His name? Lokii. More about him here. We probably all know of Loki, the mischievous god of Norse myth, but as mentioned in various interviews seen in recent Marvel comics, the man who named him was inspired by Jack Kirby's depiction of Loki!
This is kind of fantastic, I have to say. That neat double-horned helmet of Loki's has won him a permanent place in the palaeo books. Well done, you.
We look in on a trio of university paleontologists who are waxing about their superiority over men of the past. They regard some of man's past accomplishments such as his "stirring adventures" (and envision a caveman fighting a sabertooth tiger), "pomp and pagentry" (two knights jousting) "and even great romances" (Cyrano de Bergerac). "But they lacked knowledge! Our specialty, paleontology...the collection and classification of fossils, lay far beyond their wildest dreams!" Indeed, "...if any fool needs convincing...let him walk through the museum halls where our superb handiwork is spread out for him to behold!"
Why, the egotistical braggarts! I always knew palaeontologists had less character than a Wall Street banker! But the story continues: a fellow from a dig produces a new fossil fragment, which one of the palaeos dismisses as "a piece of our old brontosaurus friend!" with such cool detachment you'd think he was the one who murdered the old beast. And so the dig continues to see if more fossils can be found in that spot. I do hope the piece they found was the intercostal clavicle.
At any rate, the men dig while the palaeontologists relax.
Why those smug little...! Now they're looking down on the working class! When the revolution comes, these three will be the first against the wall! I'm sorry, the only way they could possibly receive any comeuppance is if this dig somehow unearths something so mind-blowing that it puts their own world to shame!
Sure enough, the working men do find something and call the palaeos down. They found more bones, yes, but more than that, they found...
Well I'll be O. Henry! What a humbling, albeit lucrative, discovery. So what have we learned today children, if nothing else? That's right, neanderthals make the best palaeontologists.
In all seriousness, I do agree with the core philosophy of this quick little tale, similar to that of History Bites' Rick Green - that times may change but people do not and that one day future generations will have cause to ridicule us. ...For inventing the Brontosaurus, for one thing.
Devil Dinosaur was one of the latter-creations Jack Kirby brought to Marvel, debuting in Devil Dinosaur#1 (1978). Many comic fans have looked down on Devil Dinosaur as being unworthy of Kirby's talent, an embarrassing endpoint to one of the single most influential Marvel creators whose career spanned four decades. However, according some accounts, Devil was developed as a potential animated series for Marvel when DC was investigating an animated program of Kirby's Kamandi series. Taken as a potential Saturday morning kid's program, Devil Dinosaur is pretty awesome!
Accompanying Devil in his adventures was Moon Boy, a shaggy young neanderthal-type. Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur were each outcasts among their kind (Devil for his red hide, Moon Boy for his intellect) and became like brothers. The series set them up against unusual adversaries, including a giant spider, a giant man and aliens from another planet in a storyline that developed into a retelling of the tale of Adam & Eve. It was similar to ideas Kirby had played with in Eternals about aliens influencing humanity's development, reflecting a 70s interest in throwing 2001: A Space Odyssey, Chariots of the Gods and the Bible into a blender.
Devil Dinosaur's series lasted a mere nine issues, but he's made occasional appearances in the Marvel Universe ever since, including a memorable two-part battle with Godzilla when Marvel held the license. In the 1980s they joined the ranks of the Fallen Angels, a mini-series that started as the adventures of a gang of mutant teens and gradually became a team of just plain odd Marvel characters. Devil Dinosaur attained a one-shot special in 1997, an Annual with Spider-Man 1998 and another one-shot in 2005 where he fought the Hulk.
And where is Devil Dinosaur now? Well, a recent tale in Heroes for Hire separated Devil and Moon Boy when the Heroes kidnapped Moon Boy for SHIELD. This week's one-shot special Avengers: The Initiative Featuring Reptil#1 picks up that dangler. Pick it up and you may learn that...even a jungle lord can cry!
Stegron debuted in Marvel Team-Up #19 (1974), by creators Len Wein and Gil Kane. At the time, Marvel Team-Up usually starred Spider-Man in the lead role, paired with a different hero each month. This time out (to no great surprise) his guest star was Ka-Zar. Stegron could have easily gone on to become a Ka-Zar villain, but for some reason he's stuck mainly to the pages of Spider-Man's comics.
Vincent Stegron was an assistant to Dr. Curtis Connors (a recurring Spider-Man character best known as the Lizard). While working on one of Connors' tissue regeneration projects (those never go well) using dinosaur tissue brought from the Savage Land, Stegron had the idea to transplant dinosaur tissue into his own body. Well, it worked and he became the stegosaurus-type you see above. A man named Stegron? Transformed into a humanoid stegosaurus? How convenient.
At any rate, Stegron has a few interesting abilities, notably the power to issue telepathic commands to dinosaurs. He also has some fancy technology which can reanimate dead dinosaurs, even those reduced to skeletons (though it's a short-term effect). Stegron has effectively turned his back on his humanity and thrown his lot in with the dinosaurs, feeling they owe humans some payback for having been rendered virtually extinct.
