Random Happenstance

We read a later issue some time back, but here's another of DC's Edgar Rice Burrough's adaptations: from 1973, Weird Worlds #3, featuring "The Gods of Mars, chapter six: Into the Valley of Death" Written by Marv Wolfman, art by Murphy Anderson; and a chapter of "At the Earth's Core," "Temple of the Damned" Written by Len Wein, art by Alan Weiss.

I'm not positive I've seen all of Disney's underperforming John Carter from 2012--I knew someone who was pretty opposed to it--but I had a bit of a hard time with this issue. John seems a little condescending to his Martian pal Tars Tarkas, as well as has to save him a couple of times with his superior earthman strength. John also slashes a path through the local flora and fauna, with scant regard to the local ecosystem: sure, they're monsters, but even so, just seems a bit uppity to me. Acts like he owns the planet...there's a bit of conservation of ninjutsu as well: the ten-legged lion-like banths were probably a threat alone, earlier in the series, but John and Tars cakewalk through them here.

In the second part of this issue, a Pellucidar story, wherein David Innes realizes the horror of the temple of the Mahars, the mind-controlling Pterodactyls living within the earth. Were the Mahars an influence for classic X-Men villain Sauron? Possibly not, oddly enough: Roy Thomas and Neal Adams may have intended Sauron to be a bat-creature, but were told an energy-draining bat monster might fall under the Comic Book Code's then-prohibitions against vampires! They went with the most bat-like thing they could think of, a pterodactyl, and problem solved.