The Savage Land from the Ka-Zar comics has an obvious Pulp heritage. Or is it all that obvious? Who was the first person to place a lost world at the South Pole? The answer is complicated… and fun.
First off, let’s begin with Jack Kirby, the man who created the Savage Land for The X-Men #10 (March 1965). Jack has the X-Men go to the Antarctic when a team of scientists are attacked by a saber-toothed tiger. When they arrive they descend down a crack in the ice to find dinosaurs and a jungle dude named Ka-Zar. After defeating the bad guys, Ka-Zar says: “No talk! Your world above. My world…jungle! Only Ka-Zar is lord of jungle! You go! No Return!”
Only they did return, many times between 1965 and 2012. But before we can go there, we must back up the bus to 1838, because there are a number of novels that were important to the development of the idea of a lost world hidden in the Antarctic. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838) by Edgar Allan Poe is the first. In this unfinished novel, Poe tells a long sea story that ends with the hero going farther and farther south. The weird, unexplained ending led to several writers penning sequels or conclusions. These include Jules Verne and H. P. Lovecraft.
Despite the suggestion of the idea of an opening that leads to an interior world, none of these guys go that far. Enter The Lost World (1912) by Arthur Conan Doyle. The creator of Sherlock Holmes delivers the goods: a lost world of cavemen and dinosaurs on a remote South American plateau. It’s not Antarctica but it is the first novel to bring a world of prehistoric monsters and prehistoric men together. (Jules Verne, again, had dinosaurs inside the Earth in Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1864. No cavemen though. Verne scoffed at the idea of evolution.) We are getting closer but we need the Antarctic.
Edgar Rice Burroughs took Doyle’s idea and ran with it. He created at least three lost worlds of dinosaurs and cavemen with Pellucidar, Caspak and Pal-U-Don. It is the second one we want to look at. The Land That Time Forgot (Blue Book, August, October, December1918) features an island near Antarctica called Caprona or Caspak. Unlike Verne, ERB found the idea of evolution fascinating. On the island of Caspak, individuals go through all the steps of evolution, beginning as fish and ending as the evil Wieroos. More importantly here, we are in the remote Southern hemisphere.
Burroughs opened the flood gates to the world of Pulp. Now authors began setting stories in, on and under the ice cap of the South Pole. One of these is “Valley of the Giants” (Thrilling Adventures, July 1933) by the house name, Jackson Cole. The real author was Western writer, Lee E. Wells and his inspiration is easily determined. The crew of The Golden Harpoon go through a geyser to arrive in a world of dinosaurs and gigantic men. The opening scene is right out of The Land That Time Forgot, with a submariner attacked by a plesiosaur. Much of what follows is reminiscent of Tarzan and the Ant Men (1924) with a race of giant overlords ruling ordinary sized men. “Jackson Cole” is not the last writer to borrow from ERB as you will see.
Other important novels to mention include Dian of the Lost Land (1935) by Edison Marshall, reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, April 1949, which has “Moss World” secreted away under the ice, and The Man Who Missed the War (1945) by Dennis Wheatley, which feels more like a Haggard novel with its lost race of Atlanteans. But before we return to Jack Kirby there is one other Pulp stop-off we have to make. That is Ka-Zar’s origin in a Pulp magazine.
October 1936 presented the first issue of a new jungle Pulp called Ka-Zar. Based on the ideas in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes (1914) it repeats many of the standard elements like a child abandoned in the wild. The first issue had a short novel called “King of Claw and Fang” by Bob Byrd. It was followed by two more issues in
January and June 1937. In these three magazines, we meet Ka-Zar, a jungle lord who is actually David Rand, lost son of John and Constance Rand. With his lion Zar, he become Ka-Zar, or “brother of Zar”. He goes on to do what most jungle lords do, not really distinguishing himself much from the herd. As Robert Michael Bobb Cotter points out The Great Monster Magazines (2008): the only thing Ka-Zar accomplished was making all Tarzan clones that follow have names that start with a K. Our Pulp hero was cancelled after the third issue. What must be noted is that the story takes place in Africa, never going anywhere never the South Pole.
But Ka-Zar was about to have a second life, jumping from Pulp to comics. Ben Thompson drew six episodes for Marvel Mystery Comics #22-27 (August 1941-January 1942). The author is unknown but may have been Thompson as well. Joining Na-Mor, The Human Torch, The Patriot and The Vision, Ka-Zar goes up against the Nazis. The six story run has the jungle lord defeat the Germans’ attempt to create a vegetation-killing spray (The Agent Orange of 1941), establish an air base and refuel attack planes for England. The villains, Ali Hamud and Captain Olendorff, are defeated. Ka-Zar goes on to another adventure that is never finished. The comic’s popularity dropped quickly as each issue the story was placed farther back in the issue. Again, the story takes place in Africa.
