Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs for June 22, 2019

Now what? Reason with him? Let him slowly starve to death? Why did Tarz want to take him alive? No zoo wants a male elephant, especially a dangerous rogue!

And the great jungle hero kills a poor elephant who had lost his entire family thanks to human greed. All Tantor wanted was justice, but all he got was getting labelled as terrible and getting killed for it.

I’m actually speechless. This is a sad day in the jungle. Every so often, the ethics in these Tarzan strips disturb me.

Let me guess. Tantor has a son and in 50 years he will be back to wreak vengeance on the villagers who killed his father. Tarzan, of course, will be back in Graystoke manor reminiscing about his years in Africa.

Bummer, I was routing for the Tantor, the underdog.

For those who have knowledge about elephants: was it really necessary to provoke Tantor and pull him into the trap? If they just left him alone, would he eventually come to his senses?

Now what? Why we feast on Tantor roast and tomorrow we’ll have Tantor burgers, and then we’ll have Tantor stew and finally some Tantor loaf.

“Wow, took him 14 minutes. That’s a record!”

It really is a savage jungle with ’ol Tarz around…

Tantor is dead as a hammer.

I find this whole “adventure” to be thoughtless and pointless. Instead of a lesson of conservation and protection of a species that may be endangered we have a lesson in cruelty and death – a horrible death of an animal who was certainly on a life threatening vengeful course.

Very sad.