TITLE: Lord of the Jungle
AUTHOR: Arvid Nelson
PENCILLER: Roberto Castro. Variant covers by Alex Ross, Ryan Sook, Paul Renaud, Lucio Parillo. 
PUBLISHER: Dynamite Entertainment
PRICE: $1.00
RELEASED: January 18, 2012

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

I’d wager that when the average person hears the name “Tarzan,” they think of a cartoony guy in a loin cloth swinging from a vine. I’ll admit to that image accounting for a great deal of my knowledge of the character. But by remaining faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of The Apes, Dynamite Entertainment is giving us what may turn out to be an eye-opener for readers less familiar with Tarzan and his world.

We kick the book off with John Greystoke and his pregnant wife Alice being marooned on an island. They are forced to survive on their own, which becomes complicated when they are forced to fend off the native wildlife, specifically the apes. Eventually, an ape attack leads to the infant son of Lord and Lady Greystoke ending up in the hands of the apes, sending him down the path to becoming the one and only lord of the jungle…

What surprised me about this issue was how gripping it was. The story makes it difficult to suspend your disbelief sometimes, particularly when it comes to the apes and some of the things they do. But Nelson and Castro do a great job making the apes look both natural and imposing. Corny as it sounds, it actually made me consider how frightened I’d be if I ever came face-to-face with a hostile ape.

Still, Nelson adds a bit of unneeded silliness to the equation by limiting the apes’ dialogue to sounds like “Oo oo!” and “Aah aah!” Given the choice, I’d actually prefer the apes have no dialogue bubbles, so that Castro’s art could do the talking.

One might argue that this issue has a logic problem. Firstly, there’s not a definite reason as to why the apes attack the Greystokes near the end of the issue. It appears to occur in response to a tragedy that occurs among the apes, but the tragedy doesn’t necessarily merit an attack like that. Theoretically, they could simply have stumbled on to them immediately afterward. But from a storytelling standpoint that seems a little too convenient.

In any event, Lord of the Jungle is downright educational from a mythology standpoint, as it draws readers into the true story of Tarzan. One would hope that trend will continue. And for only a dollar, it’s certainly worth the asking price.

Front page image from comixology.com. Interior image from comicbook resources.com.