Dynamite Entertainment 2017
Written by Bill Willingham
Illustrated by Cezar Razek
Coloured by Daniela Miwa
Lettered by Taylor Esposito
In ancient days, Jason gathered the greatest heroes of his age and set out on the ultimate sea voyage. Now, in Tarzan’s era, Jason Gridley does the same. The greatest heroes of the Edgar Rice Burroughs universe come together as the crew of the good ship Venture, with none other than Tarzan as their captain. It’s a race this time, against a battleship of dark hearted villains, and the fate of many worlds hangs in the balance.
While this stars those we have come to consider his most well known characters Burroughs wrote an awful lot of books in a wide range of areas. So it’s kind of interesting to see that Bill has culled the vast collection to include his Westerns and historical stuff as well. Thankfully for us the way he starts off this story keeps it well rooted in the science fiction aspect of his career. After all it’s one of them that has been explored time and again not to mention it lends itself to this kind of gathering the easiest.
It doesn’t take long for Jason to be the catalyst of this story to get under way and even shorter amount of time before Tarzan takes the reigns of leadership. I do like the way this story is structured and how fast paced Bill manages to make this without us feeling like anything has been lost, rushed or glossed over. Also I have to say the way Bill acknowledges previous team-up adventures that have taken Tarzan and company to various worlds and other exotic locations is well done. That he’s not trying to pigeonhole this or make it seem bigger than it is shows his skill and comfort level as a writer. Also let’s face it the man knows what he’s doing he’s a brilliant writer.
Cezar starts off with this amazing work that made me think of George Perez and his days on the New Teen Titans in the early eighties. The way the linework is, faces, facial expressions, bodies and body language all have this magnificent attention to detail about them. So do the backgrounds which in conjunction the page layouts really make a powerful impact. Towards the end of the issue however the linework becomes thicker and less detailed and the use of backgrounds more spartan as if he’d extended himself in the beginning and couldn’t maintain the pace before that deadline was up. The last page just has a different feel than the first does and it’s noticeable. Hey i’m not saying this isn’t strong or a problem just what i’ve noticed here.
Alright so a massive cast of characters has been assembled to deal with what Jason has come to warn Tarzan of. So now we’ll see how a group this large is going to be handled in this story and the kind of characterisation that will happen. So far the characterisation has been as good as the story premise but then it wasn’t until the end that we see how many they’ve assembled. I like that this makes want to learn more about the other works of Burroughs that i’m not as familiar with.
Once again Dynamite has a crossover unlike any other and has found the perfect creative team to make it a reality.