Welcome to the first installment of Multiversity Role Call!
With the summer movie season just around the corner and a plethora of comics-related flicks in the pipeline, we here at Multiversity have decided to share our expert services and launch a new feature dedicated to introducing you, our loyal readers, to the characters and stories that inspired some of these upcoming blockbusters!
Today, we’re taking a look at the literary counterparts to several characters from Disney’s John Carter, opening this Friday (March 9th) at a theater near you! Fair warning, though: even though we haven’t seen the movie, some of this could be considered spoiler territory.
Take a look behind the cut as I break down the cast of John Carter.
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| John Carter by Ken Kelly |
John Carter
Roughly a year before he created Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs was working on a serialized novel that eventually became “A Princess of Mars.” Despite the title’s implication of a female protagonist, it was the story Earthman John Carter.
John Carter was a Civil War veteran who, while prospecting for gold in Arizona, encounters a band of angry Apaches. Fearing for his life, Carter takes refuge in a cave and is somehow expelled from his body and inexplicably transported to the planet Barsoom. Or Mars if you’re from Earth.
As you might expect, Carter doesn’t waste any time getting into trouble, but because of Barsoom’s lower gravity, he’s stronger and much faster than on Earth and is pretty much a total badass. He inadvertently wins a place within the nomadic band of green Martians known as the Tharks, and strikes up a friendship with Thark warrior Tars Tarkas.
Later, when the Tharks capture red Martian princess Dejah Thoris, Carter intrepidly frees the princess and is pulled into a planet-threatening quarrel between all the peoples of Barsoom, But, as all Earthman are want to do in these situations, Carter steps up to the challenge and ultimately unifies Barsoom and becomes its greatest hero in the process. He marries Dejah Thoris and stays on Mars until he’s drawn back to Earth as mysteriously as he was drawn to Mars years before.
Most consider “A Princess of Mars” and more specifically John Carter the predecessor to not only modern science fiction but the modern superhero story. With his Mars-born powers and his penchant for hopping back and forth between Barsoom and Earth, you don’t have to squint too hard to see the similarities between Carter and characters like Superman and Adam Strange.
Taylor Kitsch stars as John Carter in the film adaptation.
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| Art by Frank Cho |
Dejah Thoris
The titular princess of mars, Dejah Thoris is without a doubt one of the preeminent characters in science fiction.
She is the beautiful red Martian princess of Helium, and despite wearing very little (Burroughs described her as “destitute of clothes”) and getting captured regularly, she’s typically portrayed as someone who can hold her own and as John Carter’s equal. Having been raised as both royalty and a fighter, she eventually becomes the warrior queen of Barsoom and takes Carter as a husband. They later have two children together.
Dejah Thoris will be played by Lynn Collins.
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| Art by Gino D’Achille |
Tars Tarkas
Visually, Tars Tarkas is one of the most recognizable element of Burroughs’ Mars stories. A towering green Martian with four arms and giant tusks protruding from the base of his mouth, he’s not a sight you’d soon forget. And while he’s an astonishing combatant and war leader, he’s different from the rest of his fellow Tharks in that he occasionally sets aside his warlike ways and identify with with the non-Thark races of Barsoom.
Tars Tarkas is the first Martain that John Carter encounters on Mars, and while they get off to a slightly bumpy start (Tars takes John prisoner and intends to kill him), they go on to form a strong friendship, with Tarkas becoming Carter’s greatest ally on Barsoom, second only to Dejah Thoris.
Willem Dafoe provides the voice for Tars Tarkas.
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| Art by Michael Welan |
Woola
Like any good ol’ boy from the south, John Carter rounds himself up a dog on Barsoom. While, dog isn’t quite right, but still. An indigenous beast of Barsoom known as a calot, Woola takes up with Carter in Burroughs’ third Mars book, “The Warlord of Mars.” In a plot lacking the typical adventure with Dejah Thoris and many of Carter’s usual trappings, Woola supplies the forlorn hero some much needed camaraderie as he works to get his wife back.
Of course, Woola’s big screen debut will owe a great deal to the CGI magic.
Matai Shang
A major baddie in the series’ third book, “The Warlord of Mars”, Matai Shang is exposed as something of a charlatan by John Carter early on and later kidnaps Dejah Thoris in an act of revenge. To get his woman back, Carter follows Shang to the otherside of Barsoom and meets all kinds of new Martian life before finally confronting Shang and reuniting with Dejah.
We’re not sure what to make of Strong’s portrayal of Matia Shang in the film, but it certainly looks like the filmmakers have boosted his involvement in the overall story quite a bit.
We’ve only introduced you to a few of our favorite characters from Burroughs’ Mars series. We’d love to tell you all about others like Sola (voiced by Samantha Morton) and even Edgar Rice Burroughs’ role in the Mars saga, but we’ll contain ourselves a bit and let you check out John Carter this weekend.
And hey, even if you’ve got zero interest in the movie, we can’t encourage you enough to explore the Burroughs’ library, so hit the links below.
Mars Trilogy: A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, The Warlord of Mars
Tarzan of the Apes: The Adventures of Lord Greystoke, Book One
