Has any writer of science fiction or fantasy ever had a more fertile imagination than Edgar Rice Burroughs? Anyone acquainted with his work will have no trouble reeling off the names of exotic and outlandish planets, continents, oceans, cities, animals, plants, races, gods, kings, princesses, heroes, and villains, ad infinitum.  Perhaps his most fecund setting was the first one he created — Barsoom (or Mars, as it’s even now called by the unenlightened), the site of eleven books written between 1912 and 1943. Filled with startling and memorable creations, Burroughs’ Barsoom is one of the most captivating places in the Atlas of the Imagination, and none of ERB’s “children” have taken a firmer hold on readers than John Carter’s enemies and allies, the great Green Martians that roam the deserts and dry sea-bottoms of that dying world.

The other day while I was wandering aimlessly around the internet, I came across a 1977 Richard Corben book cover for an omnibus edition of Burroughs’ Llana of Gathol and John Carter of Mars, the tenth and eleventh volumes in the Martian saga. I had never seen the Corben painting before, and not surprisingly, his take on John Carter battling the Green Martians is vigorous and arresting, and it got me thinking about all the different versions of Burroughs’ warlike aliens that artists have offered us over the one hundred and fourteen years since A Princess of Mars was published in 1912. A few more minutes of wandering — now with a purpose — easily yielded up over a dozen images.

Before examining them (and of course this is just a small sample of the countless Green Martians rampaging out there in the ether), perhaps we should see how Burroughs himself described these extraordinary beings. In chapter three of A Princess of Mars, “My Advent on Mars,” as he wanders aimlessly around the surface of the Red Planet (just like me!), the metaphysically-teleported John Carter comes across a Green Martian hatchery (the race is oviparous, if you didn’t know, and if you don’t know what oviparous means, you’re in big trouble with your high school biology teacher), where he gets a good look at them as they come out of the shell:

Five or six had already hatched and the grotesque creatures which sat blinking in the sunlight were enough to make me doubt my sanity. They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and six legs, or as I afterward learned, two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head.

The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears.

There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green color. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon, this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young.

The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china. Against the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making these weapons present a singularly formidable appearance.

A few minutes later, Carter is confronted with an adult specimen of this species, and adds the (green) cherry on top of this painstaking description by telling us that “the man himself, for such I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height and, on Earth, would have weighed some four hundred pounds.”

As Jack Nicholson said in Mars Attacks, “yikes!”

As you peruse this gallery of Green Martians (Thark or Warhoon? You tell me), there are a couple of things to note. First, you’ll see that I have included the Green Martians from the 2012 John Carter movie — which I rather liked — and an action figure from the 1995 Tarzan: the Epic Adventures line. Then, it’s obvious that only Al Williamson, Michael Whelan, Reed Crandall and Frank Frazetta (and the Epic Adventures figure) even attempt to depict the eyes as Burroughs described them, as being on the sides rather than the front of the head, though with Williamson, Frazetta and Whelan, the size isn’t right. I think Crandall comes the closest.

The “small, cup-shaped antennae” of the ears are hit or miss, being present in about half of these Green Martians (those that aren’t wearing helmets that is, and how painful would it be to have ears like that squashed under a heavy metal helmet? No wonder the race is cruel and taciturn.)

Also, none of these artists make even a gesture towards ERB’s description of the “intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs.” It’s a striking idea, but what would such “arm and leg” limbs even look like? And though I wouldn’t bet my life on it, I don’t ever remember a Green Martian in any of the books actually using the middle limbs as legs. In any case, for all of our artists, the middle limbs are just another pair of arms, indistinguishable from the pair above. I can’t say I blame them.

Of course, each rendition has its accuracies and inaccuracies, areas of greater and lesser fidelity to the vision of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I don’t know where Al Williamson got the idea that the creatures are spotted like a leopard, Richard Corben’s are nowhere near as tall as they should be, and while I unhesitatingly join my voice with all the others acclaiming Frank Frazetta as one of the greatest fantasy artists ever (maybe the greatest of them all), I can’t help thinking that his Green Martian looks an awful lot like a potato bug.

Which of these is the “best” or most “accurate” version of ERB’s creations? I’ll leave that for you to decide. What I can tell you is which one is my favorite, and that’s something I don’t even have to think about. Not surprisingly, it’s the first one I ever laid eyes on, the Green Martian in the Gino d’Achille painting that graced the cover of the Ballantine paperback edition of A Princess of Mars that I plucked off the spinner rack at my local Ben Franklin dime store sometime in the early 70’s. I had never heard of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I bought the book entirely because of that great image.

I took that paperback (cover price, a buck and a quarter) home, opened it, and immediately fell headlong into a realm of excitement and adventure, vivid and colorful and thrilling as real life rarely is. I fell farther in with every new Burroughs I read, and I haven’t yet climbed out. I hope I never do.

I’ve had many great reading experiences in my life, most of them more “mature” than any you can get from the pages of a Barsoom or Pellucidar or Tarzan yarn by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but few have been as literally wonderful as when I raptly stood with Captain John Carter of Virginia on the Martian sward and confronted a grim, fifteen-foot tall Green Martian warrior… that looked just like this one, as he and his six-limbed compatriots always will, in my mind’s eye.

---

Thomas Parker is a native Southern Californian and a lifelong science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fan. When not corrupting the next generation as a fourth grade teacher, he collects Roger Corman movies, Silver Age comic books, Ace doubles, and despairing looks from his wife. His last article for us was Uh-oh: The Bride!