naza1

Naza #1

Published quarterly by Dell Publishing Co.
November-January, 1964
Artist: Sparling?

Naza is supposed to take place in the Paleolithic Epoch,
thousands of years before the earliest Chinese and
Egyptian civilizations. There was danger everywhere from
other human tribes, gigantic beasts, and natural disasters.
Slavery was common as each tribe preyed on others. One
exception to this predatory rule was the Gairn: the peaceful
ones. This was the tribe of Naza.

Although the Gairn were a peaceful people, they were
always alert to the dangers of their primitive world. Each
night the put out sentries. The chief of the tribe ordered
that 5 women would collect firewood all night long, to keep
the fires burning as a barrier to the great beasts beyond the
tribe's caves, and five men would stand guard to warn of an
attack by other tribes. Naza is introduced when he declares
that 5 is not enough. He is ridiculed as a coward for his cry
for greater caution, particularly by Vang, a short ugly fellow who desires Keena, a pretty girl
with her heart set on handsome Naza.

Naza is a loner. His parents had been killed long ago by a raiding tribe. He had seen this
with his own eyes, and it forever scarred him. He became a man capable of surviving alone,
learning all that he could about fighting, hunting and scrounging, and developing himself
into the best man he could be. His statement to the chief was, "...but peace lasts only as
long as we are strong!"
The chief commands Naza to hide in the storage cave with the sick women.

Apparently the chief wanted no one to question his authority. Vang spoke loudly against
Naza and soon all the men were calling him coward. A few men remembered how Naza was
always the first man to attack the bull-cat or the river-pig. But Vang replies that Naza fears
men, not animals.

Naza doesn't go to the storage cave, he places himself in a solitary guard position. Vang
plots to slay him, but must go to his own designated position.

That night, from the other side of the jungle, come the Borg, the tribe responsible for slaying
Naza's parents and making slaves of the Gairn. With only five guards to oppose them, the
Borg easily slaughter the Gairn. At his voluntary guard position, Naza is attacked by a party
of 5 Borg. The chief of the Borg had sent 5 of his men to attack each of the Gairn guards,
knowing that no single warrior can prevail against 5 men. Naza fights the 5 Borg and slays
them in a terrific fight.

Meanwhile the other Gairn guards are killed, except for Vang who begs for his life and offers
to show them to the Gairn storage cave, and to the place where the women of his tribe are.
The Borg sweep down on the Gairn, killing and enslaving while Naza fights the 5 men in
another part of the forest. After his fight with the 5 warriors, Naza collapses in exhaustion.
When he recovers his tribe has been destroyed.

Naza relents to follow the Borg, free the captives and punish the Borg.

He gormandizes on food to prepare himself for the possibility of a long march. He prays to
the sun which he calls the warmer of life, burning ball in the sky. And he vows to the sun
that he will free the slave, kill all the Borg he can or die. But before he can go, carrion eating
jackals descend on the dead bodies of his people. When the tusked jackals see Naza they
gather to attack him. His only hope is a saber-toothed tiger which has also been drawn to the
smell of meat. Naza hurls dirt at the bull-cat (tiger) and then leaps among the pack of Jackals.
The bull-cat charges Naza, plunging into the jackal pack. Naza leaps out of the way and lets
the bull-cat and the jackals fight. He watches the fight for a while before starting his quest to
find the
Borg.

However, some of the tusked jackals have survived the fight with the bull-cat and are upon
Naza again. This time he chases them off with his stone axe. One of them doesn't flee. He is
different from the other jackals. His eyes are warm and his tusks are small. He is more like a
dog than a jackal. Naza calls him Roon-Warm Eyes and the two soon become friends. This
becomes fortunate for Naza because Roon can trail the Borg by scent after Naza looses their
trail.

Naza states to the dog-jackel that Roon is his first friend. He remises that there was Keena,
but she was only a woman. He falls asleep thinking of Keena, but is quickly awakened by
Roon's barking. He finds himself in combat with the Great Snake that Kills in Three Ways.
The first way is a spray of deadly venom which can paralyze a man. The second way is by
crushing its victim with its powerful coils, and the third way is the hypnotic force of its
eyes. This force freezes a victim, preventing him from even breathing. Naza is caught by the
hypnotic force of the snake and is soon to be a victim when the snake simply leaves.

