Issue(s): Ka-Zar #9
Cover Date: Jun 75
Title: "The man who hunted dinosaur"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
John Buscema - Penciler
Sonny Trinidad - Inker

Review/plot:
Last issue was a retelling of the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and this issue tackles Cain and Abel. I'm not sure about the schedule of this book; it looks like it was mostly bi-monthly, but last issue's cover date was March. Issues 11-13 then seem to be on a monthly schedule before going back to a bi-monthly pattern. It may be that issues #11-13 were helping catch the schedule back up, or the book may have been on an odd schedule, like maybe a 9 week schedule where #8 came out at the end of March and this issue came out at the beginning of June? I know this is all extremely uninteresting; i mention it only because both this issue and last are standalone issues by the same creative team that were doing the concurrently published Ka-Zar stories in the Savage Tales magazine, so another possibility is that this issue was running late and they ran stories from that magazine here. Or - and i promise i'll stop with the pointless speculation after this - Marvel knew that Savage Tales was going to be canceled and they used stories intended for that series here (although that wouldn't explain the publication schedule).

Anyway, Cain and Abel.

It's actually a pretty good reinterpretation. It does raise a question regarding the Savage Land. We have with this story a tribe evolving from hunter gatherers to an agrarian society. Does that mean that eventually the tribes of the Savage Land might develop into modern civilizations? This is without even taking into consideration the influence from the outsiders that constantly traipse around.

If you're not interested in all that, there's also Ka-Zar and Zabu fighting an ankylosaurus.

The lettercol this issue is largely devoted to a letter complaining about a decline in quality along the Marvel line generally, where it seems like stuff is getting pushed out with no quality control thanks to Marvel's vast expansion (i.e. into magazines). The response is that the staff does care, and an example is the much hyped Iron Fist magazine, which was scrapped because the first story came out very poorly and they decided they couldn't run with it.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A