedding endless light. Pellucidar’s landarea is roughly in the position of the surface world’s oceans, and vice versa, giving it a far greater land surface. Because of its timeless nature, and vast surface, myriad creatures from all the ages of the Earth’s prehistory swarm throughout this land. And not one, but many sentient races have evolved within Pellucidar, possibly because of the absence of the waves of mass extinction that have elapsed on the surface of the earth.

Beasts of Pellucidar

Tandor

The tandor is the mighty woolly mammoth of the ice age, the great shaggy progenitor of the elephant armed with gigantic swirling ivory tusks. The below scene, done in ink by frazetta, depicts a scene of raw primal fury from both“Tarzan at the Earth’s Core”, and “Back to the Stone Age” where a ravening tarag pack brings down a bull mammoth. The great bull tandor is a magnificent picture of primal, indomitable power as he battles them his final breath. The mammoth is significant in “Back to the Stone Age” as Von Horst befriends a wise old mammoth known to the locals as “old white” from the white patch on his side. Von Horst rescues the mammoth from a slow agonizing death. In gratitude, Old White comes to his human friend’s aide when Von Horst is captured by the Mammoth Men, and again when he fights against the Ganak Bison Men, a race of humanoid bovines. The Mammoth Men, by the way, were a human tribe who learned to train and ride the mighty tandor as war mounts. This made the Mammoth Men a terror to the other tribes.

Tarag

The Tarag is the great saber-tooth tiger of the stone age. They are present throughout the Pellucidar series. The largest saber-tooth species known from the fossil record was Smilodon Fatalis of South America, larger then the modern Siberian tiger, and considerably more massive in build. It was thought to have been able to bring down mastodons and giant ground sloths that shared its world. Burroughs greatly inflates the animal’s size, making them close to the size of a buffalo, and the length of their saber-fangs (actually just over nine inches) to eighteen! The tarag of Pellucidar is gorgeously striped with gold and the glossy black of anthracite coal.

David Innes’ first encounter of a tarag is in the death arena of the Mahar City of Phutra, where it was pitted against thag, the giant aurochs of primeval Europe. The two monsters ignore their intended human victims and battle each other to the death in terrific fury. In “Pellucidar”, the second book in the series, David and Dian are the two intended victims, pitted in the arena against a mammoth tarag. Tu-ul-sa, the Mahar whose life Innes spared, dispatches three great thipdars, “the flying reptiles that guard the queen” to carry the tarag out of the arena, saving the lives of Innes and his mate. Tarags are sometimes encountered alone, but occasionally band into vast apcks of over a hundred or more members. These packs are able to fell the largest of the inner-earth herbivora. Interestingly enough, scientists now believe that some species of saber-tooth, notably S. Fatalis, may actually have hunted gregariously, in order to bring down difficult prey.

Dyrodor
This is a huge plated monster of Pellucidar, described in “Tarzan at the Earth’s Core”. It most closely resembles the stegosaurus, the species with which it may be identical, though some ERB-philes have suggested otherwise, because of the creature’s apparent carnivorous habits, and extraordinary gliding ability. The huge, cartilaginous plates sported by the reptile enable it to become airborne if it leaps off a high precipice.

Dyryth

Megatherium, the giant ground sloth of the Plesticene, a huge, shaggy beast the size of an elephant. Burroughs describes the dyryth as having a short trunk not unlike that of a tapir. The ground sloth of the surface is not known to have had one, though the marsupial “ground sloth” of South America did possess such a trunk, and somewhat resembled the dyryth.

Ryth

The giant cave-bear of the ice-age. This shaggy monster ranged over the Eurasian taiga, south of the great ice -sheets, on the outer crust. Its scientific name was Ursus Spaleaus. Larger than any modern ursine, it was actually more herbivorous than its modern cousins, and was likely not very fierce at all. Not so the giant short faced bear of North America—this beast was not only larger even than its European counterpart, it was long-limbed, fast, and strict flesh eater—and able to fell a moose with a single swipe of its gigantic paw. Burroughs only describes the better known cave bear, however, and as with the tarag, he greatly inflated the animal’s size for dramatic purposes. The lowland ryths were about the size of an ox; the ones living in Pellucidar’s mountain ranges, far above timberline were white-furred and gigantic—fully the size of a bull elephant!

Sithic

The Sithic is a labrinthadon, a giant, carnivorous amphibian of monstrous size, which David Innes encounters on his first venture to Pellucidar in “At the Earth’s Core”. It inhabited the outer crust during the Permian and Triassic eras. Actually, huge labrinthadont amphibians continued to linger on through the age of dinosaurs in the southern polar swamps. But these later animals, such as Koolasuchus, had jaws that were less crocodile-like than their ancestors. The sithic, sporting a toad-like body, and mighty crocodilian-style jaws, most resembles the original labrinthadon. Some illustrators, like in the Frazetta illustration below, and in the Mike Grell-illustrated Tarzan: the Savage Heart, published by Dark Horse, incorrectly show the sithic as being scaled and resembling a huge alligator. The true labyrinthodon, both described by Burroughs, and by paleontologists, had a wet, moist, pulpy hide, like any other amphibian.

Jalok

Jalok are hyeanodons of the Eocene, dog-like carnivores found throughout the inner earth. Burroughs describes them as ancestral to modern canines. There are two Manning comics-one Pal-ul-don strip, and an issue of the Dell comic in which Tarzan explores a hidden plateau where extinct mammals still roam—where they are simply huge (prehistoric) hyenas. Actually, these beasts were related to neither hyenas nor wolves, (though they somewhat resembled both in appearance and habits) but were members of the creodonta, and group of flesh eaters, that were related to no modern carnivore.

