Comic Review: Warlord of Mars #15

With President's Day here in the states, there is a little break so I thought I would catch up with another comic book review. This time hell hath no fury like hot Thern daughters and evil goddesses...

When we last left John Carter he had just jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire, being captured by the First Born along with Phaidor, daughter of the Holy Hekkador of the Therns Matai Shang. Heading towards the Temple of Issus, John and Phaidor find themselves now slaves to an unholy creature. With John now sentenced to the arena he must find a way out of his new predictament...and might do it with a young red man who bares an uncanny resemblance...

Having just reread The Gods of Mars I have to admit it was more entertaining than the last time. Maybe it was the tone, the fast paced action or the cliffhanging ending but it's probably moved up the list of the best of the series. So I was surprised again how faithful this series is adapting the book. With this issue we get little references to the novel-from John and Phaidor being forced to grovel at Issus' feet to Phaidor's threat to seek her revenge against John and Dejah-that proves at least writer Arvid Nelson read the book. The only major change is the elimination of the long drawn out revelation of Carthoris-this time he's introduced as the savior of the slaves in the arena and makes dad really proud.

The artwork by Edgar Salazar has improved a little from the last issue, even though I still preferred Stephen Sandowski's art from the prior storyline. Still he manages to capture the Temple of Issus well and what little action there is with ease. There is some bizarre character design choices though-Issus herself looks like a shrivled up skeleton while Thurid for some reason reminded me of the Beast from X-Men.

So to wrap up again this issue does a good job of adapting Burroughs and I do hope that this suit gets resolved and the series continues. Because honestly they're doing a bang up job.