(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#14 (fb) - BTS) -
D'Ark's only love Adanna sacrificed herself so that the dark gods would
grant her beloved additional powers.
ZHUVAN D'ARK
Real Name: Zhuvan D'Ark
Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial
(Martian
(Red Martian)) (late 19th
Century)
Occupation: Destroyer;
formerly necromancer
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Adanna,
his skeleton pawns
Enemies: John Carter, Grogg, Kantos Kan, Sola,
Tars Tarkas, Dejah Thoris, Helium citizens, Helium military
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Helium, Mars;
formerly a pit in desert, later built over with the City
of Skulls, Mars
First Appearance: John Carter, Warlord of
Mars#12 (May, 1978)
Powers/Abilities: Zhuvan D'Ark is an
extraordinarily long-lived necromancer with the power to animate a vast
amount of skeletons to do his destructive bidding. He can combine bone
to form much larger structures and is obsessed with deathly images of
skulls. One one occasion, D'Ark showed the ability to generate a tight
sandstorm (although this may have been via wind forced through funneled
bone). D'Ark has been given additional powers to shoot beams of light
from his eyes that, when matched with another person direct eye
contact, puts them directly under his maddened will. He can also relay
this power to his skeleton minions. Vengeful and gleefully murderous,
D'Ark also has the ability to transition bodies while maintaining his
own consciousness (although the original host is oblivious) in that he
can take a healthy body and exchange particles (including clothing) to
revitalize his body (this is not transferring his body into someone
else's body, but rather stealing their actual body composition over
minutes by particles). This can be also achieved from one living body
onto a skeleton. However, his animation of others is dependent on his
conscious power and requires vicinity to a living person for initial
power.
Height: 5'9"
(as living corpse)
Weight: 90 lbs. (as living
corpse)
Eyes: Dark amber (yellow sclera)
(as living corpse)
Hair: White (formerly bald
(shaved))
History:
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13 (fb) - BTS) - Many
thousands of years ago, Zhuvan D'Ark made a pact with the dark gods
that resulted in much murder of fellow Martians.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#14 (fb) - BTS) -
D'Ark's only love Adanna sacrificed herself so that the dark gods would
grant her beloved additional powers.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13 (fb)) - D'Ark was tried for his crimes and sentenced to death, but denied him an honorable quick death, so they took him into a desert and buried him alive in tomb-like pit to slowly starve to death.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13 (fb) - BTS) -
D'Ark's pact with the dark gods prevented his death. His flesh rotted
but he stayed alive, also granted powers of mental control by those
gods, yet still a prisoner. Meanwhile across the centuries of his
entombment, the Martian surface and atmosphere slowly decayed and
became inhospitable for large populations. Isolated in the desert, he
could not mentally control anyone to help free himself.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#12) - Journeying home alone across the desert, Sola (Princess Dejah Thoris' servant) heard music from D'Ark and naively wandered closer, providing mental power so that he could escape.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#12 (fb) - BTS) - Now free, D'Ark could use his gods-given powers to pull together bones from long-dead Red Martians. He created a citadel composed of bone (dubbed a "City of Skulls"), fashioned as giant skulls for the exterior and limbed bones merged with rock for internal corridors. He animated complete skeletons as pawns and soldiers. D'Ark put Sola into a pit inside the bone castle.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#12) - Sola's father
Tars Tarkas and his friend, the heroic but stranded Earthman John
Carter, concerned about Sola's absence, investigated the area. D'Ark
sent up a sudden sandstorm that flung the duo's flier at the castle
walls. The pair, troubled at the deathly design, investigated inside.
D'Ark emerged from the ground and blasted Tarkas with his eyes, taking
control of the Martian warrior. Nearby, D'Ark's skeleton minions
held Carter through bars of bone as Tarkas came closer to kill
Carter.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13) - Carter broke free
and threw Tarkas aside. Carter smashed through bone and carried the
unconscious Tarkas back to his flier and freed Sola, then fled,
all observed by D'Ark. Maniacally addressing skeletons he animated,
vengeful D'Ark commanded his skeleton army to march through the desert
to Helium. Carter flew back toward the skull castle with trusted warrior
Kantos Kan. Seeing the
army, Carter flew low to smash into the skeletons, but they clambered
onboard and forced the craft to crash. Carter and Kantos fought
valiantly against the skeleton army but were eventually knocked out.
