Altered States: Warlords #3 Review: Tarzan Crashes the War for Barsoom
Altered States: Warlords #3 throws another legendary adventurer into Dynamite’s increasingly wild alternate Barsoom as Tarzan joins John Carter, Red Sonja, Dejah Thoris, and Tars Tarkas in a pulpy collision of swords, science fiction, and reality-bending chaos.
At this point, Altered States: Warlords has stopped asking whether its crossover can get any bigger.
It has started asking who else it can throw through the door.
The answer in Altered States: Warlords #3 is Tarzan.
Writer David Avallone, artist Mariano Benitez Chapo, colorist Jorge Sutil, and letterer Jeff Eckleberry continue Dynamite Entertainment’s alternate-reality experiment by adding Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Lord of the Jungle to a Barsoom already occupied by John Carter, Red Sonja, Dejah Thoris, Tars Tarkas, hostile Therns, stolen Eighth Ray technology, and enough displaced heroes to make the timeline itself seem exhausted.
The creative team is confirmed directly in the review copy, which credits Avallone as writer, Benitez Chapo as artist, Sutil as colorist, Eckleberry as letterer, Joseph Michael Linsner on the main cover, and Joseph P. Rybandt as editor.
What could easily have become crossover overload instead works because Avallone understands the kind of comic he is making.
This is not quiet science fiction.
It is not hard continuity.
It is not interested in pretending that putting Tarzan, John Carter, Red Sonja, and the warriors of Barsoom into the same adventure is anything less than wonderfully ridiculous.
It is planetary romance with the throttle wide open.
And issue #3 may be the series’ most unapologetically fun chapter yet.
Tarzan Has a Very Strange Day in 1913
Altered States: Warlords #3 wastes little time adding its newest piece to the board.
The issue takes us to Earth in 1913, where the man better known to the world as Tarzan finds himself confronting exactly the sort of danger that would normally qualify as a strange but manageable afternoon for the Lord of the Jungle.
Then reality intervenes.
A burst of mysterious energy violently displaces him from Earth.
When Tarzan regains his bearings, the familiar rules have disappeared with it.
There are two moons overhead.
The gravity feels different.
The architecture belongs to no civilization he recognizes.
His surroundings are alien.
Tarzan reaches the only conclusion that makes any sense.
Mars.
It is an excellent introduction because Avallone does not waste pages convincing the reader that Tarzan can adapt.
Adaptation is practically the character’s defining trait.
Drop him into an impossible situation and his first instinct is not panic.
It is observation.
Study the environment.
Study the people.
Determine the danger.
Survive.
Then start asking questions.
Welcome to Barsoom, Lord of the Jungle
Dynamite’s official description sells issue #3 with the wonderfully direct question: “Me Tarzan, you… Dejah Thoris?”
That gives you a pretty accurate idea of the tone.
The publisher’s premise has Tarzan transported to the Red Planet in time to collide with John Carter and Red Sonja’s battle against the Thern death cult and the forces manipulating stolen Eighth Ray power.
But the issue works because Tarzan’s arrival is more than another name added to the cast.
He changes the energy.
John Carter belongs on Barsoom.
Dejah Thoris belongs on Barsoom.
Tars Tarkas belongs on Barsoom.
Even Red Sonja has had time within this altered timeline to establish herself as part of its history.
Tarzan is the outsider.
He walks into the middle of a conflict without understanding the factions, technology, geography, or politics involved.
Yet he may be the least intimidated person there.
That contrast is where much of the fun comes from.
Issue #2’s Mystery Becomes Issue #3’s War
Readers who have been following the series will recognize how aggressively Avallone is paying off the setup from the previous chapter.
Our Altered States: Warlords #2 coverage explored how John Carter was discovering a Barsoom whose history had already been fundamentally altered by Red Sonja’s arrival.
That issue established the larger mystery surrounding Sonja, the Holy Therns, and the increasingly dangerous struggle over Barsoom’s technology.
Issue #3 takes those ideas and starts smashing them together.
The heroes are no longer simply trying to understand what changed.
Now they have to survive the consequences.
The Therns have access to technology that should never have fallen into their hands.
The Eighth Ray has become more than an exotic Barsoomian concept.
It has become a weapon.
And Tarzan’s sudden displacement suggests the consequences may extend far beyond Mars.
The series is beginning to reveal that these impossible meetings are not random storytelling gimmicks.
Something is tearing characters out of where they belong.
And somebody intends to benefit from it.