Naza wonders what could cause the great snake to flee. He notes that Roon is afraid and
soon sees why. With the rising of the sun, Naza sees a gigantic black ant caught between
two trees. He kills it with his axe and the help of Roon. Roon whines and Naza soon sees
why. An army of huge bull sized ants are close by. Naza sees them slay a herd of elephants
and even a bull-cat. He tries to run away from them, but after an hour of running is too tired
to continue. Then he devises a plan to kill them with fire. He sparks the dry bush and
catches the ants in the flames.

Naza continues his journey. He comes out of the forest into a savanna of tall grass. The
grass is 12 to 15 feet high, and Naza feels he will lose his way. He depends on Roon to follow
the trail of the Borg trough the sea of grass.   He is attacked by a giant ape and slays it by
cutting the arteries in its wrist as it reaches out for him.   He faces another beast, a horned,
hoofed animal which he kills and uses as food for the next four days. Eventually he loses the
Borg trail after some rain, and even Roon is stopped when the Borg trail is cut by the River of
Blood. In this river all things are killed by some unknown underwater force.   It was named
by a tribe that lived near its waters. Every living thing that goes into the water disappears
and the waters turned red with blood. The tribe lured a herd of mastodons into the river,
thinking that they would trample whatever destructive force that was in the river, but this
action failed when the mastodons were killed in churning reddening waters.

When Naza arrives at the river he is unaware of its deadly properties. He and Roon enter the
river to swim to the other side. Beneath the river is a school of huge, white piranhas. and
they soon swim up after Naza and Roon. Roon senses approaching death and whines a
warning. Naza dives and fights one of the man-sized fish, killing it. This causes the other
piranhas to fight over who shall eat their own kind, and under the cover of the frenzied
confusion, Naza and Roon swim to safety.

On the opposite shore Naza finds a raft of logs that the Borg used to cross the river. He has
never seen a raft before and admires the Borgs' ingenuity.

After three more days of travel, Naza comes to a volcanic landscape. The earth splits open,
causing Naza and Roon to run up a mountainside for cover, but lava is everywhere and they
find themselves trapped. Naza notices that nearby a huge boulder has rolled, uncovering an
ancient cave. Inside are some strange gases that have kept a pterodactyl in suspended
animation for ages. Naza and Roon go into the cave, and fall victim to the suspension gas.
Soon the gas seeps out of the opened entrance and the pterodactyl awakes. So does Naza.
He scrambles out of the cave. When the dinosaur tries to leave, Naza rolls the boulder on the
beast, trapping its head outside. Then Naza kills it with his stone axe.

After six more days of travel through a jungle Naza finds the Borg Village. It is a walled
settlement. The Borg live in constructed huts rather than caves. There are man warriors in
the tribe and Naza wonders how he will fight them or free the Gairn slaves.

Waiting for dark, Naza kills a sentry, who is distracted by Roon running past him. He enters
the village and spots Keena. Realizing he cannot kill so many warriors, Naza sets the village
on fire , kills some guards at the slave pens and frees four Gairn slaves. They are Keena,
Vang, Sola and Mair. The Gairn fight their way out of the village because the Borg must
fight both the fire and the Gairn.

They flee into the jungle. After an hour of running, Vang wants to kill Roon for meat. Naza
defends the Jackal-dog, stating that he is their friend and will lead them back to the original
Gairn caves.

Thus ends the first issue.

NOTES: The first thing that I noticed about this story was that Naza was a thinking warrior.
A man of better than average intelligence and strong will. The story explains this by stating
that Naza had become self-reliant because he was a loner. Naza sees solutions to problems
that others of his tribe do not. He recognizes that there is constant danger in his primeval
world, and that any peacefulness, such as the Gairn desire, is an illusion.

An important ingredient to this story was the love triangle between Naza, Keena and Vang.
It provides the motivation for Vang's hatred of Naza and explains why Vang turned against
the Gairn whenever possible. Keena loved Naza, Vang loved Keena, and Naza was too
untrusting to love anyone. Until he met Roon. With Roon, Naza developed a friendship that
he lacked in human company.

Some of the monsters in this story are unrealistic. The giant ants, pterodactyl and the
gigantic grassland ape which was at least twelve foot tall. Perhaps the author thought these
monsters existed in the Upper Paleolithic Age regardless of the lack of palentological
evidence.

Rod Hunsicker comments

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