John Carter = respect.

     I was reading a comic book last night Batman: The Black Casebook,  a collection that inspired Batman R.I.P, and I read something that leaped out and smacked me in the face. In Batman  # 113 The Superman of Plant X Batman is transported to the world of Zur-En-Arrh where he has the strength and powers of Superman. ok we are talking early batman 1958, anything is possible, but what got me was the way his powers were described. It was a spot on description of John Carter from Edgar Rice Burroughs "Princess of Mars". (or as Disney has renamed it, John Carter)

     I was so curious, Batman only referenced Superman, so I looked up Supermans inspirations, and found that John Carter is indeed one of the inspirations that lead to his strength and flight (or as it was originally "...able to leap over a building in a single bound") here on earth.

     Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of my favorite writers,and very influential in my own writing. I remember reading his Tarzan series whilst in high school, and reread them to my children at bed time. ERB wasn't shy about showing, in detail,  both the primitive instincts that Tarzan was raised with yet a great intelligence that was his human birth right. ERB wowed me again with princess of mars, for a hundred year old sci fi It still holds up. I love the rawness of his (ERB's) storytelling. Its deep and real, and pulls no punches. His heros make no apologies for being who they are and have no problems making hard life or death decisions, due to their high moral characters (and before anybody gets their pants in a wad, the definition of morality is...

The term “morality” can be used either

1. descriptively to refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a society or,
   1. some other group, such as a religion, or
   2. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons. (2)

... john Carter personifies this. If you have read princess of mars you understand; if you haven't, I encourage you too, but don't expect a happy ending?

     Edgar Rice Burroughs was a pulp fiction writer in and around the 1900's and got his start writing while reading the pulp fiction of the day. He said...

...if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines (1)

(I can't tell you how many times I have said that after reading highly acclaimed rubbish) The fact that Superman was based on John Carter raises him up a little in my esteem (not much) but enough to give him a second chance...but it took batman to get that done.