Comic Review: Warlord of Mars #18

This weekend's comic review finds Yawn...I mean John Carter fighting for his life, his love and his right to party!

Leading a small armada of ships, John and Carthoris head towards Omean to rescue Dejah Thoris when they have to take on the First Born, the Therns and Zat Arras' own fleet. Luckily for John and company the First Born and Therns take on each other and Zat finds his own fleet pledging loyalty to Carter, forcing him to jump ship literally. From there John lands, finds his beloved, reveals the reality of Issus and finds a bunch of women ready to fight over him...all the while trapped in the inescapable Temple of the Sun.

Wrapping up their adaptation of The Gods of Mars, writer Arvid Nelson and artist Edgar Salazar does a good job of sticking close to Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel-right down to certain scenes from the book-while keeping the pace moving towards the climax. There is also none of the out of place comedy from the last few issues which is a relief. As he showed in adapting A Princess of Mars, Nelson has read the books and knows how to adapt them, making me interested to see him tackle The Warlord of Mars next.

As for the art by Salazar I know some have been split on it. Some of the characters come across well-Tars Tarkas is less Hulk-like here and Dejah (even though still probably wearing less than some would approve of) is attractive. On the other hand Phaidor could use some work and the backgrounds again don't pop out. There is enough action though to overlook this and Salazar captures the air battles well so if you liked his work in the series so far you'll be pleased with his work in this issue.

I really don't know what else to say, except that it's a pretty good issue and a nice conclusion to the Gods storyline. I'll be back with another Martian comic trip-involving carpets-next time.