Savage Land - Fictional History

Fictional History

The Savage Land was created by the alien Nuwali at the behest of the other-dimensional, nigh-omnipotent aliens known as the Beyonders (not to be confused with the Beyonder of the Secret Wars). The Beyonders sought to observe the process of evolution under relatively controlled conditions and had the Nuwali set up a number of game preserves on several planets. One of these planets was Earth during the Triassic period where the Nuwali chose a valley in Antarctica surrounded by active volcanoes, where they installed a number of advanced technological devices in order to maintain a tropical climate. The aliens then stocked the area with all manner of Earth life over the following several millennia. They also brought over the Man-Apes, earlier hominid ancestors of "Homo sapiens."

The Beyonders eventually grew bored with the experiment, and the Nuwali stopped maintaining the Savage Land during the Late Pleistocene (the Ice Age era). However, the self-maintaining technology that allowed the pocket of tropical climate was left running, and many species which became extinct in other areas of the Earth continued to thrive within.

Later on, a group of human survivors from Atlantis sailed to Antarctica before the "Great Cataclysm" which sank their continent. There, they discovered a cavern where they found an immense climate-controlling device and harnessed the technology used to keep the Savage Land's volcanoes working. They named their location "Pangea", which is Atlantean for "paradise".

They mastered genetic engineering, which had been used on the Man-Apes when the Nuwali were still maintaining the Savage Land area. They used their genetic engineering techniques to transform other Savage Land inhabitants like the Golden People, the Lizard Men, the Reptile Men, the Tubantis, and others. The Atlanteans then forced them to work for them until these animal people revolted. After a time of war, the animal people demanded civil rights and the Atlanteans used technology to expand the Savage Land's surface area for the animal people to live in. When the Great Cataclysm struck, the Atlantean empire fell and thanks to the machines, the Savage Land locations were spared from sinking into the sea.

In more recent years, the Savage Land was rediscovered by Lord Robert Plunder, who took back a sample of the metal known as "anti-metal" or "Antarctic vibranium" with him. This mysterious metal had the ability to produce vibrations which would liquefy all other metals. Fleeing from those who sought to steal this discovery, Plunder took his eldest son Kevin with him for a second trip into the Savage Land. Unfortunately, the elder Plunder was killed by a local tribe of Man-Apes.

Kevin survived, thanks to the timely intervention of the orphaned sabretooth tiger later known as Zabu. He grew to adulthood in the Savage Land, becoming the adventurer known as Ka-Zar. Ka-Zar had many team-ups with the X-Men, who first revealed the Savage Land's existence, Spider-Man, and many other superheroes who had visited the Savage Land. He later met and married Shanna the She-Devil.

The Savage Land's existence is common knowledge throughout the world. At one time, there were press junkets, sponsored by the oil company Roxxon. Daily Bugle photographer Peter Parker was sent and helped uncover Roxxon's unethical and dangerous manipulation of the local resources.

At one point, Spider-Man teamed up with Ka-Zar to save Gwen Stacy from Kraven the Hunter and Gog at the time when her class and J. Jonah Jameson were visiting the Savage Land.

Many villains have threatened the Savage Land, including Garokk, Magneto and Thanos.

At one point, the Savage Land was decimated by an evil alien named Terminus (or one of his pawns) when he destroyed the machines that maintained the tropical climate. Many of the Savage Land's native people were saved from the ensuing destruction by M'rin: The Warlord of The Skies who took them into her own native dimension to safety. Ka-Zar, Shanna, and Zabu wandered until the High Evolutionary (with help from the X-Men, M'rin and Garokk) restored the region and its creature allowing them to return to the Savage Land with their newborn son. The other natives who had taken refuge in M'rin's dimension returned as well.

Sometime after that, Spider-Man had Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy emigrated to the Savage Land after rescuing them from Ringmaster.

Evidence in the pages of the New Avengers suggests that S.H.I.E.L.D. is operating in the Savage Land, mining vibranium while using the indigenous population as slave labor, but these operations have been classified, and the operation was apparently decimated by a missile strike from the Helicarrier during an attack by the New Avengers. The team only survived thanks to Iron Man's force field.

The Savage Land is featured in the limited series Claws, serving as a place of revenge for Wolverine and Black Cat on Arcade and White Rabbit. After defeating the two villains, the heroes left them stranded.

In X-Men: Divided We Stand, Cyclops and Emma Frost were vacationing there until Archangel contacted them about San Francisco looking like the 1960s.

Alyosha Kravinoff fled to the Savage Land after Punisher sabotaged his zoo.

In the Secret Invasion storyline, Ka-Zar and Shanna discover Skrulls mining for vibranium. The New Avengers and the Mighty Avengers head toward the Savage Land where a downed Skrull ship was sighted. Luke Cage opens the downed Skrull ship and a large group of Marvel superheroes with older appearances and costumes come out, speaking as if they believe themselves to be authentic. They soon break out into a fight where the Spider-Man from the ship is killed by a Tyrannosaurus and regresses to a Skrull. The Hawkeye from the ship is killed by Ronin and regresses to a Skrull. This causes the superheroes from the ship to scatter into the jungle. The New Avengers' Spider-Man is knocked away by a Tyrannosaurus and ends up confronting Ka-Zar, Shanna, Zabu, and Sauron as well as some of the other locals. At the point where Spider-Man accuses Ka-Zar and Shanna for being Skrulls, the Captain America from the ship attacks who thinks the same thing for Spider-Man. When the Captain America is hit by a dart coated in some type of poison, it regresses to a Skrull named Pit'o Nilli and is then killed by Shanna. The ship's Beast is trapped underground with Wonder Man. The two try to escape together, but Beast betrays Wonder Man as the two are about to return to the surface. During this, Iron Man uses an abandoned scientific facility nearby to try and recreate his original armor. When it came to the confrontation with both Avengers teams, the Savage Land natives, and the heroes from the ship, Mister Fantastic and Abigail Brand used a laser to identify the heroes from the ship as Skrulls. Ka-Zar joined the Avengers teams into fighting the Skrulls in New York while Shanna and the other Savage Land natives hunted down the remaining Skrulls hiding out in the Savage Land.

After the events of Second Coming during the Heroic Age storyline, Cyclops takes some time off to go hunting in The Savage Land during which he encounters Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers suggests to Cyclops that he brings the X-Men out of the shadows and into the light as heroes. Steve Rogers also arranges to have the president award Scott the Presidential Medal of Freedom which sways the people of San Francisco to welcome the X-Men back.

Around the same time following their defeat after the hunt for "spiders" in the Grim Hunt storyline, the Kravinoff Family are also currently residing in the Savage Land.

It is later revealed that Miek and the other Imperials and Natives from Sakaar that came with Hulk back in World War Hulk had settled in the Savage Land constructing a village called New Imperia.

During the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, Captain America ends up fighting Gambit in the Savage Land.