Ron Marz Discusses JOHN CARTER: WARLORD OF MARS with Fred Van Lente
Fred Van Lente, writer of Magnus: Robot Fighter #10, talks with Ron Marz about John Carter: Warlord of Mars #3, both on sale January 7th
FRED VAN LENTE: Rooooon! I have not seen you since the amazing La Mole Comic Con in Mexico City. Totally not on topic but what did you do with your Witchblade banner they gave you with your name on it? Is it flying on a flagpole over your house? Or do you use it as a bedspread? I bet one of your horses could use it as a blanket.
RON MARZ: Where were you with the horse blanket suggestion when I needed it? We just had to buy new winter blankets for the horses. That huge banner is hanging in our garage, taking up a good portion of one wall. It was actually even a little too big for the garage, so we had to fold under the bottom foot or so. There was no way I was leaving that thing behind when the convention was over.
FVL: I am a huge John Carter fan from when I was in the 7th grade. My first introduction was the second book, The Gods of Mars, and the Marvel series. Sword-fighting giant aliens to rescue my hot alien wife was pretty much right in my hormonal wheelhouse at the time (ditto for Adam Strange, come to think of it). What about you, what was your first exposure?
RM: Same age for me, sixth or seventh grade. I absolutely fell in love with all the Burroughs stuff, but especially the John Carter stories. I somehow missed the Marvel series, though I've gone back and picked up not only a complete run of the issues, but the Omnibus collection as well. So I was all about the novels. The Gino D'Achille covers on the Ballantine editions are still burned into the memory. And then right in the same period, I discovered the Frazetta art books, which had all of his John Carter stuff in them.
FVL: I am one of the rare people that really dug the John Carter movie, just thought a) whoever ran their focus groups should be beaten for not letting it be called John Carter of Mars and b) enough with the framing device, already, Jesus. Thoughts?
RM: I love that movie! The day it premiered in theaters, I liberated all three of our kids from school and made them go with me. I love almost everything about the movie. Andrew Stanton got so much of it right, and his affection for the material is really obvious. It's an old-fashioned adventure in the best sense of the term. I completely believed Tars Tarkas and the rest of the Tharks as characters, rather than computer-generated creations, which is no small feat.
The only misstep for me was the one you sighted. Opening on Mars with that explanatory scene took some of the wonder and sense of discovery out of the movie. I absolutely think the audience should have discovered Mars through John Carter's eyes, so we could experience that with him. And yeah, I seriously pray that whatever marketing genius decided "...of Mars" needed to be dropped from the title no longer has a job. Frankly, I'm still dumbfounded that someone at Disney thought "A Princess of Mars" was a title to be shunned. Hello? A Disney movie with "Princess" right in the title? Anybody home, McFly? The whole thing really seems like the studio just wanted to dump the franchise and walk away, even before release. I'm still crushed that we'll never get Stanton's planned sequels.
FVL: It's a very cool idea to bring Captain Clark to Mars to be an Earthling foil for JC (can I call him JC). That is one of the great "Well, duh, that's awesome" ideas that can make these century-old properties seem new again. Any cool stories on how Clark came about?
RM: I always felt like John Carter never had a truly worthy opponent in the novels. He's essentially a superman on Mars, no one is his physical equal. So when I finally got this chance to write John Carter, I knew we needed to give him an arch-nemesis. It's the Superman problem, really. It's not very often that Superman comes up against a villain who is as powerful as he is, so I think readers find it a little harder to invest in the stories. Joshua Clark is every bit the soldier that John Carter is, and obviously he has the same heightened abilities that John does on Mars. The real difference is that Clark is a man without honor, while John Carter is wholly driven by his honor and his loyalty.
FVL: I love the design of the Kahori ship Tars and JC do such a great job of flying (kof, kof). Talk a bit about Abhishek Malsuni and his great work on this series. You got to meet him in person at that India con, am I remembering that right?
RM: Yeah, I finally got to meet Abhishek in person when I went to the convention in Hyderabad, India in October. We've known each other for a few years now, I edited him on a project for an Indian publisher, which was my first exposure to his work. Even then, I was thinking to myself that Abhishek would be a great fit if I ever got to do John Carter stories. I think the proof is in the pages. Each issue looks better than the last. Abhishek, inker Zsolt H. Garisa and colorist Nanjan Jamberi are working together beautifully. When I step back and think about, my mind kind of reels. Abhishek and I are on opposite sides of the planet, working on a franchise created 100 years ago by a writer I've worshipped since I was 11 or 12 years old. And we finally got to meet in person because I was invited to a comic convention in India.
FVL: Ron, our Mets, as usual, are best summed up by the old comedy sketch "Lowered Expectations". If recent trade negotiations with Barsoom open up MLB (Martian League Baseball) to drafting by the Majors like Cuba, who should we try and land from the Red Planet?
RM: Our pitching is solid, but we need another bat, and we still need to address shortstop. I'm thinking Tars Tarkas has the range to really solidify the infield. And even if he doesn't hit that much, there's the ever-present threat of the opposing pitcher getting decapitated. Failing that, I'd settle for the Mets spending some real money to land Cuban shortstop Yoan Moncada. Shortstop has been a black hole ever since the Mets let Jose Reyes walk away. The day I had to explain to my son that his favorite baseball player was no longer a Met was not a good day.
JOHN CARTER: WARLORD OF MARS #3 by Ron Marz and MAGNUS: ROBOT FIGHTER #10 by Fred Van Lente both hit stores on Wednesday, January 7th.
Related Articles
