Continuity of the Savage Land.

Here's one I hadn't seen before: from 1997 (actually, maybe the last week of '96!) Ka-Zar of the Savage Land #1, "Nature of the Beasts" Written by Chuck Dixon, art by Frank Teran.

I'm not a huge Ka-Zar fan, but we did see the last issue of his 70's series a few months back, and the end of his 80's book years ago. I don't think we've seen any of his 90's book, although I do remember Priest having some fun at Ka-Zar's--and his own--expense, in Deadpool #34, with another visit to the Land Trailer Park of Cancelled Heroes, where Ka-Zar was still blind after his most recent last issue! That would've been about two years after today's book though; although, not unlike visits to the Age of Apocalypse, all the edges of continuity don't really line up smoothly. This issue, the Savage Land is under siege from "neo-men," who appear to be various degrees of mutated; but then again, so do most of Ka-Zar's forces? We do see longtime supporting character Tongah (misspelled as 'Togah' in one panel, unfortunately) but the rest of Ka-Zar's guys look like ogres.

Shanna was on a reconnaissance flight, checking out the incoming neo-men army, which seemed to be coming for the long haul; but she gets distracted by stowaway child Keeto, then shot down. Ka-Zar, Zabu, and some randos set out to find her: said randos get it pretty quickly, and Ka-Zar is separated from Zabu by a collapsing bridge. He still continues the search for his wife, unaware that an old foe was watching him...no spoilers, but you can guess! He's almost always in the Savage Land...no, not Stegron, although that would've been cool.

This is a solid enough adventure yarn; I maybe shouldn't be reading this so closely. The narration implies the neo-men were coming from somewhere, or they might have been mutated by something, like a lot of Savage Land types: think the old mutates Magneto made or found or whatever. There was also a comment that while they used to be allowed to come and go freely, there were too many of them now for the local ecology to support, so they hadda go: I am not 100% comfortable with that kind of talk, even if there did seem to be a lot of buggy, insect-like guys in the neo-men. Also, I didn't love that Ka-Zar's hair resembles white-boy dreads in some panels, and we don't get to see Zabu again after the halfway point, and I can't remember: can you see the stars in the Savage Land? I feel like you can, and that Dixon's thinking of hollow-earth type jungles like Pellucidar or Skartaris. I was also worried Keeto might get eaten, since there can be health concerns for a "Keeto" diet--hurk! (dragged offstage by hook)