Marvel Time Warp

TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE ANNUAL — Issue no. 2, August 1978 / As the name implies, a Marvel annual is a special published-once-per-year comic book. Generally, at least in the late 1970s, Marvel annuals were oversized affairs (48 pages of story and ads, instead of the usual 32). And there was no publishing info on the annual other than the year (1978 in this case). So when it comes to figuring out what month an annual was released, it can be tricky. The ever-useful Fandom.com Marvel wiki has this TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE annual listed as an August release. But, judging by some of the ads in this issue, I was guessing it was released later in the year. Since I love to play comic book history detective, I started comparing the ads (and the house hype page, “Bullpen Bulletins”) from this TARZAN... Book: Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle Annual Issue No.: 2 Published: August 1, 1978 (more likely October 1978, see below) Title: “Day of the Death-Dancers!” Cover Price: 60...

TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE — Issue no. 17, July 1978 / Complaints about movie and TV sequels and spin-offs are common these days. But both have been around for more than a century at this point. The first Tarzan novel, published in 1912, had many sequels. And Tarzan eventually visited Pellucidar, the lost world at the center of the earth that was the invention of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. Pellucidar was the setting for three Burroughs books before Tarzan visited, so Burroughs TARZAN AT THE EARTH’S CORE was a crossover inside what you might call the Burroughs literary universe. (Burroughs actually had two lost worlds — Pellucidar at the center of the earth, and Caspak near Antarctica. But as far as I know, Tarzan never visited Caspak in any Burroughs books.) Book: Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle Issue No.: 17 Published: July 25, 1978 Title: “Passage to Pellucidar!” Cover Price: 35¢ Format: Original paper copy Complaints about movie and TV sequels an...