WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A PROBLEM LIKE KA-ZAR?

                                                                            

I have stumbled into reading the adventures of the modern Ka-Zar from his solo story in Marvel Super-Heroes #19 [March, 1969] through his series in Astonishing Tales, various black-and-white magazines and guest appearances to the end of his truncated Doug Moench-written run in Ka-Zar #20 [February 1977]. Eight years of stories collected in four Marvel Masterworks volumes. With those volumes largely out-of-print, I read them on Kindle, which is far from my preferred medium. I don’t know why I fixated on Ka-Zar, but I did. It could have been the dinosaurs. It could have been Zabu, our hero’s saber-toothed companion. It could even have been the Savage Land setting of most stories.

There was excellent writing on many of these Ka-Zar stories. I liked Arnold Drake’s Marvel Super-Heroes tale, followed by Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Mike Friedrich, Steve Gerber and Moench. The art was swell, too, with efforts by Barry Windsor-Smith, Don Heck and Val Mayerik, just to name a few. 

The Masterworks books also featured Shanna the She-Devil in solo tales. The best of them were by Gerber, who took an interesting psychological approach to the troubled character.

As I sometimes do while reading a bunch of stories featuring a character. I started wondering how I would write said character. In considering Ka-Zar, I came up with some things I did not want to do. Because as good as many of those stories were, despite occasional forays into science fiction and civilization-based super-villainy, I kept running into a stodgy pulp fiction troupe that, increasingly, dismays me. It’s whole “white savior” thing seen in Tarzan, dozens of other jungle heroes and heroines and even Lee Falk’s The Phantom. For me, reading the stories in 2025, that just doesn’t hold up.

I’ll readily agree that many versions of Tarzan, especially Russ Manning’s comic book and strip takes on Edgar Rich Burroughs’ creation, treated Africans with respect. More than other comic-book jungle heroes. But there still remained an aspect of white superiority to Tarzan.

As much as I love Falk’s Phantom, the treatment of indigenous people was abysmal for decades. To Falk’s credit, he recognized this in his later years and largely, if not completely, stopped doing the more obvious stereotypes. Today’s Phantom exists in an Africa that includes great cities and countries led by the kind of leaders I wish we had more of in my country. When I was being considered to take over the writing of the newspaper strip, I knew I wanted to explore those elements.

So we circle back to Ka-Zar, Zabu, Shanna and the Savage Land as I ponder what I would do with those characters and that setting. Keep in mind that I’ve not reread Ka-Zar comics past 1979. I do intend to continue my reading, having recently picked up a copy of the Ka-Zar the Savage Omnibus, but the following thoughts are based on my reading to date. Maybe other writers have had the same or similar thoughts to me.

Ka-Zar. I’d get rid of the whole Kamandi’s big brother look and, most importantly, the speech that runs from broken English to imperious rex. Ka-Zar was a young man when he was brought to the Savage Land and his speech should reflect that. As for his garb, he’s a rich heir. I’d change his look to modern outfits made of materials that work in the temperature extremes of the Savage Land and civilization. His hair would be short. Not Ace Morgan crew cut short, but short. I’d be sparring with the meat show. Save it for when it works or even just to titillate readers in the occasional fab service.

Zabu? He’s a mutant. That’s why he didn’t gobble up Ka-Zar when they first met. He can communicate with humans on a level beyond speech. I might play around with some manner of “sign language” for him. Maybe even introduce a device that would let him speak until he realized human speech was overrated.

Shanna? I’d definitely explore her trauma more. Not to make her a victim but to show her overcoming the trauma. She should be a complex character that readers will emphasize with and also a sometimes disagreeable ally to Ka-Zar. They wouldn’t always be on the same page with regards to the future of the Savage Land.

The Savage Land should be a character concept that goes beyond “jungle with dinosaurs and many strange people.” In the Earth of the Marvel Universe, corporations and countries would all want a chunk of the area to “develop” to pump up their bottom lines. In our so-called real world, Trump would probably want to make it a state for national and global security reasons.

My Ka-Zar would be a nation-builder, uniting the various tribes of the Savage Land into a more perfect union that could protect the interests of the tribes and use the Savage Land resources to benefit them. I could see the Savage Land welcoming such allies as Wakanda, Atlantis and, probably not to our hero’s personal liking, Doctor Doom’s Latveria. As with any such alliances in the real world, there would be proposals by these allies that might not be in the Savage Land’s best interests. I would bring in a Trump parody who would place tariffs on the Savage Land and call its dinosaurs terrorists.

That’s what I have at this time. When I do some more reading, I might have more ideas.

Thanks for stopping by today. I’ll be back soon with more stuff.

© 2025 Tony Isabella