The story concerns a young man of Scottish background named Charles MacLance, who is apparently the victim of pride and a swelled head: he no longer associates with his family, boyhood friends, or the down-home folk from his village, but instead dresses like a titled Englishman and hangs out with haughty aristocrats. Meanwhile, he is missed by his desperately sick mother (played by a man in drag!) and his true love Juliet, a blind girl who cares for the old woman. As Charles sits before his fireplace, brooding, his "conscience" (in the form of his younger self, wearing a kilt) takes visible albeit ghostly form, rising from his body and confronting his corporeal self. Wracked with guilt, he returns to his village, visits the old lady and has an awkward reunion with Juliet. He is also greeted joyfully by the family dog (played by a man capering about on all fours in a dog costume!). Charles' return to the village seems to unleash magical spirits: winged fairies appear and restore Juliet's sight, then restore the old lady to full health. (In the stage production Lillian Gish played one of the fairies, but she's not in the movie.) When Charles' snobby friends come to take him away he renounces them, in fiery words of amusingly purple prose, and chooses to stay with the simple, honest villagers of his youth.

As the story goes, the Savage Land was created millions of years in the past by an alien race called the Beyonders (entities separate from the Cosmic Cube born/Secret Wars causing Beyonder) as a kind of zoo. The Savage Land was discovered during the days of ancient Atlantis, and they built a kind of amusement park there, one with a strong resemblance to Hell. In the 13th century Belasco, a Florentine alchemist, made a pact with a race of Lovecraftian "Elder Gods" (a nod no doubt to the Antarctica based "At The Mountains of Madness"). They made him immortal and a powerful sorcerer. In return the now demonic Belasco was to sire a race of Earth-born demons.

He kidnapped Beatrice, the true love of Dante Alighieri, and fled with her to Antarctica, raping and impregnating her on the way. He was pursued by Dante. The chase led them to the Atlantean amusement park in the Savage Land. Dante arrived but was too late to save Beatrice who died in childbirth. Dante and Belasco fought and during their combat a pipe containing some kind of liquid coolant was burst and Belasco was frozen solid, and subsequently buried in an earthquake. Dante returned to Florence and loosely recounted the tragic adventure as part of his epic poem (in which Lucifer is depicted frozen in the bottom Circle of Hell).

Hundreds of years later Ka-Zar and his companions discovered the amusement park while exploring the Savage Land, and found the immortal Belasco had revived. Belasco determined that Shanna was the reincarnation of Beatrice and decided to make her his new bride. Ka-Zar, of course, managed to save Shanna. For his failure, Belasco was punished by the Elder Gods, cast into the timeless dimension called the Otherplace or Limbo. Belasco next appeared in the pages of the X-Men when he kidnapped the aforementioned Illyana Rasputin, seemingly because her mutant ability allowed her to directly enter and exit Limbo. The X-Men pursued through circular portals between worlds.

Apparently X-Men from more then one reality did this and one group became lost in Limbo for many years, during which time Wolverine and Colossus were killed. Nightcrawler was eventually corrupted by Belasco and became the sorcerer's lackey. The X-Men from the "regular" continuity managed to escape however (with the help of the alternate Storm who had become a powerful sorceress in her own right), but lost hold of Illyana just as they were exiting Limbo. They managed to grab hold of her again but when they did they found that she had aged several years. In that time she had been trained as an apprentice of Belasco, eventually overthrowing him and becoming the new ruler of Limbo.

This story was further related to Nightcrawler years later in the pages of "Excalibur", involving his foster mother Margali and his girlfriend Amanda/Jimaine in overtly complicated ways (Winding Ways). Then in Alex Ross and Jim Kreuger's alternate Marvel future story line Earth X, which is not considered canonical, Belsaco was revealed to have originally been a time-displaced Nightcrawler who had lost his memory and morality, and gained a similar but different hued form, due to a deal he made with Mephisto (the same devilish entity with whom Marvel had Spider-Man recently make a deal). So again we have the pure-hearted Nightcrawler turned into a tool for an evil plot. In this case a Mephistian Candidate.

Asymmetrical pottery vessel, often duck-shaped, with one handle and its mouth off-centre. The form was common in the Aegean Bronze Age from early Helladic times and through into the classical period.