Tarzan's estate has obviously escaped the anachronism of the African environment; in other words, Tarzan can escape African primitivism by substituting trousers for the loincloth and an estate for the jungle. Juxtaposed against this scene is Muviro of the Waziri tribe whose bone-protruding head-dress and semi-naked body starkly stands apart from Tarzan's manor. The visual contrast of Muviro and Tarzan, with its underlying colonial echoes, reflects what McClintock describes as panoptical time: "To meet the 'scientific' standards set by natural historians and empiricists of the eighteenth century, a visual paradigm was needed to display evolutionary progress as a measurable spectacle"(37). To look at the contrast of Muviro and Tarzan in this scene is to see the colonial structure stand forth: Tarzan is the evolved lord of the manor and Muviro is reduced to the ethnic Other. Unlike Tarzan, Muviro cannot move from 'primitive' to 'civilized' in the same manner; rather, that evolutionary mobility is reserved solely for our advanced white male.
    The colonial flavor of the contrast between Muviro and Tarzan, however, is an indication of the overall structure of the narrative. Tarzan's domination of Mother Africa extends to everything within that jungle, notably the Africans. Throughout the various stories, native agency and independence is all but evacuated as Tarzan repeatedly assumes the dominant position. In Earth's Core, Tarzan leads the Waziri and Sagoths to free Pellucidar from the pterodactyl-like Mahar and the alien Predators; in Jungle Fury, he leads the Kavells against the Princess Regina-led forces of the Ahrtans; and, in Legion of Hate, he defeats the overwhelming number of Bantango tribesmen and frees the Amazons from the treachery of the Nazis. Tarzan's dominance over the various African tribes is perhaps best epitomized in a scene from Jungle Fury #5 which has Tarzan, covered in blood, standing over a pile of black bodies and described as a god.

    The battle between Tarzan and Princess Regina, the chief antagonist in Jungle Fury, operates on a sexual level and opens an avenue to a discussion of gender. Throughout the comic books, women's power is inextricably linked to their sexuality. Regina uses sex to manipulate Tarzan, Paul D'Arnot and King Johan to suit her political ambitions. In the end, however, she is punished for her promiscuous sexual politics and is tellingly poisoned in bed. In Warlords of Mars, a similar semiotic sequence appears as Purid Mos, a semi-Empress, attempts to seduce Tarzan into joining her Imperial fleet. In a sado-masochistic moment, Tarzan rejects her and holds her in the air with one arm while her complaints become a relish for physical pain: "'Strange that I don't mind your hurting me. That I even find pleasure in the experience'"(23).2

In a later scene, Mos, disguised as Jane, enters Tarzan's mind and brainwashes him by engaging in a version of virtual-reality sex.

