Real
Name: Mele MELE
Real
Name: Mele
Identity/Class: Subspecies of humanity/Hidden Races (Botor)
Occupation: Hunter
Group Membership: Botor/Tree People (Jeerka, Jolis, Leila, Kalpa, Nulu, Paru, Rhaza, Tari, others)
Affiliations: Ka-Zar (Kevin Plunder), Shanna (Shanna O'Hara)
Enemies: None
Known Relatives: Unidentified first wife, Shanna O'Hara (second wife), Leila (daughter)
Aliases: "Modest one"
Base of Operations: Botor, Pangea
First Appearance: Ka-Zar the Savage#13 (April 1982)
Powers/Abilities:
Height: 5'11" (by approximation)
Weight: 150 lb. (by approximation)
Eyes: Brown (see
comments)
Hair/fur: Brown (see comments)
History:
(Ka-Zar the Savage#14 (fb) -
BTS) - Mele, whose name literally means "modest one" in his native Macha
tongue,...
(Ka-Zar
the Savage#13 (fb) - BTS) - was a Botor, one of the
Tree People who lived in the western regions of Pangea, a former theme
park built by the Atlanteans before the Great Cataclysm.
(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe
Edition#19) - Possessing prehensile tails and exceptional agility, the
Botor had presumably been created through genetic engineering by
Atlantean scientists, back tens of thousands of years earlier when
Pangea had been an Atlantean theme park.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#13 (fb) - BTS) - Mele's tribe lived in an arboreal village, also called Botor, in a region largely isolated from the rest of Pangea by a solid wall of tall trees, hundreds of feet high and covered in thorns. A family man with a young daughter, Leila, Mele became a widower under unrevealed circumstances; by Botor custom, spousal love required the surviving partner commit suicide, but Mele was spared this fate because parental love took precedent.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#13) - Out hunting one day, Mele spotted a woman, Shanna the She-Devil, in the process of drowning while being attacked by a giant water snake. Coming to her rescue, he carried the now unconscious Shanna back to his home, where she soon awoke. Having fallen into the river on the other side of the tree wall while arguing with her on-off boyfriend Ka-Zar over his inability to commit to her, Shanna had been swept under the barrier by the current. Mele was immediately smitten with the beautiful Shanna, while she for her part was attracted to him but conflicted because of her confused feelings for Ka-Zar. Though neither could speak the other's language, they managed to communicate to a degree through gestures and facial expressions.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#13 - BTS) - Mele treated Shanna's
injuries, mostly bruises and grazes, and since she needed to recover
before attempting to travel, he left her with Leila while he returned to
hunting. In his absence Shanna bonded with the young girl. Meanwhile all
of them were unaware that Ka-Zar was making his way slowly over the tree
wall, hoping to rescue Shanna after last seeing her swept away by the
river.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#13) - That evening he returned to the village and rejoined Shanna as the villagers gathered to witness the wedding of two Botor, Jolis and Tari, a simple ceremony involving the groom taking a flower from the bride's hair and throwing it into a waterfall that Shanna found deeply romantic and made her again question if she had any real future with Ka-Zar. Unaware of this, Mele seized on the romantic atmosphere to express his feelings to Shanna, asking her "Daliva," which literally translated as "love," and in this context amounted to a proposal if reciprocated. However, though growing increasingly attracted to Mele, Shanna did not grasp his meaning, nor was she ready to respond in kind.
(Ka-Zar
the Savage#13 - BTS) - The next morning Mele again went out
hunting with the other Botor men, but during their expedition the
newlywed Jolis was killed by one of the animals they sought to slay.
Mele and the others brought his body back to the village.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#13) - Shanna
watched with sadness as Tari mourned her husband, but when the new bride
threw herself on Jolis' funeral pyre Mele had to grab Shanna to stop her
trying to intervene. Using pictographs he drew in the dirt, he
successfully conveyed to her that Daliva meant love, of the belief in
dying if your loved ones did, and that he had been spared to raise
Leila.
