Synopsis
Ka-Zar (1997 series) #4 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
In #1 Parnival Plunder hired a man named Gregor (who claimed to have trained Kraven The Hunter) to kill his brother Kevin, Ka-Zar. Gregor armed a Savage Land tribe with guns and sent them against KZ. Then he kidnapped Kevin and Shanna's baby son Matthew to lure him into a fight. KZ and Shanna defeated him and rescued their son. Last issue Matt's nanny Kira tortured the villain until he told them who hired him. And Ka-Zar left the Savage Land to get revenge on Parnival in New York.
Now Parnival Plunder is sitting in his penthouse office in his skyscraper with his private army spread through the building alerted for the Lord Of The Savage Land's attack. But brother Kevin just breaks through the glass roof of the office. He asks how Parnival survived falling into the icy Antarctic Ocean (KZ The Savage #33). The Plunderer explains that that was just 1 of his men who died. PP himself managed to make it back to civilization, but severe frostbite required him to have cybernetic prosthetics, visible on his face. He turned from pirating to plundering Manhattan real estate and has made a fortune. Kevin asks why he wants him dead. Parnival ignores his threats and says he can't prove anything. But Ka-Zar ignores laws and throws him out of the window ...
... where after a short fall he lands in a net of vines. However his panic is because he's now outside his office, and vulnerable to the germs everywhere. But he regains composure enough to ask where Kevin's wife Shanna is, taunting him with the idea of marital discord. And Kevin does flashback to her blaming him for Matthew being kidnapped because he brought modern technology into the Land (generally, but specifically some walkie-talkies the tribe used in their attack).
Parnival then admits that he does need Kevin dead in order to lay sole claim to their father's inheritance. He produces half a medallion which combines with the other half in KZ's possession to open dad's vault. They already opened that before but now Parnival claims there was more to the inheritance than that - an invention that would make him a god in a clean sterile world.
But now some of his soldiers open fire on Ka-Zar from the office building. But he swings away on a vine and then comes swooping back to bowl his brother into them. He grabs a gun from 1 of them and keeps running to a lift. Using the butt of the gun to force the lift doors open he leaps into the shaft and slides down the cables to crash through the roof of the lift itself and exits at the ground floor. More soldiers fire at him. He dodges but they hit innocent bystanders. So KZ gets outside and leaps on top of a bus to draw fire away from the crowds.
We cut away from the action to see Parnival open a door in his office that leads apparently into space. He talks to a large shadowy someone, telling him that Ka-Zar is in New York. It wasn't what they planned but it could work to their advantage. The mystery figure doesn't like his flippant tone, but PP is emboldened by the fact that his 'partner' is stuck here in this realm. The other warns him that this won't *always* be true.
Meanwhile KZ dives off the bus and 'commandeers' a horse & carriage to go for a ride in Central Park. Unfortunately pursuing soldiers have just grabbed horses and so are able to overtake him. They fire at him and a shot breaks a wheel. So Kevin has to abandon his horse and take an abandoned bicycle. He's hoping to reach the zoo but instead runs into a carousel. He gets everybody to leave except someone in a trenchcoat. The pair hide on the carousel. The soldiers close in on foot ...
... and the figure throws off the coat to reveal Shanna ready to join Kevin in the action. They defeat the soldiers while having a marital tiff. Shanna asks why he left the Savage Land alone. Kevin says he thought she didn't want anything to do with him after he tainted their Land with modern tech, some of which nearly got their son killed (it really only contributed a bit to that). Shanna rubs it in by commenting that they can't go home until they're sure Parnival won't send more killers after them. Kevin takes out his frustration by angrily (and symbolically) destroying the soldiers' weapons. Shanna admits she's forgiven him and followed him here to tell him so. They hug and make up.
CharactersGood (or All)Plus: Shanna (
Shanna Plunder).