Finally, in Legion of Hate, Tarzan returns to the hidden city of Kali and encounters the native Amazon tribe whose religion require them to mate only with white men. Of course, once Tarzan is captured by the Amazons, the women clamor over themselves to become his mate. With his popularity and assumed virility, Zunessa decides that she will be one of the many women who will mate with Tarzan: "'You are almost a legend here Tarzan. Soon you'll have a mate. . . perhaps as many as six'"(24). In Regina, Mos, and Zunessa, sexuality and authority are merged and the body is used to achieve, or maintain, power; consequently, the sexualized feminine body must be overcome and punished to resolve the conflicts.
    Juxtaposed against these powerfully active sexual women is Jane who is impossibly positioned within Africa. In the Earth's Core series, Jane joins Tarzan on his trip into the heart of Pellucidar and, within moments, is kidnapped by the alien Predators and sold as bait to the Mahar. Similarly, the domestic sphere offers no safe alternative as, in Jungle Fury #1, Jane is attacked at home by a plague-infested gorilla. In Warlords of Mars #1, Tarzan justifies killing German spies as retribution for Jane's earlier kidnapping. Whether at home or abroad, she is repeatedly punished for her presence and continually threatened with impending harm or death. As it happens, her victimization is often used as the motivating reason for Tarzan's actions. In Imperial Leather, McClintock writes that "in myriad ways, women served as mediating and threshold figures by means of which men oriented themselves in space, as agents of power and agents of knowledge"(24). In the Tarzan comics, Jane's predicaments mediate the relationship between Tarzan and Africa and, by fulfilling the role as potential sacrificial scapegoat, her body re-affirms Tarzan's superior status: in Earth's Core, her kidnapping prompts Tarzan to destroy the aliens and, subsequently, free the enslaved Pellucidar; in Jungle Fury, the attack on Jane forces Tarzan to enter the twin cities of Fhala where he cures a contagion and halts a civil war; and, finally, in Warlords of Mars, the perceived assault upon Janes initiates an intergalactic confrontation and subsequent alliance between Tarzan and John Carter. The type of dangers posed in the comic books is irrelevant; in the end, Tarzan's 'property,' whether Africa or Jane, is threatened and he is mobilized to defend his terrain.
    Within this debilitating framework of women's (dis)placement, an erotic agenda perpetuates the sexualization of women's bodies for a voyeuristic (male) reader. Walt Morton writes: "Women--particularly nude or semi-nude women--are frequently presented as the 'sexual spectacle,' subject of the masculine gaze of the audience"(112). The visual eroticism of the women exploits the 'sexual spectacle' and repeatedly shows them in various states of undress: Jane's naked body silhouetted by a full moon (Jungle Fury #1) or, lying in bed, barely concealed by disheveled sheets (Jungle Fury #2); Jane strapped between two trees, legs and arms apart, wearing a G-string/brassiere combination (Warlords of Mars #2) | View graphic |; Kita bathing in a pool with Tarzan looking onwards (Jungle Fury #4) | View graphic & View graphic |; Dejah Thoris, John Carter's wife, whose outfits border on G-Strings and pasties (Warlords of Mars #4) | View graphic & View graphic or, earlier in the series, arranging to meet with Tarzan while two attendants wash her naked body (Warlords of Mars #3) | View graphic |; and, Princess Regina "falling" out of her top (Jungle Fury#1) | View graphic |. Throughout the comics, the images reinforce a voyeuristic eroticization of the feminine body in multiple near-naked poses of sexuality, bondage, and potential violation; in effect, the women are either threatened with penetration or, in the case of Mos and the Amazons, wish to be penetrated by Tarzan.3 In a telling manner, the sexual passivity of Jane, although always under threat, is repeatedly saved and protected while, on the other hand, an active female sexuality is negated or killed.
    In Legion of Hate, the threat of penetration dominates the story in a unique manner. The Nazis and the Amazons have forged an alliance that, following a Nazi victory in WWII, would expose the Amazon women to a global breeding stock of white males. When Tarzan is captured by Zunessa, he becomes the prime mating specimen. Penetration dictates the 'relationship' between these two figures: if Tarzan is white, he will become Zunessa's mate and will (sexually) penetrate her; if Tarzan is not white, she will (violently) penetrate him with the knife she brandishes throughout the series. The battle between Zunessa and Tarzan is a symbolic battle for the position of the male--i.e., the one who penetrates. In a phallic moment, Legion of Hate #7 has a reversal of gender roles as Zunessa stands above the bound Tarzan, who is lying on the ground with his legs slightly apart, with her dagger pointing upwards from her crotch in a suggestively erect fashion.

