The Brown Watson 1977 Tarzan Annual featured reprints of comics by Russ Manning but it is wrapped in a long story that I am calling “Tarzan and the Wizard Out of Time” after the first of six chapters. The author is not known. I wish I could confirm that the tale was written by some old pro (say Kenneth Bulmer or a very young Alan Moore) but this simply isn’t true.
What I can confirm is the artwork is done by John Bolton (1951-). A 26 year old John Bolton with his big 1980s career ahead of him. He would do some great strips for Warrior (“Father Shandor” and “The Spiral Path”) before going to the States in 1981, where he did “Marada the She-Wolf” with Chris Claremont. He later worked in the Batman Universe, but to a Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs fan he will always be remembered for these other works.
“Tarzan and the Wizard of Time” opens with Tarzan climbing a mountain during a storm. On a rock ledge a strange figure appears. It is a golden haired man in delicate clothes. His name is Boroviak. He explains he is from the year 2260, where a robot revolution threatens future humanity. He wants Tarzan’s help.
Tarzan wisely asks him why he doesn’t just go back in time and change the future. Boroviak explains that major events can’t be change. Instead he wants to find four keys to a weapons vault that contains the robots’ destruction. The four keys are hidden in time. Four men have tried to gather them but all have failed. Boroviak figures only Tarzan has the right combination of raw strength and modern intelligence.
Tarzan accepts the challenge. He is given a wristband that whines when it is near a key. Each key is disguised so the wristband is needed. When he touches the key to the band, two gates will appear. He is to throw the key in the left hand one and go through the right to another point in time.
Chapter 2: Into the Abyss has Tarzan arrive in a jungle. A caveman tries to kill him with a rock. The apeman defeats the man who is called Gron. Gron runs away but Tarzan follows. Gron is caught by a gigantic python. Tarzan fights and kills the snake. Gron becomes his friend.
Gron explains he was leader of his tribe until gods came and gave a shining stone to Onkar, his rival. Armed with the stone, Onkar has taken the chieftainship away from Gron. The snake’s meat will win Gron back into the tribe. Tarzan meets Onkar and wants to take the stone immediately. Gron tells him to wait until after tomorrow’s hunt. Tarzan shows Gron how to make fire.
The next day Tarzan and Gron uses torches to drive a bull mammoth into a pit. Now that everyone is feeling lazy and it is time for Tarzan to get the stone. When he enters Onkar’s temple, his wristband starts whining. Gron attacks Onkar so Tarzan can grab the stone. Before he moves on to the next time stop, Gron takes the stone, calls it evil and wins back the leadership of his people.
Chapter 3: Arena of Death finds Tarzan in Roman times. He appears in front of a chariot being pulled by horses. The apeman leaps up on the lead horse’s back and calms the nag. The owner of the chariot team is Numidius, the head of the emperor’s stables. He keeps Tarzan on as horse trainer, thinking him an escaped slave. Tarzan agrees because it will give him time to locate the key.
Things fall apart when the Emperor Titus comes to ride his horses. A skiddish mare almost throws the fat, little ruler. Titus takes a horse whip to the animal until Tarzan pulls it from his grasp. To touch the emperor is a death sentence, so Tarzan is thrown into the gladiatorial ring. He fights three swordsmen with a trident and net. The key proves to be the hilt of the third attacker’s sword. Tarzan defeats all the gladiator’s and disappears before Titus can fill him full of arrows.
Chapter 4 is “Castle of Fear”. Fleeing the Romans, Tarzan ends up in the middle of a palace intrigue in a Medieval castle. He stops three rogues who are robbing and kidnapping the beautiful Justine. Justine’s father, Lord Leopold is grateful and makes Tarzan her bodyguard.
Three days later, Robert of Ardennes comes to call. He is a suitor of Justine’s as well as a golden haired knave. He reminds Tarzan of Boroviak. Other clues tell the apeman that time agents such as Robert are there to find the key. That proves to be the locket Justine wears around her throat. When Tarzan stops Robert from getting it, he challenges the apeman to a duel. The prize will be the locket.
The next day the two men face off with horse and lance. Robert tries to talk to Tarzan but the contest begins too quickly. Tarzan doesn’t wear armor and uses his speed and agility to quickly defeat Robert. Tarzan gets the necklace as reward, as well as a good English longbow and arrows, and as he disappears he hears Robert again ask him to stop and hear him out.
Chapter 5: Archer of Mons is fairly short. Tarzan lands in a trench in World War One. (The author completely ignores the fact that Tarzan has been in the trenches before, in Tarzan the Untamed. just as he does the fact that he met cavemen in Pellucidar and Romans in lost cities in Africa. This Tarzan is a character of the 1970s. The title is a nice reference to Arthur Machen’s Phantom Bowmen though.) A squad of Germans are advancing and Tarzan uses his bow to hold them back until some English soldiers can come.
Tarzan flees the questions he doesn’t want to answer. He finds the key pretty quickly. It is the bolt action on a rifle. Instead of throwing it into the left and taking the right portal, he leaps into the left-hand one. Arriving in the future world of 2260.
Chapter 6: Duel at World’s End has Tarzan escape the plastic chamber he arrives in, to find Boroviak in his control room. The man rushes about because the building is being bombed. The future man eventually leads Tarzan into a room where two robots grab the apeman. Boroviak laughs and admits his deceit. He is the ruler of the robots and Tarzan has given him the weapon to destroy his enemies then all humanity. Boroviak reveals his mad reason for the destruction of humankind. After three years of robot rule, the machines can make him immortal.
Boroviak goes to unlock the time vault and retrieve his weapon. Instead of killing Tarzan, he places him in a plastic tube so that he can witness the death of Boroviak’s enemies. Tarzan doesn’t stay put but traverses the tube by sheer strength and goes on the attack. He jumps on one of the two killer robots. Things don’t go well until a laser blast melts the robot’s head. Then the other. Robert of Ardennes, who is really a soldier named Roberts has come to the rescue. Tarzan has bought enough time to defeat the madman. He is returned to his own time, literally two seconds after he left.
This tale is episodic by its very nature but I have to say I enjoyed it all the same. The writer knows his audience (tweens and teens) and doesn’t write too far above that but there are some nice little bits in there for older readers too. I will definitely seek out the other annuals from Brown Watson.