Who saw that coming...? OK, everybody.

I don't have a lot of these issues, but this is like the second I've seen where the pretty girl love interest for Korak ends up dead, which is kind of worrying. From 1976, the Tarzan Family (Featuring Korak) #63, featuring "Song of the Dolphin" Written by Robert Kanigher, art by Rudy Florese.

We saw a later issue with a giantess a while back; but this month Korak's raft gets swamped by a killer whale, and while the dolphins try to help, he gets sucked down to an underwater cave, where he's found by Andra. The meet-cute is immediately stepped on by the attack of a giant crab, but Korak manages to knock a stalactite loose and impale it. Andra was already pretty won over, since she was looking to leave her home in New Atlantis, because it was...I don't know, boring? Stifling? Oppressive? The locals mention putting up with her, like it was a recurring chore; and net Korak, since he was a violent, pollution-bringing surface-dweller, and as such had to die; but they weren't prepared for him to fight back. Andra leads Korak to an escape route to the surface, and they take it, which should probably lead to the bends (not like that!) but instead Andra shrivels up and dies. The story seems to think it's due to pollution, but I'd say the pressure change? It could've been sunlight, oxygen, the common cold, anything. Anyway, the friendly dolphins help Korak to safety, probably for something else terrible to happen to him.

Also this issue: John Carter of Mars, in "Death Has Three Heads!" This has an odd framing sequence, as an aquatic Myoposan has recovered the secret diaries of John Carter from the sea-bottom--what sea? Mars was dry as hell in those stories, wasn't it? John had rescued the Princess Tanna from inside an emerald, but they are then attacked by a three-headed pterodactyl thing, then sucked into a strange craft. Kinda all over the place, this one: Tanna looks more like a white girl, than the usual natives of Barsoom. (Written by Robert Kanigher, pencils by Noly Zamora, inks by Vic Catan.) Then, another Carson of Venus story from Len Wein and M.W. Kaluta; as Carson fights a giant spider, but loses a friend. Finally, get out your reading glasses, for two months worth of Hal Foster's Sunday Tarzan strips! I think the standard comic pages are way smaller than this would've originally appeared. Also, it's weird that Tarzan's two soldier friends this story are D'arnot and Carnot.

Maybe those are run-of-the-mill French Foreign Legion names, I don't know.

EDIT: I'm not sure how this scan got here! Hey, there's also a USPS statement of ownership: Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 129,054.