John Carter, Warlord of Mars is a Marvel Comics series created in 1977 by Marv Wolfman (writer) and Gil Kane (penciller), based on the Barsoom series of Edgar Rice Burroughs and featuring the eponymous character.
The entire series (with few exceptions) takes place between the third and fourth paragraphs of chapter 27 of Burroughs' novel A Princess of Mars.
Publication history
The series ran from 1977 to 1979.
Awards
- 1978: Won the "Favourite New Title" Eagle Award
Other comics featuring the character
Dell Comics released three issues of John Carter of Mars under its Four Color Comics banner. The issue numbers are 375, 437, and 488, and were released in 1952-1953. Gold Key Comics would reprint them as three issues in 1964, numbering one through three, but reprinted them out of order. Dark Horse Comics in 2010 reprinted the comics in a hard back archive edition.
John Carter appeared in DC Comics's Tarzan comics #207-209, then Weird Worlds #1-7 and Tarzan Family 62-64 in the early 70s.
There was also a four-issue mini-series cross-over in 1996 with another of Burroughs' characters, Tarzan, in Tarzan/John Carter: Warlords of Mars from Dark Horse Comics.
Starting in October 2010, Dynamite Entertainment has begun publishing a regular series entitled Warlord of Mars. The first two issues served as a prelude story, issues 3-9 adapted A Princess of Mars, and issues 10-12 were an original story with following issues alternating between adaptation and new stories. Since 2011, there is a regular Dejah Thoris series and there have been many mini-series.
Newspaper strip
In 1941, John Coleman Burroughs wrote and illustrated 69 weeks of a syndicated colour Sunday newspaper strip, John Carter of Mars, which debuted in The Chicago Sun on December 7, 1941. This debut coincided with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, resulting in the series being picked up by very few papers. The strip began with a Princess of Mars adaptation but departed from the original with episode 5. John Coleman Burroughs explained that this was done at the request of United Features Syndicate, in order to provide more action in the weekly episodes. Continuing with the Burroughs tradition of family involvement, John's wife, Jane Ralston Burroughs, helped with the backgrounds, inking, and lettering of the strip and even served as model for Dejah Thoris.
Collected editions
Dark Horse Comics have collected the Marvel series as a single black-and-white trade paperback:
- John Carter of Mars: Warlord of Mars (paperback, 632 pages, March 2011, ISBN 1-59582-692-0)
They also released a collection of the DC series:
- John Carter of Mars: Weird Worlds (paperback, 112 pages, January 2011, ISBN 1-59582-621-1)
As well as the earlier Dell Comics one:
- Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars: The Jesse Marsh Years (hardcover, 120 pages, May 2010, ISBN 1-59582-471-5)
Marvel Comics has released their entire series as an over-sized hardcover omnibus. Unlike the Dark Horse reprint, the omnibus is in full color:
- John Carter, Warlord of Mars Omnibus (hardcover, 632 pages, February 2012, ISBN 0-7851-5990-8)
