John Carter: Warlord of Mars #6
Cover A Main: Ed Benes
Cover B Variant: Bart Sears
Cover C Variant: Emanuela Lupacchino
Writer: Ron Marz
Art: Abhishek Malsuni
Genre: Science Fiction
The battle for Barsoom reaches its climax as John Carter and the villainous Captain Joshua Clark face off in a winner-take-all duel to the death! But even if John Carter triumphs, will he be too late to save his beloved Dejah Thoris? The critically acclaimed relaunch by writer Ron Marz and artist Abhishek Malsuni reaches the end of its first arc, and sets the stage for all the epic adventures to come!
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Love the classics. Know the classics. If nothing else, respect the classics. Without them, many of the things we enjoy, the memes, the rote plot devices that get us through the day (any half of the episodes of whatever NCIS spinoff you might be watching) wouldn’t exist. One of all time favorites has got to the downtrodden hero/heroine taken out of their element and placed in an alien one. Will they rise to the occasion and overcome the odds? Don’t be ridiculous, of course they will. We know they will, and that’s okay. Tale the lesson of M. Night Shyamalan to heart… we all watched The Sixth Sense twice. The first time we were blown away by the twist, and the second time we watched it to see what clues we missed the first time. Now how about the rest of Shyamalan’s movies? He mastered the plot twist in his first movie, and tried to repeat that success over and over again, to the jeers of the huddled masses.
Face it, there’s something to be said about knowing. You can throw in all of the plot twists along the way, but in the end we take comfort in the fact that our protagonist is going to overcome the insurmountable odds, adapt to his/her new environment, and stand on his beaten enemies with his head held high. Real life has enough surprise endings, we like to see the good guy win.
Well, thank you very much, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Through your work, we’ve had swashbuckling adventures to live through vicariously, and none of them are (in my opinion) represented any better than in the adventures of Captain John Carter. Taken from the life of a Confederate officer, transported to the bizarrely populated world of Barsoom (Mars), and thrown into the middle of an endless supply of war and intrigue, John Carter is the “fish out of water”, if not the “every man” hero we love to see standing tall.
In this storyline Carter is battling another refugee from Earth, Union Captain Clark, who has taken on the role of warlord over a race called the Kahori. He leads them against Carter’s forces, an alliance of Thark tribes who are normally enemies. This issue is the climax of a six chapter story arc, so I’m not going to give away any of the details… wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for anyone out there. Suffice to say, John Carter lives up to his title, saves the girl, and is ready to face his next great adventure… I’m assuming that’s going to be in issue 7. Heroes might be admired and applauded, but they sure don’t get to rest for long.