John Carter, Warlord of Mars #14 - July 1978

"Tonight Is The Night Helium Dies!" by Marv Wolfman, Carmine Infantino, and Rudy Nebres.

John Carter is the prisoner of the evil fiend Zhuvan D'Ark, whose use of the Dark Arts has made him nigh-immortal:

The voice from under the rubble is John Carter, who later explains to his friends what happened.

But this is not really John Carter! Turns out Zhuvan used his powers to switch bodies with Carter, while ordering his skeleton army to tuck Dejah Thoris away so Zhuvan can use her body to house his beloved wife.

Later:

Zhuvan uses his powers to switch Dejah and Adanna, and sics his skeleton army at Kantos, Grogg, and Tars so they can't interfere!

The transformation completed, Kantos gets free of the skeletons long enough to throw his sword into Zhuvan's chest, which reduces him to ashes. As he screams in agony, Adanna crumbles into nothing as well, returning Dejah back to normal.

Kantos throws her a sword, and she hacks at the remaining skeletons with a mad fury. Moments later, she, Tars, Kantos, and Grogg have crushed every single undead warrior.

Back in Helium:

...hotcha!


A repeating element through this series--taken from the books, of course--is just how much physical passion Carter and Dejah have for one another. Sure, it only makes sense--these two are very physical people, in the prime of their lives, but in 1978 it was still fairly unusual to write two comic book characters as having such vibrant sex lives, and not shy about discussing it.

DC's Adam Strange and Alanna were similarly passionate; makes me think that dynamic was at least partly inspired by the original John Carter books, bringing us full circle!