Thipdar

The Thipdar is the gigantic pteranodon of the Cretaceous age, and the most feared predator of Pellucidar’s skies. One thing notable about thipars is that they are used as pets and guard animals by the Mahars, Pellucidar’s formerly dominant race. This may be because both Mahars and Thipdars are related, but pteranodons are still of animal intelligence within Pellucidar, and belong to the pteradactyl order of the pterasauia, rather than the rhamphorinchids, to which the Mahar belong. The Mahar ruler Tu-ul-sa uses them to rescue David Innes and Dian the Beautiful for the a giant tarag in the amphitheater of death.

Perhaps the most memorable thipdar scene occurs in “Tarzan at the Earth’s Core”, in which the Ape Man finds himself borne off in the talons of a female thipdar, and nearly tossed into a gigantic nest among her squealing brood.

Varients have this scene have appeared on the Filmation cartoon adaptation of the novel, Lin Carter’s Zanthodon series (itself a Pellucidar take-off), the Raquel Welch 60s’ cult film One Million Years B. C., the Ka-Zar the savage comic book series, and elsewhere. Again Burroughs takes some liberties with the animal’s size. He describes the wingspan as about twenty-five feet, but pterosaur’s were so light weight, they would not be able to bear off any human-sized creature. An even larger pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus, whose wingspan measured fifty some feet, would, in fact been able to carry off human-sized prey, but it was unknown when Burroughs wrote his stories. He also describes pteranodons as having teeth, when in fact, the name “pteranodon” translates from the Latin as “wing-toothless”.

One lesser-known detail is that female pteranodons lacked headcrests, but this, too, was unknown in Burroughs’ time. Comics art veteran Russ Manning, writer of some of the finest newspaper strips featuring the Ape-Man, has one character exclaim, on one of Tarzan’s syndicated forays into Pellucidar, that the pteranodons that attack the 0-220 are “huge—much bigger than any that ever lived on the Earths’ surface”. In Burroughs’ fictional universe, however, it appears that some members of this same species did reach approximate size. We know from “The Eternal Savage”, when a gigantic pterandon bears off Nat-ul to her nest, yet another variant on the dramatic scene pictured below.

Zarith

The zarith is the tyrannosaurus rex of Pellucidar, most dreaded and terrible of all terrestrial carnivores. It is only encountered once within the series, in “Back to the Stone Age”, when Von Vorst and La-Ja encounter a juvenile specimen the Forest of Death, about to devour a Gorbus, a member of a weird, cruel, albino race. Von Horst is able to kill the beast. La-Ja informs him that adult zarith feed on the giant Bos, the aurochs, and on the mighty mammoth. Possibly zarith are rare, and seldom encountered, since too great a number would lay waste to the prey species. Unlike the thipdar, and most wildlife of the Earth’s Core, the Pellucidaran t-rex is often misnamed in pastiches, such as John Eric Holmes’ Mahars of Pellucidar (where it is called a “dryath”), and in the Filamtion TV series (where it is called a “zabor”), possibly since it is barely mentioned in the series.

The Dark Horse publication “Tales of Pelluciadar” drawn by Thomas Yeates, and otherwise a decent effort, refers to the T-rex of Pellucidar as a “Garth”, which is a Pal-ul-don term from the comics, and not even authentic Burroughs. The Pal-ul-donian term “gryf” is used for the triceratops in the same story. Only the Dyrodor (stegosaurus) is named correctly. The first inconsistency could be explained away in that Tarzan had not encountered a T-rex in Pellucidar until now, and used the more familiar Pal-ul-don term instead. He should have known to use the Pellucidaran “Gyor” for triceratops however, as he did indeed encounter one on his first venture to the inner world.

Gyor

The triceratops of the inner earth. This beast, as Tarzan notes, is strikingly similar to the Gryf of Pal-ul-don. Though possessed of a terrible temper however, the gyor is an herivore, unlike its evolved Pal-ul-don counterpart on the surface. It is also similarly marked, though much lass brilliant in coloration. It is possibly a form of triceratops virtually unaltered since its original form. The gyros roam the mighty plain known as the Gyor Cors in vast herds. The Horib lizard-men relish the flesh of the three-horned beasts, and often hunt them on their Gorobor mounts, lassoing and subduing the triceratops with strong ropes.

Thag

The huge bull aurochs of Pellucidar, known scientifically as the Bos Primenigus. This creature was the giant ancestor of modern cattle. Herds of aurochs ranged throughout the great broadleaf forests of Europe from the last ice age, up until early historical times. The last few died out with the coming of the industrial revolution. One of the most memorable scene involving a thag in the Pellucidar series takes place in At the Earth’s Core, in which a tarag and a thag battle to the death in the Mahar arena. Another such scene between predator and prey occurs early in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core.

Sadok
Referred to as the giant “two-horned” rhinoceros, the sadok is mentioned occasionally in At the Earth’s Core. Just what speces it represents is not clear. It may refer to the Plesticene wooly rhino, Coleodonta, as some have suggested, making it the same species as “Ta” the wooly rhino from The Eternal Savage. But not only is this species two horned, but so are the two modern species of African rhino. The Burroughs Encyclopedia identies the sadok with the brontotherium, a huge titanothere of the Oligocne. Male members of this species had a single horn that branched into a Y shape. It is probably the most likely candidate for the sadok, and the Clark A, Brady’s Burroughs Cyclopedia cites it as such. However, there was another mammal of the late Eocene that is a possible candidate. This is the mighty arsinotherium of lower Egypt. This beast also resembled a large rhinoceros, but sported two massive horns, not one in front of the other as in its modern counterparts, but side by side on its broad snout.

Lidi

The giant diplodocus of Pellucidar, a giant sauropod dinosaur related to the better-known brontosaurus. Burroughs describes it as a plains-dwelling animal. The human tribes of thuria have learned to domesticate the plains lidi as formidable war-mounts.

