Issue(s): Tales of the Zombie #10
Cover Date: Mar 75
Title: "The resurrection of Papa Jambo"
Credits:
Doug Moench - Writer
Tony DeZuniga - Penciler
Tony DeZuniga - Inker

Review/plot:
An introductory editorial explains that the Simon Garth Zombie story intended for this issue will not be appearing because the script from Gerry Conway accidentally wound up in Guam on its way to Rico Rival. Marvel had been using artists from the Philippines, in part to save on page rates, and i guess this was one of the hazards of doing that in the days prior to fax and email. So despite the fact that he appears on the cover, he does not appear in this issue.

Instead, the Brother Voodoo story that was also slated for this issue becomes the main feature, and the rest of the issue is filled out with non-continuity horror stories.

Brother Voodoo responds to a call from help in Haiti (thank god it was the 70s or i don't think Brother Voodoo would have been able to get on a plane dressed like that)...

...and finds himself fighting a zombie master, Dramabu, that has dared to raise even the corpse of Brother Voodoo's mentor, Papa Jambo.

Obviously Brother Voodoo doesn't like that.

Papa Jambo manages to get free of Dramabu's control and he immediately starts lecturing his former pupil.

And it comes out that Brother Voodoo has more power than he realizes.

This seems to manifest itself in the ability for Brother Voodoo's brother's spirit, Daniel Drumm, to act of its own free will, and with a strength beyond that of the person it possesses.

We don't really get to follow up on that any further in this issue, which ends pretty quickly after Dramabu is defeated. Which is too bad, because Brother Voodoo continues to be a character that doesn't come across as being all that interesting, and some developments regarding his powers or relationship with his brother's spirit might have helped spice things up.

In the Next Issue ad i included in last issue's entry, we saw that this Brother Voodoo story was planned for this issue (even if it wasn't meant to be the lead feature). I mention that because throughout this issue, the characters use the word "zuvembie" instead of "zombie"...

...which makes me wonder if the story had previously been planned for a Code book where the word "zombie" was still forbidden.

Here's this issue's Next Issue ad.

But this is actually the last issue of Tales of the Zombie. I don't know if failing to get the lead character into the series contributed to its failure. There were also a lot of complaints in the lettercols from people who liked the Simon Garth story but didn't like the text pieces and reprints (especially when Marvel cut back on the reprints but filled the additional space with more text pieces instead of new content). A Tales of the Zombie annual was published after the regular series ended, but it just included reprints of some of the Simon Garth stories from this series. The next Simon Garth story will be in 1982's Bizarre Adventures #33, but it's not the Gerry Conway/Rico Rival story that went missing for this issue.

Also in this issue:
"Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" by Gerry Conway & Virgilio Redondo
"Malaka's curse!" by Carl Wessler, John Warner, & Vicente Alcazar
"Grave business" by Tom Sutton

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I've placed this at publication date. At the beginning of this issue, Brother Voodoo is being visited by one of the characters from his Tales of the Zombie #6 appearance, but it doesn't have to take place directly after that issue.

References:

• The issue begins with Brother Voodoo talking with Loralee Tate, a woman that Brother Voodoo rescued from the Black Talon in Tales of the Zombie #6. Loralee's father Samuel, a police chief, is not happy about Loralee hanging out with Brother Voodoo.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Tales of the Zombie vol. 1