John Carter, Warlord of Mars #6 - Nov. 1977

"Hell in Helium!" by Marv Wolfman, Gil Kane, and Rudy Mesina.

Stara-Kan is finally dead, leaving John Carter still wondering where his beloved Dejah Thoris is:

Also searching for Dejah is her father, Mors Kajak. Some of his men still believe Carter is the one that kidnapped her, but Kajak refuses to believe it...for now.

During their search, the spot Tars Tarkas, nearly dead, crawling through the desert. They stop to rescue him, and after a few moments he is able to tell them all what happened. He is enraged at the very idea that his friend John Carter had anything to do with Dejah's kidnapping, and threatens to "Slay the culprit who spread those filthy lies!"

Nevertheless, the lies about Carter are spreading, and it reaches such a fever pitch that many are openly calling for Carter's execution for his "crimes." John Carter, unaware of all this, returns to Helium to speak to Kajak, only to be swarmed by the angry mob!

Carter once again has to find himself holding back, fighting those he considered his friends, but the crowd is out for blood:

The thoats break free, and stampede into the crowd. Despite what just happened, Carter turns around and tries to save some of the innocent people from being trampled to death. He jumps onto the back of one of the thoats, and telepathically commands it to stop.

But it doesn't listen, and continue charging through the streets toward the incubation chambers, where the unhatched eggs of Martian women are kept. Carter dismounts, putting himself between the charging animals and the future generation of Mars.

He picks up one of the thoats, tossing it into the rest, but it only stops them for a few moments. Knocking Carter aside, they smash their way into the chamber:

...to be continued!


Another fairly grim ending for an issue of this series--our hero is nearly beaten to death by an angry mob while holding a baby. And Spider-Man thinks an angry editorial in The Daily Bugle is vexing!

I'm not familiar with the work of Rudy Mesina, but I don't think the results here look as good as when Rudy Nebres was inking Gil Kane's pencils in previous issues. Nevertheless, Kane was still doing excellent work on this series.