Uncanny X-Men Issue #62 (November 10, 1969)
Story By: Roy Thomas
Art By: Neal Adams
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Brief Description: The X-Men return to the Savage Land! Ka-Zar is having trouble with a new threat to his land, but will the X-Men be able to help?
Characters Introduced in This Issue: None
Recurring Characters in This Issue: Ka-Zar, Magneto, Sauron, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey, Cyclops
Synopsis:
This issue begins with Angel being attacked by a pack of pteranodons. Angel loses his battle and starts to plummet down to the Earth.
As he falls, we see some panels of flashback that show us what happened between Issue 61 and this issue. After awaking in Polaris’ apartment, Angel left seeking Sauron. Angel tracked Sauron all the way to Antartica where his current predicament arose.
Angel crashes onto the ground and a mysterious frog-man and a man with white hair declare that Angel is dead.
Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men are shown fighting a T-Rex in the Savage Land.
After defeating the vicious creature the X-Men encounter Ka-Zar. After a brief scuffle with the cave man, Ka-Zar reveals to the X-Men that there have recently been swamp people with strange powers and Ka-Zar wants to know why.
Meanwhile back with Angel, the mysterious white haired man is able to heal Angel of his injuries.
It is then revealed that Ka-Zar and the X-Men are on their way to attack the base of the mysterious man. The old man convinces Angel to try and stop the X-Men from attacking and Angel takes off.
After Angel leaves it is revealed that the mysterious man is actually Magneto!
Review:
Roy Thomas continues to be on a good streak with this issue. I love when the X-Men fight dinosaurs so I always love when they go to the Savage Land. Here is another great X-Men versus dinosaurs panel!
I also loved that Magneto was in this issue and that Angel didn’t recognize him because he’s never seen the villain without his helmet. It was a bit of priceless dramatic irony.
My main problem with this story is that it does not seem very organic. They vaguely try to tie it to the Sauron story by having Angel try to find Sauron in the Savage Land, but why are the rest of the X-Men in the Savage Land? They don’t know that Angel is in danger there. After Sauron “died” they didn’t have any reason to stay in Antarctica, let alone enter the Savage Land. However I don’t care that the story set up is bad because the issue is pretty awesome.
My only other problem with this issue is a problem I’ve been having with a lot of the recent issues I’ve been reviewing. Why don’t Polaris and Havok ever do anything? They are now officially a part of the team, but they never join in on the action. Was Roy Thomas incapable of writing stories that involve more than 5 X-Men at a time?
Overall though this issue was great and I can’t wait for this story arc to continue.
A few final notes:
1. Apparently Tanya’s dad can’t tell the difference between Angel and Sauron.
2. Good guys always have to fight each other before they work together.
3. This group attack panel is awesome.
4. Why did Magneto give Angel a new costume?
5. Magneto’s new team of evildoers are ridiculous.
Kevin Reviews Uncanny X-Men 
Angel’s new costume is pretty snazzy. Even if he remains useless. But this issue’s really cool. I did notice that Thomas’ return was a bit light on character development, even if the plots were excellent. Adams continued to make this book a draw, though.
Yeah Angel has never done anything useful.
Yes, the Swamp Men or whatever they were called were definitely bush league (they strained even harder going up against the Avengers a couple of years later). Out of curiosity, did either Ka Zar or the XMen remember when they met him years earlier?
Haha I got to read that Avengers story. And they do remember each other! Which makes it even more ridiculous that they fight each other, basically for no reason.
Ka-Zar, Zabu and Shanna rock!
Everyone needs upgrades once in a while and Angel has perhaps more need than most! Here he’s upgraded, costume-wise at least, by Magneto. Later on, he is given a much more drastic upgrade by Apocalypse!
Another lame fight for nothing between heroes! The in-story reason is lame, as I said; the out-of-story reason is the usual, fans and the comic creators want to see a bit of heroes fighting each other.
I’m sure Iceman would not agree that he was the Beast’s sidekick!
The surprise was actually quite well done. Not only did Angel not recognize Magneto; I admit that this white-haired guy did not seem like Magneto to me either; even though I’m sure I’ve heard about this story before!
Ok, Magneto’s new crew is a bit lame! Give him a break; it’s not like he has access to all the greatest powers in the universe; he’s trapped in the Savage Land and presumed dead! He has to take the minions he can get!
Angel seems to get a new costume every 10 issues or so.
Seeing Peter Dinklage on your subject list sent me down a long path about dwarfism. There are many types of dwarfism or midget ism or whatever, and you’d be well advised to ask such a person what they’d like to be called. The late Herve Villechaize, who played Tattoo on Fantasy Island with Ricardo Montalbon, liked to be called midget, not “little person”. The nursery school at my church is called the Little Folks Fellowship, and once a vertically-challenged man called, hoping it was about his kind of people.
Dinklage has a specific kind called Achondroplasia. Another famous example of that was the late Judy-Lynn del Rey, who ran an imprint of Ballantine, the famous Del Rey books. A common misconception is that the imprint is named after her husband, the famous SF writer and editor Lester del Rey. Well, her maiden name was Benjamin, but she was married to del Rey when the imprint was created, and she was an excellent editor until she died of complications of her condition.
Herve Villechaize had a different form. Like the late Robin Williams, he was often depressed and attempted suicide, and like Williams, he eventually succeeded. There is an upcoming film about Villechaize, and Peter Dinklage will play him.