Everyone digs a good crossover. Some of them make perfect sense and others will leave you scratching you head. With good writing, any team up can work. Dynamite Entertainment has given us an exclusive reveal for their upcoming crossover, LORDS OF MARS.
Debuting in August 2013, the crossover will see Tarzan and Jane Porter team with John Carter and Dejah Thoris. The six-issue series will be written by Arvid Nelson and illustrated by Roberto Castro. The first issue will feature multiple covers by Francesco Francavilla, Dan Panosian, Alex Ross and Ardian Syaf.
In LORDS OF MARS #1, the legendary Tarzan has claimed his title as Lord of Greystoke, but his very life is threatened when a hunting excursion with his fellow "gentlemen" goes disastrously wrong. Meanwhile, on Mars, John Carter is forced to respond to a veiled threat from his defeated enemies. Mars and Earth might be separated by millions of miles, but a sinister force is at work on both planets, setting the two iconic adventurers on a deadly collision course.
"The two greatest heroes of pulp fiction coming together... what could be better than that?" says Arvil Nelson, writer of the six-part miniseries. "And it blows the lid off the possibilities for storytelling. Earth, Mars, lost civilizations, hidden worlds, interplanetary adventures. But above all, we want LORDS OF MARS to be fun. I can't wait to unleash it on the world."
Nelson was uniquely suited as the writer for the upcoming LORDS OF MARS series, having contributed storylines to Dynamite's comic book series LORD OF THE JUNGLE and WARLORD OF MARS previously. However, the writer stresses that the new story will not require readers to have an extensive knowledge of what's come before. "It's a great jumping-on point. In fact, I always go out of my way to make sure new readers are never at a loss, regardless of where were are in a series." That philosophy fits in perfectly with that of Tarzan and John Carter's shared creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs. "Burroughs was a fanatic for novelty. He didn't like exploring all the details and intricacies of the things he'd invented; it was always about the shiny and new for him."
LORDS OF MARS #1 is solicited in the Diamond June Previews catalog for release in August. Alex Ross, one of the industry's leading artists, provides the Main cover edition, while Eisner-winning Francesco Francavilla and fan-favorite Dan Panosian contribute two additional variant covers. A fourth edition, the Subscription-Only variant, is illustrated by Ardian Syaf and is limited only to retailer initial orders as a reward for dedicated Dynamite fans.