Blog

Are you prepared for the X-Men to enter the Savage Land? They have been here before but not with all these wild mutates running loose and Sauron in charge! Spider-Man and Angel couldn’t get it done, even with Ka-Zar’s help in part 1. How can the X-men do it? Well, read on to find out in the conclusion of The Savage Land, in this week’s edition of Ye Olde School Cafe’!

When we last left off, we saw Spider-Man and Angel leaving the Savage Land to get help. They couldn’t defeat Sauron, or Brainchild and his band of Mutates. Meanwhile, skulking in the background is the high-priestess Zaladane. She wants to rule the Savage Land but realizes that Sauron is too powerful for her to take down, so she follows along with his plans for now. She will be unaccounted for at the end of this story, but Sauron and the Mutates will prove to be more of a challenge than the X-Men ver expected.
We see the Blackbird making it’s way to the arctic but having a tough time with the weather conditions. Storm, being master of these elements, quickly quiets the violent winds and the team lands at a secret military base. The X-Men are greeted by Angel and some military dude who quickly becomes irrelevant. Angel tells the X-Men of how he and his “partner”, Candy Southern were approached by a woman who wanted to help her lost lover Karl Lykos. He agreed to help and Peter Parker came along for the ride. As the story goes on, an earthquake brings the roof down on their heads. Colossus holds enough of it up though, that the team can get out without harm. Storm, being in constant contact with Earth itself, realizes these events are not natural and is very agitated by this.

After helping the military personnel clean up a bit, the X-men make their way to the entrance of The Savage Land. The team stumbles upon a village where they see a couple of savages that were killed in cold blood as a warning to anyone who would oppose Sauron and the Mutates. Suddenly, the X-men are attacked by Gaza (one of the Mutates who is blind but can “see” psychically. After he wallops Wolverine, he’s quickly subdued by Colossus. They try to interrogate him but are quickly attacked once again by  Vertigo and the other Mutates. They defeat the Mutates but soon after, they are once again attacked and this time subdued by Sauron himself. Angel is the only one that gets away and he does so by flying into the upper atmosphere of the Savage Land, where it is cold. Sauron lets him go because he has the rest of the team hypnotized. Angel, falls to the ground and barely survives but in his groggy state he sees Ka-Zar and Zabu. The X-Men however are not as fortunate. They are strapped to Brainchilds machine and are about to be zapped back into primates!

Angel finally awakens while Ka-Zar is cutting a lizard in half for dinner. He tells him how the X-men fought but were captured by Sauron and taken to his citadel. Ka-Zar tells Angel that they must unite to free his friends. Angel is reluctant to help because Sauron had invaded his mind and he’s deathly afraid of him now. Ka-Zar warns Angel that if he doesn’t help, the X-men will die. Angel finally agrees to help and he and Ka-Zar make a catapult and star blasting fireballs at the citadel. Sauron is furious and he grabs Storm and absorbs her powers to go and fight. Meanwhile, Ka-Zar jumps into the river to sneak up on the citadel and free the X-Men. He fights a sea monster and slits it’s throat to get passed this beast.

Next, we see Brainchild trying to seduce Storm but she’s not into midgets apparently so she slaps him but he’s got quite a strong pimp-hand himself and belts Storm. Luckily for her though, Ka-Zar and Zabu show up and take care of Brainchild. Storm then goes into the chamber where the X-Men are being held and finds them being tortured by Zaladane. Storm uses her power over the wind to send Zaladane flying out a window, not to be seen again. As Storm looks at her friends, she sees that Nightcrawler has started to transform into a cat-like creature. She gets to the controls of the machine and sets the other X-Men free while changing him back to his normal self. The X-Men are mopping the floor with the Mutates but as they finish them off they see Sauron, who has hypnotized Angel and is going to drop him into the river. Sauron lets Angel go but Nightcrawler teleports and grabs him out of midair and saves him. Sauron, isn’t pleased so he attacks the X-Men once again. This time however, the team is ready for him and they counter-attack. Storm unleashes a powerful blast of arctic wind which saps some of Saurons strength. Then as Sauron is falling, Colossus delivers a crushing blow to, setting up Wolverine for one of his trademarked claw slashes that takes out part of one of Sauron’s wings. Colossus then causes an avalanche to land on top of him to. This leaves Sauron very weakened and then Storm blasts him from behind and KO’s him.

When all is said and done, the team smashes all the equipment in the citadel and wishes Ka-Zar and his people good luck in rebuilding their lives in the Savage Land. The X-Men take Karl Lykos back to the mansion with them and Professor Xavier uses some device to reverse the genetic virus that he explains caused Karl to change into Sauron. As he awakens, Karl and his woman Tanya embrace and then Wolverine says, “C’mon Elf, You buy the beer”!

Well, that’s it for this weeks journey into the prehistoric worl of The Savage Land. Tune in next week for a different team’s adventures in The Cafe’!

Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net