Thursday, December 26, 2013

"The End" Week: Ka-Zar the Savage #34!


Another Marvel hero that has stared down the barrel of cancellation more than once; but this one does it with far more aplomb than Nova did. From 1984, Ka-Zar the Savage #34, "Savage in a Strange Land" Written by Mike Carlin, pencils by Paul Neary, inks by Carlos Garzon. And Neary's cover is a Steranko tribute!

The main story features Ka-Zar and Zabu trying to rescue Shanna, who had been teleported away from them by a tribal relic that originally appeared to be an oddly shaped bone. The alien Nuwali appear to occasionally abduct people to harvest adrenalin from them, which they use as a poison in trying to extract payment from their employers, who hired them to set up nature preserves. (Like the Savage Land, the only surviving one, although the Nuwali didn't know why it was still going.) The other humans from the Savage Land are apathetic and weak after having their adrenalin yanked out of them too often, but they figure they can get a good batch out of Ka-Zar after convincing him Shanna was being hurt. Still, Shanna is able to rescue him, and has another good bit of news: she's pregnant! After a dogfight in space, Ka-Zar and Shanna and the other humans manage to get back to the Savage Land, where Ka-Zar assures his wife and friend that they will lead a full happy life there.

In the second feature, "Savage in a Stranger Land!" Ka-Zar is taken back to a familiar place, and faces some familiar foes, in the Land of Cancelled Heroes! That's a fun bit, as Ka-Zar explains being ahead of their time, being visionary, sometimes leads to being cancelled; and it's not necessarily a stigma. And it's not, since Ka-Zar has been back multiple times since this one.

And the "Land of Cancelled Heroes," with Ka-Zar, would make an appearance in Deadpool #34, which is also damn fun. It's a trailer park in that one, and all the cancelled heroes appearing had been written before by the new series writer Christopher Priest!

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