Ka-Zar, Lord of the Hidden Jungle

[JulianPerez]

As a fan of Tarzan, I was disposed to like Ka-Zar...mostly because, how cool is it he hangs around with a sabertooth tiger?

I kind of like a guy like that in the context of the Marvel Universe: the issues of Ka-Zar featured him teaming up with SHIELD agents to track down AIM in a swamp. It was really great, and an oddball combination: all this superscience spy stuff with the jungle-man.

Unlike Tarzan, they did stories with him that were outright supernatural, with guys like the Petrified Man, and stories that are outright science fiction. What's surprised me about things like the recent Marvel trend toward heroic-level spy stuff featuring HYDRA and so on that Ka-Zar hasn't been pulled out of mothballs and been a part of stuff like Secret War or against enemies like Madame Hydra or Arnim Zola.

It kind of reminds me a little of the Israeli illegal Tarzan novels from the sixties, which had Tarzan as the world's foremost expert on monsters and governments would call him to handle their Mummy problem or whatever.

I'd love to see Ka-Zar team up with the Black Panther, another jungle guy, and I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. The two could be swinging through vines together and talking about Russian literature.

I'd also love to see Ka-Zar fight a few of the Marvel Monsters, or some of the horror characters like the Zombie or N'Kantu the Living Mummy, or maybe a few of the non-powered villains like the Hand or Bullseye.

[thik_3rd]

whens the last time hes been featured anywhere?

[Cthulhudrew]

Back during Heroes Reborn, when Marvel took a chance on a bunch of different titles to fill in for the mainstream titles that were being revamped out of the MU proper (Avengers, Thor, Iron Man, FF), I picked up the Waid/Kubert Ka-Zar because I was hoping to see something different than spandex. It started off promising, but Waid almost immediately jumped Ka-Zar and Shanna out of the Savage Land and into New York City. Argh.

Then he pulled in this whole Thanos plot that seemed waaaay out of line for Ka-Zar, before finally getting him back to the Savage Land- at which point Waid left the title to work on Cap. And despite a good effort by Priest, the title never really recovered.

I still think a Ka-Zar title set in the Savage Land itself would be really fun and different, and I'm going to have to try and track down some of his original series one of these days.

[Stephen Sanders]

He fought the skrulls in the savage land in Secret Invasion then went to New York with the heroes to fight and thats the last we saw of him, I believe.

[rick]

His series back in the 80's was really, really good.

[lou-bert vs. q-bert]

I just read some reprints of both Ka-Zar series' 1st issues. He's a really great character and deserves better attention.

[RBishop]

His series back in the 80's was really, really good.
Wholeheartedly agree! I just picked up that entire run, finding most of it easily and for as cheap as $1 per book (although the last issue took a while to hunt down and was a little more than I'd hoped to spend).

It's mostly entertaining, although it too pulls a "take Ka-Zar from the Savage Land and drop him in New York" fish-out-of-water storyline for a while, which I think is one of the central problems with the character. When writers get hung-up trying to make the Savage Land interesting, their first instinct is to have Ka-Zar interact with the rest of the MU. So it's off to the mainland for him (and NY is the most logical choice, since that is what the MU revolves around), because in most cases, there's no logical reason for the majority of the MU to come to the Savage Land (X-Men being one of the few exceptions).

[Sean Walsh]

His series back in the 80's was really, really good.

Indeed. Whenever someone bashes Bruce Jones, I always remember that Ka-Zar series as evidence that he can do good.

[Nevets F]

I LOVED Waid and Kubert's Ka-zar series. Once they left though, I lost interest.