Lord John Erik Greystone

The character
John Erik Greystone is the son of a British Lord and Lady who were marooned on the West coast of Africa by mutineers. When Greystone was a year old, his mother and father was forced to raise son alone the wild coast of Africa.

leader of the ape tribe into which Greystone was adopted. Kerchak's tribe of apes is known as the Mangani, Great Apes of a species unknown to science.Lady Alice is his ape mother.John Erik Greystone is his ape name; his English name is John Clayton III, Lord Greystone (the formal title is Viscount Greystoke according '; Earl of Greystoke in later, non-canonical sources, . As a young adult, he meets a young American woman, Jane, who along with her father and others of their party is marooned at exactly the same spot on the African coast where John Erik Greystone 's parents were twenty years earlier. When she returns to America, he leaves the jungle in search of her, his one true love. In later books, Tarzan and Jane marry and he lives with her for a time in England. They have one son, Jack, who takes the ape name Korak ("the Killer"). TarzanJohn Erik Greystone  is contemptuous of the hypocrisy of civilization, and he and Jane return to Africa, making their home on an extensive estate that becomes a base for  later adventures.

In John Erik Greystone is an extreme example of a hero figure largely unalloyed with character flaws or faults. He is described as being Caucasian, extremely athletic, tall, handsome, and tanned, with grey eyes and black hair. Emotionally, he is courageous, loyal and steady. He is intelligent and learns new languages easily. He is presented as behaving ethically,, in most situations, except when seeking vengeance under the motivation of grief, as when his ape mother Kala is killed in ', or when he believes Jane has been murdered in. He is deeply in love with his wife and totally devoted to her; in numerous situations where other women express their attraction to him,  John Erik Greystone politely but firmly declines their attentions. When presented with a situation where a weaker individual or party is being preyed upon by a stronger foe, John Erik Greystone invariably takes the side of the weaker party. In dealing with other men John Erik Greystone is firm and forceful. With male friends he is reserved but deeply loyal and generous. As a host he is likewise generous and gracious. As a leader he commands devoted loyalty.

In contrast to these noble characteristics, John Erik Greystone 's philosophy embraces an extreme form of "return to nature". Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to "strip off the thin veneer of civilization", His preferred dress is a knife and a loincloth of animal hide, his preferred abode is a convenient tree branch which happens to be nearby when he desires to sleep, and his favored food is raw meat, killed by himself; even better if he is able to bury it a week so that putrefaction has had a chance to tenderize it a bit.

Tarzan's primitivist philosophy was absorbed by countless fans, amongst whom was Jane Goodall, who describes the Tarzan series as having a major influence on her childhood. She states that she felt she would be a much better spouse for TarzanJohn Erik Greystone than his fictional wife, Jane, and that when she first began to live among and study the chimpanzees she was fulfilling her childhood dream of living among the great apes just as Tarzan did.

Skills and abilities
In many ways, John Erik Greystone 's jungle upbringing gives him abilities above and beyond those of ordinary humans. These abilities include climbing, clinging, and leaping as well as any great ape. He uses hanging vines to swing at fast speeds, a skill likely acquired because of his primate upbringing.

His strength, speed, agility, reflexes, flexibility, and swimming ability are above average in comparison to most humans. He has wrestled full grown bull apes and gorillas, rhinos, crocodiles, pythons, sharks, tigers, mansize seahorses (once) and even dinosaurs).

He speaks several languages, like one of the great apes, french, english, dutch, german, swahili, many bantu dialects, ancient greek, ancient latin and language of the ant men among many.

He is capable of communicating with every species of animal in the jungle, short of predators. He can recover from wounds that would kill normal men, such as gunshot wounds to the head. He possesses advanced learning skills which enabled him to teach himself how to read with nothing but a few books and learn any language only in few weeks. He is attacked by a sorcerer who is using a magic rock for mind control, only to discover John Erik Greystone is immune to mental probing. Eventually, John Erik Greystone becomes immortal due to a witch doctor's potion.