Warlord Wednesday: Doom's Mouth!

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Doom's Mouth!"

Warlord #78 (February 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Mike DeCarlo

Synopsis: Morgan, Tara, and their companions sail the newly-christened Wind Shadow in the sea-passage cave lit by “weirdly glowing minerals” in its walls on their way to New Atlantis. They're scarcely inside the tunnel when they sight a New Atlantean warship headed their way. It doesn’t take long for the Atlanteans to realize the Wind Shadow isn’t one of their own, and they open fire.

Our heroes don’t have weapons to match, so Morgan decides to play a game of “chicken.” The Lizard-headed captain of the other vessel believes the crew of the Wind Shadow must be mad as the ship picks up speed and appears to be preparing to ram his ship. He panics and orders a rash turn to starboard:

Their enemy sank by their own hand, our protagonists sail on. Exploring the ship, Morgan discovers (to his delight) that the New Atlanteans have discovered tobacco and have a barrel full of cigars. He tries one:

The lesson: Don’t smoke, kids.

Soon, the ship reaches the place where Morgan blasted a whole out of the weapons cache cave. They anchor the ship and enter the passage. After travelling a distance, they discover they’re not alone:

Scarhart and Krystovar manage to kill the creature, but not before its tail-spine skewers one of the Shamballan guards.

When our heroes reach the cache, the others are as impressed as Morgan was when he first saw it. Krystovar comments that the saucercraft alone would give them an advantage over the New Atlanteans, if they could only figure out how to use them. Looking for a way to open one, Morgan notices a slot that the silver cassette he had would fit perfectly.

He takes a cartridge from the stack on the floor. It does fit, but it doesn’t do anything. After chastising Shakira for knocking over a stack of them, Morgan finds a surprise: A cartridge with his name on it!

Krystovar notices the saucers have numbers on them like the cassettes and suggests they try to match them. Putting the cartridge with his name on it in the matching saucer, Morgan finds the top opens. Krystovar and Morgan climb in to check out the inside.

Meanwhile, Shakira has tracked a rat:

Running in fear, she jumps into the arms of a surprised Morgan. He falls backwards into the saucer’s controls. The canopy closes and the craft disappears in a whirl of smoke!

Things to Notice:

• Tara never wastes an oppurtunity to show her dislike of Shakira.
• A comic book protagonist smoking?  Wouldn't happen in kid's comics of 2011!

Where It Comes From:

The battle with the giant arthopod was possibly inspired by the giant scorpion fight in the original Clash of the Titans (1981) perhaps with influence from the clash with the giant crab in another Harryhausen film Mysterious Island (1961).