The Eighth Ray Becomes the Real Prize
One of the strongest elements in issue #3 is how the story brings the strange technology of Barsoom into the center of the conflict.
The Eighth Ray is no longer merely background science-fiction vocabulary.
It is power.
Literal power.
The Therns understand that.
Their ambitions turn the stolen technology into something capable of changing the balance of Barsoom itself.
That gives the issue a useful structure underneath all the crossover spectacle.
Yes, Tarzan has arrived.
Yes, Red Sonja is here.
Yes, John Carter and Tars Tarkas are fighting.
Yes, Dejah Thoris remains caught in the larger conflict.
But everybody is moving toward the same strategic problem.
Someone has gathered an enormous concentration of Eighth Ray energy.
And whatever they intend to do with it is going to be bad for everyone who does not belong to their death cult.
The official Dynamite solicitation similarly frames the central conflict around the hijacked Eighth Ray, Helium’s grounded navy, and the Therns’ attempt to seize control of Barsoom.
Tarzan Meets Barsoom the Tarzan Way
Tarzan does not arrive with a handbook.
That becomes a problem almost immediately.
He encounters figures he does not understand, customs he does not know, and armed enemies whose first reaction to an unfamiliar Jasoomian is not exactly hospitality.
So Tarzan does what Tarzan does.
He fights.
Mariano Benitez Chapo gets to cut loose during these sequences.
Tarzan’s combat style needs to look noticeably different from John Carter’s swordsmanship or Red Sonja’s battlefield ferocity.
He is physical.
Fast.
Instinctive.
He uses momentum.
He moves like somebody accustomed to surviving without relying on elaborate weapons or advanced technology.
That distinction keeps the action from feeling like several interchangeable heroic figures hitting the same enemies.
Tarzan looks like Tarzan.
Sonja looks like Sonja.
Carter looks like Carter.
The personalities survive the crossover.
John Carter and Tarzan Are a Perfect Pulp Pairing
When John Carter and Tarzan finally occupy the same side of the conflict, there is a wonderful simplicity to it.
They do not need twenty pages to decide whether they can trust one another.
There are armed enemies.
People need help.
Fight first.
Sort out the impossible cosmology afterward.
It is pure pulp logic, and it works.
The pairing also has a deeper appeal because both characters emerge from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ adventure tradition while representing very different fantasies.
Tarzan is the master of the savage terrestrial environment.
John Carter is the ultimate planetary adventurer.
One belongs to the jungle.
The other became legendary beneath the moons of Mars.
Putting them side by side does not feel like a random licensing exercise.
It feels like two branches of classic pulp adventure finally crossing.
Avallone knows exactly how satisfying that image is.
Red Sonja Still Refuses to Become a Guest Star
With Tarzan entering the series, it would have been easy for Red Sonja to get pushed toward the edge of the story.
She does not.
Sonja remains one of the strongest personalities in the book.
Her combat scenes carry the same aggressive confidence readers expect, and Avallone continues treating her as essential to this alternate Barsoom rather than as a guest character wandering through John Carter’s mythology.
That distinction has mattered since the beginning of this story.
Altered States works because Red Sonja’s presence changes things.
The timeline is different because she exists here.
Relationships are different.
History is different.
The stakes are different.
Issue #3 continues respecting that premise even while throwing Tarzan into the middle of everything.
Sonja does not lose her importance simply because another iconic adventurer has entered the room.
If anything, the expanding cast makes her role in this reality more intriguing.
Dejah Thoris Gets Her Hands Dirty
Dejah Thoris is equally important to keeping the book from becoming nothing but a parade of famous fighters.
She has direct investment in the fate of Barsoom.
This is not an exotic destination for her.
It is home.
The conflict with the Therns and the weaponization of the Eighth Ray therefore carries consequences that go beyond the adventure itself.
That gives the book a necessary emotional anchor.
John Carter can be amazed.
Tarzan can be confused.
Red Sonja can charge forward.
But Dejah Thoris understands what failure costs.
Her presence keeps the Barsoomian stakes from disappearing beneath the crossover.
Tars Tarkas Is Still Tars Tarkas
And then there is Tars Tarkas.
The great Thark warrior may be surrounded by increasingly impossible allies, but his presence continues supplying exactly what a Barsoom adventure needs.
Strength.
Experience.
Dry perspective.
And the ability to accept absurd circumstances with considerably less drama than most people would.
There is something inherently entertaining about watching Tarzan enter a world where a towering four-armed green warrior may actually be one of the more straightforward things he encounters.
That is the special pleasure of Barsoom.
The longer Tarzan stays, the stranger things become.
