Featuring: X-Men
Release: January 5, 1965
Cover: March 1965
12 cents
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby
Inker: Chic Stone
Letterer: S.Rosen
20 pages
| Previous | #315 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales to Astonish #66 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #64 |
| X-Men #9 | X-Men | X-Men #11 |
| Marvel Comics #1, Story F | Prelude |
Stronger than mastodon! Stronger than giant boar! Mighty is Ka-Zar! Lord of Jungle!
The cover claims this comic is introducing Ka-Zar. It’s unclear if that’s true when we just met a Ka-Zar in our last post, introduced almost 30 years earlier.
Same guy? No evidence otherwise, except that he’s somehow moved from the Congo to Antarctica.
I’m so glad they tell us how to pronounce his name. It’s the bane of comics reading. Nobody tells you how to pronounce the names. You think you’re an expert in this stuff, then along comes a movie and you’ve been pronouncing names wrong for decades, and everyone looks at you like an idiot. But now we know: “Kay-Sar”.
My buddy Brian just polled on Twitter about how people pronounced his name when they first read it, and I was forced to admit that I was saying “Kay-Zar” in my head in my ignorant youth. Perhaps if I’d known more German then, I would have different ideas about pronouncing that ‘Z’.
The X-Men undertake a mission to Antarctica, having heard about a man wearing only a loincloth mysteriously rescuing members of an expedition. Jean and Bobby seemed particularly eager to volunteer.
In Antarctica, the X-Men find a tunnel to a lost world, where prehistoric plants and creatures still exist.
Despite the location, it’s somehow warm and tropical. Ka-Zar is the self-proclaimed lord of this hidden jungle.
The idea of a hidden place where dinosaurs still exist dates back to at least Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel, The Lost World. That book had been adapted to film several times by this point, going back to 1925. The most famous film with a lost land where dinosaurs roam is King Kong from 1933.
Since 1960, the Distinguished Competition has had a series of adventures in Star Spangled War Stories called “The War that Time Forgot”, featuring soldiers on a dinosaur island. Perhaps Stan and Jack are borrowing a bit from the competition here. They even repeatedly refer to this land as the “world that time forgot”. You could try a little harder to be subtle about the swiping, Stan.
I appreciate the warriors riding carnivorous birds.
Ka-Zar speaks limited English. He doesn’t know about articles or first-person pronouns, and has a tendency to repeat the same few phrases over and over again.
He has a strong bond with the saber-tooth tiger, Zabu, who he calls his blood brother.
I don’t have much to say about the next picture. I just wanted to include more dinosaurs. I like dinosaurs. It’s fun to see Kirby draw dinosaurs.
After some conflict, Ka-Zar and the X-Men ultimately team up to battle the Swamp Men who have captured Warren and Jean.
In the end, the tunnel to this hidden world is forever sealed. Perhaps this is the last we’ll see of it.
“Stronger than mastodon! Stronger than giant boar! Mighty Ka-Zar is… Lord of Jungle!”
The ultimate question of course is what is the connection between this Ka-Zar and the 1930s hero we just read about? The original was David Rand, raised in the Belgian Congo.
We don’t learn any other name for this one, and he lives in Antarctica. He recalls fleeing surface men and finding the tunnel. David Rand spoke better English than this Ka-Zar exhibits, but he may be out of practice. It’s possible he eventually made his way from the Congo to Antarctica. David Rand was only 3 years old when we met him in the 1930s, so he’d be in his late 20s now.
It’s possible this is indeed David Rand, but we may have to look for more clues the next time we meet him. If we ever see him again, that is. They did seal the tunnel.
Rating: ★★★½, 60/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
Reason for high rating: dinosaurs.
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men vol. 1. You can also find this story in X-Men Epic Collection vol. 1: Children of the Atom. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Ka-Zar
- Zabu
- Angel
- Iceman
- Beast
- Marvel Girl
- Cyclops
- Professor X
- Maa-Gor
Story notes:
- Zabu described as saber-tooth stalker.
- Jean’s power described as telekinetic.
- Current training described as post-graduate studies.
- Professor X confident newcomer is not a mutant, as his presence was not recorded by Cerebro, and Professor X would have mentally sensed him.
- Washington contacted Professor X about Antarctic wild man.
- X-Men have been inactive for weeks.
- Maa-Gor, last of Man-Ape tribe.
- Swamp Men capture Angel and Marvel Girl for a sacrifice.
- Ka-Zar calls herd of mastodons; mastodons seal tunnel to the world that time forgot.
| Previous | #315 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales to Astonish #66 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #64 |
| X-Men #9 | X-Men | X-Men #11 |
| Marvel Comics #1, Story F | Prelude |
Both DC and Marvel “borrowed” the title from a novel by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice-Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot.”
I was proud to translate both it and its two sequels (“The People That Time Forgot” and “Out of Time’s Abyss”) into German and be the first person to do so, about 70 years after the stories were written. They are located in Caprona, a hidden island close to the South Pole were Dinosaurs and strange, mutated creatures live.