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 be...