Looks like the X-Men meet a Tarzan ripoff this week. This should be interesting.
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A science team in Antarctica was ambushed by a man wearing only a furry loin cloth and a saber-tooth tiger! Though the science team was armed, no people were hurt in the incident...however, there are no clues as to who, or what, this loin clothed man and his pet were. Professor X tells the team that he did get word from Washington about the incident, but that since Cerebro did not alert him to anything, that this man is certainly not a mutant.
After a little persuading, Professor X allows the team to embark on the mission.
The X-Men arrive in Antarctica shortly after Xavier gives his blessing, and the team stumbles upon a large crevasse in the ice. Cyclops attempts to gauge how deep the ice is by shooting his optic blast down to the bottom, but instead of finding out how deep the crevasse is, they are instead surprised as a geyser of snow and ice erupts behind them, and a hidden cave is revealed.
Without a second of hesitation, the X-Men descend down into the icy cave, only to appear in a warm climated, prehistoric land. Angel throws off his heavy overcoat and spreads his wings to go scout the land, when the team is attacked by a group of angry pterodactyls!
Unsure on how best to face this foe, Cyclops resorts to using his optic blast against them, but that only alerts another foe to their presence...the swamp men!
The swamp men come riding in on carnivorous birds of prey, and attack them with bombs filled with volcano gas, which puts the team fast to sleep. The swamp men kidnap Marvel Girl just as a loin clothed hero and his pet saber-tooth tiger chase them away.
The man calls himself Ka-Zar, and his pet is known as Zabu. He is cautious around the X-Men, and with a very large language barrier (of potentially thousands of years), he sees the X-Men as a threat to himself and his pet. A small skirmish erupts between the two, but is resolved when they both realize that they are enemies of the swamp men (maybe the swamp men were named Martha). Also, Ka-Zar fights off a cave man at some point in there too...cavemen don't like Ka-Zar because he is hairless.
The Angel is still off scouting when he finds some brontosaurus' hanging out eating veggies, when a net is tossed over him and he is also kidnapped by the swamp men! Gasp! Back at home base, the swamp men put Angel next to Jean Grey and take them to the top of a pyramid structure and release a T-Rex from its bowels. Yikes!
Just when we think that there is no hope for Marvel Girl and Angel, the rest of the X-Men arrive with Ka-Zar, Zabu...and a heard of mastodons! They break into the swamp men's home base, and apparently fight so hard they they couldn't draw or write about it because it was so intense.
Long story short, X-Men and Ka-Zar win, swamp people lose, Ka-Zar tells the X-Men never to come back and has his mammoth army cover up the opening to his world. The end.
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So, where to begin.
I feel like with each issue we get this great story line that progresses the X-Men and really shows why this was such a cutting edge book...and then we get these issues. I mean this is really a Tarzan ripoff mixed with Journey to the Center of the Earth in every way. This was definitely an issue where they phoned it in.
Actually it started okay - my interest was really piqued when they went to Antarctica and discovered this hidden cave leaving to a prehistoric world. Then once I saw the world and it just turned into 90% fight, 10% explore...and even the exploring wasn't the greatest.
Though I will say, with all the fighting and the different types of bad guys, Stan and Jack really painted a picture of a prehistoric savage wasteland. So that was pretty cool.
Otherwise, I hope we don't see Ka-Zar for a very long time...
'Till next issue!
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