By: Sam Humphries (writer), Ramón Pérez (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist)
The Story: Spend some time on Mars and Earth religions start looking pretty good, eh?
The Review: Even though I found John Carter visually exciting, bordering on spectacular, ultimately the whole movie fell flat from uneven pacing, clumsy structure, and blandness in the plot and character. What’s particularly frustrating about the underwhelming quality of the movie is it belies the rich potential of the story itself. There’s a minor epic to be had here, if we can find the right people to bring it out.
From the initial look of this issue, Humphries may be one of those people. He dives right into the action, refusing to tarry with fancy narrative techniques or swaths of exposition. Right away, he understands that a story like this works best at a breakneck pace, so he never allows you to linger for very long in quiet before the pulp kicks up again. Almost as soon as Carter awakens to find himself back on Barsoom, he’s surrounded by danger and must fight for his life. And would you have it any other way?
Within eight pages, Carter’s already on the verge of death, prompting the timely arrival of a valuable ally. Tars Tarkas serves a valuable role in the plot by not only ciphering necessary information for Carter’s (and our) benefit, but also generating a lot of warmth through his obvious affection for his Earthman friend. Much of the feel-good factor of this issue comes from the pairing of these unlikely buddies: “John Carter, my heart is glad you have returned.” “Tars, you steely-eyed buzzard—the feeling is entirely mutual!”
Yet this fortuitous meeting with Tars represents only one-half of the happy reunion Carter expected for his return to Barsoom, and it looks like we’ll have to wait for the other, perhaps more important one for a while. With the mysterious disappearance of Dejah Thoris, Humphries reverts her back to her origins as the classic missing princess for whom the hero must overcome great tribulations to seek out and win. It’s an old-school bit of romantic convention, but there’s nothing wrong with that in this genre, especially if handled well.
While Carter searches for his betrothed, we need some kind of compelling plot to keep us occupied in the meantime. Humphries wisely chooses to further explore the mythology of the Therns, a race of beings holding themselves out as divinities, only to stand revealed as your usual tyrants with deceptively advanced technology. Considering the title of this mini, we can look forward to clearing up several intriguing mysteries surrounding these so-called “gods”: their need to feed on Martian sacrifices; their fear of “the all-powerful goddess Issus”; and their only enemies, “the Black Pirates of Omean!”
If Humphries is the ideal writer to reap the fruits of this series, Pérez is the ideal artist. His figures have just enough cartoonishness to them to retain the pure, boyhood adventure spirit of the story, yet they also have enough sophistication to be appealing to a more mature audience. His work, when painted over with Bellaire’s deep, lush colors, is as beautiful as it is dynamic, equally as convincing in depicting a fierce and bloody swordfight as a gleaming, utopian Paradise of Peace. His two-page panels of massive fliers battling in the deep purple sky is the stuff of dreams.
Conclusion: What didn’t translate into a feature film, despite gross sums of investment, comes to amazing life in twenty-something pages of word balloons and art, proving the unique strengths of the comics medium for storytelling.
Grade: B+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – You have to appreciate how Humphries doesn’t even bother trying to come up with some context for Carter to take off his shirt. Just start the issue shirtless, rather than delaying the inevitable.
Grade
Conclusion