The Team-Up Fight Is Where the Issue Comes Alive
The middle of Altered States: Warlords #3 delivers the scene readers purchasing this crossover are waiting for.
The heroes converge.
The blades come out.
The Therns discover they have badly underestimated the people arriving at their doorstep.
And the comic becomes a full-on pulp action showcase.
This is where Benitez Chapo is at his best.
The pages move.
Combat overlaps.
Characters enter from different angles.
Sonja cuts through opponents with brute precision.
Tarzan attacks with physical speed.
Carter moves like a man completely at home in Barsoom’s lighter gravity.
The action feels coordinated without becoming too neat.
That matters because the team has not spent years fighting together.
They are legendary individuals improvising in the same battle.
The scene should feel slightly chaotic.
It does.
Mariano Benitez Chapo Gives the Crossover Scale
Mariano Benitez Chapo’s artwork carries an enormous amount of responsibility in this series.
He is drawing characters from dramatically different visual traditions.
Tarzan cannot simply look like John Carter with different clothes.
Red Sonja cannot become generic fantasy warrior number three.
Tars Tarkas has to feel physically enormous without overwhelming every composition.
Dejah Thoris needs to remain visually distinct.
The Therns need their own identity.
And Barsoom must continue looking like a world rather than a collection of backgrounds.
Chapo makes the ensemble work.
The action is broad and muscular without abandoning clarity, while the quieter scenes allow enough facial acting to keep character interactions from becoming mere connective tissue between fights.
The best panels are those where multiple pulp traditions coexist without looking like they came from separate books.
That is the entire visual challenge of Altered States.
Issue #3 meets it.
Jorge Sutil Gives Barsoom Multiple Worlds
Jorge Sutil’s colors do considerable work separating the story’s environments.
Earth and Barsoom should not feel interchangeable.
Neither should the interiors, alien landscapes, violent combat sequences, and glowing Eighth Ray technology.
Sutil gives the science-fiction elements real visual intensity, particularly when the Eighth Ray begins dominating the page.
The blues, purples, reds, and artificial light make the technology feel almost supernatural.
That is fitting.
For Tarzan, it might as well be magic.
He has gone from Earth in 1913 to an alien world where advanced technology, impossible gravity, strange species, planetary kingdoms, and ancient cults exist side by side.
The colors help communicate that disorientation without requiring the script to explain every visual difference.
Jeff Eckleberry Keeps a Very Busy Comic Moving
Jeff Eckleberry’s lettering deserves credit because Altered States: Warlords #3 contains a lot.
Narration.
Character introductions.
Alien terminology.
Action dialogue.
Exposition.
Sound effects.
Multiple protagonists.
Multiple factions.
Several locations.
And an escalating science-fiction plot.
A lesser lettering job could make a comic this dense feel exhausting.
Eckleberry keeps the page hierarchy readable, especially during the more complicated action sequences.
The oversized effects during the Eighth Ray material also contribute to the sense that forces larger than the characters are tearing through the story.
The One Place the Issue Slows Down
For all its energy, issue #3 does briefly hit the brakes after the larger action sequence.
John Carter and Tarzan need to compare notes.
That means discussing Earth, when they left it, how they arrived on Mars, and why the dates do not appear to line up cleanly.
The scene is important.
It tells the reader that something much stranger than ordinary transportation is happening.
But it is also one of the issue’s more exposition-heavy stretches.
After pages of combat and rapid movement, the conversation is noticeably slower.
Still, Avallone uses that slowdown to plant one of the most important ideas in the series:
These characters may not simply be coming from different places.
They may be coming from different points in time.
That turns the Altered States concept from a crossover into something potentially much bigger.
Time Is Starting to Break Too
Tarzan’s arrival contains a detail that could easily be overlooked amid the fighting.
The dates do not make sense.
That matters.
The series has already played with alternate history.
Now it appears to be playing with temporal displacement as well.
John Carter and Tarzan comparing their experiences creates the unsettling possibility that Barsoom is becoming some kind of convergence point.
People are not simply traveling.
They are being pulled.
From Earth.
From different histories.
Potentially from different eras.
That makes the stolen Eighth Ray even more dangerous.
If someone can weaponize the same forces responsible for these impossible crossings, the threat may no longer be limited to Helium, Zodanga, or even Barsoom.
The Therns Have Something Much Bigger in Mind
The villains of this chapter are not simply trying to win another battle.
Their use of the Eighth Ray points toward something more ambitious.
The machinery hidden behind the conflict gives the second half of the issue a growing sense of scale.
