There is quite a bit of John Carter of Mars fandom going on around the blogs, but I haven’t seen this little bit of a gem talked about.
I was rummaging through some of my comics last night, and came across volume 2 of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and was reminded that John Carter shows up in the opening pages of the story. It is way cool. As shown in the pages above, the Green Martians are present, but most interesting is the appearance of characters from other fiction about Mars. Edwin Lester Arnold’s Lieutenant Gulliver of Mars makes an appearance. First written in 1905, Arnold’s Gulliver had many things in common with John Carter (both were soldiers, and both were transported to Mars from Earth by magic/super-science), and began the Sword and Planet genre.
Both John Carter and Gulliver, aware of each other’s existence on the planet and obviously having met before, come together to face the Martians of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. Not truly Martian natives, but invaders from some other planet who came to attack mars after scrying info about the Humans on Mars with The Crystal egg from the book of that name by Wells, the Wells Martians are losing their war against Carter, Gulliver, and the natives (which even includes the Sorns from C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet). With Carter and his armies closing in, the invaders are driven off of Mars, and off they go to Earth to struggle against the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
This has to be the most interesting John Carter appearance outside of his own books (He had some team-ups with Tarzan in a Marvel Comics mini-series in the 90’s that were pretty cool), and it places him firmly in the Wold Newton family tree as created by Phillip Jose Farmer. If you are unfamiliar with Wold Newton, it basically is a theory that all pulp heroes are related in some way, and at the very least exist in the same shared universe.
Carter’s appearance is fairly brief, but if you are a fan of Barsoom you should try and pick up this nifty little item (get the graphic novel compilation and save a few bucks).
Isn't he wearing a rug in that one?
ReplyDeleteI've still not read the LXG comics yet (I know I know), so the first I came across this was when someone posted caps of the storyline to 4chan's /tg/ about a year or two ago. Thread was about Mars or Victorian gaming IIRC.
ReplyDeleteVery fun, just not many pages. Planetary covers some similar genre ground in its backstory but I don't believe it ever got too close to John Carter specifically.
I don't much care for Alan Moore's really twisted world view—or the very dark execution of his stories—but I have to admit he comes up with some GREAT. Ideas. The League is SO much cooler in theory than it is in execution (IMO). So much so, that I once put together my own home-grown adventure, with the party consisting of: Wild Bill Hickock, Tarzan, The Artful Dodger and Doctor Watson.
ReplyDeleteAs far as John Carter goes, the idea of him mixed in with the War of the Worlds just struck me as freaking awesome. But again, I like the idea a lot more than the execution.
Lately, I've been considering doing another LXG type adventure, only this time set in a pre WWII era...maybe including such figures as Indiana Jones, the Rocketeer, Rick and Evie O'Connol (from the Mummy movies) and maybe even Doc Savage (though the 'ol doc may be a bit overkill). In any case, its fun to think about.
Rologut: I agree about the ideas being better than the execution in most cases. I think the Mars bit was pretty exceptional though.
ReplyDeleteI loved the artists work in other things, such as Marshal Law, but I really think a better artist would have been more suited to the League stories. The aweful Hyde in the comic begat the horrible Hyde in the movie.
I love your game ideas, even though I prefer original characters. Still, years ago when I was thinking of doing a Riverworld campaign, I was thinking of having the players run real world famous figures.
Yeah, that was the weird part of my LXG experience. I think that in the end I would have preferred it if the players had been using 'archetypes' rather than specific fictional figures: i.e. the Gunslinger, Jungle Lord, Street Rat and Gentleman Doctor. For me (and for my players even) there was a nervousness about 'doing the characters justice' that I would have preferred not to have dealt with.
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, I have to agree. I would have preferred my LXG adventure to have archetypes (i.e. Gunslinger, Jungle Lord, Street Urchin and Gentleman Doctor) rather than specific literary figures. I know there was some trepidation among myself AND my players about doing the characters 'justice'. Things could be more free form with original folks.
ReplyDeleteAck, sorry for double post, wonky browser today.
ReplyDeleteMatthew: You mean the dreadlocks? I kind of like the different look they went for with Carter, although the uniform seemed a bit overdressed for a white Martian. Maybe it's a special war outfit or something.
ReplyDeleteRologut: Yeah, lot of pressure to run a famous person, especially somebody like Einstein or another genius - although I did run an elderly Sherlock Holmes (along with his elderly Watson) in a Call of Cthulhu game set on a cruise ship. I did pretty good with him, although the GM and the game pretty much blew chunks.