Comic Review: John Carter, Warlord of Mars #12

We hit a whole year for the new series as John and Dejah find that sometimes "Lost Empires" should remain lost.

Following last issue's cliffhanger, the two find themselves facing the Last Orovar and his robotic minions known as Mentors. Thankfully Dejah spares them thanks to her diplomatic qualities, leading the Orovar, known as Aron to reveal what happened and to introduce the Orovars' ultimate solution to survival-a terrestrial transformer. But, as usual, it's causing problems and it's up to our heroes to save the day.

That honestly is about all that happens in this issue. There is a big fight, John and Dejah do their impersonations of 1980s movie heroes and blast everything with rifles(?!?!?), Aron reveals that the Orovars chose Jasoom as their new home, something Carter admits didn't happen-even though Aron resembles some of the Nordic races of Earth (great what next-shape shifting super beings? Oh wait...) In short a mess of an issue with some interesting concepts but enough that just grates that you can't help but roll your eyes.

Ariel Medel's art also seems to ping pong back and forth this issue as well. Some of it-especially the Mentors and Aron-are handled well but others are not. Maybe it's just selected panels that rubbed me weird (like the one where Aron inspects Carter. Honestly his facial expressions look like he escaped from Archie Comics). Still it's nice to look at and does help.

It might have been my mood when I read this or the fact that it brings up ideas that don't mesh with the world established by Edgar Rice Burroughs but this issue just falls flat. Hopefully the next issue will return to form. Until then, Kaor!