Issue(s): Ka-Zar the Savage #6
Cover Date: Sep 81
Title: "Brief encounters"
Credits:
Bruce Jones - Script
Bruce Jones & Brent Anderson - Plot
Brent Anderson - Penciler
Carlos Garzon - Inker

Review/plot:
Brent Anderson is getting co-plotting credits starting with this issue.

Shanna is having delusions as a residual effect of the mind-switching machine from issue #4.

Then, Ka-Zar is poisoned by a giant scorpion...

...and Shanna starts seeing a non-corporeal man.

He reveals that he's from ancient Atlantis, and that Pangea is actually an outpost of that Atlantean society. He was a scientist named Dherk that predicted the city's eventual sinking, and for his predictions he was banished to Pangea. His body's been put in suspended animation and he's appearing as a projection, but he can temporarily become physical. He became aware of Shanna while she was in the mind transfer device and he's fallen in love with her.

Despite feeling a return of affections for him (possibly also a result of the machine) she rejects his advances and stubbornly tries to drag Ka-Zar in a splint to the Aerians in the hope that they have a cure for the poison.

After a number of trials...

...she passes out from exhaustion and cold, and Dherk manifests physically...

...saving her and, after her pleas, Ka-Zar too.

Remaining physical for too long, Dherk dies.

Similar to the Ka-Zar/Leanne relationship, Dherk and Shanna develop feelings for each other a little too quickly, but at least this time it could be attributed to the influence of the machine on Shanna's part and centuries of loneliness on Dherk's.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Dherk, and yes, he'll be back.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Shanna was put in the mind-transfer device in Ka-Zar the Savage #4.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A