Ka-Zar might have languished in obscurity forever except a certain Jack “King” Kirby and Stan Lee brought him back for that issue of The X-Men. So where did they get their inspiration? Had they read all these old Pulps? Probably not. The very first page of The X-Men #10 makes it pretty clear: “The World That Time Forgot!”
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Caspak trilogy, usually published as one book, The Land That Time Forgot, is the culprit. Like Robert Kanigher’s “The War That Time Forgot” series in DC’s Spangled War Stories (beginning May 1960), the title gives credit where credit is due. ERB gave us the super version of the lost world of dinosaurs and cavemen all hidden by some quirk of nature, magic or technology. And Marvel wasn’t about to forget Ka-Zar. He appeared again:
Daredevil #12-13 (January-February 1966)
The Incredible Hulk #109-110 (November-December 1968)
The X-Men #62-63 (November-December 1969)
Astonishing Tales #1-8 (August 1970-October 1971) featured Ka-Zar and Dr. Doom, and with issue #9 the comic became Ka-Zar’s first solo comic. Astonishing Tales #9-20 featured the jungle lord and his saber-toothed cat to be replaced by It! and then Deathlok.
Running at the same time, August 1970 to March 1971, Ka-Zar #1-3 reprinted Ka-Zar’s previous adventures with Daredevil and The X-Men.
The last of the guest spots was The Amazing Spider-Man #103 (December 1971).
From here Ka-Zar got a side-kick gig at the black & white magazine Savage Tales, originally a Conan product but ultimately a Ka-Zar magazine as Conan and his barbarian friends moved to their own home at Savage Sword of Conan. This would last until July 1975.
While running in black & white, the first Ka-Zar (by title) comic ran 20 issues from January 1974 to February 1977. Like all Ka-Zar comics before and after, it runs out of steam after a while. Back to obscurity for five years…
When Marvel wanted to launch their new premium series for direct-to-comic shops sales, Marvel Fanfare was created. Issues #1-4 (March-September 1982) took the X-Men and Spider-Man back to the Savage Land. The story was written by Chris Claemont and drawn by Michael Golden.
Ka-Zar would have his own series, off and on, depending on how the winds blew.
Ka-Zar the Savage (April 1981-April 1984) would run the longest with 31 issues. The comic does a couple of unusual things. First it has old blondie fall for Shanna the She-Devil. And two, Ka-Zar leaves the Savage land for much of the run.
Ka-Zar (May 1997-December 1998), running 20 issues, is of note because the inker on the comic was Andy Kubert, son of Joe Kubert. Joe was a giant of comics but one of his best was his version of Tarzan. Andy was keeping the jungle spirit alive and well.
2007 saw Shanna having adventures in the Savage Land without Ka-Zar in Shanna the She-Devil: Survival of the Fittest #1-4 (October 2007-January 2008).
Ka-Zar (August-December 2011) ran for 5 issues with Ka-Zar, Shanna and family living in the Savage Land.
2013 would pair up Wolverine with Shanna in the Savage Land for Savage Wolverine #1- 5 (March-July 2013).
I am sure I have not listed every Ka-Zar appearance or every Savage Land setting, and that isn’t really my intention here. What I really wanted to do was show how the Pulps and Edgar Rice Burroughs formed this comic both with its main character and its setting. The similarity to Tarzan and Jad-bal-ja the Golden Lion are evident. As a jungle lord, Ka-Zar’s ancestry is well established in the Burroughs catalogue of Tarzan clones.
Having a saber-toothed cat as a pal was a great touch as it allowed for some wonderful cover art. (My favorite are those by Gil Kane, whose Conan covers of the same time period are equally wonderful.) The backdrop of the Savage Land, a strange world of dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts, is instant action. (Mike Grell was on the same wave-length when he invented his interior world of Skartaris for The Warlord, though he quickly moved into Sword & Sorcery.)
Brian Stableford, in his The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) says of the lost land idea:
The motif has gradually fallen into disuse by virtue of increasing geographical knowledge; these days lost lands have to be very well hidden indeed or displaced beyond some kind of magical or dimensional boundary. Such displacement…so transforms their significance that they are better thought of as Secondary Worlds or Otherworlds.
Stableford is exactly right. The lost world doesn’t have the same punch today as it did in Haggard’s time or even Jack Kirby’s time. Satellites have mapped the entire planet. You need a Narnian wardrobe to walk through to get to the Savage Land these days. Despite that, I hope the Pulp tradition will live on in comics and movies (remember Aquaman?) , and who knows, maybe even new prose.