Superman - Tarzan Sons of the Jungle
Superman - Tarzan Sons of the Jungle, by Chuck Dixon & Carlos Meglia, Dark Horse/DC
WITH SOMETHING of the Wold Newton Universe (an expansion of science fiction writer Philip José Farmer’s ideas regarding fictional crossovers) about it, we are thrust into a world where Kal-El’s rocket is brought down to Earth, landing in Africa, whereas after fleeing pirates Lord Greystoke promises his wife that, with their newly born son, they will leave the dark continent and never return.
The Greystoke's son becomes bored by English public school life and is soon financing adventures around the globe, whereas the Superman of the Apes stays in the same locality (but is generally given more page space) as on discovering his crashed rocket he learns more of where he comes from, at the same time as befriending his first humans, unaware that not all can be trusted; especially those with kryptonite at hand.
It could have been quite predictable changing a part of each character’s fictional legends here and there, but Dixon does it with admirable charm, offering surprises, thrills and a strong range of emotional characterisation.
I have never seen artist Carlos Meglia’s work before and was saddened to find he had passed away a few years ago – he had been a popular Argentine comic book artist of longstanding before having his work seen by American readers in his latter career – his style has an extravagant cartoon flavour, never losing sight of visual continuity while taking daring perspective views and some individual framing devices to focus on scenes; my initial reaction on leafing through the book was that I would find faults galore (and I confess I’m not keen on the collection’s cover) but I’m so pleased to be proved wrong over all, while angry that I was not aware of his work previously.
The lead charactes are brought together (as are their own regular supporting casts) and the book rushes to a conclusion all too soon in a fight for the greater good and with their lives changed by the events thereafter, making it all a little too DC Comics’ Elseworlds-styled and predictable in that regard. However, that company matter aside Chuck Dixon does an incredibly entertaining job, allowing Meglia to romp through some great scenes.
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