The X-Men play both sides in a Savage Land Civil War!
Edited by Stan Lee
Script by Roy Thomas
Pencils by Neal Adams
Inks by Tom Palmer
Lettered by Sam Rosen
Originally Published November 1969
Angel has been having what might be considered a rough week. After being captured by Sentinels because he was too hotheaded to wait and go with his teammates, he was hypnotized and had his mutant energy drained by Sauron because he was too hotheaded to discuss a course of action with his teammates. Now that he's recovered from that one, he finds that his teammates have embarked on an adventure without him, and that won't stand. He elects to track them down in Tierra del Fuego because surely they must need his help, and is knocked out of the sky for his efforts, basically getting himself killed for no good reason.
Feels like he may be bringing this on himself somehow.
Luckily, he is found by these two merry chaps, Amphibius and The Creator. (The green one is Amphibius.)
Meanwhile, the other X-Men have arrived in familiar territory, the Savage Land. And we know that's where they are because the very first thing they do is fight a T-Rex.
The second thing they do is fight Ka-Zar, the muscular blond jungle man who is in no way derivative of any previously-existing characters.
Naturally, the X-Men can't help but be drawn into the dangerous complex political web of the Savage Land as they help Ka-Zar liberate some helpless Water People from the cruel Swamp Savages, who are routinely abducting them. Ka-Zar wants to know what happens to those who are captured, but the Swamp Savage leader (really more of a lieutenant) Equilibrius, overwhelms him with his hypnotic eyes, and escapes.
The X-Men also tag along while Ka-Zar battles Piper, whose flutes summon deadly monsters. While the heroes grapple with the symptoms by fending off a giant salamander, the lord of the jungle proves adept at tackling the root of the problem by murdering Piper.
Ruthless, but efficient. They don't call it the Reasonable Land, after all.
Meanwhile, at the stately headquarters of the Creator, this mysterious older gentleman boasts that he may be able to restore Angel's life just as surely as he restored his tattered clothes, which are now a streamlined blue and white. That's right, Angel gets yet another new outfit, just because this Creator wanted to practice his sewing.
The X-Men have been on a stupdendous run lately of being stuck in plexiglass tubes. You might be tempted to put that on Neal Adams, who would seem to be the common denominator, but our gang has a pretty rich history of being trapped in tubes, bubbles and domes of all sorts.
With Angel resurrected, he properly introduces himself to young Worthington, explaining that he is a benevolent moulder of young mutant talent, and that the inhabitants of the Savage Land attack him and his work because they do not understand. Angel sees a similarity with his now-deceased mentor, Professor X, whom Creator claims never to have heard of, but says sure, he's exactly like him. Having seen how the Prof takes care of his enemies, I'm not sure that's a good sign.
He introduces Angel to his charges, a clan of freaky-deaky Savage Land mutants:
I'm particularly fascinated by Brainchild, but I wouldn't want to read his Twitter account.
Creator is alerted that the X-Men have sided with Ka-Zar in the jungle conflict against him, and the grateful-to-be-alive Angel offers to smooth things over and convince his teammates that this death-conquering mutant scientist is not such a bad guy, really just ambitious and misunderstood.
After Angel leaves, the Creator reflects on his recent fashion choices...
Gasp!! To be continued!
Further Thoughts:
All right, let's dig in!
It may seem like something of an obvious twist now that we know Magneto is really Ian McKellan under that Marvin the Martian helmet, and the Creator does cut something of a McKellan-esque visage. But as of this issue, we hadn't ever seen Magneto as anything but a cape-and-helmet clad bug-eyed villain. So while you know there is something distinctly off about this creepy jungle scientist who claims to just be a kindly old scientist in it for the good of his fellow Savages, you don't necessarily suspect his charade. That said, this is either the second, third, or fourth story in a row featuring a mad scientist with a secret, depending on how you define that (are archaeologists scientists? Did Larry Trask's secret count if it was a secret from himself?) Even when you enjoy a formula as much as I have enjoyed this, you start to crave variation.
I can only speculate of course that this twist would have had the intended effect back in '69 - I see no reason why not, except, well... this isn't hardly the first time Magneto has come back from the dead.
After giving him the old "Falling on Rocks / Never Found the Body" death in the Avengers Crossover, the book kind of spent its big Magneto Return on the Lorna Dane/Mesmero/Erik the Red affair, which was a good enough story but a total waste of Magneto since he appeared to say "Yes, I am your father," then get his legs crushed by a falling ceiling tile (just like someone else we know) and get played for a chump by the sloppiest infiltration I've ever seen, before finally admitting that no, he was just kidding about the whole paternity thing.
I would even argue that that story would have been better off if Magneto had not appeared at all - if Mesmero was acting in Mags' name, in retribution for a fallen idol we don't even know for sure he ever met. Especially considering what became of "Magneto" shortly thereafter...
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| Never forget. |
Was the "Magneto was a robot" revelation done so they wouldn't have to show Magneto getting punked out by the Sentinels? Was it so that the decks would be cleared for this Magneto Return to have maximum impact? Or did Roy and/or Neal just not like how Magneto came off in Arnold Drake's story?
Re-writing past creators' stories because you didn't like them or they're inconvenient to you: An
As for the whys, hows, and what nexts of Magneto having a lifelike robot twin, well, we never really get the inside scoop on that, so choose your own adventure, true believers.
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| Shh, Beast, we don't use the T-word here. |
I liked this issue, even before the big reveal,, which put it way over the top. The Adams-Thomas run (word has it Neal Adams was the primary plot-generator on the team) has shaken out to be an incredibly fun string of comics, well-executed, for the most part getting the best mileage out of its crazy ideas possible. Yes, the repeated-run-ins with tube-loving mad scientists becomes a bit of a pattern after a certain point, but every issue has some amazing thing that leads me to smile and say "Only in comics!"
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