Gorobor

Giant lizard-like reptiles which serve as steeds to the reptilian Horibs. They are as lightening-fast as their smaller counterparts, and fastest thing within the inner earth. They are similar to the herbivorous cotlyosaurs of the lower Permian, with which they may well be synonymous.

Azdyryth

This term refer to a giant marine reptile of Pellucidar’s oceans. It’s name translates to “sea sloth” or “sea megatherium”. Though the animals in the Manning illustration below are without question some form of plesiosaur, the azdyryth is most accurately identified with the ichthyosaurus, a great fish-like marine lizard, with mighty, elongated jaws bristling with teeth.

Tandoraz

This is the name given to the plesiosaur, the sea-mammoth of Pellucidar’s oceanic realms. It is describes as having a long neck, and a seal-like body.

Actually ,the name of the monsters above would translate roughly as “sea bear”, a name not precisely used by Burroughs himself. There existed on the outer surface several species of plesiosaur after all, the largest being the elasmosaurus, the species with which the tandoraz may be identified.

Ta-ho-az
The “sea-lion” of Pellucidar, a monster that, from the descriptions appears to be yet another species of plesiosaur, albeit one smaller, though no less ferocious than the tandoraz.

Aztarag
Another ferocious marine denizen, this reptile’s surface counterpart has not been officially recognized.

Tylosaurus
This was one of the most feared predatory reptiles of the upper Cretaceous period. Burroughs does not relate the native term for this reptile, though it is possibly synonymous with the aztarag.

Hydrophidian

This is one last reptilian monster known to be indigenous to Pellucidar’s seas. This is a serpentine creature David Innes rescues Ja the Mezop from in the first book, and in the St. John illustration below, merely referred to as a “hydrophidian”. No scientific or Pellucidaran term is used to identify it. It is snake-like in from, with small horn-like protuberances over each eye, a jetting, forked tongue, and goggling eyes. It may or may not have had a surface counterpart in prehistoric times.

Codon
The giant dire wolf of the Plesticene. These pony –sized wolves are huge enough to overtake most prey single –handed, and only hunt the giant tandor in packs.

Orthopi
The diminutive ancestor of the modern horse, known to science as the eohippus or hyracotherium. It lived during the Eocene period, shortly after the demise of the dinosaurs.

Dyal

The phorohacas, huge predatory bird of Miocene S. America that was over ten feet tall, with a mighty eagle-hooked bill, and powerful legs that made it near impossible to outrun. Tarzan and his companion Tar-Gash (a sagoth) battle and slay one in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. The dyal is used as steed by some Pellucidaran tribes, even though it is ferocious and difficult to train. The pic above shows an Amazon girl astride a dyal. One known tribe of warrior women does ride dyala, the warrior women of Oog, but they are considerably less attractive than the maid above.

Dimorphodon

Mere mention is made of this flying reptile, which Burroughs says is a “smaller cousin of the thipdar”. Dimorphodon lived during the Triassic age, the first era of dinosaurs, on the surface, and was one of the more primitive pterosaurs. The creature that the warrior is riding in Frazetta's "Thor's Flight" (above) is a dimorphodon

Tracodon
This is a huge, elephant sized herbivorous “duck-billed” dinosaur of the late Cretaceous. Though innumerable species of reptilian life make the Phelian Swamp their home, this animal is the only one given direct mention, as it is seen being devoured by one of the titanic serpents which infest the region. It is more correctly known to science as the anatosaurus. Like the dimophodon, it is not revealed what the native term for this beast is.

Snakes
Snakes of overwhelming proportions infest the Phelian swamp, where they apparently exist at the pinnacle of the food chain. Some grow large enough to swallow adult dinosaurs of good-sized species. No serpent of the outer crust is known to have attained such colossal proportions. Though giant serpents did exist during the Cretaceous, the largest was only a little bigger than the largest living snake today, the anaconda. UPDATE: Recently the remains of the true monster-serpent have been discovered. The snake lived in the paleo-eocene period, shortly after the dinosaur's extiction, and befre the mammals rose. Perhaps the evolutionary pressures during this brief period of earth's hsitory prompted the exixtence of such a creature. This snake was longer than a city bus, and thick enough to fill a door-entry. If it was not as huge as Burroughs' serpents, it came close, being at least the size of Robert E. Howard's "Ghost Snake," or the serpents ket by the priests of set in he 70s Conan movie. The name of this seprent is Titanoboa.

Trodon

This is an entirely fictitious monster, as Burroughs himself admits when he tells us that its restoration was never in any book, its skeleton never in any museum. Perhaps it is entirely Pellucidaran in origin, or perhaps it is one species whose surface counterpart will remain undiscovered. The trodon is somewhat pterosaurian, having a head that is “pterodactyl-like”, and mighty leathern wings. Its’ body, however, somewhat resembles a gigantic winged kangaroo, with powerful rear legs, and a massive tail. Its forearms are separate from the wings, and with them the troodon can easily grasp its prey. It also has a pouch with which it transports its victims (and perhaps its young, after they hatch?). Burroughs refers to the Trodon as a “giant marsupial reptile”, though technically this is impossible, since the marsupial reproductive system is strictly mammalian. The trodon paralyzes its victims’ nervous system with its barbed tongue. The victims are then left in the adult trodon’s rookery until the eggs hatch, and the young troodons devour their screaming victims alive.

