Synopsis
Ka-Zar (1997 series) #10 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Thanos has been trapped in a pocket dimension. He hired Ka-Zar's evil brother Parnival Plunder to steal the 'terraformer' which made the Antarctic Savage Land a (prehistoric) tropical jungle (and keeps it that way) and bring it to give New York the same treatment, and he wants to use it to transform planets and take over the Galaxy (or the universe). Last issue while Kevin Plunder tried to persuade Parnival to take him to his master, his wife Shanna and Zabu the smilodon used a map on a medallion to thread their way through a maze inside the giant machine to find its power source ... and ended up in the pocket dimension next to Thanos, who realised that he's been absorbing that power all along (and getting bigger) and now he can achieve his goal without the machine.
But 1st we see how the Savage Land is getting on without the terraformer. KZ&S's son Matthew Plunder huddles near a fire with his young nanny Zira in their home as pterosaurs batter their way in to escape the cold. And outside dinosaurs are freezing to death.
In jungle NY Ka-Zar realises this must be happening to his home and that fuels his determination. Germaphobe Parnival is encased in a protective suit but Kevin smears it with pterosaur blood and dangles him out of the window of his penthouse office. Then throws him back inside as the blood attracts more flying dinos which start to peck at his suit. PP panics and tells him about the interdimensional portal. He opens it and Ka-Zar passes through it and is shocked to find giant-size Thanos holding Shanna and Zabu in the grip of 1 hand.
KZ instinctively attacks but the Titan brushes him off, but not without letting go of S&Z. Shanna briefly tells him how she got here via a gateway from inside the machine, and she urges him to go get all the super-help he can. (But a lot of the usual super-help is missing since the Onslaught event.) They dash for Parnival's portal but he vengefully smashes the control so they can't escape. They try to make it through before it closes but their way is blocked by T's giant hand reaching in to pull Parny to join them. Thanos tells them all that he now controls the energy in this dark dimension and is even now sending it out to overrun planets with vegetation:- His homeworld (the moon) Titan, the Kree, the Shi'ar. He opens his own portal to show them and example - the Inhuman royal family strangled by vines.
Now Ka-Zar tells Shanna that *she* must go fetch super-help. Parnival's portal may be broken but she can go back through the other gateway to the machine. She points out that Thanos has the medallion map but he says Zabu will be able to retrace by scent the path they took. And he adds that she needs to also get the terraformer back to the Land to save their son. Meanwhile he'll keep the big guy occupied. S&Z leave.
Ka-Zar faces Thanos (and by now he's smaller than T's head) who snorts at his impudence. But he grabs the medallion and dashes through T's portal to the Inhumans, bluffing that the medallion is the key to beating him. Thanos carrying Parnival blunders after him. The vegetation explosion means that the Jungle Lord can find plenty of vines to swing on to evade T and prehistoric predators.
Meanwhile Zabu has led Shanna back through and out of the machine in Central Park where they find it surrounded by a SHIELD army led by Dum Dum Dugan. They've figured out it's the cause of New York's vegetative infestation and they're about to blow it up. Zabu persuades them not to stop his mistress and she somehow convinces DDD to instead transport the whole machine back to the Savage Land.
Ka-Zar has worked out that the portal trip must have been through time as well as space (an editorial comment says because the Inhumans are also currently missing since the Onslaught event). He now swings through another portal and winds up on an infested Blue Area of the Moon with the Watcher. Thanos has followed and starts controlling the vegetation to grab his prey. KZ ducks through another portal to an infested Skrull world in another star system (technically another galaxy Andromeda). He stops to get his bearings and Big T thumps him. Kevin reasons that the portals are part of a power network Thanos is creating, and he dives through another 1 hoping it will lead him to the terraformer.
It does take him back to Sol but only to Titan, moon of Saturn, where its AI ISAAC is declaring imminent shutdown. KZ doesn't know where this is, and strangely Thanos doesn't seem to recognise his birthworld either. The Titan has got fed up with Parnival's sycophantic comments and decides to leave him here. Plunder whines the Thanos said he would have the World but T replies that he only promised him *a* world, and this 1 will do. Parny is smothered in vegetation and begs Kevin not to leave him. Ka-Zar is halfway through another portal but reaches back for his hand ... but only gets that of Thanos. And they both pass through the portal leaving Plunderer behind.
While this has been going on we've seen glimpses of SHIELD craft transporting the terraformer with tractor beams. Now they say they are 12 minutes to destination.
Thanos now has Ka-Zar in his crushing grip and tells him that he can sense the machine being moved but it no longer matters where it is because he now controls the power. But news that it's moving gives Kevin new hope and he heaves his way free and dives through another portal which just by chance takes him to the maze. He still has the medallion and Thanos is still chasing him in case KZ is right about that mattering. And Kevin has a new plan to lead Big T through the maze before the machine reaches Antarctica and let the Titan follow him into the freezing water of the Antarctic Ocean, killing them both to save his family and the world. They reach the exit and jump out ...
... but the machine is on solid land and Ka-Zar realises he's brought the villain to his home, which seems now to be a mixture of snow and vegetation.
CharactersGood (or All)Plus: ISAAC, Matthew Plunder, Shanna (
Shanna Plunder), Zira.