The Therns are experimenting.
Testing.
Escalating.
And they are willing to sacrifice essentially anyone required to prove their power.
That gives the story momentum going into the next chapter.
This is no longer only about recovering stolen technology.
It is about preventing that technology from becoming a mechanism capable of reshaping worlds.
Or destroying them.
A Final Twist Blows the Doors Open
Without spoiling the final page, Altered States: Warlords #3 ends by making the crossover even larger.
That should seem impossible.
It is not.
Avallone uses the final sequence to confirm that the forces disrupting Barsoom are not finished moving people across impossible distances.
The cliffhanger is exactly what this kind of series needs.
It does not simply tease another battle.
It expands the scope.
Again.
Readers familiar with Dynamite’s wider stable of characters should pay particular attention to where this story appears to be heading.
The title Altered States is beginning to feel increasingly literal.
This Is Exactly What an Alternate-Reality Comic Should Do
Dynamite describes Altered States as its parallel-reality playground in the tradition of DC’s Elseworlds and Marvel’s What If…? stories.
Issue #3 demonstrates why that format is so useful.
Continuity is not being discarded.
It is being weaponized.
The story understands who these characters are, then puts them into circumstances where their established histories collide in new ways.
Tarzan does not stop being Tarzan because he reaches Barsoom.
John Carter does not stop being John Carter because Red Sonja arrived first.
Red Sonja does not become an accessory to somebody else’s franchise.
That is the difference between a crossover and a gimmick.
The characters matter.
Their histories matter.
And because they matter, changing the circumstances actually produces a story.
Altered States: Warlords #3 Review Verdict
Altered States: Warlords #3 is a tremendously entertaining piece of old-school pulp crossover storytelling.
David Avallone keeps increasing the scale without completely losing control of the central adventure.
Tarzan’s arrival is not treated as a cheap cameo.
He receives a proper entrance, an opportunity to adapt to Barsoom, a satisfying first encounter with its inhabitants, and eventually the team-up readers came to see.
Mariano Benitez Chapo keeps the action energetic and the expanding cast visually distinct.
Jorge Sutil gives the alien science and Barsoomian landscapes the necessary color and atmosphere.
Jeff Eckleberry keeps an increasingly complicated script readable.
There is a moment in the middle where exposition slows the momentum, but even that scene serves the larger mystery by establishing that the heroes may be displaced through time as well as space.
And the ending?
It suggests Avallone is nowhere near finished breaking this reality.
The result is exactly the kind of comic Altered States should be.
Big.
Strange.
Fast.
Pulpy.
Completely sincere about how much fun it is having.
Final Score
8.7/10
Altered States: Warlords #3 takes an already wild John Carter and Red Sonja crossover, adds Tarzan, weaponized Eighth Ray technology, temporal mysteries, sword-swinging mayhem, and another reality-bending cliffhanger—and somehow makes the madness work.
Why You Should Read It
Pick up Altered States: Warlords #3 if you want:
- Tarzan transported to Barsoom
- John Carter and Tarzan fighting side by side
- More Red Sonja on Mars
- Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkas in the heart of the action
- A major escalation in the Eighth Ray storyline
- Sword-and-planet adventure with alternate-reality twists
- Classic pulp heroes colliding in unexpected ways
- Strong action artwork from Mariano Benitez Chapo
- A larger mystery involving both space and time
- A final-page tease that dramatically expands the crossover
Final Thoughts
There is a point where crossover comics can become too crowded.
Altered States: Warlords #3 gets remarkably close to that line—and then swings across it on a vine.
That feels appropriate.
David Avallone understands that the pleasure of this story comes from seeing legendary adventure characters confront a world that refuses to behave according to their individual rules.
Tarzan arrives on Mars.
John Carter discovers another Earthman should not be there.
Red Sonja continues proving that Barsoom can handle one more sword.
Dejah Thoris fights for her world.
Tars Tarkas remains the warrior everyone should be grateful to have nearby.
And somewhere behind all of them, forces are manipulating Eighth Ray energy powerful enough to turn impossible accidents into something far more dangerous.
Issue #3 does not provide all the answers.
It provides something better for a serialized adventure comic.
A reason to immediately want issue #4.
Barsoom is getting crowded.
Reality is getting unstable.
And the next visitor may make things even stranger.
Join the Discussion
What did you think of Altered States: Warlords #3? Does Tarzan belong on Barsoom alongside John Carter and Red Sonja—and how far should Dynamite push this alternate-reality crossover before the whole universe breaks?
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