Ta-ho

This is the mighty cave-lion of Pellucidar. Scientist believe that the cave lion of the ice age to be the largest cat that ever lived, bigger even than Smilodon Fatalis. From cave –renderings of the animals discovered in Europe, it is almost certain that adult male cave-lions lacked manes. In The Eternal Savage, Burroughs incorrectly describes a cave lioness as being “maned like her lord”. One inner earth tribe has learned to domesticate the ta-ho as companions and hunting animal, as two other tribes have done with the jalok and the tarag, respectfully. The Mike Grell illustration from the dark Horse comic series “The Savage Heart”, depicts a cave-lion accurately, without a mane.

Hyena Spelea
This is the giant cave hyena of ice age Europe, which grew larger than a modern African lion. The native name for this animal is unknown.

Dinotherium
This is a huge elephantine creature with mighty downward curving tusks, which lived on the earths’ surface during the Miocene. It is one of the few innumerable Pellucidaran herbivorous mammals mentioned directly in both Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, and Back to the Stone Age. Its Pellucidaran name is unknown.

Antelope
There innumerable species within Pellucidar. Burroughs describes the most beautiful in At the Earth’s Core, as having backward spiraling horns, and a gorgeous striped coat, patterned in the manner of the zebra.

Maj
The mighty mastodon of Pellucidar, a beast somewhat smaller than the tandor, with a flat head rather than a high-domed skull.

Archeopteryx
A primitive “dinosaur-bird” of the Lower Jurassic, having teeth, and hooked-claws on its wings. The claw-winged avians, described once in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core were doubtless of this species, or one of the related reptile-birds discovered by paleontologists in recent times.

Giant Ants
Gargantuan “prehistoric” ants are also native to the inner earth. They thrive in vast, underground colonies, and grow huge enough to carry off humans to feed their larvae. They are purely a Burroguhsian invention.

Ant Bear
A colossal edentate mammal which feed on the giant ants, possibly a relative of dyryth. No such animal ever existed on the surface.

Others….

Doubtless,
many other animals swarm though this lost world at the center of the earth, as Pellucidar is a vast melting pot from all the ages of prehistory. John Eric Holmes, in his two Pellucidar pastiches Mahars of Pellucidar, and Red Ax of Pellucidar, decribes other, though he does not invent Pellucidar names for any of them. There are a herd of elephant-like beasts in the first book, which sport great protruding lower jaws, and are swamp dweller. These are doubtless shovel-tuskers. He also describes a triceratops in the same book as having a much more colorful face than the “gyor” in Burroughs own version. He also incorrectly calls a tyrannosaurus (zarith) a “dryath”, and uses the term “gryf”(the name of the Pal-ul-donian triceratops), as a general term meaning “giant reptile”. He has the natives describe the brontosaurs in the next book as lidi, which is fairly accurate, since the species brontosaurus and diplodocus are virtually identical, and might well go by the same name. Other beasts in Red Ax include knobby-horned rhino-like beasts that are certainly uintotheres, and sail-bake reptiles that neatly fit the description of dimetrodon, a finback Permian reptile. Holms makes the dimetrodons semi-aquatic predators utilizes their fins as sailing apparatus. The fin is actually believed to have acted as temperature regulator, but their have been other ideas as well. Holmes’ visualization of their purpose is at least as inventive (and way more plausible) than Burroughs own for the dyrodor’s plates! Mention is also made of the “Brontotherium and the Balucotherium” of the plains. The Jusko illustration above depicts a “prehistoric octopus”, as one of the terrible denizens of Pellucidar’s oceans.

Races of Pellucidar

Mahar

The Mahars are the formally dominant race within the hollow earth. They are super-intelligent pterosaurs descended from rhamphorynchus of the Jurassic. On the surface, the rhamphorynchus grew to no larger than a crow, and were unintelligent. But due to some freak of Pellucidar’s evolutionary chain, here they developed vast intellect and stupefying mental powers. Mahars are totally deaf, and communicate telepathically among one another, and to their servants the sagoths. They are also deaf, but have developed a form of “musical” entertainment based on motion. They often use a related species, the giant thipdars, as bloodhounds to chase down escaped slaves, and guard animals. They use humans (gilaks) for their scientific experiments, and also to serve as Mahar food, though eating any kind of mammal is considered taboo, and not done by “respectable” members of the species. Humans intended to serve this purpose are taken to a Mahar “temple”, where they are imprisoned on islands surrounded by water, not unlike an aquatic zoo exhibit. When a mahr singles out a human as victim, she fastens her gaze on him/her, and lures the mesmerized victim into the water to be devoured.

Mahars, unlike their Jurassic ancestors are able not only to fly but to swim as well as a seal. Mahars are also a race entirely made up of females. Somewhere along their journey to dominance, Mahr scientists learned to fertilize their eggs chemically, eliminating the need for males. The details of the method of procreation are not given in the series, but Alan Gross, in his novel Farewell Pellucidar , includes a male Mahar who is no less intelligent, but is no larger than his Jurassic counterparts! The idea of this extreme sexual dimorphism among the Mahar is an interesting twist. Though perhaps some male members of the Mahar race do exist in some far off regions of the inner world, none is ever encountered in any of the novels penned by Burroughs himself. I wrote a Pellucidar pastiche some years ago, which still being serialized in Frank Westwood’s zine Fantastic World of Edgar Rice Burroughs that also features a male mahar, only I made the male of the species even larger than the female. Sometimes pastiches counterdict one another. I did not know at the time that the Gross novel existed, or I would have tried to make it consistent. Actually, Mr. Gross’s version is the more logical, as females among retiles tend to be larger.

Mahars have been depicted many times, with varying degrees of accuracy. Among the worst are the man-in- costume examples in the film version of At the Earth’s Core. Close to this are the Mahars in the “Blood Money and Human Bondage” series of stories in marvels comics’ version of Tarzan. These only faintly resemble their counterparts from the fossil record, and are too humanoid. This version also features both male and female members of mahar species, but this is clearly a mistake on the authors’ part.

