Number 2572: Tarzan and the lost astronaut

In a recent re-reading of a Dell Giant comic starring Tarzan, I was sure I was looking at the artwork of Jesse Marsh, who had been the Dell Tarzan artist from the 1940s into the mid 1960s, when he died. There were some things about Tarzan’s face that gave me a clue the artist was not Marsh, and sure enough, credit was given to an artist, John Ushler, of whom I was not aware. According to Alberto Becattini, who has amazing knowledge of Dell artists, Ushler worked in Dell comics from 1952 to 1962. Ushler had his own amazing ability, making his drawings look like Jesse Marsh’s.

The story is “The Lost Astronaut,” which was published in Dell Giant #51 (1961), Tarzan King of the Jungle. As usual, Tarzan is away from his wife and son, hanging around the folks of another lost city, Pal-Ul-Don, whose civilization is not only unknown to outsiders except Tarzan, but Pal-Ul-Don has dinosaurs as well. As per the story’s title, an American spacecraft lands in Pal-Ul-Don, and surprise! the astronaut is a woman. I don’t remember thinking about it when I read the story new, in 1961, but there were no female astronauts in the United States space program until long-overdo women joined the formerly males-only group in 1978, and the first American woman in space was Dr Sally Ride.

The foresight of showing a woman as astronaut is credited to Tarzan writer Gaylord Dubois.