Astonishing Tales #12 page 5 – Ka-Zar, second appearance of Barbara "Bobbi" Morse (Mockingbird)
Artists: John Buscema (Penciller) , Dan Adkins (Inker)
113 Views - 18 Comments - 11 Likes
Artwork Details
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DescriptionKa-Zar has been called to Miami by Dr Barbara Morse (later to become Mockingbird) and Dr Paul Allen, to help them find their colleague Dr Theodore (Ted) Sallis in the Florida Everglades. Morse, Allen and Sallis had all been recruited to work on the S.H.I.E.L.D.-backed Project: Gladiator, the purpose of which was to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum. Unfortunately, Sallis’s neglected wife, Ellen Brandt, sold him out to the dastardly A.I.M., who wanted his SO-2 formula as the basis of their own Super-Soldier Serum. Sallis injected himself with the only sample of SO-2 while fleeing A.I.M., and just before he crashed his car into the swamp, setting off a chain of events that caused him to become… the Man-Thing. That made the search for Sallis a bit pointless in the end, and the fact that Morse’s fiancé Paul Allen was an A.I.M. double agent pretending to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. was something of an additional complication.On this page, Ka-Zar is getting the low-down from Morse on the hunt for Ted Sallis, while A.I.M. soldiers shoot down their helicopter (seemingly not knowing that their own double-agent was on board too). The expressions on the faces of the occupants in the last panel are so typical of Buscema, who packs so much into that small space to create as much drama as possible – even having Zabu look over everyone’s shoulders to see what’s happening. Adkin’s inks are great on Buscema. Social/Sharing |
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Comments on this Artwork
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J. Lim 
Member Since 2008
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
Great line and ink work but I love the zip use on the middle panels
Kavi H
Member Since 2018
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
Bronze Age Buscema goodness! I really love his facial expressions (in that last panel yes for sure as you mentioned, but also in the opening 2 panels!).
Paul Roach
Member Since 2014
1 - Posted on 11/15/2025
Kavi H wrote:
Bronze Age Buscema goodness! I really love his facial expressions (in that last panel yes for sure as you mentioned, but also in the opening 2 panels!).
True. Ka-Zar seems genuinely horrified to see the image of Ellen Brandt - too gruesome to share with the gentle readers.
R Berman
Member Since 2018
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
Paul Allen really was into everything important.
Marcus Wai
Member Since 2005
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
This is great in building out the Marvel Universe in the 70's! A Ka-zar adventure could yield another great character in Mockingbird much like how he himself first appeared in an X-Men comic.
Paul Roach
Member Since 2014
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
Marcus Wai wrote:
This is great in building out the Marvel Universe in the 70's! A Ka-zar adventure could yield another great character in Mockingbird much like how he himself first appeared in an X-Men comic.
So true. And thus the baton was passed.
Sean Clarke
Member Since 2005
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
This is a great world building page and an unexpected treat for fans of the interwoven marvel universe... also, it looks cool!
Bill Thomson
Member Since 2004
2 - Posted on 11/13/2025
Astonishing Tales 12 and 13 was such a great storyline, made extra special by Big John's art (along with an incredible Neal Adams Man-Thing origin sequence in 12 and an assist by Rich Buckler in 13)!
Paul Roach
Member Since 2014
Posted on 11/15/2025
Bill Thomson wrote:
Astonishing Tales 12 and 13 was such a great storyline, made extra special by Big John's art (along with an incredible Neal Adams Man-Thing origin sequence in 12 and an assist by Rich Buckler in 13)!
Yes, it's easy to forget just how early those stories were in Man-Thing history, and just how messy a start Marvel's Bog Beast had. So much revision in that origin 'origin' story, still re-jigging it in the Giant-Sizes years later.
Benedict Judas Hel
Member Since 2020
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
A great appearance by AIM, the deadliest beekeepers in the world!
Paul Roach
Member Since 2014
1 - Posted on 11/15/2025
Benedict Judas Hel wrote:
A great appearance by AIM, the deadliest beekeepers in the world!
Ha ha! Yes, they really needed some design consultants to come in and make them seem a bit more threatening. All left over from Kirby being influenced by the hazmat suits in Dr No I suspect.
Miki Annamanthadoo
Member Since 2003
1 - Posted on 11/13/2025
Always cool to see these pre Mockingbird pages!
Toni S
Member Since 2019
1 - Posted on 11/14/2025
Sucha a very nice page. Classic and beautiful content.
Paul Roach
Member Since 2014
Posted on 11/15/2025
Toni S wrote:
Sucha a very nice page. Classic and beautiful content.
Thanks Tony. It's mostly a story exposition page, but Buscema just had to squeeze in some dynamic action to keep the high tempo.
Michel Maillot
Member Since 2005
1 - Posted on 11/20/2025
Yes, Dan was pretty good on Big John. These Astonishing Tales books were not the easiest to find at that time in France. As another bunch of titles, it was in Brussels in the early 70's that I could get them, discovering who was doing what by opening each book with delight. At that time, no plastic bags with tape in this beautiful store ! Ka-Zar was a great character for John, he surely enjoyed drawing him. Not a super-hero, some kind of savage guy moving in a way which fit perfectly for a great story teller. Loved those books with the Savage Tales stories too.
Congrats Paul !
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