The last surviving Mahars have evidently established a colony on Pellucidar’s moon, the Dead World. The mahar scientists, who are depicted as male, have invented a bizarre weapon called the “sound canon” with which they hope to retake Pellucidar. This version quickly came under fire from Burroughs enthusiasts because of the numerous errors. The authors seemed to have forgotten that the Mahar race is deaf dumb and all female. Then there are the “mahars” of the recent tarzan television series. NOTE: I did not see these, and really can’t comment accurately, but from other sources I’ve gleaned that the Mahars do not resemble those in the Pellucidar series at all, and are able to morph at will into attractive human females. In the Russ Manning Pellucidar stories, the Mahars are identical in appearance to the reptiles of Burroughs novel, and resemble outsize rhamphorynchus.

In one strip sequence from Manning’s dailies, he has the Mahar that David Innes mistakenly took with him to the surface escapes and is at large in Tarzan’s Africa. Innes believes that he takes the Mahar back with him, but it is explained that he only takes an illusion that the Mahar placed in his mind. This, of course, is at odds with Burroughs own version, in which the Mahar Innes liberates (whose name is Tu-ul-sa) later spares his life in the arena. Seeking refuge in some ancient ruins the deepest darkest region of the Congo. She recruits human “friends” to serve her. A fanatical cult develops around the mahr by the mesmerized humans. Any humans who disobey, or are able to resist her hypnotic mental powers, are taken to a feeding pool for the Mahar to devour. It takes the Ape-man himself to finally subdue the creature and free the cultists. This opens up a whole other sequence, in which Tarzan and Korak return the Mahar to her rightful home, and thus embark and another adventure within the hollow earth. Frank Frazetta’s illustrations of Mahars, while among the best, are far less accurate than those of Manning. The head of the Mahar in the picture below does not resemble its Jurassic counterpart.

His pictures of the Mahars mesmerizing their victims are too human-like. The Dark Horse comics series “Tarzan vs. Predator at the Earth’s Core” also featured a Mahar. The book is well-drawn, and well-scripted (more so than most of their other Burroughs stories), but the artist seemed to have followed Frazetta’s influence more than Manning’s. The Mahar does look a bit more pterosaur-like than Frazetta’s though, as it should.

Sagoths

Sagoths are a race of savage gorilla-men. They serve as slavers to the mahars.

Horibs

Horibs, called lizard-men or snake- men, are a grotesque race of humanoid reptilians descended from lizards or lizard-like reptiles. They are cold-blooded, and never cease to grow while living. One specimen is cited as being well over seven feet tall. Horibs capture humans and other warm-bloods as food for their newly hatched young. Horibs dwell in vast swamps, and lay their eggs in mud. They are humanoid in form with heads resembling a snakes or lizards, and sport a pair of short horns. Eerily, they speak the same tongue as gilaks, the humans of Pellucidar with a sibilant hiss. Their mounts are the lizard-like gorobors, the swiftest beast in the inner earth. The relish the flesh of the Gyor or triceratops, as a delicacy.

Ganaks

The Ganaks, or Bison-men, are a race of humanoid bovines. Like their ancestors, they are herbivorous, though the sometimes capture human for their cruel sacrificial rites. %hey brew a liquor called “dancing water” for use in these rituals.

Gorbuses

The Gorbuses are a human-like race with white hair, milky-white skin, and large pink eyes with red albino pupils. They also sport tusk-like fangs with curve up from their lower jaws. They are a cannibalistic race who inhabit the Forest of Death. It is because of the Gorbus that the forest bears this name, as they capture any humans who venture within. The gorbus also share some mysterious tie with the surface world. They suffer from visions of a previous life in which they have all killed something, and have fleeting visions that could only pertain to life outside Pellucidar, but the origins of this mysterious race are never revealed.

Coripies
The Coripies, or “Buried People”, are perhaps the most gruesome race to have evolved within Pellucidar. They are an underground race native to the island of Amicop, apparently descended from surface dwellers. They are humanoid in form, but lack aby discernible facial features. They are totally blind, and skin covers their eyes, which roll grotesquely beneath the covering membrane. They have heavy fangs and webbed talons, with which they tear apart their prey. This usually consists of cave fish , toads and lizards, but they relish the flesh of other warm-bloods as a break from this.

Beast-Men

The beast men are a savage, though vegetarian, race that inhabit the island named Indiana by Innes. Their faces resemble a cross between a sheep and a gorilla. They live a peaceful existence on the island under chiefdom of Gr-gr-gr. They harm only intruders they feel threatened by, and basically only want to be left alone. In the dark Horse comic series, The Savage Heart, writer Alan gross has Tarzan encounter the tribe of Gr-gr-gr. Artist Mike Grell does a good job of rendering them, though the sheep-like aspect of them seems absent, and would indeed be very difficult to depict. Gross reveals that the Beast-Men, like other sentient primate species in Burroughs universe, share certain characteristics with the mangani, or Great Apes. For example, they share the ritual known as the Dum-Dum, and males battttle personal combat to establish chiefdom.

Ape-Men
These are mostly akin to monkeys than apes, being humanoid in form, but sporting long pendulous tails. They quite hairless, with glossy black skins. They somewhat resemble the tailed races of the lost land of Pal-ul-don, on the surface. They live high in tree-top villages, and sometimes take humans as captive.

Saber-Tooth Men

These are similar to the Ape-Men, and possibly related to them. being also hairless and black-skinned, and with long prehensile tails. These, however, often capture and devour any gilaks they capture. Unlike the Ape-Men, Saber-tooths sport a pair of saber-fangs extending from their upper jaw.

Others….

