TARZAN LORD OF THE JUNGLE #4

Cover shows strong gloss and bright, unfaded colors with sharp corners and no visible creases or tears. There is a small stress line/wrinkle near the top edge and slight waviness to the paper stock, along with minor edge wear at the bottom right corner. The book is in a protective sleeve, which adds glare in some areas but does not appear to be masking major defects; interior pages and back cover were not assessed.

Tarzan Lord of the Jungle #4 (Marvel, September 1977) continues the publisher's licensed adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels, with Roy Thomas scripting and John Buscema providing both interior art and cover. This issue falls within the multi-part adaptation of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, one of several ERB novels Marvel worked through during its short-lived stewardship of the license before Tarzan reverted to other publishers in the following years. The book carries no first appearance, origin, or death of consequence; its interest rests on Buscema's handling of a public-domain literary hero and the Thomas-Buscema creative pairing familiar from their Conan and Avengers work of the same period.

Market demand for the Marvel Tarzan Lord of the Jungle series is modest and largely driven by Buscema completists and ERB literary collectors rather than mainstream key-issue buyers. Sales data for raw copies show consistent low-dollar turnover, reflecting ample surviving newsstand supply and the absence of any speculative first-appearance premium. Graded copies see a meaningful step up in value chiefly because CGC populations for the title are small, not because underlying demand is deep; certified high-grade examples command outsized premiums relative to raw stock simply due to scarcity of submission rather than competitive bidding pressure.

This is a book that trades as bulk-bin or short-box filler in low and mid grades, priced closer to cover price than to any speculative premium, and is best positioned in dealer stock as an affordable Buscema or ERB-adaptation piece rather than a headline key. In slabbed Near Mint/Mint condition it becomes a niche condition-census item attractive mainly to registry-minded Bronze Age Marvel or Tarzan specialists willing to pay for top-of-census rarity; outside that narrow buyer pool, resale velocity in high grade is slow and dependent on finding the right specialized collector.