John Carter the Warlord of Mars, Tarzan Lord of the Jungle, and Conan the Barbarian were who I wanted to be at a very young age. My mother read comic books to me as I sat on her lap and filled my mind with tales of high adventure. Later, I spent many summer afternoons on the roof of our house with a towering stack of comics. I concerned myself with the adventures of The Warlord Travis Morgan, Arak Son of Thunder, Spider-Man, Batman, and staggering amounts of Conan treading the jeweled thrones of earth under his sandaled feet.