Issue(s): Wolverine #69, Wolverine #70, Wolverine #71
Cover Date: May-Jul 93
Title: "Induction in the Savage Land!"
Credits:
Larry Hama - Writer
Dwayne Turner - Penciler
Christopher Ivy / Richard Bennett / Richard Bennett, Hilary Barta, & Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Lisa Patrick - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
As part of the build-up to the return of Magneto, Wolverine takes Rogue and Jubilee to the Savage Land to check out Magneto's citadel there. Jubilee is supposed to stay with the Blackbird behind a protective forcefield and do her English homework (reading Dickens' David Copperfield), but it doesn't quite work out that way.

Wolverine and Rogue find that the Savage Land mutates are working with various united tribes of the Savage Land, including the Fall People (but not the Zebra Men, which is good because they're occupied in Captain America #415-418 around this time). The combined forces are based out of "one o' the ancient citadels", "mysterious ruins" that Ka-Zar told Rogue about. This always makes me wonder. The Savage Land was destroyed by Terminus, and then restored by the High Evolutionary. But the Evolutionary's method of restoring the Savage Land didn't just magically bring back the old one. Were all these ancient ruins preserved in the pocket dimension with M'rin (which supposedly saved all the people?)? Or did the ruins survive Terminus' destruction. I guess the latter is more likely.

At this point it's only hinted that the X-Men are looking for Magneto, and when Rogue finds Brainchild inside the citadel he's also speaking in unspecific terms.

And that's partially because we don't want to spoil Magneto's return, but mainly due to a related bit of misdirection as it turns out that the villain behind uniting all the tribes is really Sauron.

You'll notice Rogue getting knocked out by Gaza there. She also has to dodge spears...

...and gets stunned again when she hits her head.

She's shown to be playing possum in the latter scenario, but her thought bubbles are real enough.

I'm just bringing this all up in a general 'just how invulnerable is Rogue?' sense. There's a lot more drama involved when she can get knocked out by super-strong mutates, etc., but sometimes i get the impression that she should be immune to all of this ("Incredible" level body armor, by the RPG stats).

While Rogue fights Sauron, Wolverine gets stuck in a game of Hungry Hungry Dinosaurs.

But when Wolverine gets out of the dinosaur pit, Rogue convinces him to spare Sauron. They knock him out and bring him to Brainchild's genetic transformer, with the idea of turning him back into scientist Karl Lykos.

Sauron wakes up and makes the case that turning him back into Lykos is a form of murder, since (he claims) he and Lykos are distinct entities.

He then makes an interesting Keep The Savage Land Savage argument.

Might be something that Ka-Zar, nominal (self-proclaimed?) Lord of the Savage Land, would want to weigh in on, but Wolverine buys it and lets him go.

During these adventures, Wolverine and Rogue find a giant metallic fist...

...which they take as evidence of the return of Magneto. Storm and Bishop come along to pick it up to bring back to Professor X.

As for Jubilee, she winds up taming a pteranodon and getting inducted into a tribe of pteranodon riders.

But it turns out that she was mistaken for a guy, and had to be rescued by Bishop and Storm as she was about to be married to a woman.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Rogue's eyes are "still sensitive" to light but she's otherwise recovered from the blindness she was afflicted with in X-Cutioner's Song. This story seems to take place concurrently with X-Men #20-23. Wolverine, Rogue, and Jubilee (and Storm) appear in the early part of that story, but don't accompany the group that goes to Japan. And then in issue #23 Wolverine is arguing with Xavier about the results of this mission. So this seems to take place some time during X-Men #21-22. But since the issues in that story are a direct continuation for the characters that do go to Japan, i'm placing all four issues directly after these three (and if you prefer, you can assume that these issues happen first, but Wolverine and Xavier don't get around to talking about these events until later). The MCP also have Wolverine's appearance in Marvel Comics Presents #123-131 happening during the same gap in the X-Men issues.

References:

• Rogue says that she was "at a disadvantage" the last time she was in the Savage Land, which was circa Uncanny X-Men #269.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I'm not sure the statement there are no herbivores in the Savage land is correct. I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of herbivores in other comics. Maybe this refers to Savage Land II ?

The Savage Land must be pretty small if there are no herbivores there.

Reading this story when it first came out, I found it both odd & annoying that Larry Hama's script seemed to tie itself in knots to avoid mentioning Magneto by name. That seemed so pointless to me, because anyone who was reading Marvel Comics in mid-1993 could not have missed the numerous advertisements for the upcoming "Fatal Attractions" crossover which seriously hyped Magneto's impending return.

Larry Hama was notorious for underplaying Rogue's abilities- wait until we get to "Help me Remy".

Wow, Sauraon must also be a secret member of tbe X-ternals, wbat with being alive suddenly and all.

Jubilee feeling mildly insecure about her looks is a minor subplot in the X-books.(This isn't the first time she's mistaken for a dude.)

@Jon- Sauron's survival was explained in X-Factor 82.

Ben - I thought Hama's script was pretty deliberately hilarious about the M-word. He knows it's Magneto, we know it's Magneto, we're expecting every final page to be a splash reveal of Magneto, but he keeps finding ways to deny us it, and personally I think it's pretty fun. And it actually made me realise how much I wanted to see that splash even though Magneto's barely been dead a couple of years. So as far as hyping Fatal Attractions, it works?