X-Men: In the Savage Land

Marvel Fanfare (1982) #1–4

by Chris Claremont, Michael Golden (Illustrator), Dave Cockrum (Illustrator)

The Savage Land is a fantastic landscape of forgotten flora and fauna from many ares of prehistory. It is a place where primitive man raises his club against the most vicious predators ever to stalk the face of the earth. It is a land that can not exist, yet it does! It is. . . .

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, X Men, Marvel, Spider Man, Superheroes, Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.

Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.

Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.

Reviews

[Chad Jacobs]

Well...when cracking open a story about the journey to a hidden dinosaur-infested jungle in Antarctica where a vampiric Pteranodon man uses a "science ray" to devolve his enemies to a feral state, you get pretty much exactly what you expect. It was gloriously cheesy in all the right ways, from its silly premise to its rushed and anti-climactic ending. It's a perfect travel read.

[Devero]

Pubblicata come storia principale della testata Marvel Fanfare per i primi 4 numeri, questa storia del verboso Claremont ci presenta la Terra Selvaggia di Ka-Zar e cerca di risolvere l'annosa storia di Karl Lycos, un uomo nel complesso non malvagio ma che assorbe energia da altri mutanti liberando una specie di personalità oscura che assume la forma di uno pterodattilo umanoide.
La storia in se stessa non è invecchiata male, ma nemmeno troppo bene, alcuni passaggi della sceneggiatura mi mostrano oggi alcune pecche di cui, molto meno esperto quando la lessi la prima volta, quasi 30 anni fa, non mi accorsi.
I disegni sono un'altra storia: 3 grandi disegnatori sono al lavoro sulla storia.
I primi due albi sono disegnati e colorati da Michael Golden, che è stato uno dei grandi innovatori del fumetto americano di fine anni '70 e inizi '80, ispirando molti disegnatori dei decenni successivi.
Il terzo è disegnato da Dave Cockrum, che disegnò ottimi numeri della Legione dei Super-Eroi per la DC e che ha co-creato i nuovi X-Men per la Marvel.
Nel quarto vediamo all'opera Paul Smith, che è noto sopratutto per una sua run sugli X-Men e per delle ottime storie su Dr. Strange.
A lungo indeciso tra le 3 e le 4 stelle, alla fine opto per le 3 stelle perché questa sarà stata la mia sesta o settima rilettura, ma erano alemno 20 anni che non rileggevo questa storia e beh, non è più come la prima o la seconda volta.

[Mike]

Bronze Age Chris Claremont “wall of text” X-Men goodness! A fun story with a lot of great character moments. Also, Sauron is actually interesting in this.

[Dan Blackley]

This was an ok book. X-Men and Spiderman go to the savage land and have an adventure.

[Alex Sarll]

Wordy melodrama in the classic Claremont style, and - because it's the Savage Land - of course an air vehicle crashes on arrival. As the story ends, the heroic code against killing is maintained by devolving several of the villains to a subhuman state (which is apparently far preferable morally), and curing Sauron (not that one, the pteranodon vampire guy) of his affliction/powers. Which has lasted really well, and so was definitely a valid alternative. That said, if they had killed him, it likely wouldn't have been much more effective in the long term. Oh, superhero comics, sometimes you really can be a struggle.

[Jdetrick]

There's nothing wrong with this book; it's solid writing with some beautiful pencils by Michael Golden and Paul Smith, who both do too little pencilling. But there's also nothing interesting enough to really recommend here either. It may be my own bias; I find Savage Land stories to be horribly boring.

[Michael P.]

Lightweight prose adaptation of a comic book story. Competent, but unimportant.

[Frans Kempe]

A quest to find Karl Lykos turns into a nightmare for Spider-man and the X-men. Sauron returns.