It is quite likely that, had Burroughs continued the series, more races would be found thriving in the far-off vastness of the inner world. Pelludicar’s land-surface, after all was nearly double the lad area of the surface. There are some new races that have shown up in the pastiches. For exapaple, in Alan Gross’s Farewell Pellucidar, there is an aquatic race of beaver-like humanoids, who inhabit dam-like “villages” in Pellucidar’s rivers. These beings are covered with a sleek coat of waterproof fur, and have large, flat tails. They feed on other aquatic animals such as the fresh-water plesiosaur, and often use live-baits, which sometimes includes humans. In Andy Nunez’s pastiche The Moon Maid at the Earth’s Core, reveals a race of humans who have a fairly advanced technology, and who inhabit Pellucidar’s moon. The moon maid of the title is named “Ee-lah-nah”, almost a reverse spelling of “Nah-ee-lah”, the heroine of Burroughs own novel, The Moon Maid! Incidentally, it is quite likely that, in Burroughs universe, that Pellucidar’s moon would have been inhabited as well, but by what manner of being one can only speculate. In Willian gIlmore's Pellucidar pasticxhe, published in the 1971 issue of "the Burroughs Bulleten", explorers to Pelluciar encounter another weird rac inhabiting the Dead World (I forget their name). They are a race of short, squat, apish beings, rather like dwarf orangatangs, and covered in orangish hair. Due to the gravitational pull of the central sun, the moon's inhabitants, are "frozen", during the days, and active only when the land is in shadow. The moon is also inbhbited by a race of humans as well, and these are preyed upon by the cannabilistic ape-like race. One thing missing in this story is a native princess for one of the main cxhracters to fall in love with, even though one of the Jeff Jones iustrations shows a curvaceous girl as one of the the captives. The lunar humans are dealt with only sparingly in this novel, although the Dead Wold, and its physics are greatly elaborated upon. It is a shame Burroughs himself never took up the question. In the Marvel comics series, in which the Dead World serves as a last refuge for the Mahar race, there appears to exist there a squat, humanoid reptilian race who act as servitors to the mahrs, but this is never explored in detail. In the Russ manning strips, the moon is also shown as a place of refuge for the Mahr race. The moon is hollow with a crystalline center in the Manning version, and the retiles use the crystals to augment their collective mental powers to cause havoc on the earth’s surface.

Pal-ul-don

2010-01-26T22:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a blog dedicated to Burroughs This post is on Pal-ul-don, with the text of my site that has now been deleted.

Deep within the heart of Africa lies a land where the monsters of Primeval earth still roam and slay and battle………

The Lost Land of Pal-ul-don

Tarzan explored the lost land of Pal-ul-don (whose name, among its natives translates as “Land of Man”) in only one book of the original Tarzan series, Tarzan the Terrible. Tarzan comes to the lost land seeking his mate Jane, who had been abducted by the renegade German officer Lt. Colonel Obergatz. He finds a great deal more in this land forgotten by time, where weird monsters bellow, and strange races of tailed men wage eternal war with one another. Unlike in the timeless world of Pellucidar, where evolution in most species has come to a virtual standstill, those in Pal-ul-don, though they have survived extinct ions for untold millions of years, have also undergone dramatic changes……

Beasts of Pal-ul-don

Gryf

The gryf is the most formidable and spectacular of all the beasts of Pal-ul-don. It is a huge and voracious monster, descended of the Triceratops, the mighty three-horned ceratopsian dinosaur of the Cretaceous. Though its ancestors were herbivorous, the gryfs have evolved a set of dagger like teeth, and their hoofed tows have evolved into talons. It is described as an omnivore, which means it hasn’t altogether given up its original diet of plants and ferns, but relishes fresh-killed meat as well. It is a strikingly colorful animal, with a red neck-shield, blue bands encircling the eyes. The savagely beaked face is yellow. The Gyor of Pellucidar is similarly marked, but he colors are more subdued. This beast wanders over the entire land surface of Pal-ul-don, but is totally infests the region known as Kor-ul-gryf (or “gorge of the gryf”), and that palce is uninhabitable.
The Tor-o-dons, or (Beast-like men), have learned to “domesticate” the gryf by whacking it once across the snout with a shaft. This subdues the frightful beasts. The Tor-o-dons can then ride the animal from behind the great bony shield. A Gryf will often tree their prey, and will wait with infinite patience, while the victim either comes down or starves. Tarzan copied the trick of the Tor-odons, and was able to ride them as well. The Ho-dons of Pal-ul-don worship and revere the gryf for its strength and power. Priests of A-lur often wear ceremonial gryf-masks, and temples and shrines are often carved in three-horned beast’s likeness. A monstrous live gryf was even kept as an object of worship by Lu-don, High priest of A-lur. He would feed any who displeased him to the creature by dropping them through a trapped door. Tarzan himself narrowly evaded this fate by escaping to the outside through the Gryf’s drinking pool. In the Manning newspaper strips, Ho-don veneration of this animal is carried further, as the beasts are also used by the Ho-don as war-mounts. This is at odds with Burroughs, since the Hod-don are amazed to see tarzan riding on the backs of these beasts.

Jato

The jato is black- and- yellow saber tooth lion-tiger of Pal-ul-don. It is a mixture of lion and saber-tooth, that came into being when the two species bred, and the pure saber-tooths faced extinction. Surprisingly, it is smaller than a pure lion, but very aggressive. Most illustrations of the jato, like those above, resemble a striped saber-tooth, like a smaller version of the tarag, but as a result of the lion mixture, it seems likely that they would have manes as well, and their tails would perhaps be longer.

Ja

The ja is the spotted lion of Pal-ul-don. It has long been theorized that adult lions once had spotted coats, given that spots still occur in cubs. In fact, some appear to have lingered awhile in the Ethiopian highlands (where they are called “marozi”,and considered a separate species) where spotted lion hides have been traded by the natives. The lions of Pal-ul-don, having been isolated for millions of years, have coats as gorgeously patterned as Sheeta the leopard.

