Warlord Wednesday: The Uxmal Encounter

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...

"The Uxmal Encounter"

Warlord Annual #5 (1986)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Art by Adam Kubert

Synopsis: Tourists are visiting the ruins of the Mayan city of Uxmal. One of the them, the Hawaiian shirted and plaid socks wearing Douglas Wendell, goes inside a building to try out his new camera and runs right into a real-live Mayan warrior!

A little while later in Skartaris, Morgan is doing a little early morning exploring when he’s attacked by Mayans on a flying platform. He returns fire but, there are just too many of them. They capture him and take him back to their city:

Morgan notices a guy in a Hawaiian shirt toiling with the Mayan’s other captives. There leader explains (in Skartarian, I suppose) how they've been building here for generations since they passed through a cave from the surface world and now they’re ready to return and restart the Mayan Empire.

The high priest calls on Kukulkan to receive Douglas as a sacrifice. An image of a feathered serpent begins to form. Morgan surmises it’s an Atlantean “hologram” created by the priest’s staff--though as long as the hologram's “energized” it’s solid-- and deadly.

Morgan makes his escape and grabs a futuristic weapon from one of them. He shoots the priest’s staff and dissipates the hologram, but there’s only one of him and hundreds of Mayans. Xtala, the Mayan ruler, offers Morgan a chance of survival: survive an ordeal in the Path of Penance, and win a boon.

Morgan agrees, but the king double-crosses him and has him thrown in the Well of Endless Sorrow.

Soon, an installation of Americans and Colombian allies involved in the war on drugs is overrun by the Skartarian Mayans. The Mayan invasion of the surface world has begun.

Meanwhile, Morgan finds himself pulled from the well by agents of the king. It appears Xtala has changed his mind. He wants to know the secret of the high priest's staff so he can quit sharing power. Morgan’s willing to make a deal, but the priest shows up, and it's on!

While they fight, Morgan slips away. He grabs Douglas and a sky platform. They head into the cave to the surface. The high priest won the fight with the king and is soon in pursuit.

Things to Notice:

• The Mayans' speech is completely intelligible to Morgan (and apparently Douglas) for some reason.

Where it Comes From:
Uxmal is a real Mayan city found in the modern Mexican state of Yucatán. The technology employed by the Mayans resembles that we've seen used before by Deimos and his ancestor Daamon with good reason: it all presumably has Atlantis as its source.