A popular element in comics is the crossover of different characters and worlds. This idea has come over to the pulps, usually with crossovers involving different characters from different companies. But what about authors with different character series who never met in the original stories? Hence, the interest of having characters from Edgar Rice Burroughs‘s different series, set often on different worlds, meet up. Only in recent years, either in comics or prose, have most of these crossovers occurred.
One example is having Tarzan travel to Mars, or Barsoom. While I think this has happened a couple of times in comics, I am only aware of it happening one time in prose: in the unauthorized novel, Tarzan on Mars by Stuart J. Byrne under his John Bloodstone alias. I’ve never read it, but would certainly love to get a copy at some point.
More recently, we have gotten approved crossovers from Will Murray.
Will Murray has written several new authorized Tarzan novels. Two of them involve Tarzan traveling to Mars. The first of these is Conqueror of Mars (2020), and the second is Back to Mars (2023). Both were published by Altus Press and are part of the Wild Adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs, a series of authorized noncanonical stories. Most of this series has been published by ERB Inc., themselves. Like other “wild adventures” from Murray, these have very nice covers and a map by Jason Eckhardt.
Conqueror of Mars is set about a year after the adventures of Tarzan and the Leopard Men. The cover is by Roman Kukalis, and the map covers the small area of Mars that Tarzan will be adventuring in.
Along with Jad-bal-ja, the golden lion, Tarzan is looking for a witch doctor who was part of the Leopard Men. Finding him, the witch doctor is somehow able to send Tarzan’s spirit to Mars, similar to how John Carter traveled there, leaving his body behind.
Tarzan then finds himself on Mars, naked and unarmed. He is located in the Southern Hemisphere, south of the city of Kaol. As he slowly figures out where he is, he also must figure out the flora and fauna of Mars and his new abilities, similar to what John Carter went through.
Tarzan encounters some new fauna, descendants of ancient Martian sea life. But he also encounters other life forms, like a banth and a zitidar, a creature similar to a mammoth, pulling a chariot. He soon meets a group of white Martian apes, whose leader he is able to communicate via telepathy, and becomes one of their subleaders. From them, he gets the name Ramdar, which means “red scar,” referring to the scar on his forehead. He also hopes to find a way to get back home. Somehow.
He will also meet his first green Martian, Dag Dolor, a prisoner (and probable future meal) of the white apes. From him, he learns the Martian language. Tarzan will soon take leadership of the white apes, though maybe not in the manner most readers would expect. The white apes are on a mission to attack the city of Uxfar to the south, a city of red Martians. Tarzan reluctantly leads them in that direction. Along the way, he becomes the leader of a horde of green Martians. He is also mistaken for John Carter.
In his explorations of a Martian jungle in a strange crater, he meets and becomes a protector of a strange female white Martian, the last inhabitant of a sunken Orovar city. From her, he is able to finally outfit himself with proper weapons. But leading his strange group of white apes and green Martians toward Uxfar attracts the attention of Uxfar, as well as John Carter, who comes into the novel about halfway through. Tarzan and Carter come into conflict until they are finally able to meet and resolve things.
Carter is able to provide Tarzan a means to return to Earth. Before he leaves, he makes sure that his followers are let off in places where they can live more or less in peace. And the Orovar woman’s secret is finally revealed.
Once back on Earth, Tarzan settles things with the witch doctor before heading off.
Back to Mars has a cover by Joe DeVito, and the map this time shows both the eastern and western hemispheres of Mars, as this novel has the action cover a much larger area.
It’s set just after the end of World War II, and finds Tarzan, or Group Capt. John Clayton, being discharged from the RAF and flying back to his African estate in a P-40B Tomahawk. We are told that Korak will soon be coming home as well.
Along the way, he encounters a strange sight: a giant mechanical bird with a rider. After a brief aerial fight, he heads on to his estate. After a return celebration, he takes a group of Waziri to check out who is behind these, as well as Jad-bal-ja.
They soon have an encounter with one of the invaders, and Tarzan learns they are Orovars, or white Martians. Their armor gives them protection from the higher gravity, and they have also brought some Martian wildlife, including banths and zitidars. They plan to colonize Africa, bringing more of their people. Tarzan, with the help of the Waziri and soon also Korak, puts an end to this. But Tarzan learns that an even larger ship, this one with unhatched eggs, will be coming soon. Tarzan has little choice but to travel to Mars and put a stop to this.
On the way to finding John Carter, Tarzan encounters several characters from the Mars novels. Once he does meet up with Carter, they start out to search for the hidden Orovar city. They narrow down where they think the city is, and Tarzan finds it and is able to get inside, but isn’t able to stop the planned launch. Due to its location, it would be hard to launch an attack, so they work on a plan. It’s decided that building a Martian version of Abner Perry’s Iron Mole is the way forward. Using the Gridley Wave, they contact Jason Gridley and then are able to build their own.
The plan is for Carter, Tars Tarkas, and others to take the Martian Mole to drill into the city, while Tarzan and others attack from the air. Tarzan makes use of a captured mechanical bird. While they succeed in penetrating into the city, they aren’t able to stop the ship from launching. Tarzan is thus eager to return to Earth to prepare for the ship’s arrival.
Returning to Earth, Tarzan and his family and friends prepare for the arrival of the Orovar ship. Once it does, the final battle is shorter than I expected, due more to the actions of the Orovar themselves. Tarzan then has the ship return to Mars with the unhatched eggs. Their ultimate fate is unknown.
Overall, I thought both books were pretty good. When I read such works, I am concerned with how well the author stays true to the original characters and settings. While I haven’t read many Tarzan works, he seems to be accurately portrayed here, as are John Carter and Barsoom.
The first book, of course, has to give us conflict between our two heroes before they work things out. It’s a bit of fan service, but I think this was handled in a way that works for both characters and is respectful to what they are.
I don’t think we’ll get a further journey to Mars for Tarzan, at least not from Murray. As noted, he does plan a further work with Tarzan, but that probably won’t appear for another year or so. The next novel from him will be his Secret Agent X going up against Doctor Death, but that won’t appear until early 2026; next will be a new Spider novel. After that, I have no idea.
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