Happy Birthday to the Original Superhero

Before Batman or Superman, even before Marvel or DC Comics, there was Tarzan of the Apes. This was even before Lycra (or 'Spandex', dear friends of the New World), so our jungle hero was clad in nothing more than a skimpy leather loin cloth.Tarzan was the creation of English novelist Edgar Rice Borroughs and first appeared exactly 100 years ago this month. 'Tarzan of the Apes' was a short story which first appeared in the pulp fiction title All Story Magazine in October 1912. At first no traditional publisher would have anything to do with it, but after witnessing the phenomenal sales of the serialised version in various newspapers, that quickly changed.Just occasionally, a literary character manages to escape from the printed page to enter our shared consciousness and culture. How many fans of Frankenstein have read the original Mary Shelly book? How many of you have read any of the Arthur Conan Doyle books about Sherlock Holmes? Tarzan, just like these others, is now part of our latter-day mythology.During the four generations since its conception, the character of Tarzan has gone through very different realities for each of us. For the young, Tarzan is now a slightly dumb jock, muscle-bound Disney Cartoon Character. The previous generation, of which I count myself part, know the Apeman as Ron Ely who played him in the 1966 TV series. He was the bronzed, semi naked, floppy-haired, all American hero. For those of my parent’s generation, it was Johnny Weissmuller who wowed the ladies in the famous 1932 movie. For the first Tarzan generation, the only visuals were the book covers and there were many of those. After the first story, with the fans clamouring for more, Burroughs went on to deliver 26 more books. By 1918 the first film appeared, and by 1929 there were comics. In 1932 Tarzan was serialised on the radio and then followed ever more films and TV series.The original literary character deserves greater analysis than I can offer here, but he was much darker than any of the later media versions were to portray. Tarzan lived outside of mainstream civilisation and yet he aspired to the notion of civilisation. He can make us uncomfortable with his ideological racism, and we are frequently reminded that in the jungle he is a ‘superior being’. Worse than this, he is a killer. To quote the story, “he joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. He killed for food most often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure”. Of course there is the issue of Tarzan’s discovery that he is in fact the English aristocrat Lord Greystoke. He turns his back on all of this as he also does from his role as King of the Apes, acquired after murdering the incumbent. The later stories became ever more fantastical and it must be said that Burroughs was at best an eccentric writer - and sometimes downright weird!It is not difficult to start seeing parallels with more modern super heroes. Whatever the belief system behind the character, we have a long history of forgiving eccentric writers (HP Lovecraft?). For many young boys Tarzan was a fantasy role model and our chest banging, primitive yodelling was the common place of the school playground for many years. I can also remember student fancy dress parties where the cheapest costume for a brave teen to be noticed in, was nothing more than a chamois leather pinched for the car washing kit and held up by a standard leather belt. Most of these kids/young adults have never read a Burroughs book, although in hindsight, maybe that was no bad thing.For my own part, as an emerging gay lad, the TV series of the late 60s was fantasy fodder indeed. One could do a lot worse than to fall in love with a fit, bronzed, smiling Adonis who lived as one with the natural environment.As is often the way, the Disney movie is a poor reflection of the original book. But aside from such bland fair, there has been a wealth of material spawned by the original work. Undoubtedly Tarzan has been the kernel which has fired the imagination of a legion of cult writers since. From a weird author, we have a great legacy.Happy 100th Birthday, Tarzan!