Ka-zar the Savage debuted in X-Men #10.
This was perhaps Marvel's stealthiest revival.
It's hardly ever mentioned in connection with the revivals of the Torch, Cap, Subby, and other Golden Age greats, but it was a Marvel Age revision of a classic Timely character, shifted from deepest darkest Africa to the underworld Savage Land.
This was itself an adaptation of the pulp character also published under the Marvel auspices. For more see this link.
Kirby had a few goes at the cover for the debut of Ka-zar, and this un-used classic image finally was published over a decade ago. Beautiful!
Ka-zar then began a long period of guest-starring in various titles, notably alongside Daredevil for a few years.
Then he tangled with Spidey.
And ran up against the Hulk.
Marvel tried him out in a one-shot story in Marvel Super-Heroes.
After which he continued to show up here and there. Marvel even tried to promote Ka-zar with a unique trio of reprints of his early adventures.
Check out the infamous curse word on Zabu's back in the first Marie Severin cover.
Compare this revised reprint cover by Marie to the DD original. It has Zabu and lots more action.
This was published intermittently while his first ongoing series was debuted in Astonishing Tales, which he shared with Doc Doom.
Eventually Ka-zar took over the whole of Astonishing Tales and ran there successfully for a few years.
At about this same time, Ka-zar was also starring in Savage Tales, after Conan shifted into his own black and white title. It was a proper shift because Ka-zar was in the very first issue of Savage Tales.
Finally though the powers that be gave Ka-zar his own on-going title, and it performed reasonably well for the time.
Later still he was given a direct-sales only title which got some distinctive critical attention, and off and on over the years we've seen several Ka-zar comics and series.
He's proven to be one of Marvel's most durable heroes.
There is no doubt that Ka-zar's early adventures from the broad landscape of the Marvel Universe are the ones most in dire need of a good Essentials volume, to gather them all under one or two covers for the first time.
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