Issue(s): Alpha Flight annual #2
Cover Date: 1987
Title: "The fire inside!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
June Brigman - Penciler
Bob McLeod - Inker
Carl Potts - Editor

Review/plot:
While searching for a source of geothermal energy at the south pole, Canadian researchers unleash a geyser that spews out dinosaurs and cavemen.

The three adult members of Alpha Flight fly there (inside Box) to investigate...

...and wind up in a fight with the dinos.

If your first thought was Savage Land, recall that it was destroyed by Terminus. This is just either a surviving part of it or another underground pocket that time forgot, preserved by the geothermal heat.

It's nevertheless a huge area, big enough for a city full of Primitives in Pyramids. The theme of this story is "Who is Heather Hudson", so she gets separated from the other two Alphans and becomes a hero in the primitive land...

...rescuing mutant creatures.

She organizes the mutants, and when she regains her memories she realizes that she's a leader through and through.

Here's like nine more pages of this lesson hitting home.

Message aside, we all like dinosaurs, but it seems kind of pointless to destroy the Savage Land if you're going to allow stories like this.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: A footnote places this "before the events of Alpha Flight #52-55".

References:

• The Savage Land was destroyed in Avengers #257 (incorrectly footnoted as #247).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

You have Box listed as a character appearing instead of Madison Jeffries.

One of the forms taken by Jeffries, in the Box armour, is very similar in shape to the T-Rex mode of the Transformer, Grimlock, as depicted in the Marvel comic. The hind legs are different, though, and the colour scheme too.

Fixed the Character tag - but don't be surprised if i make that mistake again. Thanks, Michael.

Harry, they do call Jeffries a "one man Transformer" in issue #50.