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Like most of the Star Clipper staff, I’ve got a real affection for some of the more odd ball characters in the world of comics. One of my long time favorite wierdos is X-character Sauron. Half man half pterodactyl, Sauron was originally Karl Lykos. The son of an explorer’s guide, Lykos was guiding a client named Mr. Anderssen and his daughter Tanya to Tierra del Feugo. On there way, Lykos was forced to defend Tanya against mutanted pterodctyls and was bitten by one of the prehistoic lizards. After the pterodctyl bite, Lykos was cursed with an unending hungry to drain life energy from humans. Later, to win over Tanya’s love, Lykos joined medical school and became a physician. However, as a doctor he would secretly drain the life force out of his patients while they were under hypnosis. What a lousy HMO. Anyway, when the the not-so-good doctor was requested to help his colleague Professor Charles Xaiver cure Havok in the original X-Men series, Lykos attempted to drain Havok’s life force. Unfortunately, his monsterous hungry backfired while trying to drain the life from the mutant X-Man and it morphed him into a vampiric pterodctyl.

From that point on Sauron is most associated for retreating and living in the Savage Land. The X-Men had their famous second encounter with him there, where he lusted uncontrolable to drain Storm’s life energy. Though he is reveiled to be an ally of Ka-Zar, the misunderstood anti-hero remained cursed with his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde-esqe transformation curse. Sauron remained in the Savage Land and formed the Savage Land Mutates, a group that used human sacrifice to improve morale in the Savage Land. He later moved back to America and became a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, even though he wasn’t actually a mutant.

All the reasons to like Sauron however are summed up in the John Byrne illustration above. A Pterodctyl vampire who drains the life energy of scantily clad babes in the jungle. What more is there to a super villain?

-Jon

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