The next morning Mele again had to rescue Shanna when she was attacked by another snake while attempting to bathe in the river. Noticing the way he was looking at her afterwards, Shanna finally realized he was in love with her, and he again proposed Daliva. This time grasping his meaning, and with Leila making it clear she would welcome Shanna as her step-mother, Shanna was tempted to reciprocate, but again hesitated to commit, still trying to come to terms with how she felt for Ka-Zar. As Mele prepared to go out to hunt again, Shanna tried to convey to him that she did have feelings for him, but their moment was interrupted by Leila's screams, as she was carried aloft by a sky-serpent. Mele hastily tried to shoot the predator with an arrow before it carried his daughter away, but the creature proved to be already out of range. Luckily for Leila, Ka-Zar was by now finally nearing the Botor village, and was able to down the creature with his sling. Unaware of Leila's survival, Shanna tried to console the heartbroken father, then realized the implication of Mele losing his last surviving loved one. When he confirmed her suspicions that with Leila dead he would commit suicide, Shanna hastily proposed Daliva to him, placing a flower in his hair. Despite his bereavement, he accepted, and with his taking of her flower and throwing it into the nearby waterfall, the pair were married. The newlyweds sat with their arms round one another as they tried to come to terms with the events of the last few minutes when they were interrupted by Ka-Zar's arrival carrying the rescued Leila.
(Ka-Zar the
Savage#14) - Mele exchanged joyful hugs with his newly returned
child, then embraced her savior, thanking him effusively; unlike Shanna,
Ka-Zar spoke Macha, and so understood Mele's words. Excited to now have
two blessings to celebrate, he called over other villagers to share his
happy news, and they carried Ka-Zar into the village on their shoulders,
giving him a hero's welcome. Mele invited Ka-Zar to share dinner at his
home, where he enthused about having his daughter saved, a new friend,
and a beautiful new wife. When the last comment caused Ka-Zar to do a
literal spit-take and seek confirmation he had heard correctly, Mele
began to suspect there might be romantic history between the two, but
Ka-Zar denied this, rallying from his shock to congratulate Mele.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#14
- BTS) - Shanna shared Mele's bed for the first time that
night, but sensed that she was not ready to consummate their
relationship and was content merely to hold her. Around midnight she
slipped out the room, unable to sleep, and found the similarly insomniac
Ka-Zar outside. After a brief attempt to discuss what had happened like
adults that devolved into arguing and angry words, Shanna returned to
her wedding bed.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#14)
- Having woken in her absence or upon her return, Mele asked if Shanna
was alright, gently suggested moving things between them to the next
level, and when Shanna again proved reluctant, went back to sleep
holding her in his arms, happy just to be with her.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#14
- BTS) - Getting up early, Mele carved a special spear for
Ka-Zar, a gift for saving Leila, as the Botor set great stock in spears
embodying a person's soul. Leila informed him she had overheard the
conversation between Ka-Zar and Shanna during the night, and though she
did not understand the words, it sounded like more than an argument
between friends. Mele decided to raise the issue with Ka-Zar later that
day.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#14) - The
next morning Mele invited Ka-Zar to take part in the tribe's ritual
hunt, gifting him the finished spear, and showing him how to put
gruella, a poison, on the tip so that it would slay prey swiftly.
Despite part of him wanting to dislike the man who had taken Shanna away
from him, Ka-Zar found himself warming to the kind and generous Mele. As
the hunt began, the hunters split into teams, to compete for the honor
of being the group that brought back the best food for the feast
scheduled that night. Mele explained that in deference to the tailless
Ka-Zar they would hunt on the ground, rather than from the trees. As the
day progressed, Ka-Zar and Mele engaged in friendly one-upmanship, beginning when Mele shot a bird with an arrow, prompting Ka-Zar
to take down a larger one with his slingshot and identify himself as
being ahead in the contest. As they continued
through the forest the rest of their team fell back, keen to avoid a
female styracosaurus they knew was guarding its eggs nearby. However,
driven by their juvenile desire to beat one another, Mele and Ka-Zar
continued on, their attempts to outdo one another growing more reckless
as they progressed. Coming to a gorge with a fruit tree visible on the
other side, Mele queried the best way to traverse it without spending a
prolonged period climbing down their side and then back up the other;
trying to show off, Ka-Zar immediately tried to leap the distance, only
just making it and grabbing one piece of fruit en route. When he turned
to gloat over his feat, Mele leapt too, covering the distance with
greater ease and using his tail to snag a tree branch and so claim an
entire handful of fruit.