Stegron appeared only about a dozen times in his first 30 years of existence, but he's been making the rounds in a few titles recently. In last year's Marvel Comics Presents#5-7 writer Christos N. Gage brought out a three-part Savage Land serial where various Savage Land denizens - Ka-Zar, Shanna, Devil Dinosaur, Stegron - joined forces to drive out Roxxon Oil (Marvel's all-purpose evil corporation). There was a memorable moment in the climax where Stegron animated an army of dead dinosaurs - essentially "zombie dinosaurs."
And where has Stegron been since then? Why, Christos N. Gage is far from finished with him! Check out this week's Avengers: The Initiative Featuring Reptil#1 to see Stegron as the main villain!
So, we start with the most significant homeland of dinosaurs in Marvel Comics, the Savage Land! This hidden repository of prehistorical creatures first appeared in X-Men #10 (1965), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It was obviously inspired by other hidden lands (the Lost World, Pellucidar). But before I get into the land itself, I have to mention its two most significant inhabitants: Ka-Zar the Savage and Zabu the saber-tooth tiger.
The character of Ka-Zar actually dates back to the 1930s when Marvel published pulp novels; Ka-Zar was a vaguely-Tarzan-like white man raised in the jungle by the lion Zar and went on vaguely-Tarzan-like adventures. When Marvel entered comics publishing in 1939 with Marvel Comics #1 - Ka-Zar was there. But within a few years he had vanished to obscurity. The Ka-Zar introduced in X-Men #10 had the name and fashion sense in common, little else.
So, the history of the Savage Land is best followed by following Ka-Zar. Ka-Zar made appearances in several Marvel titles over the years (including Daredevil). In the late 1960s Marvel began to expand their lineup for the first time in more than a decade (due to near-bankruptcy in the 1950s). Among the new titles in 1970 was Astonishing Tales, a split book which co-featured Ka-Zar and Dr. Doom. Eventually, Ka-Zar sent Dr. Doom packing and became the sole feature of the title. Astonishing Tales only spent so much time in the Savage Land, however; Ka-Zar was soon dragged out of the jungles and went on adventures with SHIELD, separating him from his most unique selling point - his environment. During the run of Astonishing Tales Ka-Zar picked up a second title - Savage Tales. Begun as Marvel's first black & white magazine, Conan the Barbarian was usually the head feature but he drifted out when his own title (the Savage Sword of Conan) was launched. Ka-Zar dominated the series and the Savage Land itself picked up a feature of its own in the final issue, published 1975.
Although Ka-Zar was eventually driven from Astonishing Tales, he came back with his own title almost immediately. The new Ka-Zar book was set mostly in the Savage Land and featured his first meeting with Shanna the She-Devil, a female jungle hero whose own series had been cut short. However, it would take a few more years before Ka-Zar & Shanna would team up on a regular basis. During the Savage Tales stories, Ka-Zar befriended Bernard Kloss, a stuttering palaeontologist who became a regular character in the ongoing Ka-Zar series. Kloss was notable for his unbridled enthusiasm toward everything in the Savage Land and his inabilty to be frightened by the various quite-frightening denizens of the land. Unfortunately, Ka-Zar's series ended in 1977 on a cliffhanger which was swept under the rug in a subsequent X-Men appearance.
In 1981, Bruce Jones launched Ka-Zar into a new series which featured Shanna as a regular. It was during the course of this title that Ka-Zar and Shanna became married. It was also the first time that someone tried to explain just what the deal with the Savage Land was. Lying in the midst of Antarctica, it was a little hard to believe how a lost civilization of dinosaurs could survive. Jones expanded the Savage Land further with Pangaea, a plateau with civilizations which were further-advanced than most of what had been seen in the Savage Land at the time; Pangaea was revealed to have been something like an amusement park built by ancient Atlanteans. However, the ultimate revelation behind the Savage Land was that it had been built as a conservation measure by aliens but then left alone and forgotten. The science fiction turn in those issues of Ka-Zar was perhaps an ill-fit, but the title ended just then in 1984.
Since then, writers have tried destroying the Savage Land but it can't be kept down; a reasonably successful Ka-Zar series launched in 1997 to great acclaim, but sadly went under the following year. The Savage Land still turns up regularly in Marvel comics, often in the X-Men titles where it first appeared.
The Savage Land is great because it doesn't (and never did) require an explanation. Lost lands where dinosaurs still roam are a trope of so many fictional worlds that I don't suppose it bothered too many people that the Savage Land went without an origin for its first two decades. Now that it has an origin we can safely ignore (just like virtually every writer since 1984), it's simply a playpen for stories set in the Marvel Universe. Everyone from Spider-Man to Deadpool has taken a trip to the Savage Land for some dinosaur fun. It's the place where dinosaurs live; simple as that.
More on Dinosaurs in Comics tomorrow; be sure to pick up the Avengers: The Initiative Special Featuring Reptil! You can read a preview here!
