UNCANNY X-MEN #115 & 116: Visions of Death! / To Save the Savage Land!

Guess which mad scientist energy vampire were-dinosaur has "saur"-ed back into our lives??

Originally Published November 1978

While in the Savage Land, the X-Men have run into Karl Lykos, aka Sauron, who has reverted to his monstrous dinosaur form after absorbing some of Storm's sumptuous mutant energy, and is preparing to menace the X-Men once more with his leathery wings of death. Wolverine lunges claws-first into battle, against Cyclops' wishes (as usual) and gets hypnotized for his trouble, seeing his companions as a trio of nightmares to be fought and clawed to death.

The X-Men tussle with their flying foe, as well as the mind-controlled Wolverine (who can be a bit cranky at the best of times) until the villain is thwarted when he tries to drink Colossus' energy. Cyclops tells his teammate to switch into armored form while in Sauron's clutches, which produces a flash of mutant energy that overloads the villain and reverts him to meek Lykos. Couldn't be more simple.

There's a good bit in there where Wolverine sees Cyclops, as a nightmare monster, attacking Sauron, whom he sees as Jean, and it briefly clicks that Jean is dead (or so he thinks) but he doesn't quite snap out of it, so at least some acknowledgment is made to Wolverine's mental fortuity, which helped him overcome Mesmero's own brand of hypnosis.

As our Mr. Logan doesn't happen to enjoy being brainwashed, he goes about to give Lykos a good clawing when who should arrive but the Savage Land's stalwart guest star, Ka-Zar, looking a bit more blow-dried than usual, if that's possible.

'Zar explains that Lykos is his friend now and the two could really use the X-Men's help. They relate, at length - emphasis on length - how Lykos arrived in the Savage Land after supposedly falling to his death. He found inner peace, now only sucking life energy from trees and moss (so he's a vegan vampire, got it.) Now, when the X-Men showed up, he couldn't resist calling it a cheat day, but he's doing his best and taking it one day at a time.

During his wanderings he happened across a nefarious cult devoted to Garokk, the Sun God, also known as the Petrified Man. After being resurrected in the body of some unlucky chump by the cleavagey High Priestess Zaladane, Garokk vows to bring peace to the Savage Land - by forcibly uniting all its various tribes and factions.

Wolverine is eager to join the fray, but Cyclops says no, they have to go see if Magneto is still out there causing mayhem. ("We survived, maybe Magneto did too. But Jean and Hank definitely did not.") Which is pretty selfish, considering he's been vacationing here in the Savage Land for weeks and could at least repay the favour by doing some superheroics while he's around. But no, he wants to cut out, see-ya-bye.

Unforuntately, when they go to leave, they find that the river that flows out of the Savage Land has frozen over.

Something has upset the delicate balance of the Savage ecosystem, and that something is Garokk's city! He must be stopped after all! No getting around this!

And since this issue, with all its recapping and exposition was a little thin to write up, why don't we get right to it?

Originally Published December 1978

Having found their exit route blocked - and not because leaving the Savage Land to its for-sure doom at the hand of Garokk is kind of a dick move - the X-Men turn their attention to the Petrified Man's massive futuristic city, built above the great central lake and blocking the heating vent that keeps this little slice of Antarctica balmy all year round.

Featuring the popular "One massive structure with a central dome and spires" design that will come into fashion in all futuristic cities.

But before they can actually do anything, they are attacked by dinosaur-riders and Cyclops, Colossus, Banshee and Ka-Zar are kidnapped (that's all the dino-riders had room for, you see.)

Storm, Wolverine and Nightcrawler pursue, with Wolverine telling Ka-Zar's cat friend Zabu not to come, but instead to go tell Lykos and Ka-Zar's other friends what has happened. It's this neat combination of Wolverine communing with nature, and Zabu being as smart as a person, which makes them a perfect pair.

Yeah, you know, cats aren't really known for sneakiness...

The trio infiltrate the City of Garokk, giving each of them a spotlight moment to show off their powers, particularly when Wolverine gets to snikt some gomers that are guarding the catacombs.

I'm sure he's fine...

Colossus, Ka-Zar and Cyclops are due to be roasted in sacrifice to Garokk, but their fellow X-Men arrive to liberate them just in time. Garokk runs off but Cyclops pursues, and they engage in a battle of the eye beams.

While Cyclops delivers a lecture on he folly of Garokk's works, tainting the Savage Land's fragile ecology in pursuit of... whatever it is he was hoping to achieve with this big futuristic city, the ground crumbles beneath them.

Storm flies down to catch Garokk but can't fly far enough fast enough to catch the evil ancient God who was hoping to char-broil her friends moments ago. She takes it quite hard.

After spending two weeks tying up the loose ends, the X-Men are ready to set out once more, taking the midnight raft going an-y-where.

And it's on to the next adventure!

Further Thoughts:

I'm not against the X-Men having a team-up and a guest-star, but when you're essentially having them wander into another character's story it can damage the brand a little. The necessary stitching required to put it all together can be cumbersome and tedious to read - getting the lowdown on the hows and whys of Lykos' survival, his alliance with Ka-Zar, and the whole recent Savage Land "scene" has me a little restless as a reader - as necessary as it is to understand what's going on, it's not overly dynamic, especially if I'm not reading Ka-Zar. The recap is probably a bit more robust than it needs to be, featuring explanations of an unrelated battle Ka-Zar was having when Garokk arrived.

Wait - what?

The overall Garokk adventure is fine, but doesn't really deliver much more than any boilerplate "X-Men get kidnapped and must be rescued" scenario we've seen so far. Ka-Zar's presence doesn't add anything. Sauron doesn't do much but fill pages - the fight ends, Lykos is forgiven, and falls out of the picture for part 2. Perhaps if he used his Savage Land knowledge to help the X-Men get around, while they grapple with accepting assistance from the guy who recently tried to drink their essences. I told myself I wouldn't be doing rewrites of stories from 40 years ago, but the urge is strong. Between all the exposition and the hurried ending, somehow this story drags and speeds by too quickly.

So, Garokk doesn't exactly set the world on fire as an antagonist, but the art is good, especially Storm's very Neal Adams-esque flight to save the villain, and this intense scene of Colossus finding out exactly how much heat he can withstand. Being that this is a jungle story with an evil vampire dinosaur with hallucination powers, an ancient stone deity come to life and a futuritic city that crops up out of nowhere, there's plenty of wild cool factor in this story. Alas, it is all squandered and the story falls flat - a shame.