Above is a Hogarth Tarzan strip of unknown origin. It depicts a spotted lion, likke the Ja, or Marozi, but the story does not appear to set in Pal-ul-don. The warrior in it appears to be of the Viking race.

Swamp Saurian

The only other Pal-ul-donian beast given direct mention in the book was a strange aquatic reptile which attacks Korak in the Great Barrier Swamp, which surrounds the land. Just what this “frightful survivor from some extinct progenitor” was we don’t know, but “it was like no living thing he had ever seen, though possibly it resembled the crocodile more than any other thing with which he was familiar.” Korak is able to swim beneath the hissing saurian, and slay it by slashing its underbelly., as shown in the St. John illustration. Perhaps, like the gryf, this beast too, had evolved and was precisely identical to nothing from the fossil record. It might have been an evolved plesiosaur, or some other aquatic reptile. There did exist in Africa a genera of carnivorous (theropod) dinosaurs that sported elongated snouts similar to the crocdilia. This genera included the spinosaurus, baryonyx, and the recently discovered “crocodile mimic” suchomimus. Though bipedal, these dinosaurs inhabited swampy regions, and are believed to have fed primarily upon fish. It is certainly not unlikely that a survivor of this order could have persisted within Pal-ul-don’s swamp!

Others….

Many other species of ancient life have persisted within this hidden realm. Tarzan sees many animals which represent either a form unaltered for countless millennia, or an entirely divergent branch of evolution. Burroughs does not describe any though, besides the few species mentioned above. The Dell comics Tarzan had it own version of Pal-ul-don, most of which was wildly inaccurate. Other Burroughsian civilizations were incorporated into the lost land, such as the lost cities of Athne and Cathne. The Ho-dons are sometimes represented in the Dell Tarzan and Korak series as tailless, and of a culture seemingly derived from ancient Greece. Numerous other creatures roam this alternate world of Pal-ul-don, some mythological, most of them prehistoric. There are pteranodons(thipdars)and phorohacas(dyals), which are inaccurately called by their Pellucidaran names, when, were these species known to be native to Pal-ul-don, they would be known by different ones, as was the gryf.

There is also the Pal-ul-donian Tyrannosaurus, which is called a ‘garth”. Of note is a species of giant eagle called an argus (one of the Greek gods) native to the mountains of Pal-ul-don, and large enough to be ridden by an adult human. Interestingly, the argus was incorporated into the Filmation TV series, which took all its other aspects from the original Tarzan novels. The comics writers probably modeled the argus on no actual form of prehistoric life, though it was discovered in the eighties that a giant bird similar to the argus did exist in South America during that continent period of isolation, millions of years ago. While the phorohacas terrorized the ground, the giant bird, called an argentavis, terrorized the land from above. It was not quite large enough to be ridden, but it was huge enough to bear off human-sized prey, with a wingspan 25 feet across, the same as that of a pteranodon.

Comics legend Russ Manning did do an adaptation of the actual novel in the Dell series however, and his version stuck strictly to the story, though the incident with the dinosaur in the swamp was curiously absent. He also took Tarzan to Pal-ul-don on numerous occasions in his Sunday and daily strips. Manning’s version of the lost land is essentially the Burroughs’ own, though the format of the newspaper strip allowed Tarzan to return to Pal-ul-don more than once, and the land is given much greater detail. Most striking is the much richer abundance of prehistoric life than was evident from Burroughs’ novel. All the human and humanoid races are tailed, as they should be. Manning also invents new place-names and character-names based on Burroughs’ Pal-ul-don glossary. He does not stick strictly to the grammatical rules Burroughs invented for names of members the both black and white races of pithicantropi, but this would be very hard to do. In the Manning strips the t-rex is still called a “garth”, but the phorohacas is called a “hacker”, which is different from the Pellucidaran “dyal”, as it should be.

The Waz-dons of the Manning strips ride to battle on mighty war-beasts called Jad-ben-ko, meaning “The great mighty”. Science knows this beast as the indrocotherium, or balucotherium, a giant ancestor of the rhinoceros, and the largest land mammal to ever live. He also has the Ho-don riding the gryfs as war-mounts, using the same trick of the Tor-o-don, and clash with the waz-don in spectacular earth-shaking battles.

Races of Pal-ul-don

NOTE: The races of Pal-ul-don are described by Tarzan and Burroughs as “pithacantrophi”, the same species known to science as Homo Erectus or “Java man”. While these races may indeed be derived from this species, and certain aspects are unchanged from this ancestral stock than modern humans (such as their grasping feet, and the Waz-don’s fur), they actually represent a entirely different branch of evolution than modern humans, nearly as developed in their own way as humans of the outside world.

Waz-don

The Waz-don are a race of tailed humanoids sporting long prehensile tails not unlike those of New World primates, from which, in fact, Pal-ul-don’s races may descend. They are covered with a sleek coat of glossy black fur, and move with a cat’s quickness. They are mortal enemies of the Ho-don. The Waz-don are more primitive of Pla-ul-don’s two dominant races, and live in cave villages carved high within perpendicular cliffs. They reach their homes by means of a series of pegs driven into the cliff face. The Waz-don chief is called a “Gund”, and rite of cheifdom is decided by personal combat.

