Astonishing Tales #9Issue(s): Astonishing Tales #9 Review/plot: Whatever it's origins, no one's going to complain about a Lee/Buscema story after some of the creative team jumbles we've been seeing in Ka-Zar's Astonishing run. This issue has Ka-Zar looking for a tribe of villagers that, according to a blind man that was left behind, were kidnapped by lizard people. Ka-Zar encounters a woman named Iranda... ...who tells Ka-Zar that the blind guy got it wrong and that the lizard people are good people that would never kidnap villagers, and she promises to help Ka-Zar find the real kidnappers. I kind of perked up at this point; a story about lizard people being misunderstood could be kind of cool. Poor lizard men are always having the worst assumed about them, you know what i am saying? But in fact the lizard people are the bad guys... ...and Iranda is one of them, with a magic crown that gives her a human form and also turns the kidnapped villagers into lizard men. Still a fun swords & sorcery style comic. The back-up is a Lorna the Jungle Girl reprint... ...but it's a mess. They accidentally reprinted halves of two different Lorna stories. So we go directly from this... ...to this. It starts off being a story about evil tom tom drums but then we get the conclusion of story about a magic green opal. The green opal story also features a Russian commie in blackface, so there's that. Quality Rating: C- Chronological Placement Considerations: This is a fill-in interrupting a story that ran between issue #8 and #10. The MCP place it before issue #8, although it could really go either way. References: N/A Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (2): showCharacters Appearing: Ka-Zar, Zabu 1971 / Box 5 / Silver Age CommentsThis probably is the ST#2 story; Iranda's boobs do seem to be unnaturally covered up. The Lorna story is by Don Rico/Jay Scott Pike. Posted by: Mark Drummond | December 20, 2014 5:17 PM Buscema and Ka-zar feel like such a natural fit, but thats probably because I'm so used to him on SS of Conan. Posted by: kveto | December 20, 2016 5:20 PM "Stronger than the mastadon! Stronger than the giant boar! Mighty is Ka-Zar- Lord of the jungle!" Ka-Zar proclaims as he suplexes a lizard man to the ground. Oddly enough, this catchphrase just didn't have the zing of the Thing's "It's clobberin' time!" or Wolverine's "best there is at what he does". My word of advice to Lord Plunder? BREVITY! Still, overall a fun issue and, much like with Conan, Buscema's Ka-Zar looks more like a linebacker than Barry Smith's lean and lithe jungle lord. Posted by: Brian Coffey | September 19, 2017 11:46 PM Just gave this issue a re-read, and apparently I left out a whole zoo of animals Ka-Zar compares himself to. When he saves a lizard man from falling, he needs to "move like the python" and "leap like the tiger". At another point he says he needs "the courage of Zabu", "the strength of the long tusks", and "the stealth of the devil fin". Personally, the late, greatest Muhammad Ali's "I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" is shorter, sweeter, and far cooler. Brevity, Lord Kevin, brevity! Something else I noticed the second go-round is letterer Artie Simek is inconsistent in his punctuation; it's like he was allergic to using periods. Posted by: Brian Coffey | October 23, 2017 11:45 PM Comments are now closed. |
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