Tarzan #3

 

That cover. 

The Altar of the Flaming God- not a bad title either. 

I love all the stories dealing with the lost city of Opar. Tarzan is preparing to leave for that place - and their recent houseguest Albert Werper has just left as well, with some of Tarzan's Waziri warriors guiding him. Werper's plan was to kill the jungle lord Tarzan so that Achmet Zek's pillagers could run wild, but after about Opar he now wants the wealth. Tarzan uses the wealth of Opar to finance his estate back home in England. Our rogue Werper soon ditches the Waziri and follows Tarzan to Opar. I haven't read the book in a while so I don't remember exactly how it played out there, but the idea of Werper following Tarzan and his fifty warriors- undetected- seems sketchy to me. At any rate we get a nice look at how wild the jungle lord truly is, even sinking his teeth into his prey when he hunts. 

It's not long before they reach the ramparts of Opar. The log bridge across a vast chasm is a nice touch. The art by John Buscema here is spare but good. Opar- an outpost of Atlantis ten thousand years ago- now inhabited by bestial, subhuman things. Conveniently there's a hidden passage leading straight into the treasure vaults. The jewels of Opar! There for the taking- and Werper observes Tarzan and his men taking over a hundred gold ingots. Unfortunately, an earthquake takes that moment to happen, and Tarzan is struck down, losing his memory. 

Naturally. 

Werper, for his part, is captured by the savage inhabitants of this lost city and about to be sacrificed on the Flaming God altar- and meets La, high priestess of that terrible deity. She's about to sink her dagger into his chest when the amnesiac shows up. La wants to know if he's returned to be her mate- she's long had a thing for him- but when he declines she demands his death. Wielding the sacrificial dagger Tarzan fights them off. It hasn't been explained yet but Opar is strange in that the priestesses are all beautiful women, but the men are degenerate beasts. The women are in charge and presumably don't mate with the men- or do they- I'd have to go back and look at the books.