In the end, of course, the Lord of the Jungle rises to the occasion as the Nazis are overthrown and Mugambi, as Tarzan's representative, stays with the Amazons to help them adapt to self-government.
    Adrienne Rich, in Blood, Bread and Poetry, writes: "[T]he continuing spiritual power of an image lives in the interplay between what it reminds us of--what it brings to mind--and our own continuing actions in the present" (227). As a whole, the 'spiritual' power of Tarzan comic books is the careful construction of an anachronistic Africa, panoptical evolution, dominated black bodies, and eroticized female bodies that all succumb to the power of the omnipotent American white male The inherent danger of this message arises from the socio-political climate that the comic books circulate within. Like many nations, the United States is faced with important questions and debates about issues and policies regarding race and gender. Increased calls for tighter immigration and the racial divide demonstrated in the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson incidents are all indications of ongoing racial strain. Similarly, Susan Faludi's Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women makes a convincing argument regarding unequal gender relations and the preponderance of negative images of women within popular media (film, television, music). At this point in time, the messages that Tarzan comic books generate and circulate are particularly disturbing in a social climate that must carefully redefine conceptions of identity and equality.
    The danger of the messages contained within these comics is also compounded by the post-modern tendency of the genre to refer to is own fictional status. On a train in Warlords of Mars #1, Tarzan sees a movie billboard for Tarzan the Untamed which has a maniacally gloating version of himself stabbing a fierce lion. Disgusted, Tarzan comments: "I never did that. I never smiled while battling a worthy opponent. Especially noble Numa. They're turning it into a farce, an open-air circus" (2). In Jungle Fury #1, the first page has an image of Tarzan battling an alligator. On page 2, however, we discover that page 1 is the cover of a fictional Tarzan novel that lies on Jane's bedside table. Finally, on the final page of Legion of Hate #10, we find a cartoon Edgar Rice Burroughs sitting at his desk dreaming about Mars which, of course, is the setting for his stories about John Carter. These moments, taken as a whole, reinforce the fictionality of Tarzan and his utter contrivance in the imagination of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., Dark Horse Comics, and any other companies that continue to reproduce the Tarzan legacy.
    One of the effects of this self-referentiality is the perpetuation of the message that a comic book is only a comic book. Unfortunately, this medium is too often dismissed as "children's reading" and, as Roger Sabin notes, is often burdened with stereotyped ideas: "The traditional image of a comic in most people's minds is of a cheap throw-away periodical for children--if you're British, that invariably conjures up memories of knockabout characters inflicting unspeakable violence on each other; if you're American, of brightly costumed superheroes dispensing two-fisted justice" (1). Yet, contrary to these all-too-often evoked images, the comic book industry has matured and now reflects a distinctly adult flavor:

Their aims are much more ambitious: today it is common to come across examples that are expensively produced (often in book form), and which deal with subject matter ranging from political satire, to erotic fantasy, to eyewitness accounts of the Nazi holocaust. Such publications are reviewed in the quality press, and are available from newsagents, specialist comic shops and even local libraries. (Sabin 1)

In fact, comic books are an integral part of North American popular culture. M. Thomas Inge reports that it "has been one of the most popular and widely read of the mass literary media in this century by both children and adults, with as many as 200 million copies a year published in the United States alone" (75). He goes on to note that the popularity of comic books arises from the tendency for the genre to "simultaneously satisfy the visual, imaginative, and moral sensibilities" (76) of its readers.
    With its blend of language and visual imagery, the comic book conveys messages in two distinct, yet interconnected, manners. Without the text, the art still possesses an impact upon visual and imaginative perceptions. For example, if a picture is truly worth a thousand words, what are comics saying about gender or race when superheroes are predominantly white males or heroines are drawn with impossible body shapes, large bust sizes, and scant costumes? With the text accompanying the visual, however, meanings are doubly reinforced. Comic books, whether for children, youth, or adults, contain messages regarding race, gender, violence, etc... that are important to critically interrogate. As both Inge and Sabin demonstrate, studies of comic books are appearing and validating this area as a legitimate sphere of academic analysis.4
    While there is much to criticize in the Tarzan comic books, there is also an encouraging indication that the medium can serve constructive purposes. In a rare moment of frank admission, the colonial underpinnings of the Tarzan mythology is made explicit during the Legion of Hate series. Possessed by the power of a magic emerald, Mugambi fights against Tarzan; however, once the emerald is destroyed Mugambi awakens and lectures Tarzan on his role as a colonial participant:

"I have travelled across all of Africa, met with nearly every tribe. And you have become more than a man. 'Tarzan' is a symbol of the white supremacy that chokes the land. The Nazis knew it--the Bantango knew it--even your British friends in the highlands know it. Only you do not, because you do not feel it. . . I see a day when we will fight on opposite sides of a bloody war--not because of a magic emerald, but because of color and country. Your loyalties will be divided. You will be forced to choose between worlds. Can you see that day? " (21)