Savage Land Geography

The Savage Land is a prehistoric tropical jungle nestled in the mountains of Antarctica, the origins of which are currently unknown. The Savage Land appears to be a mash-up of many prehistoric eras, potentially originally built as a kind of nature preserve, with dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Triassic coexisting with Paleolithic humans and megafauna long thought extinct.

The Savage Land sits in a wide valley, easily encompassing five hundred square miles, in the Eternity Range. It is heated by an open volcanic vent and a number of active volcanoes surrounding it. A large lake dominates the center of the valley, fed by streams coming off springs in the mountains; one stream runs out of the lake towards the ocean. Mount Hope, the tallest mountain in the vicinity, sits outside the Savage Land, but is visible to the northwest.

For some unexplained reason, the passage of day and night inside the Savage Land is not tied to the rest of Antarctica. Instead, possibly due to advanced technology used by whoever designed and built the area, the day there passes at a nearly uniform 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night, even at the height of the Antarctic summer and winter, when the days and nights last up to 24 hours, respectively. In addition, the animals and residents of the Savage Land do not appear to suffer from the effects of ozone depletion.

There are several tribes of humans that live in the Savage Land. The two most prominent tribes are the Fall People, who are identical to modern humans, and the Swamp Men, who are closer in stature to Neanderthals.

The first documented case of someone encountering the Savage Land occurred following World War I, when a British explorer named Paul Destine got lost and became separated from his expedition during an attempt to reach the South Pole. When he finally rejoined his expedition several days later, they considered his account as sheer fantasy based on hypothermia and snowblindness. For the next few decades, others stumbled into the Savage Land without realizing what it was; many wrote down their accounts, although they were passed off as fantasy or science fiction at the time. It wasn't until 1962, when the British gentleman explorer Matthew, Lord Plunder gathered the various writings of the "hidden Antarctic jungle" and found that each one had elements of topography and wildlife that matched up, despite the accounts often being written decades apart and with no prior knowledge of the other accounts. Furthermore, one account even gave a map with landmarks on how to find it from the coastline! Taking his young son Robert with him, Matthew Plunder traced the route and officially discovered the Savage Land. Over the next several decades, Lord Plunder and his son split their time between their home in England and the Savage Land.

Twenty years ago, Robert Plunder, having inherited the title of Lord Plunder, and his wife, a paleontologist, moved to the Savage Land with their sons Parnival and Kevin. Lord and Lady Plunder befriended the Fall People tribe, but were killed during a raid on the Fall People village by the Swamp Men. Parnival, being the older child, managed to escape the Savage Land and make his way back to England. Kevin, the younger child, also escaped his parents' deaths and fled into an area known as the Land of Mist (so named due to the mists from one jungle stream falling into the volcanic vent) with the aid of his pet saber-tooth tiger, Zabu; Kevin would later become known as Ka-Zar, a name that means "son of the tiger" in the language of the region, among the denizens of the Savage Land.

Recently, the Savage Land has gained additional attention from the outside world. First, a mysterious being whose name and face are hidden in shadows utilized unknown means to transform a number of Swamp Men into the Savage Land Mutates; the Mutates have come into conflict with the Avengers, Brotherhood of Mutants, Ka-Zar, and the X-Men. Second, a graduate biology student named Shanna O'Hara entered the Savage Land, originally intending to do her Master's thesis on the ecosystem there, only to be drawn into aiding Ka-Zar and Zabu against the sorceress Zaladane in the latter's attempt to conquer the Savage Land for herself. Finally, Parnival Plunder, now calling himself the Plunderer, has set his sights on exploiting the Savage Land's natural resources, alongside mercenaries from Roxxon Energy Company, in violation of the Antarctic Treaty, which under international law prohibits any such exploitation.

First Post-Reboot Appearance: UNCANNY X-MEN #