John Clayton, Jr. (New Earth-Twenty Two)

Early Life
The man known as Tarzan was born, John Clayton, Jr. the son of Viscount Greystoke, John Clayton, Sr. and his wife, Alice Clayton.

John's father was both a well respected nobleman as well as a scholar in the Zoology department of Oxford University, where he worked closely with fellow professor, Archimedes Q. Porter. While John was still an infant his father would learn of reports of a strange island located several miles off the coast of Africa that is said to have several species of animals never documented before. Deciding to follow the rumor, John Sr. would set up an expedition team to search for the strange island. He would be accompanied John and his mother after the later insisted on it. The trio would leave port from London and begin traveling down the European coast towards Africa.

The Storm
After spending two weeks searching off the coast of Africa, the ship carrying John and his family would be hit by a sudden and powerful storm that caused the ship to suffer major damage to the haul and throw multiple crew members into the ocean. During this time, John's father decided to abandon the ship and save his family by taking the last remaining lifeboat after being urged by the captain of the ship to leave him with his ship. Shortly after launching the lifeboat the ships haul would finally burst, causing it to sink.

The family would spend days lost at sea, trying to survive as best they could. As hope dwindle, fate would intervene and the family would hit landfall on the very island that they had searched for.

The Island
The family would make landfall and John's father would begin constructing shelter for them out of the lifeboat and some drift wood.

The family would spend months together on the island trying to survive, during which John's father constructed a tree-house home for better protection from the wild animals in the jungles of the island as they wait for rescue.

This rescue would never come however, and John's parents would be killed by the islands native jaguar that made its way into their tree-house. John would be spared from the fate of his parents, due to his father covering him with a small crate from the lifeboat to hide and protect him from the jaguar. The jaguar would attempt to kill the infant John too, but was stopped by a large gorilla that heard the infant's cries. The gorilla would fight the jaguar off and would proceed to take John with him back to the nearby tribe of gorillas it belonged too.