Ho-don

The Ho-don are the hairless white men of Pal-ul-don. Their features are classical Greek, yet they retain the grasping feet and pendulous tail shared bu the land’s other races. Though their culture is stone-age, are more civilizes then the Waz-don, and live in elaborate cities carved from the white limestone of the cliffs. The shale left over from the carving is then used to pave the streets. The most kingly Ho-don city is A-lur (City of Light) capital of Pal-ul-don. In the royal palace of A-lur, the central throne room is dominated by a pyramid of steps atop which is the throne of the king, who is revered as a god. A shaft in the ceiling sends light down upon the god-king, making him a dazzling figure. The Hod-don worship a tailess god named Jad-ben-otho, whom they believe demands blood sacrifice. This is usually obtained from captives of war, usually Waz-don slaves, or anyone who becomes the object of the high priest’s disfavor. They also reverie the gryf as a sacred animal, and the horned dinosaur features in much of their religious art.

Waz-ho-don

The Waz-ho-don are a mixed race that share traits of both the two dominant races of Pal-ul-don. Since any mixing between these two warring races is obviously taboo, this new race seems to be descended from couples mated, and could not return to their own people. They founded a city of their own, called Bu-lur (Moon City), which shares similarity in construction to both the Ho-don cities, and the cliff-villages of the Waz-don. Lt. Obergatz did encounter this race and lived among them for a short time. Tarzan, Jane and Korak never encountered them though, and since Tarzan never returned in the original novels, we no nothing else of them. Strangely, enough none of the pastiche of comics writers have touched on this race either. I have an idea for a story about the Waz-ho-don however.

Tor-o-don

The tor-o-dons are a savage race of beast-like men, with fur and fangs. They essentially unchanged from the fossil examples of Homo Erectus, and may represent the “parent race” from which Pal-ul-don’s two major races descended, since they also share the prehensile tail. However, the tail indicates that perhaps the tor-o-dons, are not same the Homo Erectus from which modern humans evolved, but possibly an alternate form that arose from the New World primates, when S. America and Africa were connected in prehistoric times. Like other ape-men in the Burroughs universe, Tor-o-dons have an occasional weakness for the females of the higher races, and Tor-o-don bulls have been know to capture Waz-don and Ho-don women during their mating season. The tor-o-dons have learned to subdue and ride the wild gryfs with a whack on the snout. Tarzan does not encounter a Tor-o-don band, or village, so the communal life of this race is unknown.

In the Manning strips however, much greater detail is given to the culture of the Tor-o-don race, and much of it is similar to what Burroughs himself might have invented. The tor-o-dons live in the darkest, gloomiest stretches of forest they can find, and raise their villages high into their air. The woven huts of the tor-o-don villages are suspended high in the branches of the trees by a series vine-rope pulleys. Captives taken by the Tor-o-dons are forced to fight to the death while suspended by the ankles with vines. The strongest captives then become slaves. The tor-o-dons have also learned to ride hackers (phorohacas), which they capture when young.

Others...

Though Pal-ul-don is not nearly so vast as Pellucidar, other races may persist within its unknown regions. It is a shame Burroughs did not return Tarzan to the lost land, so that it could be explored in more detail. Comic writers, however, have indeed invented a few new races over the years. In the Korak and Tarzan series from Dell comics, there exist two races of humans that do not appear native in origin, but whose cultures have learned to exist in and about Pal-ul-don’s great barrier swamp. Both are native Africans, not Pal-ul-don’s indigenous tailed races. One of these is the Stork-Men, a tribe whose warriors disguise themselves as giant storks, and hunt on stilts through the swamp to confuse their enemies. They live in a villages raised on poles above the water, and have learned to domesocate a species a giant river otter, which are terribly fierce in battle. The other tribe is the Terribs, a tribe of fierce raiders, who dress in crocodile skins, and wage war on the Stork-men upon reptilian mounts similar to the gorobors (cotlysaurs ) of Pellucidar, the same war-mounts favored by the Horibs. In an early issue of The Burroughs Bulliten comics writer Bruce Jones (who was only starting out at the time) wrote and drew a few short Tarzan stories, including a rather crude Pal-ul-don story. In it, Tarzan encounters a race of “wolf-people” who worship a lizard-god idol, and are “the most dreaded creatures of the lost land”. Tarzan and a female captive are tied to a stake as food for the wolf-people’s pet, a saber tooth. But they escape, and Tarzan summons a gryf to his aide. The dinosaur destroys the wolf-people’s idol, and Tarzan and the girl escape. It is a simple effort, but Jones’s later comics stories, including his Tarzan stories written for Dark Horse, are among the best in the genre. By far the most “Burroughsian” of Pal-ul-don’s comic-invented races are “winged men” of Manning’s strips. These are very similar to the Weiroos of Caspak, but with a few striking differences. Like the Weiroo, Pal-ul-don’s winged men are a race of males only, and must subsist on the females of the lost land other races, in order to procreate. Unlike the Wieroo, they are less intelligent and more animal-like. They live in the sides of cliffs in gigantic mud nests, after the manner of cliff-swallows, and roost within the nests from wooden beams like gigantic bats. They apparently branched off from Pal-ul-dons other tailed races in some remote age. In the winged men, the tails can be unfurled like that of a peacock, and for the same purpose! After a winged man has captured a woman, the two dominant males “cock fight”, to determine who will mate with her. Their grasping feet are quipped with razor-sharp fighting spurs. Captive females are taken to a “nursery” within the nests, where they will bear and raise wing men offspring. These offspring are always male, and have no characteristics of their female parent. Winged men use a small whip of “feathers”, anointed with a stinging sap, in order to subdue their captives. These weird beings do not have a language, but communicate with a series of squeals and whistles. Manning did not invent a Pal-ul-donian term for this race, but a name such as “In-dons” (“strange men”) might have been appropriate.

Also invented by Manning are the Pallids or mudmen, a race of pale, albino men who inhabbit crystal-caverns beneath the Great Barrior Swamp. These are tailless, and are there most likey descended from a Negroid race of modern Africa.