Ka-Zar was a short-lived pulp magazine series of three issues about a boy brought up by lions in the jungle, written by Bob Byrd and published by Manvis Publication, Inc., one of several publishers owned by Martin Goodman. Ka-Zar featured on all the covers and was the lead story.
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American, John Rand’s plane, crashes in the Congo jungle with his wife Constance and very young son David on board. After some time lost in the jungle, Constance dies of a jungle malady. Zar, the lion who witnessed everything, keeps an eye on them. Two weeks later, when his son becomes sick, John decides to march out of the jungle, but a storm causes a large tree to fall on him. He recovers physically but mentally lives in a delusional world, believing that the jungle is his home. The boy recovers and grows up and at eight is a husky lad.
David Rand continues to grow and meets the jungle animals, keeping his distance from the natives he met. The natives work for a greedy and vicious fat man named Paul de Kraft, who is after emeralds. David, now a strong young man, has been away from camp and returns to see his father dying, their hut in flames and de Kraft present there for everything. Zar the lion saves David from de Kraft. His father dies and David now thinks of himself as Ka-Zar, brother of Zar. The rest of the story is about how he tracks down de Kraft and, with Zar’s help, finally kills him. Like in the Tarzan stories, the creatures of the jungle all have names. Ka-Zar has a rudimentary education and talks accordingly.
This story was serialised in comic form in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939) and Marvel Mystery Comics # 2-5 (December 1939 to March 1940). The Ka-Zar character continued with new stories until MMC # 27 (January 1942). Ray Gill and Bob Oskner did stories and artwork. Ka-Zar also appeared in Human Torch # 5 (Fall 1941)
Altus Press did a single volume reprint of all the Ka-Zar pulp stores as King of Fang and Claw.