This seems familiar somehow...

Damnit, I hadda go back, and change a few posts tagged with "Probably my only Tarzan post," because not only were there more than one, every so often I come across an issue of his that's not half-bad! Like this one! From 1979, Tarzan #28, "Flight of Terror!" Written by Bill Mantlo, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Ricardo Villamonte. King Kong homage cover by John Buscema.

Jane Clayton, Tarzan's wife, has just overpowered her kidnappers, and is making a desperate escape attempt, climbing the Empire State Building! Not far away, Tarzan has his own problems: drugged speechless (or, rather, down to ape-speech) he and his lion pal Jad-Bal-Ja were fighting a good-sized albino gorilla, in bad guy Roger Tory's club. Bootlegger Blackjack has orchestrated some of this, to get revenge on Tory for trying to stiff him his liquor bill, but respects the hell out of Tarzan. He notices Tory had Tarzan's knife, and tosses it to him, and that's all she wrote for the gorilla.

The cops are seemingly more scared of Tarzan than the lion, but they're also to a man on the take, and can't buck Blackjack, who shoos them away. Tarzan, slowly regaining the ability to speak English, tells Blackjack to get his lion and Tory out of there while he looked for Jane, and takes off into the city. Meanwhile, a teenager has seemingly made a pretty surprising feat: flying from Africa to New York City, a mere 39 hours non-stop! It's Korak, Tarzan and Jane's son...who seems a bit too old for how young Tarzan and Jane look, but who knows. At the airfield, Korak hears on the radio a news report about the cops cordoning off the Empire State Building, because Jane Clayton was climbing it; so he has to borrow another plane to go help.

Stealing a trenchcoat and hat, Tarzan is able to get through most of the crowd, but discards his disguise when he hears Jane was in danger. Still, he gets to take the easy way up: the elevator! An exhausted Jane pulls herself onto the deck, but her kidnappers nearly head her off, until Tarzan arrives. Knowing they were facing a federal beef, the kidnappers try to gun down the couple, but are cut off by machine gun fire from Korak. (Were machine guns just standard issue on planes then? Well, maybe.) Korak drops a rope ladder to rescue his folks, and Tarzan has their ride home already in mind... 

This issue moves! I think Tarzan, Jane, and Korak had been separated for several issues, but their Marvel series was nearing an end, so maybe had to pick up the pace.