Monday Mars Madness GULLIVAR JONES: WARRIOR OF MARS

In the early 1970s, due to the success of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian...

...comics went pulp-mad, looking for other properties that were doing well in paperback reprints to adapt into the four-color format.

DC latched onto The Shadow, The Avenger, and Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser well as the entire Edgar Rice Burroughs library including Tarzan, Carson of Venus, and John Carter of Mars.

Marvel grabbed Doc Savage, added Kull the Conqueror (also a Robert E Howard character), and looked for another barbarian/swashbuckling hero.

They ended up adding two, Gullivar Jones and Lin Carter's new character, Thongor, neither of whom ran more than eight issues.

Gullivar Jones had the advantage of only one novel to adapt, then the door would be open to totally-new adventures.

Art by Frank Frazetta

Interestingly, Gullivar Jones predated John Carter by over a decade, but the novel featuring him, Lieutenant Gulliver Jones: His Vacation (Brown, Langham & Company, 1905) by Edwin L Arnold was never reprinted until 1964 when Ace Books (which was also publishing ERB's and JRR Tolkien's books) added it to their lineup under a superb Frank Frazetta cover.
Ironic note: Edwin Arnold was so disgusted by the book's lack of sales, he gave up fiction writing!
Personally, I suspect the less-than-exciting title might have had something to do with it!
Readers had no idea the book was a "scientific romance"...what we now call "science fiction!
You can read the entire Gullivar Jones series (including both the color Creatures on the Loose stories and the b/w Monsters Unleashed tales starting HERE!
And HERE's a follow-up featuring more (ahem) marvelous Mars art!

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Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "Martian Genesis"

Concluding our re-presentation of the never-reprinted adventures of the first EarthMan on Mars...

...as we present, from the b/w magazine Monsters Unleashed #8 (1974), the final strip, produced by a team which included a newcomer to Marvel who would become one of the biggest names in the field (read the name in the credits below)...

Yes, this was George Perez's first assignment after breaking into the business as Rich Buckler's art assistant!

Oddly enough, this story isn't listed on George's own website!

And, there's uncredited inking by neophites Bob Layton and John Byrne, who helped inker Duffy Vohland meet the deadline!

Wonder whatever happened to Byrne and Layton?  ;-)

Despite the promise printed above, Gullivar Jones and company never graced another Marvel comic or magazine.
(Monsters Unleashed was cancelled with #10, two issues before Gullivar would have reappeared.)
Note there's no splash page for this story.
Actually, there is!
It was rejected, and a replacement was used for Page 1!
Here's the unpublished splash page...

Think of it!

George Perez's very first page...rejected!

Good thing he didn't give up, eh?

Best of Reading Room GULLIVAR JONES "Web of Hate"

We're still in the mood for High Adventure...

..so, we're re-presenting, from the b/w magazine Monsters Unleashed #4 (1974), the first all-new, never-reprinted, Gullivar Jones sequel strip, produced by two then-newcomers to Marvel...

Dave Cockrum had been doing some inking over various pencilers including Rich Buckler, Don Heck, and George Tuska on The Avengers, but this was his first full art (Pencils and inks) assignment at Marvel.

Tony Isabella had co-plotted/scripted a number of other stories including the last Doc Savage two-parter with Gardner Fox, but this appears to be his first solo effort as a writer.

It's a fine job by both of them.

There's one more Gullivar Jones tale to be told.
And, like this one, it featured the Marvel debut of another soon-to-be superstar!
Who?
You're going to have to come back next Saturday to find out!

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "Two Worlds to Win!"

Reunited with his lost love, the First Earthman on Mars faces certain death...

Art by Jim Steranko

...as we present, from Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #21 (1973), the sixth (and final) chapter of the short-lived, never-reprinted, comic adaptation of his only novel...

People did write, and though Gullivar Jones' four-color adventures were at an end, he returned in new graphic adventures in a Marvel title only a year later!
But that's a story for another time...

Best of Reading Room: GULLIVAR JONES "What Price Victory?"

The First Earthman on Mars battles on to rescue his lost love...

Art by Gil Kane

...as menace after menace assaults him!

Has Gullivar been reunited with Heru only to die on the red Martian sands?

(Remember, there was only one Gullivar Jones novel!

No sequel!)

When next we meet up with Gullivar...it's the fearsome finale of this story!

Note: Gray Morrow assumes the art chores (pencils and inks) for the final two issues of Gullivar's never-reprinted run.
But the writer of Gullivar's penultimate adventure from Marvel's Creatures on the Loose #20 (1972) is still George Alec Effinger.