KA-ZAR MINUS 1

“Life Lessons & Lies”
Writers: Mark Waid & Todd Dezago and Andy Jozefowicz
Artist: John Cassaday

A teenage Ka-zar visits his friend Benaza chief of the Waidia. The friendly chief talks about how everyone in the tribe is self sufficient. He seems to hint that Ka-zar may be relying too much on the aid of another. Ka-zar interprets this to mean that he is too dependent on Zabu for help. He storms away in a huff and decides to prove Benaza wrong. He is attacked by a pack of wolves and insists on fighting them off himself. Zabu does help him at the end. He goes back to the village and finds out Benaza died. Now he knows that Benaza was talking about himself and Ka-zar learns a valuable lesson.

Meanwhile in New York Parnival Plunder is living with the butler Willis who was entrusted to watch over him. Wills complains that Parnival’s father is not paying them enough money to survive. He tries to convince Parnival that this father loves his younger brother more than he does him. Willis is secretly withholding most of the remittance that the father had arranged to be sent each month. Parnival finds this out and hires some thugs to help him steal the money and beat up Willis.

So during this time Marvel was running these flashback issues for their titles. It would explore the characters younger lives. Ka-zar got his issue and it is well done. The Ka-zar as a teen had a good story. The real gem is the backstory for Parnival. This is the first we get a glimpse of his early life. The butler Willis was a real tool and he probably did feel abandoned by his father. So we get an understanding of why he has such an animosity toward his brother. A timely story since we will be introduced to the adult Parnival as a major antagonist in the current issues of the series. Plus we get a nice little recap to the origin of Ka-zar and Stan the Man himself narrating the opening in a caveman outfit.