D'Ark ordered they be tied up and dragged across the hot sands. When
the pair recovered, D'Ark and his skeletons were already assaulting the
walls of Helium. Carter jumped at D'Ark but was knocked back by the
villain's eyebeams and pinned to a wall. Impressed by Carter's vigor,
D'Ark told of his own bitter history and reveled in the mayhem and
destruction.
(John Carter, Warlord of Mars#14) - D'Ark left Carter pressed against the wall and found Carter's beloved Dejah Thoris, whose body he intended to use to help resurrect Adanna. Eventually freed, Carter pursued D'Ark but was again paralyzed by the killer's eyebeams. D'Ark immediately used his necromantic powers to revitalize his form by stealing Carter's body composition and clothes, while Carter was transferred into what became a crumbled heap of bones that was D'Ark. Quickly complete, D'Ark/Carter ordered Thoris be locked away while he found Adanna's grave and commanded her skeleton exhume herself. D'Ark/Carter had Thoris brought forward and the same process began whereby Thoris' body was transferred onto Adanna's skeleton, gaining Adanna's consciousness (via some sort of necromancy), while the numbed Thoris was shifted onto a skeleton. This was watched nearby by Carter's allies Kantos, Grogg and Tarkas; Kantos' well-aimed knife felled D'Ark/Carter, and his body fell into ash. With D'Ark truly dead and his power force with him, there was nothing to sustain Adanna, and she also crumbled into fine ash, and D'Ark's necromantic body transfer was reversed. The skeletons maintained cohesion and fought weaker, eventually smashed into fragments.
Comments:
Created by Marv Wolfman, Carmine Infantino, Rudy Nebres.
A bit of an amorphous term... "dark gods"--of where? Mars? Space (like the Great Old Ones)? The Dark Gods fought by Asgard and Thor, or those giant beings worshiped by Psyklops' people? Presumably they're very powerful demons or malevolent gods from a now-lost Martian pantheon.
This profile was completed on 08/19/2026, but its
publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th
anniversary's celebratory event to represent John Carter.
Profile by Grendel Prime.
CLARIFICATIONS
:
Zhuvan D'Ark has no known connections to:
The Red Martian Adanna was the beloved of Zhuvan
D'Ark and she willingly sacrificed herself so that the dark gods would
grant him powers, and she was buried under a distinctive tree. But the
murderous D'Ark killed many and was sentenced
to a slow death, but survived for millennia due to his pact with the
dark gods. Once D'Ark was freed and his body revived with the flesh of
the heroic John Carter's body, taking on his full form (and clothing),
D'Ark/Carter used his power to have Adanna claw her way up through the
soil and
he began the same process of reviving her skeleton using another's
person's flesh; this time he used Carter's beloved: Dejah Thoris. But
the timely intervention of Carter's allies Kantos Kan, Grogg and Tars
Tarkas saw a well-aimed knife fell D'Ark/Carter, and his body fell into
ash. With D'Ark truly dead and his power force with him, there was
nothing to sustain Adanna, and she likewise crumbled into fine ash.
--John Carter, Warlord of Mars#14
The City of Skulls on Mars was composed of bone and
rock, summoned by the newly empowered Zhuvan D'Ark, who used powers
granted him by dark gods to pull skeletons from long-dead Red Martians
to mould an imposing wall of giant skulls and internal corridors of
limbed bones. His bone castle was filled with armed skeletons under
D'Ark's control. D'Ark used a sudden isolated sandstorm to pull in a
Martian flier piloted by the heroic John Carter and Green Martian Tars
Tarkas, who were searching for Sola, already imprisoned by D'Ark inside
his citadel. Once his captives were overwhelmed and unconscious, D'Ark
had his skeletons drag them from his castle across the desert sands for
his vengeful attack on Helium city.
--John Carter, Warlord of Mars#12 (13
images:
(with ads)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13, p14, pan1 (main image)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13, p14, pan2 (headshot)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13, p27, pan2 (original form)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#14, p13, pan2 (transitioning into Carter's
body)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#14, p21, pan1 (Adanna, transitioning)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#12, p16-17 (City of Skulls)
Appearances:
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#12 (May, 1978) - Marv Wolfman
(writer/editor), Carmine Infantino (pencils), Rudy Nebres (inks)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#13 (June, 1978) - Marv Wolfman
(writer/editor), Carmine Infantino (pencils), Rudy Nebres (inks)
John Carter, Warlord of Mars#14 (July, 1978) - Marv Wolfman
(writer/editor), Carmine Infantino (pencils), Rudy Nebres (inks)
First posted: 09/18/2026
Last updated:
08/19/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™
and © 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com.
Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix!