ASTONISHING TALES #9 KA-ZAR

“The Legend of the Lizard Men!”
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: John Buscema

Ka-zar and Zabu come upon a beautiful woman lounging around in the swamp. Ka-zar is searching for the inhabitants of a village. An old man left behind claims that the women were kidnapped by lizard men when the men went away. The woman that Ka-zar finds is Iranda and she is the queen of the lizard men. At first she claims that it wasn’t her people that kidnapped the village. But later at her castle Ka-zar finds one of the women as Iranda’s mesmerized handmaidens. Iranda has mind control powers and turns Zabu against him. But Ka-zar is resourceful and steals Iranda’s crown. When the sun rises without the crown she turns into a lizard woman and her lizard men turn back into the men from the village.

“Tom-Toms of Danger!”
Writer & Artist: Unknown

Lorna the jungle girl and her boyfriend Greg Knight hear the drums of the Gabu. The drums sound has a mesmerizing effect on the tribe and the renegade who is beating the drums plans to use the Gabu to conquer the jungle. After Lorna and Greg are captured the story shifts to two Communists. One of the Communists is a Russian painted black to disguise himself as a native. They have a powerful green opal which conveniently turns against the commies.

A problem has delayed the continuation of the storyline from last issue so they presented this new story. I thought that it was an excellent story written and drawn by legends in the field. This is also Ka-zar’s debut as the sole headliner for Astonishing Tales. I think that the change will allow the Ka-zar story to grow.

The back up story seemed to be edited all wrong. An old strip from the fifties it starts out as one story and then suddenly transitions to a whole new story. Very confusing. Luckily they get their act together for the next issue.