Still competing, as the pair leapt off a
cliff to dive into a lake Mele raised his suspicions, telling Ka-Zar
that he knew his friend was in love with Shanna, a claim Ka-Zar denied
with little conviction. Pulling ahead as they climbed a cliff, Mele
gently taunted Ka-Zar for his slowness, then brought up what Leila had
heard, but Ka-Zar tried to change the subject. Mele persisted, and as
they swam another body of water he stated to Ka-Zar that he loved Shanna
very much, but it would be better in the long run if they were all
honest with one another; again, Ka-Zar told him he was getting the wrong
idea.
The pair finally reached the styracosaurus nest, and Mele told Ka-Zar to steal the egg while he distracted the mother. Running in front of the beast, he got its attention by shouting and waving his arms, but just as Ka-Zar snatched the egg the dinosaur caught Mele with its horn and flipped him into the air. Coming to Mele's aid, Ka-Zar charged the styracosaurus with his spear, but the beast charged him in turn, and he was carried along trying to get himself disentangled from its horns without being pierced or crushed under its feet. Mele raced to assist, still trying to get Ka-Zar to be honest about Shanna even as he grabbed the creature's frill and pulled to try and stop its charge taking them all over an oncoming cliff. However, he was unsuccessful, and the two hunters and the styracosaurus all plummeted over the edge, with Ka-Zar losing his grip on his spear as they fell.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#14 - BTS) - Somehow in
mid-air the spear got beneath Mele, and when both struck the ground it
impaled him in the chest. The wound would likely have been fatal, even
without the gruella, but with the poison it was inevitable.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#14) - Having luckily broken his fall on outcropping foliage, Ka-Zar climbed down to discover Mele dying at the foot of the cliff. Telling Ka-Zar there wasn't much time, he informed Ka-Zar that he could not bear the idea of leaving Shanna to be alone, again asking Ka-Zar to confirm his suspicions that he too loved her, and asking the jungle lord to take care of both Shanna and Leila. Realizing that Mele was about to die, Ka-Zar finally admitted he was right, and Mele passed away telling him that this was good.
A few seconds later the rest of the hunting
party arrived to find Ka-Zar kneeling by Mele's body. Recognizing the
spear sticking out of their dead friend to be Ka-Zar's, one of them
brought up how Ka-Zar had been looking at Mele's wife, and they
immediately accused him of murdering Mele.
(Ka-Zar the Savage#15) - After capturing Ka-Zar, the other hunters took both him and Mele's corpse back to the village, where both Leila and Shanna learned of his death and consoled one another.
Comments: Created by Bruce Jones, Brent Anderson and Armando Gil.
If is difficult to say whether the top of his head is covered by hair or fur; most of the Botor have very close cropped head hair/fur, but since a couple do have what is more clearly hair, I guess it's hair on the head and fur on the tail. While his tail is brown in some panels, a lot of time it is depicted as black, and atop his head is almost always black looking, bar the cover of Ka-Zar the Savage#14, where we see brown highlights. I guess he's a very dark brown. Similarly, we never see a decent close-up of his eyes to determine color, but they appear black in the nearest we have to a decent image. However, Shanna explicitly describes them as brown. When we see a close-up of his daughter Leila, she has large black eyes, with no visible distinction between the pupil and the iris; presumably this means Botor irises are a very dark brown, almost to the point of merging with the black pupils.
We don't see what was done with Mele's body
after his death, but it was probably cremated, since that seemed to be
Botor custom. Ka-Zar was found guilty by the Botor (who operated on the
principle that the spear was guided by his desires, even if not his
direct hand, and thus it could only have killed Mele because Ka-Zar
wanted that to happen), prompting Shanna to break him free; they fled
the village with Leila, but once safely away the child chose to return
to her people. They'd see her again, but that's a story for her profile,
not this one.
This profile was completed 09/07/2021, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 20th anniversary 's celebratory event.
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Mele has no known connections to:
images: (without ads)
Ka-Zar the Savage#13,
p9, pan5 (main image)
Ka-Zar
the Savage#14, p14, pan2 (using prehensile
tail)
Ka-Zar
the Savage#14, cover (fighting styracosaurus)
Ka-Zar the Savage#14.
p18, pan1 (death)
Appearances:
Ka-Zar the Savage#13-14 (April-May
1982) - Bruce Jones (writer), Brent Anderson (pencils), Armando
Gil (inks), Louise Jones (editor)
Ka-Zar the Savage#15 (June 1982)
- Bruce Jones (writer), Brent Anderson (breakdowns), Armando Gil
(pencils, inks), Louise Jones (editor)
First Posted: 09/08/2021
Last updated: 09/07/2021
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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