Writer – Ron Marz, Ian Edginton
Artist – Ariel Medel
Colours – Nanjan Jamberi
Letters – Rob Steen

After defeating the last Orovar, John Carter and Dejah Thoris have been stranded in the desert as their craft has broken down. Soon enough, the pair faces danger once again, this time from beneath the waters of an oasis. It is there that they find ancient technology once more, an ancient race of creatures and a chance to get home if they are lucky. As far as current issues of this series go, this one is quite par for the course and offers little new. But, as previous issues have been a lot of fun and featured our heroes battling against all odds to overcome, being more of the same is not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, it would be nice to see something a little different every once in a while, but the book could be much worse off than it is and for the moment, Ron Marz and Ian Edginton have been doing a great job chronicling the adventures of Dejah Thoris and John Carter. What is a little disappointing to see is that the heroes are going home without finding a means to save the planet. They still could of course, but as of this issue, they have failed and it is not often that either John or Dejah fail at anything they set their minds to. The artwork is decent and better than most Dynamite books tend to sport, but it would be nice to see a real A-list artist on the title just once and take it to heights it has never previously seen. Another thing the book is lacking at the moment is a big, epic-type of quest for the heroes to face, much like they did in the opening arc of the series. The done-in-one stories that have been featured of late have been entertaining, but they lack that extra bit of excitement that the title had when it started out. A good outing overall, but bigger would be better.

3 out of 5