The first character called "Ka-Zar" came from the pulps, but when Martin Goodman decided to publish comic books, he moved that character over to his very first, Marvel Comics #1. The first Ka-zar was a boy whose parents' plane crashed in the African jungle when the boy, David Rand, was only three years old. His mother, Constance, died shortly after of the fever, but his father, John, lived until he was killed by hostile natives when David was about 12 or 13. He learned to communicate with the animals and blah, blah, blah... When Lee and Kirby revived the character in 1965 it was a complete reboot, but it was the pulp adventures of Ka-Zar which inspired young Kevin Plumber to... but wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.
There has been talk on this board, from time to time, of someone starting a Ka-Zar discussion for as long as I have been a member. The 80th anniversary of the first appearance of the comic book version of the first Ka-Zar seems as good of a time as any to finally do so. Some of the earliest comics I acquired as backissues were the "King-Size" Ka-Zar reprint series and the issues of Marvel Tales reprinting the issues of Spider-Man in which Spidey met Ka-zar. when I was in high school I read Ka-Zar the Savage, and when I was in college I began collecting his early appearances, previous series and reprints via backissues. One of the latest of the early appearances I acquired was his very first from X-Men #10. Up until that time I had been pronouncing his name as I had since I was a child: Kuh-ZAR.
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The Land of Cancelled Heroes bit is wonderfully witty. I'm sure that's Devil Dinosaur at the door.
The cover is a Steranko Nick Fury homage, of course. It's a good cover idea in itself, but I think the image is also an intentional joke on the blurb.
IRON MAN #202:
After the destruction of the Savage Land, the Avengers put Ka-zar and Shanna up in their East Coast mansion. Dealing with survivor’s guilt, Ka-Zar is restless and leaves his pregnant wife behind to drive cross country to “find himself.” He gets into a brawl in a diner. Iron Man is there to meet him at the Avengers’ West Coast compound. Iron Man tells him he’s a fool to have left Shanna by herself at this point. The fixer attacks and Ka-Zar helps Iron Man defeat him. Then he returns to Shanna.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
I skipped ahead to cover X-Men #115-116 and Marvel Fanfare #2 & #4 with the hope that Ka-Zar #6-20 would one day be collected in MMW format. Now I’m going to skip ahead again with the hope that Ka-Zar the Savage #1-34 will one day be collected as well.
I don't know about Ka-Zar #6-20 (it hasn't been solicited yet), but an omnibus edition of Ka-Zar the Savage #1-34 Has been solicited for May 2021 release. Yeah, I'm pretty happy right now.
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