Review by Frank Plowright

Ever since arriving in the lost land, Turok and Andar have largely encountered land-based dinosaurs or extinct mammals from a later era, but in this selection Paul S. Newman, now regular writer, expands their knowledge of marine-based animals. In the opening story this comes via a group of cavemen abducting people from other communities and bringing them to an island in the middle of a lake. It’s followed by pteradactyls believed to be lake gods, rumours of people living beneath the waters, and a truly humongous aquatic creature in the final story.

While reality isn’t a priority in stories featuring dinosaurs in the same area whose real existence was actually separated by millions of years, Newman nevertheless manages to stretch credulity with a story that has Andar raise a brontosaurus from an egg. It’s fully grown by the story’s end during which Andar doesn’t seem to have aged at all. Inconsistencies are occasional rather than constant, and Newman generally provides a good adventure over thirteen pages, whether dealing with the danger of dinosaurs or the mistaken beliefs of primitive people, such as volcanic eruptions being attributed to a mountain god. Running a story about a giant in one reprinted issue, then following it with one about pygmies in the next with Turok and Andar considered giants is a little obvious, but wouldn’t have been to readers waiting three months for the following issue back in 1959.

As was the case in Volume 2, Rex Maxon draws the four page interlude features about day to day life for assorted creatures featured in the main stories, and they’re far more polished than Ray Bailey’s work on Turok’s adventures. However, halfway through Bob Fujitani takes over the art and there’s a massive improvement. His sample page shows far more character in the faces, his page layouts are more imaginative and when it comes to adverse weather conditions his pages are more atmospheric.

If you’re a reader who becomes irritated at a lack of logic at times, then this selection will push those buttons, but accept the stories as they were intended, as thrilling adventures for children, and they still stand up well. More follows in Volume 4.