John Carter, Warlord of Mars #27 - Sept. 1979

"Marathon of Death!" by Chris Claremont, Mike Vosburg, and M. Hands.

Tars Tarkas finds his friend John Carter laying outside the walls of Helium:

Tars ignores Carter, and fires shots at the ice floor that Tal Mordin is sitting on. The ice cracks, and a horde of grasping hands rise out from the water underneath, grabbing Tal and dragging him below.

Tal begs for mercy, but it is too late: he is dragged beneath the surface, with the ice re-freezing above him almost immediately. Now it is suddenly quiet.

John and Tars make their way home. On their way, they come across a pile of dead bodies, the end result of a furious battle. Among the bodies is a scrap of clothing Carter is sure belonged to Dejah Thoris. Seeing some tracks in the sand, they conclude that some Warhoon warriors must have taken her prisoner (again!).

Carter tells Tars to go back to Helium and tell them what's happened and form a search party. In the meantime, Carter will go after his beloved...alone.

Night falls, and Carter comes to a ridge. He sees some Warhoon standing around some of their prisoners, strapped to post...and one of them is Dejah Thoris!:

...for once, John and Dejah get to rest and enjoy one another (something they're quite good at).


This was the penultimate issue of John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Marvel was a fairly chaotic place leading up to this point (they had something like half a dozen Editors-in-Chief in just a few years), and the fact that this series was canceled and reinstated so abruptly just a few months earlier is symbolic of that. Ending a major storyline here, just a month before the series was canceled, indicates they didn't know the end was coming!