Zorro Leaves His Mark on The Land That Time Forgot

Don Diego de la Vega -- aristocratic playboy son of a wealthy aristocrat, in the infant days of La Reina de los Angeles, which would one day become the city of Los Angeles. In his daily life, he has access to information about the ruling class and their unfair, ruthless treatment of the peasantry. In secret, he adopts the costumed identity of El Zorro, "The Fox," to fight those abusing their power with his whip and his blade.

The impact of Zorro is felt across the entirety of the spectrum of the comic book industry, The Zorro movie has been made a seminal part of the Batman mythos itself, so influential it is.

It is quite an incongruous pairing to find Zorro involved the Edgar Rice Burroughs' world of THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, but the merger is performed ingeniously by Mike Wolfer. A voyage is being funded to Caprona -- the name of the island where the dinosaurs roam -- and captain is the descendent of the original Caproni who discovered the land in the first place. Of course, nobody has been there since, and nobody knows how to get there -- but there are clues. Caproni has obtained money from the de la Vega family to partially fund the voyage, with the rest coming from the Spanish Empire. Naturally this gives Caproni some pause that his intentions to claim Caprona in the name of Italy might be derailed by Spain, and Don Diego admits he should be worried. Caproni's sister, Marina, holds similar misgivings, so much so that she even distrusts Don Diego and his family.

But Caproni is getting a guardian angel on his voyage, as Don Diego intends to accompany them, disguised as a member of the crew -- which is how Zorro makes it to The Land That Time Forgot. The question now becomes, 'How will he make it back?"

Johnston McCulley's hero is out of his element, which is a fantastic way to explore a character even further. Placing him into the lost world created by Burroughs is a fun way to celebrate the masked man's centennial, Mike Wolfer and Alessandro Ranaldi work well together, remaining faithful in tone and appearance to both worlds as they marry them together. The opening panels provide just the right bit of foreshadowing (since the title already gives the reader expectations of what is going to happen), and the pacing moves quickly, getting us from Los Angeles to Caprona and dropping off at just the right kind of cliffhanger to bring us back for more. We definitely recommend this one to our readers.